Grabbing my hand, she leads me toward the bag she left on the table. The first thing she pulls out is a brown shirt that looks like a leotard and hands it to me.
“Try it on,” she says. “It’s a pregnancy bodysuit. I love mine. I wear them under everything. They sort of hug you and give you support as your belly grows bigger. Helps to hide the belly a little bit, too, which is helpful.”
She keeps talking as I go into my bedroom and pull it on. It’s not easy—the shirt is made out of some pretty strong elastic material—but it feels good when it’s on. I step out the door and model it for her, and she claps.
“I don’t think I can get it off,” I laugh.
“Then keep it on!” She reaches into the bag and pulls out a little silver container and hands it to me as I pull on a t-shirt and jeans over the pregnancy bodysuit.
I open it and smell it and jerk my head away. “What is this?”
“That’s stretch mark cream. My friend Blake makes it and swears by it.”
“Is she pregnant too?” I ask, dipping my finger into the salve and rubbing it on my hand.
“If he were, it would be a medical miracle,” she laughs. “And he would fucking love that! But no, he uses it on his own skin so he can eat all the burritos he wants without fear of stretch marks.”
It doesn’t take long for the delivery driver to arrive, and I dutifully pee on all the tests and set them on the counter. Siena tries to distract me with funny stories about Tommy, Vin, and Matti, but I don’t hear much of what she says.
Before the timer even goes off on my phone, the results start coming in. Two lines. ‘Yes.’ A plus sign. And ‘pregnant.’
The bathroom starts to spin around me, and tears blur my vision.
Fuck.
43
Tommy
Idouble check the text as I jog to the car:
Meet me at Café Verona
in Midtown, the one in
the square. 30 minutes.
Thirty minutes. From Brooklyn. No chance I make it on time, but I gun it anyway. The engine roars to life, and I shoot onto the highway, one hand on the wheel, the other texting Vin the address and a quick message:
Need eyes. Get a backup
team on standby.
The phone rings through the car speakers before I even set it down. It’s Vin. I hit the button on the steering wheel to answer the call.
“Hey, bro, you good? You need me there to back you up.”
“No,” I say, cutting across two lanes without taking my foot off the gas. “But I need surveillance and a team just in case it goes south.”
“I don’t like it,” he snaps. “Too shady. You get a random text from a random person telling you to meet at an outdoor cafe in the middle of a fucking open square surrounded by skyscrapers? You’ll be a sitting duck. Snipers could light you up from a dozen angles.”
“It’s the only lead I’ve got,” I say, swerving around a cab. Horns blare behind me. “No way I’m not going.”
Vin curses. “Fine. But I’m coming, anyway.”
“You don’t have to—”
But the line is already dead.
