“Doubtful. Worst-case scenario, your bladder will back up to your kidneys and cause them to fail. Could be fatal.” He flashes a smile that transforms his handsome face into breathtaking. “That advice comes to you from a man who dropped out of med school. Take it or leave it.”
He plops down on the other side of me and throws an arm around me. “I’m feeling bad. I’m the one who got you the guest pass to Decadence.”
I lean into him, and he smells like citrus, the one scent that hasn’t made me gag today. “But you weren’t the one who told me to lock genitals with Tuck Avery.”
“Nice image,” he says dryly. “Oh, get this—Prince Rolex had his membership revoked at Decadence. Tuck came back a week after you were there and demanded a meeting with the owners and got it. I didn’t mention it earlier because of the NDA I signed at work, but now that you know who he is ...”
“Would he have been kicked out anyway?” I ask.
“Probably not. He’s a Wall Street shark and wealthy as shit. Tuck’s the one who got him removed permanently.”
“Well, well, well, Tuck’s good baby-daddy material already,” Cece quips, accentuating her southern drawl. She ignores my evil eye and stirs the olive in her martini with elegant swishes. “I’m surprised it took you this long to notice something was up.”
“I lost my fiancé and job. And I’m not pregnant. Really. I just know it.”
She leans in. “I have this friend—more of a friend of a friend, really. Poor girl didn’t know she was pregnant until she started having contractions. Had her baby in an Uber on the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“Hope she left a good tip,” Brogan says.
“Can you imagine the surprise? She’s on her way to a party; then boom, there’s a baby coming out of her vagina,” Cece adds.
I laugh nervously as we lift our glasses, and we clink them together. “What a wonderful story. Now, moving on; here’s to me having a stomach bug—something I thought I’d never say.” I finish my water, grab the tests, and take off for my master bath.
They jump up and follow, breathing down my neck.
“I adore baby blankets. Oh, and the cute little onesies,” Cece says, then squeals. “Better yet, I couldmakebaby clothes, maybe do era themes—polyester shirts from the seventies, acid-washed jeans for the eighties, or those neon colors from the nineties? I could open an Etsy shop! An online store! I’d be the queen of baby clothes! Too much? Hmm, yeah, you’re getting red again, and you’re right; yeah, no one, and I mean no one, should ever wear neon.” She pouts at my glare. “I can’t have kids, remember? Big old hysterectomy at twenty. Damn that endometriosis.”
“I can’t have a baby for you.”
She splays her arms out, blocking me from the bathroom door. “Francesca. You’re only born with a certain number of eggs, and thousands die each month. Who knows how many you have left? You aren’t Fertile Myrtle. This might be your last egg.”
“I have plenty of eggs! And I’m not”—I wave my hands around my abdomen—“some kind of chicken.”
“Different eggs,” she says.
“I know! I was being funny—or trying to.” I scrub my face.
Brogan whistles. “It’s never good when Fran isn’t funny.”
“Fran is right here,” I mutter. “And I finally need to pee, so move, and let me get to the bathroom.”
“You’re not twenty anymore,” she says. “You’ve got lines in the corners of your eyes, a few gray hairs—”
“I do not!”
“And, as my dear dead mama used to say, you’re no spring chicken—oh look; we’re back to chickens.” She laughs.
Brogan waves his hands like a marquee. “Picture this: two girls, a guy, and a baby.”
Then he plays “Sweet Child O’ Mine” on his phone.
“You too?” I ask on a groan.
“I’d be an awesome uncle.”
“Guys!” I call. “I’m unemployed with no health insurance; plus there’s no father—well, there is, but ...”
“Consider him a sperm donor. Prime, top-of-the-line swimmers,” Brogan says as he toasts me with his martini. “You may have hit the jackpot. Buckets of money.”