5. Piper
CHAPTER 5
Piper
“ E arth to Piper,” I hear Blaire distantly over the phone. “Are you there?”
“Hi,” I breathe.
I’m here. Well. Kind of.
Mentally, I’m still sitting at the dinner table with the guys, right after they told me that they’d help me have a baby. Which, I realize now, is probably a little more than I’d bargained for.
“Did you get like sloshed at the guys’ house last night?”
I prop her up against a stack of pottery in the greenhouse. She’s on a video chat today, which is fun because I never get to see my sister via video.
It is also, however, a bad idea because she can see my face right now, and Blaire is pretty darn good at reading my emotions. And I don’t want her to read this right now. Mostly because I don’t really know how I feel, and I do not want to figure it out.
I mean, I can just sit here and relish the fact that they told me they’d help me have a baby. Right?
“Piper!” Blaire yells. “Seriously. What the fuck is going on with you?”
“Nothing!” I respond. “I’m fine!”
I make the mistake of looking at her. Shit.
Her eyes are narrow, and she absolutely knows that I am not, in fact, fine.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Piper, I swear to God…”
“Fine!” I burst out. I shut my eyes, so I don’t have to look at her. “I might have asked the guys to help get me pregnant, and they might have said yes!”
Blaire goes quiet. Too quiet.
I open an eye, looking at her with hesitation. The pinch of worry between her eyebrows is more than terrifying.
Blaire takes a huge breath. “Like, are you going to have sex, or…”
“I don’t know,” I squeak. “We didn’t really talk about it yet.”
“What do you want?”
I was afraid she’d ask that.
“Um. I’m not sure?”
Blaire settles back on the screen. I can see the camper’s big picture window from behind her. I don’t even know where she is right now in the world, only that she’s got Wi-Fi and time to burn, apparently.
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
“Well,” I start, picking at the carrot seedlings that I’m thinning out, “I think there are a couple of options. And at least two of them don’t involve sex.”
“Like, artificial insemination?” Blaire makes a face on the screen. “For some reason, all I can think of is like… bulls.”
“Ew,” I whisper. But she’s not wrong. Bulls and horses are often bred via artificial methods because it’s a lot less risky than having a champion bloodline female be hurt by one of the enthusiastic suitors. And it’s usually a guarantee for a baby.
“Logically, I know plenty of humans are made that way, too, but it sounds a little… not as fun, don’t you think?”
“Not as fun might be good,” I say softly.
Blaire sighs. “Look, I’m not one to tell you what to do.”
The sentiment makes me perk up. Usually, Blaire does try to tell me what to do. After our parents died, and our grandparents were pretty aloof, she decided that her entire purpose on the earth was to Tell Piper What to Do , and this feels… good.
I asked her to butt out of my business a while ago. And I think right now, I might be asking her to butt back in. Maybe not to tell me what to do, but some advice would be nice.
“Think about it, Pipes. They’ve known you for approximately forever. These are your best friends that we’re talking about here. You want to have a baby with them, and you’re just going to… do it in a test tube?”
I think of the nurse’s phone call. Egg quality.
“That might be the only option,” I say sadly.
Blaire’s body language shifts. “Piper. Is there something else you want to tell me?”
“I got some fertility testing done. Right now, they say I’m good, but they did say they had some concerns about… egg quality. It needs more testing.”
“Egg quality,” she echoes.
“I know.” I wrinkle my nose. “Again. I’m used to talking about that when it comes to chickens. Not… myself,” I say, cradling my stomach.
Blaire makes a sound. “You know that if you needed it, I’d give you one of my eggs.”
“Are they high quality?” I look up to ask.
She gives me a rueful grin. “No idea. But I could find out if you want.”
“Thanks, B,” I murmur, my hand on my stomach again. “But I want to at least try on my own.”
“Okay. Well. If I’m hearing you right, it sounds like maybe a test tube would be the only option. But do you want to try something else a little more… urgently?”
I look at her. Blaire shrugs.
“You want to have a kid. It’s going to be with your friends. With one of them, at least, unless you have some kind of logistics planned to not know whose it is. All of that stuff that happens under the doctors… I don’t know, but from what I’ve heard, it’s hard, Pipes. Harder than it seems. If it were me, I’d want to at least try the natural way first. It could be…” Her voice trails off.
I snort. “Fun?”
“Exactly.”
Tapping the table, I nod. “I see your point.”
“I mean, would it be so bad to have sex with the guys?”
Oh, lord. The words ‘sex’ and ‘the guys’ are bringing up all kinds of thoughts that I simply just don’t want to have. I shake my head. “No. I think that’s part of the problem.”
“What is it?”
I huff, leaning back. “I mean, I’ve been friends with them my whole life. I moved here to be near them. But lately, I’ve been… um… well… okay, so I know they’ve always been hot, right?”
Blaire waves a hand. “Objectively hot. Go on.”
“But right now, it’s like… they’ve hit another level. Before, they were jalapeno hot. But they’ve recently moved up to habanero hot. Maybe even Carolina Reaper hot,” I admit.
A little smile ticks across Blaire’s lips. “Piper, are you rating men on a pepper scale?”
I giggle. “Nuclear hot?”
“So you’re definitely attracted to them?”
“Yeah. Unfortunately, I’m definitely, one hundred percent attracted to them. All three of them.”
If anyone can understand my attraction to multiple men, it would be my sister. She found herself falling for three cowboys during her time with the rodeo circuit., and their relationship is still going strong.
“So what’s the problem, then?”
This is the part I’m not really sure about. I take a deep breath. “Well… um… remember Finance Bro?”
“That sleazy trust fund baby in San Francisco?” Blaire spits. “What does he have to do with this?”
“It’s not just him, I guess. It was him. And Patagonia Vest Guy. And Startup Sandal Guy. And Surf Dud. It was all of them.”
“Piper, I’m not following,” Blaire says.
I sniff. “They were all good. Until they weren’t. I believed them about everything, you know? I believed that they wanted me. That they were interested in the same thing I was. That they wanted something serious. Then, the second we started to move forward, things got… weird.”
Blaire gives me a look. “You are not responsible for the fact that Finance Bro literally had another family.”
“I know. But it just feels like… I have no idea what to look for. Like my ability to screen men just… sucks.”
“It doesn’t,” Blaire adds.
“But what if it does? What if I’m making a huge mistake? What if they find someone else and then try to get custody of my child? What if?—”
“Then I’ll beat them up, and you and I can figure out how to raise a baby in a trailer with three rodeo cowboys,” Blaire interrupts. “Piper. The guys have known you forever. You think after all this time, they’re pulling some kind of elaborate prank on you?”
It sounds silly when she says it out loud. But I’ve always been like this. Too open. Too trusting. I was friends with everyone in high school, whether they talked shit about me or not, simply because I couldn’t figure out who would or wouldn’t betray me. I just can’t read people. Not like Blaire can, or literally anyone else.
“Pipes. Sweetheart. I promise you, your guys are not trying to totally screw you over,” she says softly. “They might be pretty excited to screw you, but I don’t think they’re being dishonest.”
“But how do you know?” I whisper.
Blaire leans forward. I can tell that she wants to give me a hug, and right now, I wish she could. “I don’t know, Piper. I don’t think any of us do. But we can’t control people. We can tell them what we need and see if they’ll do it, but we can’t control them.”
“Sounds like someone’s been seeing their therapist.”
Blaire smirks. “Sounds like someone has a sister who asked not to be controlled and had to have a come to Jesus talk with herself about how to be less of a controlling bitch.”
“I never called you a bitch,” I say, smiling at her.
“You didn’t have to. It was clear that I was being one. Bottom line, Piper, is that it’s a calculated risk. You want a baby. The guys are willing to give you one. If they do, great. If not, we’ll take every good egg you have and get to the nearest fertility clinic to get you knocked up.”
“Ew,” I laugh.
Blaire’s face mirrors mine. “Well. Just saying. But seriously, these guys have been there for you through it all, Piper. They’re the closest thing you have to the family you want, anyway. I know I’m a close second, but I definitely can’t do what they can. Maybe this is the start of something… else.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Well, isn’t there something to be said for love to be based on friendship?”
Love. I shake my head. “We love each other, but not like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
Because I might have misjudged the situation. Because they might not actually want me in an hour, or a year. Because they might disappear.
“Look, you’re already in a good place. At minimum, you’ll have a baby and three awesome co-parents. What’s not to want?”
That’s an excellent point. “Nothing, I guess.”
Blaire grins at me. “Exactly. But, if it makes you feel better, we can come up with some guidelines.”
“Guidelines?” I ask.
Her face turns wicked. “You know. Ways to bone your besties without changing anything in your current friendships.”
I perk up at that. “You think?”
She’s practically rubbing her hands together like an evil genius. “Oh, Piper. Come on. Let’s get a plan in place, so we can get you knocked the fuck up.”
An hour later, my mind is still spinning, but I feel a little better for one reason and one reason only.
I have a plan. It’s a good plan. And I think it’s a way to make sure that the relationship we have doesn’t change. It’s like we’ll still be friends. Good friends. Good friends who kind of have sex, and who are adding a baby to the mix.
The guys will be good dads. I know it. I mean, I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to work because there are three of them, and one baby, but I’m sure we’ll work it out.
We.
I’m finally done thinning out my carrot seedlings. Taking a look around the greenhouse, I decide that it’s time to head over to the guys’ place.
I have two tasks. One is to get more information about what they need for their businesses. I’m so proud of them, honestly. Launching this is going to be awesome for them, and I love that they’re each playing to their strengths. It’s the type of advice I would absolutely give someone if they were asking me about where to start in their marketing journey.
Second, though, is that I need to go over the plan that Blaire and I came up with. I want to reassure them that our friendship is going to stay the same.
And I think I know just how to do it.