And as much as she was looking forward to Girl Time with Jazz, she missed her savvy pirate. It just wasn’t the same without him, and not just because her ass hadn’t been spanked in two days.
They were supposed to be coming home tomorrow, but with Jazz being sick, they were on their way back now. Sophia could understand Jumper’s need to get to Jasmine, but at the sametime was somewhat offended that Jumper didn’t think she could take care of Jazz in his absence. Hell, she’d been taking care of Jasmine a lot longer than Jumper had. Just because he had a penis and a ring on her finger did not usurp Sophia’s position in Jasmine’s life.
A throat cleared behind her.
Sophia looked up, thinking she’d been daydreaming and not paying attention to the cashier, but there were still two people in front of her. Jasmine hadn’t been lying. The flu was going around. Others in the club had had it, but that was weeks ago. Sophia had a hard time believing that’s what Jazz had too.
Turning, Sophia smiled when she saw her father. “Dad!” Putting the basket down, she put her arms around her dad’s neck.
Her father hugged her back tightly. “Should I ask?”
“What?” Sophia stepped back. Glancing down, she saw her full basket and laughed. “Oh! No, not mine.”
Her father’s eyebrows did not lower at that. “I’m still not sure I want to know, but I feel like it’s my civic duty to ask.”
“Jazz is pregnant,” Sophia told her father matter-of-factly. “But she’s in denial. Figured if I had her pee on a hundred sticks, she’d finally get it through her head that there’s a baby inside her.”
Darnell Groveton just stared at his daughter. Sophia smiled up at him. With a glance over her shoulder, she saw that a register was about to open up.
“It was good to see you, Dad, but don’t tell Mom. Jazz needs time to process before she’s bombarded with family wanting to celebrate with her.”
Grabbing her basket, she kissed her dad’s cheek and then hurried up to the counter.
“I am not pregnant!”
Jasmine looked, well… She looked awful. Her hair was greasy, her skin was clammy, and her face looked both flushed and pale.
Sophia leaned forward and put a hand on her best friend’s shoulder. “Jazz, sister of my soul and love of my life if I was a lesbian, stop denying what we both already know and,” she held up a pregnancy test, “pee on the fucking stick.”
Jasmine’s blue eyes glared at her. “You’re going to look like a fool when it comes back negative.”
“Ha!” Sophia laughed. “Joke’s on you. My mama raised no fool.”
Jasmine snatched the stick from Sophia’s hand. “No, your mama just raised a stubborn-ass woman with no filter and questionable morals.”
Sophia smiled at her. “Yet you love me anyway, so which one of us is the bigger idiot in this equation?”
They both paused at the rhetorical question and then said, “Pirate,” in unison.
Jasmine’s mirth, though, was short lived. She didn’t move from her place at the side of the bed as she stared down at the unused test. “I can’t be pregnant, Soph.”
Realizing that her bestie had said ‘can’t’ instead of just ‘not’, Sophia stepped forward to sit on the side of the bed next to her. She ignored the sickly smell coming off Jazz. “What do you mean?”
All levity was gone from the room now. Sophia’s horde of pregnancy tests were sitting in bags by the bedroom door. Each house in the duplex had separate front doors, but for the mostpart, all four used the one that led to the connecting living room. They didn’t bother with keys and all four shared one key that opened all the locks in the house.
Their dogs, Winnie the Pooch, Enola Bones, and Billy the Kidd, were all at the foot of Jazz’s bed. They could sense she wasn’t feeling well while Sophia was out at the store.
The look of sadness on Jasmine’s face made Sophia wonder if she was about to tell her something serious, like she had had tests done and found out she was infertile or that Jumper’s sperm count was too low to get her pregnant.
“We agreed not to.” Jasmine’s voice was low, somber. She still couldn’t take her eyes off the plastic stick between her hands.
“We as in you and me or we as in you and Jumper?”
Jasmine bumped Sophia’s shoulder. “Me and Jumper,” she answered. The action seemed to cause her to sway slightly.
Sophia reached for the nightstand where she’d placed a blue Gatorade for Jazz. Popping it open, she handed it to her bestie. Jasmine took it and started to sip.
“The two of you agreed not to have kids?” Sophia clarified after several minutes of watching Jasmine swallow small sips of the electrolyte drink.
