Page 37 of Playboy

She shakes her head. “I don’t think you’re saying this right.”

I pace to the window. “Brother fucker. Brother fucker. Brother fucker.” When I spin back in her direction, I lace my hands on top of my head. “He’s going to kill me.”

She shrugs. “Eh. He knows I’ve had sex. And we all know you have sex with everyone. It won’t really be a surprise.” She smiles. “And it wasn’t even good sex.”

My heart lurches. “Let’s not lead with that.”

With a roll of her eyes, she shuffles back toward the bathroom. “Let’s not lead with any of it. None of it matters. I certainly don’t intend to tell anyone I had bad sex.”

“Last night wasn’t bad sex,” I call after her.

She comes back into view holding another pregnancy test, and all my anger dissolves. “Well, the bad sex is what made us three-plus weeks pregnant,” she says, her smile wry as she tilts the stick in my direction.

On autopilot, I stalk across the room and snatch it from her hand. Like last night, it’s positive. She listened to me and took the one that estimates how far along she is. Three-plus weeks. Fuck. We’re pregnant. This is real. We’re really having a baby.

“Should I take another one?” she says almost too quietly.

I look into her blue eyes, noting the uncertainty and the fear swimming in their depths, and all the energy fueling my anxiety drains from my body. It drains from her too.

“We’re going to be parents,” I murmur.

She shrugs. “Yup.”

“I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

With a light laugh, she does that damn eye roll thing again. I’m beginning to realize it’s a defense mechanism. She’s uncomfortable or unsure. There’s a story there, and one day I’ll get her to tell me. One day I’ll get all the answers. But not today. “It’s okay. I didn’t realize you didn’t know who Noah was to me.”

“Are you guys close?”

She smiles. “Yeah. I’m close with all my stepbrothers, but Noah’s dad was married to my mom when I was in high school, so we lived together during my teenage years. That quintessential time when everything just felt like more, ya know?”

I nod. Until Mills moved to Paris a couple of years ago, she and I had spent our entire lives nearly attached to one another.And since she came back to Boston, we live in the same building, and she travels with the team quite a bit, so though she’s got a family, we’re still damn close.

“Is he really going to kill me?”

An adorable little snort escapes her. “Not if you pick up breakfast for me.”

“Should I get him something?”

She shakes her head. “You know what? I’d actually rather not do the whole meet-the-family thing this morning. Give me five, and I’ll come with you.”

I nod. That’s good. Great even. Because yeah, I may be ready for almost everything that’s been thrown at me, but given the bullshit that keeps flowing from my mouth, the last thing I need to do is have a conversation with Noah this morning.

CALLIOPE’S COLUMN

June

Who Woulda Thought Men Would Care So Much About Clothes?

I’m pretty sure athletes are built different. No, I’m not talking about their muscles or their stamina, although that can be pretty fucking impressive. No, what I’m talking about is the thing they have for clothing. Take hockey players, for instance. The men can wear the hell out of a suit. Other men—like baseball players—don’t give two shits about what they wear from the stadium to the plane. But hockey players? They’ve got special shoes and ties. They style their hair and don the cockiest smirks, knowing that everyone they come across is drooling over the way their pants stretch across their thighs.

And the one thing they’re even more feral about? Who’s wearing their jersey.And who’s not.

You want to see whether a hockey man is interested in you? Put on another man’s jersey. Holy shit. I had a front-row seat the day one gal wore her husband’s friend’s jersey to a game. Safe tosay he ripped it from her body and replaced it with his own.My wife, my jersey. Yeah. That was hot.

But let me tell you,experiencingit firsthand? Way hotter.

This hockey player took one look at the jersey I was wearing—one with another man’s name emblazoned on the back—and suddenly, I was shoved into a closet, and I didn’t leave until I’d received the best orgasm of my life. All because of the name on my back.

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