Page 116 of Whispered Sins

I handed her the instructions and she started pulling out the different pieces and hardware. Once she had everything laid out on the floor, I watched as she flipped through the pages, scratching her head.

“I think I might need some wine,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. That’s a great idea,” I said sarcastically.

“Hey, it couldn’t hurt!”

“Top left cabinet,” I said with a laugh.

“As if I don’t know where you keep the booze.” Monica rolled her eyes.

While she was in the kitchen, I opened another gift bag. This one was from Saks Fifth Avenue and was wrapped beautifully. I carefully tore open the tissue paper and wrapped inside was a small, white teddy bear. I sucked in a breath as I pulled it close and clutched it against me. It was such a beautiful little bear. One that baby would probably keep forever. I started to cry softly.

“Hey, hey, hey. What’s wrong?” asked Monica, walking over with a glass of red wine in hand. She set it carefully on the floor and looked at me intently.

“It’s just. Everything. This bear. The crib. The clothes. It’s all beautiful. Perfect, really.”

“You and baby deserve it,” she said, putting her hand on my back.

“It just all has Daniel all over it. I can’t believe he did all of this.”

Monica seemed to think for a second. “Maybe you heard him wrong.”

I gave her a look.

“I don’t know. A guy who does all of this…” She waved her hand around the room. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“I heard what I heard.”

“Well, maybe it was a misunderstanding?”

“I don’t know how you can misunderstand that.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” said Monica. “You know what will make you feel better though?”

“What?”

“Pizza!”

“Yes, I’m starving.” I wiped tears away from my cheeks.

Monica called and ordered an extra-large pepperoni pizza with jalapenos, and I continued making my way through more baby toys and diaper caddies and different types of bottles. It was going to take us all night to get through everything, and we still had to assemble some things, like the crib Monica hadn’t even started. Thankfully, it was the weekend, and we had two whole days to do it.

The pizza arrived just as I had finished unboxing not one, but two strollers. Monica had finally put together about a quarter of the crib and finished one glass of wine. As I brought in the pizza, I started to worry about the size of my apartment and how I was going to fit everything in here.

I set the pizza box on the floor in the middle of everything and we started to eat straight from the box, looking around in amazement.

“Thanks for spending your Friday night with me,” I said to Monica.

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” she replied, swallowing a bite of pizza.

After we were finished eating, we laid back on the floor with full stomachs. I was so uncomfortably full and as much as the jalapenos were delicious, they were also making my heartburn flare up. Damn those spicy cravings that I kept giving in to.

I clutched my chest and winced.

“Heartburn again?” asked Monica, looking over at me.

“Always,” I answered.

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