“What route are you going to take? I know better than to ask if you’re seein’ someone.” She put her hands on my arms and leaned back, eyeing me in a way that made it clear she was trying to be sure.
“Yeah, no, definitely not seeing anyone,” I confirmed. I wasn’t ready. “I wanna find a donor.”
She pursed her lips and nodded, then sat down again. “You’ll make a wonderful mama. And I’ll be there for every doctor’s appointment, you hear?”
I squeezed her hands in mine, more grateful than I could express. “My problem is, I have to lose some weight first. My doctor said it might be difficult for me to go through a pregnancy at this stage, so…”
Even if I hadn’t planned on becoming a parent, it was time. I couldn’t blame grief anymore. Two years had passed since I’d lost Brad, and I’d lost myself in the process too. I’d gained so much weight.
I’d been bigger my whole life, and it’d been… Eh. We all had our ups and downs. Yeah, sure, I’d doubted myself, thought I was ugly, a big fat cow, all that crap. Then I’d grown up. Acceptance had hit me in waves in my twenties, and I’d even started enjoying looking in the mirror. But the last two years, health-wise, could be summed up as one failure after another. I needed professional help.
Chloe sobered a bit. “I understand. Do you have a specific goal, or…?”
I weighed my answer. “Sort of? Obviously, it’ll be up to the doctors, but I was the most comfortable when I could squeeze my ass into size fourteen pants.”
That’d been my happy medium between maintaining a semi-active lifestyle and…well, eating what I wanted to. In short, I had a bunch of moving boxes across town that were filled with size sixteen pants, and I wanted to wear them again.
“I think that’s a good goal,” she said with a nod. “You were flippin’ glowing in your engagement photo. I remember how happy you were.”
I braced myself for the pang of loss I usually felt when Brad came up, but it was fading. At long last. More and more lately, I was mostly mourning the death of my best friend, ’cause that’s what Brad had been. Our love hadn’t exactly sizzled with passion, but he’d been my other half for almost twenty years. First, as the closest of friends, then as much more when we’d fallen for each other.
“Yeah…those were the good old days.” I smiled a little. “Anyway.” I cleared my throat and took another sip of my tea.“Now you know why I’m off sugar and back on hatin’ the Mom curse.”
She laughed softly and went allI hear ya. Chloe wasn’t precisely a size six either. After a few glasses of wine, she would slap her butt and say she was a perfect ten, pun intended—and she wasn’t wrong. We were short too, so a single extra pound looked like three.
We’d both inherited Mom’s pear-shaped body type with big butts and wide hips. But unlike Chloe and Mom, I had the belly too.
“Okay, then. No sugar for you—because I want a niece or three,” Chloe said firmly. “You’re our last hope of evenin’ the score around here. Lord knows I love my boys, but they just keep adding members to their team.”
I chuckled and shook my head. She wasn’t wrong, though. The men outnumbered us by far.
I should unpack…
Judging by the number of moving boxes, nobody would guess I’d moved from a studio apartment to a two-bedroom. But in New York, I’d had a storage unit too. Well, I’d had the storage unit in Jersey. Not to mention an office. So I had all my work stuff here now too, and I wasn’t getting the keys to my studio for several weeks.
I shouldreallyunpack.
Instead, I poured a glass of wine and wandered aimlessly between the boxes. Small kitchen, small bedroom that would be my office, then a decently sized main bedroom where I had a balcony. I would’ve preferred to have the balcony in the living room, but evidently I couldn’t be picky. Despite Camassia Covebeing a small town, it was a popular choice for young families looking to get out of Seattle. My neighborhood, Cedar Valley, was aptly nicknamed Little Seattle. It was home to the town’s community college and countless cobblestone streets.
According to Chloe, the Valley had once been nothing but factories and cheap housing, and then that had changed when the college opened. The factories had turned into trendy lofts, the parking lots had become farmers markets, and the cheap two- and three-story brownstones that lined the cobblestone streets were cheap no more.
Except, when you left Manhattan, everything was cheap.
I took a swig of my wine and looked out the living room window. It faced the street, and the view was right up my sense of humor’s alley. Quinn’s Fitness Center. How perfect. Every day since I’d moved in, I’d watched countless men and women walk in and out with their gym bags and yoga mats.
I wondered if the owner of Quinn’s Fitness Center was related to Gray’s man. His name was Darius Quinn.
Wasn’t everyone in small towns related somehow?
Chloe and I had grown up all over the place, depending on where Dad had been stationed. She linked her childhood to Louisiana and South Carolina. I only remembered the latter. Then a whole lot of Georgia.
It started raining outside the window, and I peered up at the sky. Maybe I’d like it here. Even when it rained, the surroundings were beautiful. Camassia was cradled by mountains and forests on three sides, then the ocean to the west.
I shifted my gaze back to the fitness center as a group of women walked inside.
Open 24/7.
Christ.
