“Yes.”
“And it’s absolutely going to confuse the hell out of everyone.”
“Definitely.”
She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “I’m in.”
I smile. “I wasn’t worried.”
“Good,” she says. “Because, whether this ends in romance or not, that baby is getting a ridiculous amount of love.”
Something warm settles in my chest.
“And, just to be clear,” she adds, eyes glittering, “I am still emotionally prepared for chaos.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
She leans back, finally taking a sip of her coffee. “Right then.”
“Right.”
“Friends with baby,” she says, testing it.
I groan. “Please don’t make it a thing.”
She grins. “No promises.”
8
Dick Advice from Pee-Pee
Geoff
The office is beige.
Not apologetic rental beige.Intentionalbeige. The kind that suggests someone chose it on purpose and then stuck with it.
There are plants. Real ones. Thriving. And that feels like a judgement.
My eye lands on one of the certificates on the wall. Cream mount. Neat lettering.
Phyllis Philpott, MSc, MBACP
I let my attention drift back to Pee-Pee, who is watching me with calm interest as if the fact I’ve been silent for a full thirty seconds is not remotely alarming.
She looks comfortable. At home. Like this room makes sense to her in a way my own body currently does not.
The sofa dips when I sit. Not much. Just enough to register. I stay perched near the edge anyway, spine straight, feet flat, hands clasped together like they’re worried about misbehaving.
“So,” she says pleasantly. “What’s brought you in?”
I open my mouth.
Nothing happens.
My brain cycles through half a dozen options, rejects all of them, and then throws one out anyway.
“I’m not broken,” I say.
