The man I slept with last night casts a glance to the back seat and winks at me. That wink and that seriously sweet gesture are going to have to feed me for several hours, I suspect.
Time to pretend I’m at work, talking to a reporter, making conversation. “Hey, Tobey. What’s it like being a mobile vet? You must have all kinds of stories.”
The rest of the ride I learn that he finished vet school at age twenty-one, since he finished college at age eighteen. I also hear about a parrot that wouldn’t stop swearing, a cat that refused to eat anything but potatoes, and a dog with a blueberry allergy.
It’s fascinating. Truly, it is. This just isn’t the way I wanted to spend the morning.
But that’s entirely my fault for waiting too long.
Soon, we roll into Tahoe, cruise past downtown, and head for Nisha’s place. When we pull up in front of the barn-size home she rented, she’s outside, one of those tent-like sweaters that falls to her knees wrapped around her, her silky brown hair blowing gently in the breeze. With one hand on her hip, she wags a finger at me. “I saved you,” she says when I get out of the car.
“With your imaginary helicopter,” I say. Friends truly do have the best of intentions. I’ve got to remember that. I can certainly handle a day of bonding with some of our buddies before I grab a private moment with River. Surely, the perfect opportunity will present itself.
Nisha jerks me in for a hug.
And wait.
There’s something there that wasn’t there before.
A bump.
I step back. “Nisha . . .”
She dances a jig, her smile wider than the sky, her deep brown eyes twinkling with all the stars. “We’re going to be moms,” she says with a smile, patting her basketball belly. “Hailey and I are having a baby. We wanted to surprise everyone. And I wanted to tell you in person, obviously. That’s why I had to fetch you. I wanted to share the news with everyone and you’re the last one here so now everyone knows.”
I beam, thrilled for my good friend. “I’m so happy for you and Hailey. How far along are you?”
“Seven months,” she says, then waves at River, calls him in for a hug too.
He slides in so naturally, wrapping his arms around her. “Congratulations to you and your wife,” he says, giving her a kiss on the cheek too. “When are you due? Are you going to have a shower? If so, you’ve got to try the guess-the-baby-photo-of-the-guests game, but please promise me you won’t play that awful dirty diaper game?”
“How do you know so much about baby showers?” I ask, flummoxed.
River shoots me a breezy look. “Give someone a drink and they talk about everything. Just last week, these two guys in leather were planning a baby shower for their surrogate. I also told them to avoid the dirty diaper game.”
“Are they going to play a leather game instead?” Nisha asks.
“If there is one, I bet they will,” River says.
“I don’t even know what the dirty diaper game is,” I say.
Nisha pats my arm. “Trust me, O. You don’t want to know.”
We go inside, and all my PR peeps are here including Reese Fallon, a fun and brainy sports publicist I outsource work to sometimes. She’s a rising star in the San Francisco sports publicity world, and she’s also involved with one of the baseball players on the team I work for—our All-Star second baseman, Holden Kingsley. He’s a great guy, and I truly like working with him.
But all of a sudden, I feel like I’m at work.
And I have to slide into let’s-keep-everyone-happy mode.
Everyone excluding me.
20
River
The universe clearly has something against me. Eros, or Cupid, or whoever, is cursing me.
There’s no other explanation for the magical fucking dog van to have appeared. It’s like that kids’ book, with Ms. Frizzle and the bus that traveled underwater, and through the solar system, and back in time, and fuck that bus.
All I wanted was to sit down with Owen and talk, and ask if he thinks we can pull this off. If he’d be willing to break that pact we made. If he can throw the Harry and Rod rule to the wolves.
I have no idea if he’ll say yes or break my heart like the Big Dick Law dictates he will.
So instead of talking to Owen about all things D and L-O-V-E, I’m making drinks at three o’clock on a Saturday.
Cheers to me.
At the makeshift bar, aka kitchen counter, I whip up a martini for Jillian and an old-fashioned for her husband, Jones. “Beauty and brains before brawn,” I say to the woman who runs her own boutique PR agency in the city, and her football player hubs, giving her the drink first.