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“I went out on another date the other night, and I was coming by last night to let you know that I wanted to keep seeing this other woman.”
“You were coming over to break up with me?” I asked, surprised.
He nodded, looking slightly guilty. I grabbed his hands. “That’s great, Joe!”
He chuckled and squeezed my hands before we both let go. “I think you and I will make much better friends and allies.”
“Allies?”
He grimaced and then grinned. “Yeah, I kind of went out on a date with Carmen.”
My jaw dropped. “Carmen Winston?”
“Yep.”
I started laughing. “Are you serious? Oh, Ethan is going to love that!”
“Look, don’t say anything to him yet. She didn’t want it getting back to her family yet. She wanted to make sure things were good with us. She doesn’t want to add stress to the family.”
“Oh, I get it.” I pretend to lock my lips shut and leaned forward, speaking softly. “So, it was a good date?” He grinned, and his cheeks started to turn pink. “Oh my god! You slept with Carmen!”
He hushed me, and I slapped a hand over my mouth and glanced around to see who might be watching. Other than an old couple two booths down, no one seemed to be paying us any attention.
“Yeah, so one thing led to another.”
“Joe, that’s great! I’m really happy for you. I hope that things work out for you two. I love Carmen. She’s fantastic, but how did you two hook up?” I put my hand up. “Wait, she isn’t counseling Chip, is she?”
“No, actually, I met her at the picnic you brought me to and then ran into her twice getting coffee before work. She asked how Chip was because I’d mentioned him before, and we got to talking. I ended up asking her out.”
“Didn’t she know that we were seeing each other?”
“She also knows that it would never have worked between us because of her brother.”
“Oh, right.” I nodded. “Well, that’s great, Joe.”
The two of us talked for a while and ended up ordering breakfast before he had to get to work. I drove over to my parents, knowing that I needed to face the music with them.
Luckily, only they were there, and I didn’t have to deal with my siblings. When I walked in, I found my parents sitting at the table, looking at a photo album. I kissed them both on the top of the head. “What are you looking at?”
“Oh, just a few baby pictures,” my mother said, and I wondered if they’d had that book sitting at the table ready for me to walk in.
I went to dig around in the fridge, not that I wanted anything to eat, but because I wasn’t sure how to start this conversation.
“So what did you and Ethan finally decide?” my mother asked.
“Um, I’m not sure we’ve made any decisions, other than to see how things go.”
“You mean between you and him, not with the baby, right?”
“We are having the baby, Mom, don’t worry.”
She grinned. “Oh, I wasn’t, Riley.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“You never know with you, Riley.” She waved a hand at me. “What did you two talk about?”
I sank into a seat across the table from them, and my dad went to refill his coffee. “Ethan wants us to see if we can work things out.”
