Page 18 of Love Bitters

Jade rolls her eyes to the ceiling in a typical teenager move before heading to one of the cabinets and taking down dishes. Waiting until she’s brought them to the other room, Jolene apologizes, “I’m sorry about that. It’s been a couple of years, but it doesn’t get any easier telling people you’ve got a whack job for a mom. Jade has some anger issues and deals with it in some unconventional ways sometimes.”

“It’s totally fine,” I tell her truthfully. Curiosity would be a good way to end a friendship before it’s really even started, so I don’t ask why she was put there. I’m sure if I spend more time around Jade, it’ll come out eventually anyway. So, I do the next best thing, which is make an awkward Imma comment.

“This kitchen put her there, didn’t it?” I joke.

A surprising bark of laughter leaves Jolene’s chest and Jade snickers from the doorway, melting the tension in the room.

“If there was ever going to be one to drive someone to the looney bin, this would be it,” she admits, handing off a huge bowl of mixed salad to her sister.

Taking the pitcher of iced tea off the counter with the three glasses, I follow her out to the table with Jolene right on our heels, carrying a casserole dish full of lasagna. In all of the excitement earlier, I’d forgotten to mention my current aversion to meat, so I’ll be sticking to the salad tonight and hoping that it doesn’t hurt her feelings too much.

As though she’s a mind reader, Jolene sets the warm pan on the mat in the middle of the table and says, “I normally put ground turkey in our lasagna, but I’ve kind of noticed you were a vegan by your lunches.”

“Way to be a weirdo,” Jade teases her sister.

For once, Jolene looks slightly embarrassed and it makes me feel bad, so I come to her rescue. “Thanks for that, because I forgot to mention it earlier. I’m not vegan, though. I just can’t seem to stomach the smell of meat lately.”

“Are you pregnant?” Jade asks nonchalantly as she loads her plate.

Jolene and I glance at each other before flicking our gazes to her.

“What?” she asks, licking a small bit of sauce off her thumb. “I may only be seventeen, but I read all the same books you do and watch all the same movies. That’s normally a dead giveaway.”

We still haven’t said a word, and she looks like she might choke on the sip of tea she raises to her lips. “Holy shit. You are?”

The enthusiasm is so like her sister’s that I’m grinning as I nod. If I’m honest, I half-expected Jolene to step in and answer for me. I guess she’s leaving it to be my secret to spill if I want to.

“Congratulations,” she announces, lifting her glass into the air.

She’s only the second person I’ve told and the first to congratulate me. So far I’ve done a real shitty job at providing a happy life for the baby. Sure, I got a job and an apartment, but what happens when they start asking about their father? Or what if my salary isn’t enough to support the two of us? Thinking that far into the future, I try to keep the grimace out of my expression but I obviously fail.

“Is this not a good thing? Are we not celebrating?” Jade asks, slowly lowering her glass back to the table.

“It’s complicated,” Jolene answers after a few seconds of my silence.

Fuck it. They know half of it. Might as well go ahead and lay it all out there on the table.

“I’m not sure who the father is,” I admit, looking between them. “See, a couple months ago, I was supposed to go on vacation with my friends to a cabin up in Tennessee but they canceled last minute. I went anyway. Ended up having to share the cabin with these dudes who accidentally got double-booked for the same weekend. We hit it off and kept in touch when we got back home. Then a month later, I find out I’m pregnant.”

Slipping my phone out of my pocket, I unlock it and scroll back through my photos from the cabin. I hand it off to Jolene who holds it up between them. Jade’s mouth pops open into an O as her sister’s lips pull up into a smirk, knowing good and damn well what comes next.

“So, which one of them could it be?” Jade asks. Pointing at the screen, she admits, “I kind of hope it’s that blond one or the scruffy-looking one.”

“The blond is Wes, and the other is Murphy,” I tell them while a pang goes through my heart, threatening to make me sick. I haven’t spoken their names out loud in a while, and it hurts. “Ollie is the redhead. The one with all the tattoos is Thatcher and the dark-haired one with glasses is Evan.”

“Was I right, then?” she asks suspiciously.

“Sort of,” I reply with a sad chuckle. “Them, plus the other three.”

“All five of them!? Dude, high five!” she demands, throwing her arm into the air, still yelling.

Jolene grabs her wrist and lowers their hands to the table with a small shake of her head.

Confusion makes Jade’s eyes go wide. “What? Are they total d-bags or something? That would suck because they’re total hotties. Then again, I know one of those myself, so it wouldn’t be surprising.”

Lightly tapping my fingers on the table, I take a deep breath and answer, “No. They’re all actually really nice, but it’s just too complicated. That kind of thing just isn’t normal. People already judge me for being heavier than normal. Plus, it would destroy my mother if she ever found out. It’d be like World War III in that house. Then I found out I was pregnant. Who knows which one of them is the father? It just didn’t feel right, dragging them down with me and a baby. Those kinds of commitments hardly ever last.”

The two of them wear identical expressions of shock that could rival my own when I first found out.

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