“You will have four kids. Two boys, two girls. Most people would say that’s plenty, and that since they have some of each, they will call it a day.”
She shrugs. “True. But I mean, two and two, don’t you think we should have one more as a tiebreaker?”
Lainey laughs, slapping a hand over her face. “You are fucking crazy woman, but I love it. Have as many kids as you want, upgrade to an eighteen passenger van and just let me know when it’s my day to babysit.”
“I might be crazy, but I love my kids, and I love making kids with my husband.”
Lainey sets her drink on the side table, then reaches for the remote to mute the movie. “We’re happy for you, too.”
I nod along, barely able to contain myself at the thought of my best friends so happy. I take another long swig of my drink, coughing again at the burn.
Jenna turns to me, her expression serious. “Is now a safe time to ask you what the hell has been going on?”
I sigh, falling back into the couch. “I don’t even know where to start. For one, I’m in love with Jim, apparently. And that’s weird because he’s such a nice guy, and annoyingly helpful. Not my usual type at all but I can’t help myself. I love him…like I want to make sure he’s fed and well-rested. Happy. I want to hear every stupid detail about his day and I think about him when he’s not around. It’s awful. And yeah, he and Marcus are cousins. I don’t know how long Jim has known that, maybe this entire time. I had told him about Marcus, how awful he was to me in general, worse when everything first happened with Marissa. I flat out asked him if he knew him, and he said no.”
Jenna hisses. “Yikes. Why do you think he’d lie about it?”
I shrug. I haven’t really thought that far. My mind hasn’t quite let me analyze it past the point of being really pissed off that Jim lied. “You guys want to know another secret?”
They both nod in unison.
“You can’t be mad at me.”
Lainey sits up, tucking her legs under her before reaching for another long swig of her drink.
“Jim and I had sex the night of your wedding.”
I look up as I let the secret out, letting them soak it in. Lainey’s eyes are still, face flat, before her eyebrows raise and she turns to Jenna.
Jenna turns to look at her at the same time, brows raised before a smile breaks out.
“What?” they say in unison.
“You heard me” I laugh, opting to take another sip. “Don't make me say it out loud again.”
Jenna sets down her jar of cherries and dusts her hands together. She grabs her can of orange soda, taking a long sip before setting it down. She then turns to me, the most serious expression on her face. “You little slut!” she screams. “You had sex with him and didn’t tell me!” She attempts to crawl over me, but her giant belly weighs too much already and she loses her grip, opting to fall onto the side of the couch and reaches over to slap at my legs. “You had sex and didn’t tell us!”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us! What if nothing happened after that, if I hadn’t sent him over to fix your leaky pipes, were you guys going to just take it to the grave?” Lainey gasps, slapping a hand over her mouth. “Does Ryan know? Did Jim tell Ryan? Oh my God, if Ryan knows and didn’t tell his wife, he's going to be in so much trouble!”
I raise my foot to tickle Jenna, who is still laying on her side like a beached whale. She pushes me away, using the momentum to sit back up.
“I don’t think Ryan knows. I asked him to keep it a secret for both of us. It was supposed to be one and done, we haven’t had sex since then, and that’s the truth. But he and I aren’t one and done.”
“And now you’re in love,” Jenna adds. “And you just told him to leave you alone, after he beat up your shitty ex-boyfriend.”
I nod. “Yeah, sounds about right.”
Lainey leans in further, her butt barely on the edge of the couch. “Okay. We can figure out how to salvage the Jim thing in a minute, but more importantly, first things first. How was the sex?”
I flop back on the couch, letting out a pained exhale. “You guys. I swear to God. I have never come so hard in my life. Or so many times in one night.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The sound of dishes clanging together stirs me from my sleep, and I roll over, cracking an eye open to see Ryan, sweat-clad, with his thick, wavy hair sticking up all over the place. He stacks our empty glasses on the platter that once held our loaded nachos, carrying the mess into the kitchen. He returns a few minutes later with a bottle of water, and goes to set it on the table next to me. When he sees my eyes open, he reaches for it again, handing it over.
I sit up and stretch, gladly welcoming the bottle and opening it up to drink half of it at once.
“Sorry if I woke you,” Ryan whispers, sitting down next to a curled up Lainey. Jenna’s nowhere to be seen, likely snuck out around the time we finished the nachos, the rest of the tequila, Lainey started to sing Celine Dion, and I cried over the thought of her having twin boys.
