Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
May knew that Lourdes Daniels was an incredible writer.
Last year when she and Ant were rediscovering their friendship and exploring coupledom, Lou had shared with her friends that she’d written an intensely private journal that had morphed into a manuscript.
A manuscript she’d bound and gifted to Ant.
She’d sworn never to publish it, a promise she’d apparently kept.
“Wait. If you’re not publishing that story, then which story did the publisher offer to buy?” Lisa asked while scrolling through the document on her phone. Lou had called an emergency girls’ night to share the good news, and her friends had descended on her lake house without hesitation.
“Lisa! We’re here to toast and congratulate our girl, not read publishing contracts on our phones.” Elliott impatiently raised her wine glass.
Lisa swiveled her phone to show her screen. “I need to make sure our girl is being paid a lot of money for this book. Whatever it is. What is it?”
Lou was all smiles. “It’s not what I wrote for Ant. But parts of it are in this book. It’s a story about a travel blogger…”
“Mm-hmm.” May was enjoying the hell out of this exciting development.
“And,” Lou added, “my main character has many complicated tales about traveling with a very sexy, very uncooperative partner, with whom she eventually falls in love. See? Fiction. Not autobiographical. My ex isn’t in this story anywhere.”
“Ant seems to be the implied ‘very sexy’ hero,” Elliott pointed out.
“Any likenesses to an actual person, living or dead, is strictly coincidence.” Lou lifted her chin.
“Suuuure. Fiction,” Lisa said. “And it’s going to be a number-one bestseller!”
“Yes!” Elliott and May raised their glasses. Lisa put her phone down and raised hers as well.
Lou drank with them. Then pointed at May. “What’s going on with you and Xavier?”
May blinked, stunned by the rapid shift in topic. “What do you mean?”
The other women exchanged glances. It was Elliott who spoke next. “We know you two had sex after the wedding, and now three weeks have passed, and you haven’t told us anything.”
“We’ve…seen each other a few times since then.” May offered a smile, which was impressive.
She’d been eaten up with worry over the last week and tonight had decided she would go straight home from work, draw a bubble bath, and watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
But then Lou called to say she had a surprise and wanted to host girls’ night, and May couldn’t say no.
To be fair, she was glad she was hearing the news in person.
“So it’s going well?” Lou asked.
“It must be,” Lisa said. “She hasn’t returned any of my texts this week.”
“I’ve been hunkered down,” May admitted before dragging a cracker through the container of spinach dip on the table.
“Beneath Xavier’s bedsheets?” Elliott asked with a grin.
“Maybe.” May laughed. Elliott laughed. Even Lisa laughed.
Lou did not laugh. Her eyes were narrowed, and she was studying May with a disturbing amount of dedication. “What’s going on, really?”
“What do you mean?” May tried to sound innocent, but she didn’t quite sell it. Even Elliott and Lisa were studying her anew.
“You look beautiful tonight,” Lou prefaced before adding, “but you seem tense. Not as chill as you usually are. If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. But hon”—Lou gestured at her tidy kitchen and their collective friend group—“where better to speak your truth?”
“If he hurt you, I’ll kill him,” Lisa said, suddenly serious.
“If he hurt you, I’ll have Brady kill him,” Elliott offered sweetly.
“Xavier hasn’t hurt me. He’s been amazing. Incredible.” May sighed as she replayed the last three weeks in her mind. If she was adamant about keeping her thoughts to herself, she knew her friends would support her. Well, everyone except Lisa, who would interrogate her at some point.
“You can talk to us,” Elliott said.
“You have to now,” Lisa said.
May had been losing sleep worrying for the past week. With no one to talk to—except for Xavier, for whom she put on a stoic face—it’d been a lonely seven days.
“My period is late,” she blurted.
“That explains the cranberry and tonic water.” Lou refilled her own glass with sparkling rosé and took a deep drink.
“You said you were doing Sober September.” Lisa’s voice was small. She was obviously hurt that May hadn’t shared the truth with her.
“I am. Just…not for the reasons you thought.” May sighed. “The first night Xavier and I slept together, we forgot to use a condom.” Elliott opened her mouth to speak, but May rushed in with, “I know it was irresponsible.”
“That’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say that Brady almost forgot. I had to remind him.”
Next to her, Lou nodded. “Ant and I had a moment where I couldn’t bear the thought of using a condom, so I told him not to wear one.”
“I assume you’re on birth control,” May countered.
“Well, I was.”
“What?” Elliott snapped her attention to Lou. “Was, past tense?”
“We are still using protection.” Lou stayed further comments with an outstretched palm. “But in the future, what if we want to try? Plus, those pills flare my temper.”
“You’re all crazy,” Lisa stated. “How could you forget?”
“You’ve never been caught up in the moment?” Elliott asked.
“Not even with Griffin, your self-proclaimed damn sex?” May fluttered her lashes.
Lisa pursed her lips and chose to stay quiet.
There. That would stave off further commentary from Lisa.
“I had a scare a few weeks ago. I bought two two-packs of pregnancy tests.” Lou leveled May with a look. “Which means I have one unopened two-pack in the drawer of my vanity.”
“Oh my God.” Elliott gripped May’s arm. “You have to take it. We can find out together.”
“And when it’s negative, we’re doing shots. Sober September be damned,” Lisa stated.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that. I—” But May cut herself off.
The truth was she’d purchased her own two-pack of pregnancy tests on Wednesday but hadn’t had the courage to take either of them.
She’d sat on the edge of the tub in her bathroom, the pharmacy bag on her lap, and had read and reread the directions on the box before stowing it beneath the sink.
“Wouldn’t you rather know?” Lou asked gently.
“And wouldn’t you rather find out with all of us here?” Lisa asked, her own tone softer.
Elliott patted May’s arm. “Come on. I’ll walk with you.”
Before May meant to, her eyes filled with tears. Her friends rallying around her when she was scared and worried was a gift. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about the possibility of pregnancy except Xavier. Even then, they’d barely spoken of it.
She’d convinced herself that her friends would judge her, but she’d been projecting. She was the one who’d been judging herself for being “irresponsible.” No one else was accusing her of that.
“Have you at least had more sex since then?” Lisa asked with a smirk.
“Yes, plenty of it. All protected,” May said.
“Sort of bad news, good news, isn’t it?” Lou asked. “If it’s negative, shots and partying tonight. If it’s positive, no condom needed for future Xavier encounters.”
May’s stomach flipped. She placed her hand on her abdomen and breathed in and out slowly.
“You scared her,” Elliott accused Lou.
“No. I’m doing it to myself.” May sighed. “I have my own pregnancy tests at home but was too afraid to take them. I think this is the Universe’s way of telling me it’s time.”
“You’re sure?” Lou gave May ample space to make up her mind.
May nodded.
The four of them headed to Lou’s former bedroom, now her office.
“I took the test here instead of at home. I didn’t want Ant to freak out. Or make him overly excited.” Lou chuckled. “I wanted to know for sure before I rang that bell.”
“Makes sense,” May agreed. “Having a baby is a big decision.” Especially when she hadn’t “decided” to have one.
Oh, man. Now her heart was racing.
“Periods are late all the time,” Elliott said. “Women are creatures of change. Don’t be too alarmed.”
“Thanks, guys.” May shut herself into the bathroom and tore open the tests before she thought better of it. As luck would have it, it was the same brand she had at home, and she’d practically memorized the instructions.
Five minutes later, she’d peed on both sticks, washed her hands, and was standing at the bathroom door trying to wrap her head around the matched set of results.
She depressed the handle and peeked through the crack of the door. Lisa, who had been sitting at Lou’s desk, stood. “Lou and Elliott went for refills. I told them to bring four shots, because I know you’re not—”
May burst into tears. She couldn’t help herself. She was in Lisa’s arms a moment later. A moment after that, she was enveloped in Lou’s and Elliott’s embraces as well.
Once they’d shushed her, stroked her back, and talked to her in soft voices for a few minutes, she was ready to tell them.
“I’m pregnant.” She showed both sticks, two blue lines on each, and offered a watery smile. “They’re right. I know they are.”
“Oh, hon.” Lou took the tests from her hands. “How are you feeling about it?”
“You have options.” Lisa, ever the action-taker, would drive her to a clinic tonight and bang on the door until they opened if May asked.
“There’s only one option for me. Be a mom.” The word exited on a breath that warmed her lips. Her friends knew what it had cost when she’d lost her own mother.
“You’ll be an amazing mom,” Lisa said.
“And we will be the best aunties,” Elliott added.
May burst into tears again. After she pulled herself together, they rounded the table and, on her insistence, recommitted to girls’ night.
“You’re sure you don’t want to workshop telling Xavier the news?” Lisa asked. “It might help to practice.” She sat up straight. “I’ll be Xavier.”