Page 51 of The Marriage Rebound

“That is rude and bad girlfriend behavior.”

I laughed quietly to myself listening to the two of them go back and forth. It was warming to see the way my friends interacted with each other, just to see how their banter went and how easily they could tease each other but still have real discussions about their differing opinions. Something that I was realizing was a fundamental issue between me and Sasha.

“I’m an excellent girlfriend, and you know it,” Shae said with a wink as she pushed to standing. With a little protest from Doc, Shae carefully gathered up Peanut, shushing him quietly when he whined a bit, then gently placed him in the travel bassinet that sat in front of the fireplace.

Instead of returning to her seat, Shae strolled into the kitchen and over to the fridge. I heard the clink of bottles before she shut the door with three beers in her hand. She popped the tops then distributed one to each of us when she returned.

“I have a feeling whatever went down, you’re gonna need something to calm you.”

“Yeah, sorry we got sidetracked.”

I waved them off before taking a pull of the amber liquid, swallowing down the coldness without tasting any of the flavor.

“Is this a continuation of whatever had you staying at Tina’s house before?” Shae asked.

I nodded. “Pretty much. It’s been a bunch of little things that have kept building up. And then . . .” I took another drink. “And then at Thanksgiving dinner she dropped the bomb she’d been to a fertility clinic behind my back.”

“Wait, she’s pregnant?” Doc asked.

“No, she better not be. She said she just went to get information and to start the testing, or whatever. But again, she did that shit behind my back. And I just . . . just blew up at her. It was bad, but kids are a big decision.”

“And it’s not like y’all can have an oops, so her doing that was very . . . deliberate,” Doc said in a soft voice.

I drained the rest of my bottle.

“You want another?” Shae asked.

“Yeah.” I blew out a breath. “Anyway, I basically said the same thing, that she was doing shit behind my back which had me feeling like I can’t trust her on top of being real fucking unappreciated, especially after . . . she never congratulated me. For our win. She didn’t say shit to me.” I hadn’t told them before, but the hurt, and disappointment, and frustration of it all was eating away at me.

“The fuck?” Shae said, handing me a new beer. “She was being all buddy-buddy with the rest of the team when we got back. I mean, we picked up on some tension between y’all, but . . . damn.”

“Yeah, that was because she was pissed because I was ‘being cheap’ by not flying her out for the game. Which I did regret, but didn’t matter. She upped her attitude by not sayin’ shit and shopping.”

“Whoa,” Doc said.

“I’m sorry for dumping all this on y’all. I’ve been trying to push through, you know. Play through the pain, but . . .”

“Nah, it’s all good. Clearly, this shit has been on your mind, and you shouldn’t be bottling up everything.” My friend looked at me with sympathy and I kinda hated the pity.

I hated opening up, even though she was right, I was drowning. I was a fixer. I solved the problems that were laid out before me. It was what I did, and I just had no fucking clue how to solve this one. Because every time I thought about how to make it better, I always ended up with us going our separate ways. And part of me was like maybe I should just lean into that. But the other part of me wasn’t quite ready to give up. I truly believed there was something between us that was worth fighting for. I just needed to figure out how to get us back to what pulled us together in the beginning.

I settled back, taking a long sip from my fresh drink. “After this—” I held up my casted arm “—I thought we could just thug it out. I was going a little stir-crazy, but according to my sister, that’s because I don’t know how to sit my ass down.” I let out a dry laugh.

Shae shrugged. “I mean . . .”

“Whatever, heffa.”

“So, I have a question,” Doc said.

“Shoot.”

She shifted to lay her legs in Shae’s lap. “I’ve picked up a little here and there, y’all got together quickly and whatnot, but how quick is quickly?”

“Oh, um . . . two, two and a half months.”

“Before y’all got married?”

I tilted my head at the high pitch of her voice. “That sounds like judgment, Doc.”