“CPS finally revoked your teaching license after searching your web history?” Chase deadpanned. We normally ping-ponged insults, but I really wasn’t in the mood today.
“Okay, Chase, I’m gonna need a temporary truce over here. This is serious.” I raised my palms in surrender.
He elevated an eyebrow, obviously skeptical. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ll be better when Maddie and I have some privacy, though.”
“All right. I’ll make myself scarce. Let me know if you need me, I’ll be in my office.” He kissed his wife one more time, this time on the crown of her head, then left.
I took a seat on the stool at the kitchen island opposite to Maddie. Even though my best friend felt horrible, she looked more radiant than ever, with her pretty, soft features, glossy chestnut hair cut trendily to shoulder length, and glittering eyes. I would’ve felt personally attacked by her beauty if not for the fact that I knew she was just as gorgeous on the inside.
“What’s going on?” Maddie frowned, palming her mug of green tea with both hands.
“I’m pregnant,” I announced.
Maddie cupped her mouth, gasping. “Oh my God.”
“I know.”
“Does Grant know?”
“I ... wait, why do you assume it’s Grant’s?”
She rolled her eyes. “You sleep with each other exclusively. Have been for years. Only he has the decency to admit it, and you pretend to scroll through Tinder every week just to act disappointed with the selection.”
“The selectionisdisappointing.”
“Sure. When you compare it to a tall, chisel-jawed doctor with his own Manhattan apartment who gives you three orgasms a night.”
“This is not the time to hit me with the truth stick.” I pointed a finger at her. “How did it happen, Mads? I haven’t missedonepill in three years. Not even one.”
“Well, it is only ninety-three percent effective. And weren’t you drinking that night?”
I gave her a look.
I brought a glass of orange juice to my lips.
“Probably shouldn’t drink that.” Maddie winced. “It’s unpasteurized. Plus, pregnancy heartburn is the work of the devil.”
Fantastic. Not three hours had passed since my pregnancy revelation, and already I was being denied my favorite juice. I put the glass back down.
“Please don’t act like I’m going to keep it.” I parked my elbows on the island, then grabbed the back of my neck and pressed my forehead to the cool marble surface.
“Aren’t you?” Maddie’s voice was carefully toneless.
“No!” I tossed my arms in the air. “You know how I feel about having children.”
She just stared at me. A look that told me that all of this had been said and donebeforeI became pregnant. When a child of my own was an abstract idea.
“Ilovechildren, but I also know what it means to take care of them, and I think doing it alone would stretch me beyond my limits.”
“Isn’t there a small part of you that wants to keep it?” Maddie asked quietly.
I stared at her through bloodshot eyes, feeling my entire existence sagging with resignation. Yes, there was.
God, there was a huge part of me that wanted to meet this now-grain-size fetus. That same part also suspected this was kismet.
I was thirty-three. I adored kids. I just didn’t like the idea of making them with someone else, someone whose destiny I had to tie with mine. I had secretly toyed with the idea of a sperm donor or adoption along the years. I’d always put it on hold, though, because I didn’t have enough time, enough money, enough help. But Grant ...
