Page 3 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

“Yes.”

“But you love dating. It’s like your favorite pastime. If flirting were an Olympic sport, you would have a gazillion gold medals.”

She wasn’t wrong. Not to toot my own horn buttoot toot. I was a pretty good flirter. If there was a masterclass, I could teach it. TED Talk? I was your gal. Actually, there probably was. Maybe I should start a YouTube channel or write a book.

“Nadia,” Ashley got my attention.

“Sorry, I got distracted.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want to focus on me this year. I deleted all the dating apps off my phone.”

I opened my phone and slid through the home screens to show her that all the apps had been deleted.

“Wow. That’s…great. I love that journey for you,” she quoted a line from one of our favorite shows, Schitt’s Creek.

I smiled as I prompted, “So, back to last night.”

“Right, okay, you weren’t making much sense.” She shook her head. “You were talking about some big mistake you made and wishing you told the truth and how now it was too late because too much time had gone by.”

Shit. This was another reason drinking was a bad idea. If I were going to open my closet and introduce everyone to the skeleton that had been living there for the past ten years, I’d rather do it when I was stone-cold sober.

“You started getting upset,” she continued. “You were crying so Declan and I took you home.”

“I was crying?”

Ashley nodded.

Now that she mentioned it, my memory was jogged. I had flashes of Ashley behind the wheel and her and Declan supporting me as they helped me up the steps.

Color me mortified.

I prided myself onnotbeing the sloppy friend. Even in college I was never the one who people had to pour into a cab to get home or hold their hair while they barfed in shrubbery. Lastnight, seeing all my friends in happy, loved-up couples dropped me smack dab in the loneliness desert, and I was so thirsty I saw my first love mirage. It was all too much for me.

I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry that I made you cut your night short.”

“Don’t be. I was ready to go,” she assured me. “I wasn’t feeling that well anyway.”

“I feel like death warmed over. I have been teetering on the edge of puking all morning.”

“So have I.” A tiny grin lifted at the corners of her mouth as she placed her hand on her stomach as she glanced down.

I’m not sure if it was her smile or the way her gaze dropped, but something had my bestie spidey senses tingling, telling me that we were not nauseous for the same reason. I thought back to the night before, and all the puzzle pieces fell into place, and the picture became clear. Ashley hadn’t taken any shots. She’d gone to the bar to get her own drinks and nursed them all night. And she drove, not Declan.

“Ash, are you…?”

Her head sprang up, and her expression made me feel like I just got caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

That reaction was all the confirmation I needed.

I gasped as my hand flew over my mouth. “You’re pregnant.”

“What? How did you…I just found out yesterday. I haven’t told anyone but Declan and Skylar.”

Declan was Ashley’s husband, and Skylar was her sister. I felt honored to be the third person she told. Even if I did sort of force her hand.

“That’s amazing!” I stood up and hugged her tightly. “Congratulations!”

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