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She lowered herself onto the bedside chair. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You were thinking he was a superhot guy. At least, that’s what I’m usually thinking.”
Amber gave a helpless laugh. “He was. He is. Oh, man, he was good.”
For the first time since it happened, she let the full bloom of their lovemaking rush through her mind. It had been amazing. And she wanted to do it again, so badly.
“At least there’s that,” Jade said softly.
“You say it as if it’s a good thing.”
“It’s not?”
Amber straightened in the chair. “No, it’s not. It would have been better to be disappointed.”
“So you didn’t want to do it again,” Jade said with sage understanding.
“What is wrong with me? I’m no better than Margaret.”
“Who’s Margaret?”
“Tuck’s father’s secretary. Turns out she’s having an affair with him.”
“He’s married?”
“Yes.”
“Tuck’s not married,” said Jade.
“He’s still my boss.”
“True. But that makes it risky, not immoral. Those are two totally different circumstances.”
“It was a mistake,” Amber said, more to herself than to Jade. “But I’m over it. I can do that. I’m tough.” She drew a bracing breath. “Now, what about you? Is everything still looking good?”
Jade’s hand moved to her stomach. “She’s kicking less. I bet it must be getting crowded in there.”
“Is that normal?” Amber’s gaze rested on Jade’s bulging stomach.
“The doc says it often happens that way. My back is absolutely killing me.” Jade moved and stretched in the bed.
“I’m sorry.”
“And I’ve got heartburn and an overactive bladder. I’ll be so glad when this is over.”
“It won’t be much longer,” said Amber, feeling sympathetic. “I’ve been thinking I better get shopping. Have you thought about what you’ll need? Can you make me a list?”
“You don’t have to buy me things.”
“You’re going to need a crib and diapers.”
“There’s a secondhand store on Grand. We could check there after I get home.”
“Sure,” said Amber, knowing the least she could do was to buy her new niece a crib. She didn’t want to make Jade feel bad about her financial circumstances, so she’d figure out the necessities on her own and get them ready.
“I should head for the office,” she said, coming to her feet.
She wasn’t looking forward to it, but she was confident that the more time she spent around Tuck in the office, the easier it would be to keep her feelings in perspective.
“In a way, it’s reassuring,” said Jade, a look of contentment on her face.
“What is?”
“To know you’re not perfect.”
“Who ever said I was perfect?”
“Mom, me, you.”
“Me?” Amber couldn’t imagine when or why she would have said that.
“You don’t remember the straight As?”
“I didn’t get straight As.”
“You got a B plus in tenth-grade math.”
“See?”
Amber remembered it well. It was a blight on the report card, as if someone had painted a black, hairy spider in the middle of a butterfly collage.
“You set your alarm for six fifty-three every morning.”
It had made perfect sense to Amber. “I liked to lay there for two minutes before getting out of bed.”
“You knew all the food groups. You talked about them at every meal.”
“We didn’t always have them.”
“We never had them. But you knew what they were. I remember Mom giving us each five dollars for candy. She was drunk, of course, in an ‘I love you, kids’ mood.”
Amber didn’t like to remember her sloppy, tearful mother professing her love for them. It was inevitably followed by a monologue of self-pity, then a rant about how they didn’t love her back. Then she’d vomit and pass out in the bathroom. More often than not, leaving a mess for Amber to clean up.
“Don’t go back there,” she said softly to Jade.
“I spent it all on chocolate,” said Jade. “You bought chewable vitamins. I was baffled.”
“I don’t remember that,” said Amber, searching her memory for the incident.
