Page 65 of Books and Hookups

“Right?” Carly said. She dropped one of her bags on the floor next to the couch. She gracefully lowered herself to sit—as a former model, she did almost everything with style—and gently settled the other bag onto her lap.

“What’s the surprise?” I asked, flopping into my favorite chair, ungracefully.

“Ah-ah. Not until we’re all here.”

“I hate surprises,” Tessa said, still hunting through my cabinets.

“This is a good one,” Carly said. “I promise.”

“No such thing,” Tessa grumbled. “I give up. Where are your wineglasses?”

“Danny moved them since I wouldn’t be needing them for a while.” I waved at the coat closet. “They’re in a box on the top shelf.”

She arched an auburn eyebrow. “Removing temptation?”

“Making room for ‘healthy snacks.’” I made air quotes. “He filled my cabinets with dried fruit and granola bars and shit. So far, I’ve only eaten the chocolate-covered ones.”

She opened the closet door and, with her Amazonian height, pulled down the box. “What else is he keeping at your place? A change of clothes? A toothbrush?”

My face burned. “It’s not like that.” Though I almost wished it was. With my stomach making it more and more obvious every day that this was really happening, my brain was busy when it should have been sleeping. I’d been thinking about what I was going to do about that death crib, where my daughter would sleep when she was too big for a crib, and where I was going to come up with a college fund. Not to mention that damn end-of-November book deadline looming over me like a guillotine’s blade. The couple of times I’d slept with Danny, his arms around me were like a lead blanket protecting me from my racing thoughts. I needed that comfort.

“You’re sure it’s not like that?” Carly asked.

“No! We’re just friends. And co-parents to be. Sure, we had some fun, but we want different things.”

“What kind of different things?” Tessa asked, handing me a wineglass of something that looked like sangria. Sliced oranges and berries floated on top of a sparkling red liquid. She handed another glass to Carly, then sat in the chair next to mine, listening.

“He’s supposed to be buying the bar downstairs, but his brother’s not all in on it. He comes from a big family, and he probably wants to buy a house next door to his mom in the suburbs and raise a half-dozen kids. Which is exactly what Idon’twant. I want to focus on my career.” Even though at least once a week, Mario shot a suspicious look at my belly. I was going to have to tell him about the pregnancy soon, but I knew once I did, I’d get all the shitty fluff-pieces.

“Danny’s so young,” I added. “He’s still figuring his shit out. And once he does, he probably won’t want to live downstairs from a woman who’s ten years older than he is with a kid.”

“You mean the woman who’s the mother ofhiskid?” Tessa asked.

“It was a mistake. I made a ton of mistakes in my twenties that I regret. Mistakes I’m glad aren’t holding me back from what I want to be in my forties.”

“How do you know that’s how he’ll feel?” Carly asked. “Just because he’s young doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what he wants. Andrew does.”

“God, if I were Andrew, I’d know what I wanted, too, and that’s you,” I said with a smirk.

Carly blushed.

“Besides, your man’s a few years older than Danny,” I said. “He went to college. He’s fully baked.”

“Don’t be elitist,” Tessa said. “Just because he didn’t go to college doesn’t mean he’s incapable of determining his life path.”

“You’re right.” I gazed into my drink. “I sound like my dad.”

Tessa flashed me a rueful smile. “We all sound a little like our dads.” She stood and got her glass from the kitchen. “A toast. To being smarter than our parents and giving people a chance.”

I sipped the nonalcoholic sangria. It burned my mouth, and not in a good way. It was like I’d bitten into a raw cranberry. My mouth puckered. I choked it down when I really wanted to spray the drink across the room. “This is cranberry juice!”

“What’d you think I was giving you? Wine?” Tessa took another cautious sip. “At least it’s pretty.”

Danny would never serve me swill like that. “Come on, hand it over.” I gathered up the glasses and carried them into the kitchen. I strained out the disgusting mock sangria and refilled the glasses with orange-flavored seltzer.

I handed the drinks back to my friends. “Still pretty, and less cranberry.”

We drank, and although there was a little tartness left over from the cranberry juice, the drink was inoffensive.

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