“It’s not mine,” I said dully, shivering in the slight breeze. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” He pushed open the door and gestured me inside, glancing once more at the stolen vehicle before locking up carefully behind us. “Amanda’s just in the—”
But I was already on my way to the bedroom.
Deevus rubbed up against my legs, and I petted him. Amanda was fast asleep—sprawled out across the queen-sized bed. After the huge California king I’d been sleeping in with Marcus, it actually looked quite invitingly cozy. I watched her for a moment before the words came welling up inside me, too hard and too horrible to contain.
“He thinks it’s my fault.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and she squinted at me in the dim light flooding in from the hall.
“Bex? Is that you?”
“Marcus thinks it’s my fault. He thinks I got pregnant on purpose.”
Her eyes widened, and she hoisted herself up, patting the spot beside her on the bed. I climbed in, and we lay on our backs, staring up at the ceiling like we’d done since we were teenagers, silently supporting and solving our lives’ problems, one meditative talk at a time.
“He can’t think that,” she said after a while, twisting slightly to look at me. “He saw you freak out at the clinic. You flew to Washington for fuck’s sake. You didn’t plan a thing.”
“He told me himself.” I wiped a silent tear from my face. “After the morning show, he was furious with me. Said I’d messed everything up. Said, ‘how was it possible I’d gotten pregnant?’ Tabitha on Marcus’s PR team said the whole world was calling me a whore.”
She sat up suddenly. “She did not!”
“Yep.” I fluffed up Barry’s pillow beneath my head. “Apparently, I look like an a-typical gold-digger, and he’s been hiding me to protect me. But now I’ve gone and fucked it all up by not drinking booze while pregnant on TV.”
“I still can’t believe that happened.” She laid her head back down and played absentmindedly with her hair as we gazed up at the ceiling. “I can’t believe that bitch offered you Champagne. And I’m sorry, Bex—but what the hell were you supposed to do!”
“That’s what I said!”
“Marcus can’t believe that stuff!”
“I don’t know what’s going through his mind.”
“Men,” she scoffed, shaking her head. “This is why they can’t get pregnant. Because they can’t handle the awesome responsibility of growing a human life. They’d kill it with Budweiser.”
“This is Marcus we’re talking about.”
“You’re right, he would get it insured first.”
I snorted in teary laughter. “No, I meant, he’d be drinking something pretentious.”
The crack of light on the floor widened slightly as Barry peeked his head in. “Hey, girls, is, uh…is everything all right?”
Amanda lifted her head. “We’re going to need awhile, sweetie. You okay sleeping on the couch tonight?”
He shook his head with a rueful smile. “By now? I’d expect nothing less.”
As he disappeared, I turned back to her in despair. “See? Barry gets it. Barry is wonderful! Why can’t Marcus just…know that I would never do this on purpose? How can he not know that about me?”
“I don’t know, Bex.”
I bit my lip as more tears spilled over. “How can I marry someone who would think that of me? I mean, we don’t know each other at all, do we?”
She rolled onto her side. “I think you do.” I scoffed, but she held up a hand. “I’m serious, I know it’s only been three months, but I think you do. There’s something about the two of you that just clicks. There always has been.”
I raised my eyebrows expectantly. “But this? But now?”
“Now…” Her face tightened angrily. “…fuck him. He thinks you got pregnant as part of some scheme? Cool. You can raise the baby with Barry and me. And if anyone comes throwing rocks and calling you a whore—well, to be honest, Bex, not only could I use the target practice, but I’ve been calling you that for years.”