Page 92 of Sexting the Cowboy
“The internet says a lot of things.” I take a sip anyway, because ritual matters more than content, and grimace at the flat, collapsing nothing. “Also, there are studies that say moderate caffeine is fine in pregnancy, and since caffeine is thirty percent of my personality, you should be grateful I’m still speaking to you.”
“Your personality survived residency. It will survive this.”
“It survived thanks to caffeine,” I mutter. I take another miserable sip and set the cup on the table like evidence. At least it tastes good. “I think that’s why I feel like death. I thought it was the past month, but it’s the lack of caffeine catching up to me.”
She snorts. “It’s been a day. You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it.”
“Looks like I’ll be raisingtwobabies.” She squeezes my shoulder and then goes to flirt with the lemonade stand guy for more ice—we’ve built an entire ecosystem out of mutual bribery and unserious flirting—and I take ten seconds to be unfairly angry at liquids for disappointing me.
“Shoot me,” I tell Jaden when he breezes in with two armfuls of bandage rolls. “She brought decaf.”
He stops, horror-struck. “We live in a fallen world.”
Mac reappears and salutes with a bag of ice. “You can thank me when your fetus gets into an Ivy League.”
“I’ll be lucky to afford their free public education.”
“Yeah, well. I have to get to my station. Good luck today.”
“Mostly cleaning and packing up,” Jaden says, shrugging. “Shouldn’t be too dramatic. Good luck out there with all those people.”
Since it’s the last day of the festival, the Wyatts will be gone by tomorrow. The tent will come down. The clinic will return to its regular hum of broken bodies and stubborn hope. Life will move on.
I’ll be stuck in the past, though. With a child whose father never comes to see them. A knot forms in my throat, and before I can stop it, my breaths come harder. I hate this. This is not what I wanted for my kid. Not ever. But I fucked up their life before they were ever even a thought, and?—
“Annie,” Jaden’s voice snaps at me. He’s in my face with a bottle of water and a cold pack. “Drink this. The heat getting you?”
I blink up at him and take the bottle, chugging half before I remember I had too much coffee, and now my stomach is full of sloshing liquid. “Yeah. The heat.”
“Or is it the pregnancy by your ex’s father that’s doing it?”
“Can we not? Not right now?”
He sighs. “You know you can talk to me, right?”
I nod solemnly. “I know that?—”
“I tell you everything.”
“I’m sorry you had to find out through my conversations with other people, but?—”
“You thought I’d judge you?”
I shake my head. “I know we play things fast and loose, but I’m still your boss, Jaden. I don’t want to overstep and make you feel like I’m coming to you for free therapy.”
“That’s where you’re a ninny.”
I snort at that. “What?”
“I’d still hang out with you even if you weren’t my boss, Annie. I like hanging out with you. You get me in a way a lot of people don’t, and that’s rare. So, if you ever need anything—even free therapy or a babysitter or whatever—I’m here for you.”
It’s my hormones that make me cry. I’m sure of it. He passes me a box of tissues. “Thanks. God, this whole thing?—”
“It’s a lot to deal with.”
I nod. “It’s the last day. Can we not deal with it for now? I’d like to work.”
