Page 63
“Flick, can we speak? Alone?”
“Sure, let me just—” Felicity attempts to get out, which mostly looks like her wrestling a giant fabric jellyfish. Riley’s head shake gets sharper with every flail.
“Nope, nope. I’ll just say it right here in front of both of you.” Riley plants her hands on her hips. “You two know I love you both, correct?”
Felicity nods, and I shrug. I did not know that, but it’s very reassuring to hear it out loud.
“Good. Now, I love you both too much to watch you make the same mistakes as your mother, so if you two are sleeping together—”
“Riley!” Felicity gasps. “We’re just friends.”
“Right, and I’m the Pope. How old was your mom when she got pregnant?”
Her head dips. “Fifteen.”
“And how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Exactly.” Riley claps once like a drill sergeant. I feel the need to have perfectly straight posture. “So I will say this only once: It takes one time, all right? One time together, and you’re saddled with a whole lot more than just a baby duck who can go without you after a few months. That cute little pre-baby body you’ve got going on? GONE. A lot of women poop on the table, you know that? And they tear. They tear from one hole to the other—”
I cover my ears immediately; there are some things you really can’t unhear.
“Oh my GOSH, we got it!” Felicity screams and covers her own ears.
“Do I need to talk about epidurals, because those needles are like this long.” Riley spreads her fingers to what I’m pretty sure is an illegal length.
Good God, am I about to faint?
“We’ve been in this hammock a hundred times,” Felicity defends. “You’ve never cared.”
“Yeah, that was before.”
“Before what?”
“You both know what. I am not blind, all right? Until I can be certain no one is having any babies on my watch, no sleepovers or hanging out alone in your room.”
“But nothing was hap—”
“Knox.” Riley turns her eagle eyes toward me. “Was something happening?”
I start to say no, but that’s a flat-out lie. I had full plans of, at the bare minimum, kissing her. So I shrug. My eyes don’t dare to look at Felicity’s face right now, so I just keep them stuck on Riley’s boots.
“Exactly, pull it together, you two. I will not be called grandma before I can have my own kids.”
I start to say, “I’m not sure they would call you grandma. It’d probably be like Gamgam or—” Riley scowls at me and I shut my mouth. “Nope. No, you’re right.”
Riley marches inside and the blinds snap open a second later—she is definitely watching us as she scrubs dishes that I’m pretty sure are already clean.
Felicity presses her palms to her face. “Sorry. She’s…a lot sometimes.”
“It works,” I say.
“Very effective birth control,” she mutters.
“Hey.” I nudge her foot with mine. “You wanna go on a date with me?”
Her head jerks up. “Wha—what? After that?”
