“After this morning, neither do I.”
She snorted but looked up at me curiously over her menu. “So…now it’s back to cake-tastings with Sharon? How long exactly do you and Marcus think you can keep this up?”
I’d met with Amanda for an emergency “how am I feeling” discussion the day after Marcus and I first had sex, so she knew all about our present situation. She had been a lone voice of support for both our fake and now our genuine relationship. (Then again, she was the only one who knew about the fake side of things, so she was going to be a lone voice either way.) When we’d taken things to the next level, she’d been thrilled, but now, as our long engagement stretched out even longer, she was starting to ask the same questions that we were asking ourselves.
What the hell comes next?
“I suppose it doesn’t help that your mom is throwing that huge engagement party. I got my invitation over at Barry’s the day before yesterday. Very…colorful. Loud, I think is what they’d call it.”
I almost spat my water back into my glass. “Your invitation? What are you talking about?”
She gave me a blank stare. “It isn’t supposed to be a surprise. Sharon called me the other day just to gush about it. Apparently you’d told her that you wanted a wedding in summer or fall, so she worked out a day with Marcus’ people when she could throw you a party?”
“Oh my gosh…” I leaned back against my chair, feeling suddenly weak.
The waiter came by to take our drink orders, and Amanda took my hand with concern. “I think it’s definitely going to be a cosmo morning,” she told him. “And keep them coming.”
“Actually, just water for me, thanks.” I pushed back my chair as he disappeared. “I think I’m actually going to be sick.”
As a wave of nausea hit me, I hightailed it for the bathroom, kneeling on the ground and emptying the sugary contents of my stomach. The door creaked open and locked shut a moment later as Amanda knelt down behind me, wiping my neck with a cool paper towel and holding back my hair.
“Geez, how much cake did they make you eat?” she asked sympathetically as I retched again.
I leaned back on my heels and wiped my mouth with a piece of toilet paper. “Actually, not that much,” I admitted. “Just a bite of each one.” I sat back against the cool tile wall with a groan. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Amanda bit her lip and studied me with concern. “Could you be pregnant?”
“What?” I scoffed. “No.”
But a stabbing feeling of doubt hit me in the gut.
&
nbsp; She leaned forward as her face grew grave. “Becca…?”
“No, it’s not possible.”
“Okay,” she nodded seriously, “how is it not possible? Facts, not feelings.”
“It’s not possible…” My voice broke off in terror as a thin layer of sweat covered my forehead. “…because I can’t be pregnant.”
Fifteen minutes later, we were back in the bathroom. Only this time, it was a grimy unisex shack in the back of a drug store. We paced back and forth in front of the sink, counting the seconds and ignoring the pounding of another customer on the door as we darted anxious sideways glances at the infamous “stick.”
“Is it time yet?” I asked frantically. “How much longer?”
It felt like an eternity.
“Another thirty seconds.” She tried to calm me, speaking in soothing tones. “Back the hell up, lady. It’s not your turn!” she screamed out the door. “Seriously, Bex,” her face once again transformed, “it’s going to be fine.”
“How? How is it going to be fine? I’m somehow stuck in the middle of both a real and a fake relationship that’s unravelling on a global scale, living in a hilltop mansion with a man I’m rapidly falling in love with, and being nightly stalked by a psychotic bird. What part of this is going to be fine?”
“Bex.” Her jaw dropped open. “Who you’re rapidly falling in love with?”
The words hit me like a slap to the brain, but before I could begin to process them, the alarm on her phone went off. I glanced briefly toward the counter, but lowered my head between my legs, panting softly.
“I can’t look. You do it.”
I saw her legs moving out of the corner of my eye. A second later, she was helping me straighten up, her face pale but determined.