AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Assuming the baby stayed where it was supposed to for the whole nine months. But it was far too early to consider such things.
Even if my brain heartily disagreed with such logic and kept sending nightmare scenarios through with frightening regularity.
Now it was even worse than when I was sixteen, because it wasn’t just me who would be dealing with whatever happened, good or bad. Mav would be too. Somehow the idea of him possibly hurting was almost as bad as me.
Oh, who was I kidding? It was worse. So much worse. I’d get through whatever occurred. I might doubt it every minute, but I would. I was a survivor.
I just didn’t wanthimto have to face anything bad. He could be an ass and he was irritating and sometimes arrogant and a million other things. But he was mine.
God, I wanted him to be mine so badly, and what was I supposed to do about that?
“We aren’t actually seeing strippers.”
Tab stopped fussing with her hair. “We aren’t?”
“No. We’re going to a restaurant called Pleasure Palace because it has a kicking ice cream bar that supposedly includes aphrodisiac ingredients. But I’m pretty sure it’s just a marketing schtick.” I shrugged. “Closest thing to naked dicks in that joint is peeled bananas for the banana split sundaes.”
My sister laughed in delight. “You are so devious. I love it.”
I shrugged again and forced myself to halfheartedly swipe lip gloss over my mouth. If even that exhausted me, I could only imagine how fun this night would be.
“They deserve it for all their stripper jokes.”
“Mav slept with one for his eighteenth birthday.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. He said it wasn’t even that good. She never called him again.”
“You’re not pissed?”
“That he got some at eighteen? Uh, no. I also got some at eighteen, though not with a stripper.”
Tab grinned. “You have the healthiest attitude toward sex and dating I’ve ever seen. You don’t get all twisted up.”
I snorted so hard I nearly ruptured something. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, why?”
“I can barely evensaythe word dating. I’m relationship-phobic. Before I tripped and fell on Mav’s penis, I hadn’t had sex in almost two years because no one interested me more than my sex toy drawer.”
“And Mav’s is better than that? High praise.” My sister held up a hand. “Please don’t tell me. He’s about to be my brother-in-law. It’s better if I don’t know anything about what’s in his trousers.”
I smiled faintly as I tugged my hair up into a haphazard topknot. “We’ve been together a month, and we haven’t had one real fight.”
“Wow. That’s great.”
“I mean, we squabble all the time, but I think we both get off on that. But the big stuff? The important stuff? We either pretend it doesn’t exist or we just…deal.”
“Well, the pretending isn’t awesome, but it’s still all very new. You have time to figure out how to address things maturely.”
“You and Brady were mature from day one.”
“Hardly. Things look a lot different on the inside, Van.” She shifted toward me, adjusting her floral maternity top and letting it float down around her. “How do I look?”
I made myself really focus on her from head to toe. “Radiant,” I said finally, shocked as tears spurted out of my eyes.
At least the timing of when I was crying covered up the true cause of my current emotional breakdown.
I hoped.
