Devious Delectable Decades (A SaSS Anthology)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

AVERY

The fluorescent lights in this gas station bathroom flicker like they're sending Morse code, and honestly, whatever message they're transmitting can't be worse than the one staring up at me from the pregnancy test balanced on the sink.

Two pink lines.

My hands shake as I grab the second test from the box.

Then the third. Because maybe the first one is defective.

Maybe they're all defective. Maybe there's been some massive recall on pregnancy tests that I missed while camping in Alaska for the past three weeks, photographing sunrise yoga sessions for some wellness retreat's social media.

The box claims ninety-nine percent accuracy.

I wonder about that one percent. Wonder if maybe I'm the statistical anomaly, the person who gets three false positives in a row.

The odds must be astronomical. Then again, so were the odds of getting pregnant from a single night with a man who probably tracks his body temperature for optimal performance.

Three minutes later, three tests line the grimy porcelain like soldiers delivering bad news.

Positive. Positive. Positive.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." The words echo off cracked tiles and come back to mock me.

My legs give out and I sink onto the closed toilet lid, head between my knees.

The bathroom smells like industrial cleaner and desperation, with undertones of whatever that guy was smoking in here ten minutes ago.

A gas station bathroom in the middle of nowhere, Alaska.

Not exactly where I pictured having this life-altering moment.

Though honestly, I never pictured this moment at all.

My phone buzzes against my hip. The retreat coordinator again. She's sent twelve texts in the past half hour, each one more passive-aggressively concerned than the last. The latest:

Karen: Avery, your absence is disrupting the energy flow of our morning practice. Please return to document Bodhi's crystal healing demonstration.

Can't exactly text back: ‘Sorry, having existential crisis in Chevron bathroom. Be back never.’

The nausea that drove me here in the first place surges again.

For two weeks, I've been blaming elevation changes, food trucks, that suspicious breakfast burrito from a roadside stand in Kodiak.

Anything but the obvious. Because the obvious means dealing with the fact that my period is late.

Really late. So late it might as well be in a different time zone. And the last time I had sex was...

Eight weeks ago. Mia's wedding.

The memory slams into me—fairy lights, champagne bubbles, and his hand on my lower back.

The reception tent glows with those ridiculous fairy lights Mia insisted on, the ones that cost more than my van's last engine rebuild.

Everyone's dancing to some Top 40 playlist that the DJ claims is "contemporary with vintage soul," whatever that means.

I'm crouched behind the dessert table, trying to catch the way champagne bubbles catch light in the glasses abandoned by dancers.

Through my viewfinder, the world makes sense. F-stop, shutter speed, ISO—variables I can control. Unlike the rest of my life, which currently consists of accepting whatever photography gig pays enough to keep my van running and me in ramen noodles.

"You know there's an open bar, right? You don't have to steal champagne from the centerpieces."

The voice is deep, amused, with just a hint of East Coast vowels.

When I look up, there's a man in a perfectly tailored suit watching me with eyes the color of morning fog.

His tie is loosened just enough to suggest he's capable of relaxing, though everything else about him screams control.

The kind of guy who probably has a five-year plan and actually follows it.

"Not stealing," I say, lifting my camera. "Documenting. There's a difference."

"Is that why you've been photographing everything except the actual guests for the past hour?"

"You've been watching me for an hour?" I stand, suddenly aware that my dress—the emerald silk Mia forced me into—has ridden up from crouching. His eyes don't wander, which is either disappointing or respectful. Maybe both.

His smile shifts something on his face, makes him look younger. Less like he stepped out of a men’s fashion magazine and more like someone who might actually be fun. "Dimitri asked me to make sure his bride's friend doesn't spend the entire reception behind a lens."

Right. Nathan Kingsley. Dimitri's best man. The surgeon who gave a toast so precisely timed I'd bet money he practiced with a stopwatch. Something about love being like a successful surgery—requiring precision, dedication, and steady hands. Mia had rolled her eyes. I'd taken photos of her eye roll.

"Mia asked me to make sure Dimitri's best friend actually talks to a woman who isn't asking about joint replacement options."

"Touché." He extends his hand. "Nathan."

"Avery." His handshake is firm and warm, like he's checking my pulse. "And for the record, I'm working. Mia hired me to capture the candid moments."

"This is you working?" He gestures at my dress—nothing like my usual uniform of ripped jeans and tank tops that have seen better decades.

"Even photographers get bathroom breaks."

"Behind the dessert table?"

"The light's better here."

He laughs then, really laughs, and something in my stomach flips that has nothing to do with the three glasses of champagne I've had. Or maybe it's four. Wedding champagne doesn't count.

"Dance with me," he says, and it's not really a question.

"I don't dance."

"Neither do I." He takes my camera, sets it carefully on a chair. "But Dimitri's grandmother is watching, and she's been trying to set me up with her podiatrist all evening."

"Using me as a human shield? Classy."

"Desperate times." He offers his hand again, and this time, I take it.

The band has shifted to something slow, something that requires bodies to be close. He smells like expensive cologne and the whiskey from Dimitri's top-shelf toast collection. His hand settles on my lower back, warm through the thin silk.

"So," he says, "you live in Anchorage?"

"Sometimes. Also, sometimes in a van. Sometimes wherever the light is good and someone's paying me to capture it."

His eyebrows lift slightly. "That's... unconventional."

"That's one word for it. My mother prefers 'disappointing life choices.'"

"And what do you prefer?"

"Freedom."

He spins me, catches me closer than before. "Must be nice."

"The freedom?"

"The simplicity. No schedules. No obligations. No five-year plans."

"You have a five-year plan?" Of course he does.

"Down to the quarter. Year one: establish myself at the practice. Year two: build patient base and reputation. Year three: make partner. Year four: buy a house and find a compatible life partner. Year five: start thinking about family expansion."

"Family expansion? You make it sound like a business merger."

"Isn't it, in a way?" But he's smiling, self-aware enough to know how ridiculous he sounds. "What about you? What's your five-year plan?"

"Survive."

"That's it?"

"Maybe get a camera that doesn't require duct tape to keep the battery compartment closed."

He laughs again. We're still dancing, even though the song has changed to something upbeat that definitely doesn't require his thumb to be tracing circles on my spine.

"You want to get out of here?" The words surprise me as much as they seem to surprise him.

"I thought you didn't do spontaneous," I say.

"I don't." He glances around the reception—Dimitri and Mia are doing some complicated dance that involves a lot of spinning and laughter. "But there's a wine cave about two hundred yards from here that has a Cabernet collection worth photographing."

"Are you really trying to seduce me with wine storage?"

"Is it working?"

God help me, it is.

I press my palms against my eyes until I see stars, trying to push away the memory of what happened in that wine cave. The oak barrels. The way he lifted me onto one like I weighed nothing. The way he whispered my name like a prayer when he—

Nope. Not going there. Not while sitting in a gas station bathroom with three positive pregnancy tests and a life that's about to implode.

My phone rings this time—Mia's ringtone, because naturally she has her own. Some Taylor Swift song about being twenty-two, which we haven't been for six years but refuse to acknowledge. She's definitely heard from the retreat coordinator. The woman has a sixth sense for when I'm spiraling.

"Hey," I answer, trying to sound normal and failing spectacularly.

"Where are you? Sunshine Coordinator Karen just called me because you apparently vanished and, quote, 'left the morning manifestation without capturing Bodhi's crystal grid alignment.'"

"First of all, his name is Bodhi? Typical. Second—" My voice cracks.

"Avery? What's wrong?"

"Everything." The tears come then, hot and sudden, making the pregnancy tests blur into pink watercolors. "Mia, I fucked up."

"Where are you?"

"In a Chevron off the highway. The one with the giant dream catcher in the window and the bathroom that smells like broken dreams."

"Are you hurt?"

"No. Maybe. I don't know."

"I'm going to need more than that, babe. Are we talking spiritual crisis, creative block, or did you finally realize that van life isn't sustainable past thirty?"

I stare at the three tests. "I'm pregnant."

Silence. I can actually hear her brain processing, shifting gears from supportive best friend to holy-shit-this-is-real crisis mode. Then: "Oh my God."

"Yeah."

"How far—"

"Eight weeks."

Another pause. I hear her sharp intake of breath, probably doing the math. "The wedding. Oh my God, Nathan?"

"Please don't say his name."

"Avery—"

"I know, okay? I know I have to tell him. I just... I need a minute. Or a month. Or maybe I'll just move to New Zealand and raise sheep."

"You hate sheep."