I only got here two days ago. Work yesterday. Today I’m chilling. We have months to sort things out, Mom. Promise we will.
Mom
I was only wondering. Just thinking about you.
Me
Thanks but it’s all fine. It’s relaxing here and Anton is taking care of me.
And for once, that doesn’t seem to come with a price.
The ellipses appear and disappear, and I realize that maybe my mom has read into that too much. After all, I told her everything about how that one-night stand went down,including how I was the ringleader. I never want her to think Anton isn’t anything but the upstanding guy he is.
In the end, she settles for:
MOM- Good, you deserve that. Love you baby.
ME- Love you too.
I burst into a light jog to catch up with the ladies and the two horses they tie up outside at what seems like some sort of hitching post.
Lara popped in at the police station yesterday to say hi, but apart from that, it’s the first time I’m getting quality time with my best friend since my celebration party, and I’m looking forward to having lunch in town.
Lara isn’t leading a horse, so she comes over to me and hugs me. “You’re awake and alive.”
“Barely.” We wander over to where the other ladies are. “What decade is it? Still the twenty-first century?” I ask.
Kat, Santi’s fiancée, sets down a grooming kit and pulls out a horse brush. “Growing a human is tiring. Though I found the second trimester easier than the first.” She blows a strand of dark hair off her forehead and slides the brush across a big, dark horse’s back. “You’re eighteen weeks now?”
Lara answers for me. “And one day…” She grabs my hand. “I’m so damn glad you’re back. Even if it’s just for a while.”
Lara knows everything. She knows what happened at the hotel, what Anton and I discussed about life as friends (though she consistently chooses to ignore it), and that I hardly feel settled about the future. Lara is easygoing, always supportive, and over the past months, as I geared up to move, she’s been happy to hear me out as one day, I wanted one thing and another the next.
I’m lucky Anton has accepted the uncertainty. Heprobably hasn’t, not really. It’s probably eating him alive, but that’s his maturity showing. No pressure. Just support.
Kat smiles at me warmly. “I loved being pregnant. I was lucky. Had it easy. Though I often pretended to be feeling crap when it suited me.” She winks.
Kat has been through it as a mom. She knows far worse than pregnancy hormones. When she arrived in Echo Valley, she’d lost it all. No money. Single mom. Trouble on her tail. I only hung out with Kat a few times before moving back to LA, but I have a huge amount of respect for her.
“New job, moving house, growing a human…” Kat pats the rump of her horse—I think his name is Fuego. “You’re doing great being up before noon on a Saturday.”
“So which bed did you crawl out of this morning?” Lara teases.
I cock an eyebrow. “Mine.” I put a hand on my waist. “And you don’t have to ask again… It’s not like that, and won’t be as I told you a million times.”
Ava eyes me perceptively. I’ve spent the least amount of time with her when I lived here; she was on a world tour with Enzo, her fiancé. She and Anton aren’t blood-related, but they’re as family as it gets from an emotional point of view, so I want to be closer to her. All I know is she’s a hacker, and a wizard of one at that, so somehow, despite being super bubbly, I always think she’s trying to figure me out.
Anton was the most important person in her life for a long time, and she would only want the best for him.
Ava takes a brush out of her grooming kit and takes to the horse’s tail. “You look better rested than a couple of days ago.”
Ava and Luis popped in the night I arrived with abouquet of flowers and a romance book…with the accidental pregnancy trope. I was too tired to show my gratitude, but it was sweet and made me feel welcome.
Ava chimes. “You’re glowing.”
“Am I?”
“Hundred percent.” She beams.
