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“Poughkeepsie?” I asked, startled. “Where the hell is that? Kentucky?” Geography had never been my subject. “Why Poughkeepsie?”
Toni cackled. “Was it a college student? Your zip-line instructor?”
“You’re not funny,” I said. “You’re freaking Helena out.”
“I think I’m very funny.”
I shook my head, strategizing how the hell I was going to take a pregnancy test without the eagle eyes of my children on me. I’d have to do it right now. “I need to run to the store to get a test just so I’m not worried about this. But there’s no way I can be pregnant. You know how hard it was to conceive Marigold.”
“Of course you’re not pregnant,” Helena assured me. “You’re way older now too than you were doing IVF then. I mean, what would the odds be?”
“Thanks for pointing out my age, but you’re right. What would the odds be?”
“Seriously, though, who the heck is the guy?” Helena asked. “Was it your bartender? Oh, my God, he probably wants to be on that fiancé show where he gets to come to the U.S. on a K1 Visa.”
I swallowed hard, my nausea not improving listening to her overactive imagination. “Will you both stop being so dramatic?”
“Just tell her the truth,” Toni said.
“What’s the truth?” Helena’s gaze swung back and forth between the two of us.
“Geez, freaking Louise. I didn’t do something wild or crazy. It was just Cash.”
“Cash? Cash Young?” Helena’s jaw dropped. “I thought you went to Mexico alone.”
“I did not go alone. We talked ahead of time and decided that since we were both in a sexual dry spell, we’d go to Mexico together and have a little fun. Friends with benefits. I didn’t tell you because it was embarrassing. Me, running off for a sexfest?”
“Then how does Toni know? That’s not fair.”
Ah, sisterhood. More concerned with being left out than what I’d actually told her. “Toni found out because Miles found out and apparently Miles can’t keep a secret.”
“You can’t keep secrets in a new relationship or you’ll doom it to failure,” Toni said.
“I agree with that,” Helena said. “Miles did the right thing.”
“Cash is the one who accidentally spilled it in the first place. He left the resort photo of y’all swimming with a dolphin laying on his kitchen counter.”
The picture I’d told him not to buy. “It was nothing serious. Nothing to bring back home. We’d just leave it all there, on the beaches of the Riviera Maya.”
“Except you might have brought back a baby,” Helena said, looking super sympathetic.
I clapped my hand over my mouth, almost throwing up. “You said it wasn’t very likely!”
“So you had sex once, twice? I mean, it would be crazy if you were pregnant. What are the odds?”
“We had sex four times a day for five days. We used condoms but one broke.”
“What?” Her voice rose three octaves. “Who the hell has sex four times a day?”
“He’s young. He’s twenty-seven. They have a lot of energy at that age.”
“I was with my husband when he was twenty-seven and we were not having sex four times a day.”
“No offense to your husband, but Chad gets tired after eating pasta.”
Helena made a sound. “I beg your pardon. That was very offensive. A lot of people get tired from carbs. Did you have sex with John four times a day when you two were twenty-seven?”
She had me there. “No. But Cash hadn’t had sex in a year. It was built up, I guess.”
“If it was built up then look out. Lots of swimmers. Time to start picking out names,” Toni said.
I felt overcome with the urge to strangle my sister. “You are very unhelpful. Now come with me to the damn store and buy a test because I can’t spend the next few days or weeks stressing about this. I just need to know I’m in the clear.”
“How was the sex, by the way?” Helena asked as she grabbed her purse.
I thought about sex with Cash and my cheeks burned with heat. “I wasn’t doing it four times a day to make him happy. I was having sex four times a day because it was hot as hell and very satisfying. He’s a big man, Helena. A big, dirty man who is well equipped for the job.”
“That sweet Southern man-child is dirty?” She looked astonished. Intrigued. Jealous.
I nodded. “So dirty.”
“How?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
Despite the circumstances, I was almost amused.
“No details!” Toni said. “I don’t want to think about Cash that way. Right now he’s like a teddy bear to me.”
That was not what I would call him. I wasn’t sure what the right label was for him.
Twenty minutes later I had my answer.
Baby daddy.
I stared at the test, feeling all of the blood drain away from my face. I saw spots in front of my eyes and for a single perilous second I thought I was going to hit the tile, but I dragged myself back to full consciousness.
“Holy shit,” Toni said. “Um…”
I shoved the test away from me on the bathroom vanity, like that was going to make the truth go away. “How is this possible?” I whispered, trying to take short shallow breaths through my nose so I didn’t pass out or puke.
“Four times a day for five days,” Helena said.
