“Peeing.” I grimace when recalling how often the pipes in Macy’s bathroom interrupted my sleep last night. My sleepschedule was already minimal, but it became almost nonexistent since joining Macy’s investigation.
“Peeing?” Cameron looks confused.
Her daft expression is cute, and unlike Macy, she can pull it off.
Although Macy popped into my head for the hundredth time today, I’m not annoyed, but I still strive to keep the focus on Cameron. “I’m guessing your bladder feels pretty squashed right now. It will only get worse the further along you get.” I move closer. When my lengthy strides double the worry lining her face, I arch over the island and prop my arms on the granite counter. “How far along are you?”
I’ve been dying to ask that question all day, and it feels good to have it finally off my chest.
“Oh…” Cameron glances at me, then looks away. “Five months.” My head is full of questions, but she answers the most important one. “The father isn’t in the picture.”
I pretend not to notice that the images in the frames on her mantel are the ones that come with the frames. “Do you have any other kids?”
She follows my gaze before shaking her head. “No. None. You?”
I hesitate.
What the fuck?
Why am I hesitating? I’ve not even had a close call—you need to have sex for that—so why am I acting like condom breakages are a regular occurrence for me?
“No. None,” I parrot, my tone as low as my brows.
Cameron moves around the island and switches on the coffee pot. “So Macy’s child isn’t…”
She leaves her question open for me to answer how I see fit. Or did jealousy silence her? I’m having a hard time reading her, so I am genuinely unsure.
“No.” Ipfftas if the idea is preposterous, like Macy’s rounded stomach and glowing face weren’t the first images that popped into my head when she asked if I had kids. “We’re friends.” You don’t need a polygraph to register my lie. It is as evident as the moon in the sky.
Suddenly, it dawns on me. Cameron said Macy’s real name. Not her alias. Herrealname.
Cameron halfheartedly smiles before proving she still knows how to read me. It is just a sluggish skill she’ll only use when necessary. “She dropped by yesterday. We talked.” I can’t tell if it is anger or hope that slips over her face like a mask when she adds, “She really cares about you.”
“As I do her,” I reply before I can stop myself.
Following an uncomfortable stretch of silence—our tenth for today—I move our conversation in the direction it needs to go. “Does your family know?”
“Know?”
I wish she’d quit the daft act. It’s cute but also irritating.
It’s an effort to keep my frustration out of my tone. “That you’re pregnant.”
They know she’s alive. Macy didn’t leave that part out. She put all her cards on the table, including how she begged Cameron to tell me the truth, and how Cameron denied every opportunity to make this a little easier for me.
After pouring a dash of milk into a mug, Cameron returns the carton to the fridge. Then she finally answers me. “No. I haven’t told anyone.” Shame blazes through her eyes. “It is embarrassing admitting you’re doing it by yourself, so I’d rather them not know.”
“Why?” I ask, shocked. Macy is going it alone, and she’s brave as fuck.
I realize the shame in Cameron’s eyes is more in disgust than anything when she says, “Because there’s meant to be someoneto share it with. If we were meant to procreate without a partner, we wouldn’t need both parts of a man and woman to achieve that.”
“Procreate?” Please tell me she didn’t say that. It makes me wonder if a cult staged her kidnapping, instead of the man I blocked earlier today after denying his fifth call in under an hour. “If someone wants a child, and there’s a way to achieve that withoutprocreation”—I give Macy’s air quotes a whirl during my last word—“then why shouldn’t they use it?”
Even if Macy’s pregnancy wasn’t from a failed sting, I’d still support her—one hundred percent.
“Just because you want something doesn’t mean you can have it.” Cameron’s pitch displays nothing but pure, unbridled snarkiness. “You should know that better than anyone.” Before I can display my shock, much less act on it, she ends any chance of a fair debate. “It’s late. I’m exhausted. You should probably head off.”
When she adds to her claims of exhaustion by rubbing circular patterns on her barely there stomach, Macy’s suggestion that I take some of the burden off her uterus pops into my head.
