“I know you are,” she sighed, pouring. “This isn’t for you, it’s for him.” She motioned to Elden.
I pursed my lips to hide my grin. “Sweetie, does Elden strike you as the kind of man who enjoys a buttery Chardonnay?”
Her eyes trailed over Elden. “Don’t stereotype him like that,” she chastised. “He could love it but be imprisoned by conventional standards of masculinity that judge him for indulging in what has been categorized as a female only drink.”
“That is impressive, and thank you for standing up for me, but I don’t like white wine,” Elden told her with dancing eyes.
It was something of a delight watching him … unfurl like this, watching him speak in complete sentences and not brood as much.
I couldn’t hide my chuckle.
“Tough shit.” Sariah glared, holding out the glass. “My ride or die bitch cannot drink for me, and as the man who is responsible for this current condition,” she waved her hand at my stomach, “you have to take one for the team and drink with me.”
There was a challenge in her eyes as she dared him to deny her.
After a brief standoff, Elden took the wine.
I smirked once more.
“Okay, so, Elden, as a man, would you be mad if you found out Violet used a vibrator after having sex with you?” she asked, completely serious.
“She doesn’t,” he replied, looking at me in a way that made my ears feel warm.
“How do you know she doesn’t?” Sariah asked. “You could think you’re satisfying her, but really you’re not.”
Elden’s face was blank as his eyes fastened on me. “Am I satisfying you, baby?”
My toes curled, working really hard to keep my hormones under control with Elden staring at me like that. Suddenly I wasn’t so tired.
“Okay, I get it. You’re a sex god, and my best friend isverysatisfied,” she moaned in exaggeration.
“He’s a boy,” Elden pointed out, going back to Sariah’s subject. “Whatever he knows about the female anatomy doesn’t mean shit. He obviously isn’t a man.”
She exhaled loudly, looking down into her wine glass.
“Maybe you could introduce the vibrator when he’s there.” I offered my friend a better solution than ‘he obviously isn’t a man.’ Elden was not well versed in giving dating advice.
Sariah sighed. “I guess.”
“Or you could get rid of him and find a man,” Elden suggested.
I shot him a withering look.
His eyes sparkled, as they did those days.
“Or I could get drunk on Chardonnay and avoid all my problems,” Sariah smiled.
I smiled back. “Sounds like a solid plan to me.”
Elden, the trooper that he was, stayed up with Sariah and me, watchingGilmore Girlswhile pretending he wasn’t getting his badass card revoked for doing such things. Then again, that badass card was tattooed into his very being; nothing could take it away.
“Sariah has no filter,” I told him as I was rubbing oil on my stomach. There wasn’t a swell, not yet at least. But there was something. I could fell it. A fullness, despite the fact I was almost constantly puking my guts out. My body was no longer my own. I was growing a human being. Growing something that would change my life forever. My feelings were a mix between wonder at the power of my body to be creating—I felt powerful, feminine, it felt right—yet there were also times I felt removed from my body, unable to fathom that I was pregnant with an outlaw biker’s child before I graduated college. I’d be celebrating my twenty-first birthday … pregnant.
"I noticed,” Elden replied as he took the oil and began rubbing my feet.
Again, there was something infinitely and carnally powerful about my biker—baby daddy?—rubbing my feet and just generally worshiping me.
“She’s my best friend,” I continued.