Pamphlet pushers on the evil of eggs? I would have ignored them.
Proponents of a plant-based diet? Fools.
But now—now, I know the truth. Eggs—and the recipes that go with them—are all stroked by the hands of Satan upon entrance to the world.
“Raquel,” my manager, Heidi Morris, calls cheerily through my master bathroom door. “Raquel, doll? Can you hear me?”
I groan as my head sags farther now, beyond the seat and into the toilet bowl, and lift a perfectly executed bird into flight behind me.
“We’re supposed to be in the car in five minutes for the meeting with Hugo Schwin.”
Famous director or not, who the hell really cares about Hugo Schwin right now? Certainly not me.
Another wave of nausea rolls through me and lands right in the toilet. Again. I’m half convinced this meal multiplied inside my stomach with the amount of time I’ve spent puking it back up. Honestly, I only dream of being able to eat this much actual food. I’m a woman in Hollywood, for God’s sake.
I reach up to find the lever to flush and watch as the churned-up mess swirls its way around the bowl and down the pipes.
Fucking gross. It’s safe to say that’s the last time I’ll be having hollandaise sauce for a while.
“You know we’ve been fighting for months to get this meeting, sweetie. We can’t afford to miss it regardless of your…situation.” They’ll be hoping I miss Hugo Schwin when I blow chunks all over the freaking room.
I roll my eyes at Heidi’s word-gymnastics.
My situation, as it were, is that I’m unexpectedly pregnant from a one-night stand with an unnaturally attractive almost-stranger a little over four months ago.
Oh, and I should probably mention that said one-night stand was my first one-night stand. My first, well, one-night anything that involves sex. Think the Virgin Mary, but only, instead of an immaculate conception, there was a one-time condomless-cherry-popping scenario that led to a certified knocking up.
Thoughts of a handsome smile and sexy green eyes and the kind of kissably perfect lips I didn’t think were possible start to fill my mind.
Harrison.
A little over four months ago, he was such a needed breath of fresh air. He made me feel all the things I’d been wanting to feel for so long, and for one night, I allowed myself to feel all of those things.
But when the next day came to fruition, I had to leave it all behind and go back to the reality of my life. Yet, as it seems, I didn’t exactly leave everything behind. I took a little piece of Harrison back to LA with me in the form of an unexpected pregnancy.
I’ve thought about trying to reach out to him exactly one million times but have never found the courage. I just…can’t. The night that led me to my current situation was fueled by my decisions. My choices. My lies.
Flashes of said night start to fill my head, and I push the visuals out with a tight blink of my eyes. I can’t think about him. Not right now. Hell, probably not ever.
My stomach twinges and aches, and I tell myself it’s from all of the puking. Lord knows I can’t let myself realize it’s anything but that at this point. Any other reason—anything relating to him—would just set me up for disappointment and pain.
After I peed on a test that came back pregnant, I spent the first month and a half crying myself to sleep over the fear of what it would do to my life. Thankfully, though, now that I’m further along, I’m not nearly as hysterical.
With the amount of time I spend throwing up, I don’t have time to be.
I swallow hard, trying to find my voice in the depths of my scraggly throat. “I…I don’t know if—” I sputter as more vomit threatens its debut. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to go today.”
Goddamn, am I puking the lining of my stomach now? There’s nothing else in there, Satan!
“I’m sensitive to you, sweetie. Really. I care about your problems,” she says with little to no conviction. “But this meeting is too important to put off. Splash some water on your face, brush your teeth, let Roberta in to style you up a bit, and then we have to hit the road.”
Roberta is my hair stylist, and to be honest, she’s some kind of genius. She can always turn whatever coif I’m sporting into a do worthy of my celebrity status in a heartbeat. But I’m not sure even she is a match for the unwelcome glob of regurgitated hollandaise sauce I’m going to have to wash out of the front of my now-matted locks.
“I need more time. Roberta can’t come in right now.” No one can come in right now. I’m not even sure I’d allow Eve herself to come in right now, and the universe’s first rebel was my original girl crush as a child. Not in a, like, anti-God way, of course. Just in a woman who was willing to stand up to the man way.