When mingled female laughter filtered through Christy’s screen door, Brady stopped what he was doing and moved a little closer.
He was supposed to be doing some of the small but numerous spring chores that he and Chris had fallen behind on. Right now he was on the porch, dealing with the buckets of sand that his mom had swept up over the last couple of weeks. They made sure, when winter hit, that she had several barrels of a salt-and-sand mixture—including one on the porch—so that she could treat her walkways around the property. She’d managed to fill two buckets with what she swept up now that they were hopefully past any late snowstorms.
But he couldn’t help wondering what his mother and Reyna were talking about that would make them laugh like that. Hopefully his mother wasn’t sharing any embarrassing stories from his youth.
“You know we can see you, right?” his mom called. “If you press your face any closer to that screen, you’re going to have a mesh mark on your face.”
“The way you two are laughing makes me nervous,” he confessed.
Reyna appeared on the other side of the screen, hands on her hips. “We were laughing at Bean, but now I know there are things in your past you’re nervous about.”
“I think every guy has things from his youth he’d rather his mother not share. Moms know pretty much everything. They even know the things we don’t think they know.”
His mother’s chuckle from the other room sounded almost sinister. “Never forget that.”
He stepped back when Taffy pressed her head against the screen door, pushing it open so she and Bean could join him on the porch. Reyna followed them out and the dogs almost ran him over in their haste to go find sticks for her to throw.
This was the third time he’d brought Reyna to his mom’s with him, and the two women in his life seemed to have taken to each other pretty well. He wasn’t surprised. They were both practical and didn’t really care a lot what other people thought of them.
Taffy and Bean loved her, of course, and the feeling was totally mutual. They’d been almost to the house the first time when he realized he wasn’t sure what would happen if the dogs didn’t like Reyna. Or, even worse, she didn’t like dogs. Luckily, that hadn’t been a problem. It was too late now, but if he’d thought of it ahead of time, not loving dogs would have been a deal breaker for him.
“I’m almost done here,” he said. “But fair warning, you throw a stick once, and you’d better be prepared to throw it again and again. They’re relentless and there are two of them.”
“It’s good exercise.” When the dogs dropped their chosen sticks at her feet, she threw Taffy’s and then Bean’s. “I’d love to have a dog. But a tiny second-floor apartment and a parking lot for a backyard isn’t ideal for a dog like these. I mean, I could have one of the little breeds that like to sleep on a pillow all day. Or just have a dog bed in the corner of the garage, but that doesn’t sound fun.”
She was killing him, he thought as he snapped the lid onto the five-gallon bucket between his feet.
It took every bit of self-control he could muster not to remind her he had a great backyard with lots of grass and plenty of room for a baby and a dog.
She wasn’t moving in with him. The three of them weren’t going to be one family in one house. For all that they looked and felt together, they weren’t actually together, and it was getting harder for him to remember that every day.
Her laughter drew his attention and he watched Taffy and Bean try to bring back the same stick, each of them holding an end.
“What do I do now?” she said.
“Wait until they drop it and then try to throw it so it lands close to the other stick.” He shrugged. “If that doesn’t work, they’ll just keep bringing it back together.”
She threw the sticks until he was done with the things he’d wanted to get done that day. Before the month was up, he and Chris would have to take a Saturday and help their mom do a big cleanup around the place, especially around the garden and greenhouse, but for now he was calling it good.
“I need a nap now,” she said when they were in his truck, on the way back to her place.
“I could use a nap.”
She laughed and slapped his shoulder. “I mean an actual nap. Those dogs wore me out.”
“They love you.”
“I’m pretty sure Taffy and Bean love everybody.” She smiled. “Maybe when the baby’s older, like potty-trained and stuff, I’ll get a dog. Kids should have a dog, I think.”
“I think so, too,” he said, though he refrained from pointing out that if she lived with him, they could get a dog whenever she wanted.
That night that he’d made the decision to have a baby with Reyna, he’d had it in his head that they’d go their separate ways well before their families were too emotionally invested in them as a couple. Not too separate of ways, of course, because of the co-parenting. But he’d never intended for it to go this far.
He wasn’t sure when that moment to split should have come. Definitely before they started sleeping together again, though. Their fake relationship not only felt very real, but he’d dreamt of it for years. How was he supposed to just pull the plug on it when they felt so right together?
Maybe she’d changed her mind.
He tried to ignore that little flicker of hope, but it flared up so brightly, he wasn’t sure he could douse the flame. When she’d first asked him to have a baby with her, they had barely had any relationship at all, even though they’d known each other forever. But in the months since, she’d gotten to know him—gotten to see how good they were together—and maybe he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t pretending anymore.
He just needed to be brave enough to ask her. Soon.
* * *
Reyna was running late, which was unusual for her. But she’d decided to walk to the café to meet Meredith and Sydney because even April felt warm after a long, cold winter. But she didn’t walk as fast as she used to, thanks to the baby, so the other women were already seated when she walked in.
Rissa, the owner, met her at their table with a menu. “I put you at a table instead of a booth because I wasn’t sure if the baby would fit.”
“Funny,” Reyna said, laughing as she took the menu. “If Abe can fit in a booth, I can fit in a booth, baby and all. And it’s still barely more than a bump.”
They all ordered burgers, fries and milkshakes, which was basically the same thing they’d been ordering since high school. Sydney’s family had moved to Blackberry Bay their freshman year because her dad got a job at the middle school, and being the only Black student had been tough, but she and Meredith had gotten to know each other in gym class and they’d all become friends. Meredith had moved away for college and stayed in California until her husband died. When she’d come back to town, their friendships had picked up where they left off, more or less.
“Meredith has her notebook out,” Reyna said once Rissa delivered the shakes. “What are we planning?”
“You’re having a baby in a little over three months,” Sydney said. “Since Meredith and I have both had babies, we felt it was time to tell you that you really kind of need a plan.”
She groaned and sucked thick strawberry shake through a small straw. Usually she got chocolate, but the baby wanted strawberry, apparently. “A plan for what?”
Meredith paused in the act of opening the notebook to give her a look of disbelief. “Where do we even start? How about where the baby’s going to sleep?”
“In a crib.”
Sydney kicked her under the table, but more gently than she would have before she got pregnant. “Don’t push her buttons.”
“What? The baby’s going to sleep in a crib in my bedroom.” She tried not to think about the gorgeous yellow nursery that Brady was working on.
“Okay,” Meredith said. “Your bedroom…in your apartment?”
“My apartment is where my bedroom is, yes.” She shifted her legs so Sydney couldn’t kick her again.
Sydney sighed. “We want to know why you haven’t moved into Brady’s huge, gorgeous house yet.”
“We were going to be more discreet,” Meredith said.
“The café closes in a few hours, so maybe less discreet and more actually making a plan.”
Reyna listened to their familiar banter while she sipped her shake, hoping they’d keep at it for a while because she had no idea what she was going to say. Why hadn’t she moved into Brady’s house yet? Because that was never the intention, but nobody but she and Brady knew their relationship wasn’t real.
It wasn’t supposed to be real, anyway. It looked real to everybody. More importantly, it certainly felt real. The lines between pretense and reality had gotten very blurry over the last month, since they’d bared their secrets to each other. And then bared more than that when they ended up back in bed together.
“Reyna?”
“What?” She set her shake down and looked at Meredith. “I missed the question.”
“Pregnancy brain,” both women said at the same time.
It was more like Brady brain, but she didn’t bother to correct them. “What did I miss?”
“Okay, it’s going to be baby shower time soon,” Meredith said, and Sydney kicked Reyna’s ankle when she groaned. “It’s going to happen, so you may as well help us get what the baby needs. So knowing what your plans for the near future are will help us out.”
“I know that there’s this,” Reyna said, waving her hand over her burgeoning belly, “but Brady and I have been seeing each for less than six months. Would you be asking why I don’t live with him yet if I wasn’t pregnant?”
“Maybe,” Sydney said. “It’s a really nice house.”
They all laughed, and luckily neither of them noticed that Reyna’s was a little forced because she was wondering if Brady was fielding the same kinds of questions. He was coming to the same realization that the people in their lives were going to start looking at their relationship and the baby on the way and wondering about some of their decisions. Or lack thereof.
Why would Reyna choose to stay in a tiny apartment and lug a baby in a car seat up and down a flight of stairs if she and Brady were such a happy couple? If she was Meredith or Sydney or anybody in their lives, it wouldn’t make sense to her, either.
If they waited until her pregnancy was more advanced, Brady would look like a jerk. And he’d definitely look like a jerk if they waited until she had a newborn. Right now, it could still look mutual. And she could avoid having to dodge totally reasonable questions just because she didn’t have answers to them.
It looked as if their “pretend to be dating, get pregnant and then break up” plan had come to the breaking-up part.
“Reyna, are you okay?”
She heard Sydney’s voice and she nodded, but she was definitely not okay. How could she be when it was impossible for her to imagine what life without Brady would look like? She’d see him, of course. There were would be years of pickups and drop-offs, and milestone occasions they’d both attend.
But she wouldn’t have him. No more cuddling on the couch. No more sharing their days over dinner. No more cutthroat games of rummy or Scrabble. No more hand holding or kissing. No Brady in her bed. How could she possibly be okay?
“Is it the baby?”
“No.” The sharp concern in Meredith’s voice finally snapped her out of it, and Reyna held up her hand since they were both poised to get up and take action, even if they didn’t know what action was needed. “I’m okay. Heartburn.”
“Oh,” they both said, and they instantly relaxed.
“Do you want to change your order?” Sydney asked, already looking for Rissa.
“No, I want that burger. Besides, they’re probably almost done making them.”
Sure enough, not even a minute later, Rissa delivered their lunch and Reyna’s heartburn fib was forgotten as they dug in.
But the food didn’t distract Meredith from her notebook. “Okay, so the registry doesn’t need to include all the stuff to outfit the baby having a big room of its own. But you have that second bedroom.”
“The baby’s going to be in my room for the first year, probably, and I don’t have room to store stuff.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she winced and hoped neither of them remembered that, other than the section that was open to the roof to accommodate the vehicle lift and her small apartment, the entire length of the garage and bakery’s building was storage. “I just need basic baby stuff, really. Nothing fancy or big.”
“No wedding plans, I guess,” Meredith muttered, drawing a line through something on the page.
Sydney gave Reyna a preemptive kick, and Reyna tucked her ankles back as far as she could under her chair. It was a habit left over from high school, when Reyna would push Meredith’s buttons and Sydney would try to stop her. But adult Sydney’s shoes were pointier than the sneakers she’d worn back in the day.
“Did you sign up for birthing classes?” Meredith continued. “If so, is Brady going with you? Who’s going to be in the delivery room with you?”
“I…hadn’t thought about that yet.” A fire alarm would have been nice right about then. Just a false alarm, of course. Smoke from the grill or something. “My mom. My mom’s going to be my person.”
“And Brady too, right?” Sydney asked.
In the delivery room? She and Brady hadn’t discussed that at all, and she was beginning to realize how much they’d avoided talking about things that a “real” couple probably took for granted.
Like whether Brady wanted to see his child being born. She could tell herself if it was important to him, he’d say something, but she remembered the hesitant way he’d approached the baby’s name. He was trying to be careful about stepping over a line, but the line was blurry and didn’t stay put.
“Reyna?” Sydney prompted.
She tried not to squirm in her seat as her friends waited for her answer. “My mom really wants to be with me.”
“You can have two people in the room,” Meredith said.
“He could be busy. Or get called away.”
Sydney’s eyebrows arched. “He’s an electrician, not a trauma surgeon.”
“Fine,” Reyna said, her brain working in overdrive as she tried to come up with something plausible. “I just don’t know about having him in there. It’s not like we’ve been together that long. He hasn’t clipped his toenails in front of me. I haven’t shaved my legs in front of him.”
Both women laughed, and the motion of Meredith’s pen was an obvious check mark. “I guessed that one totally wrong. Let’s see… What else?”
“Are you going to find out the gender?” Sydney asked.
“Nope.” They both looked disappointed and she laughed. “Sometimes they’re wrong and I hate doing returns and exchanges. There are plenty of neutral colors to choose from.”
“Do you have names yet?” Sydney continued.
“Nope.”
“Those questions, while totally valid, are not on the list,” Meredith pointed out. “Are you going to stay with your mom for a couple weeks after the baby? Or is Brady going to stay with you? Trust me, it’s nice to have somebody else in the house because a first baby is scary.”
“I’ll probably stay with my mom. I don’t like her going up and down the stairs at my place.” She was compelled to stick up for Brady, though. She didn’t want her friends who didn’t know the truth of the situation thinking badly of him. “Brady will probably be there most of the time, too. It’ll just be easier for me and my mom if I stay with her.”
“If you’re staying with Jenelle, we definitely don’t need to line up frozen meals, then,” Meredith continued, crossing something off the list.
“How many more things are on that list?” Reyna asked, running out of patience. She needed time alone. Maybe some time in her craft room to think and try to sort through her tangled emotions when it came to Brady.
“You’ll need to get us a list of people to invite to your baby shower.”
“You two. My mom.” When they just kept looking at her. “Oh. Probably Christy Nash. And Chris’s wife, Marcy.”
“You know what?” Sydney said. “We’ll figure that out, too. I’m starting to remember why we threw you off the prom committee.”
“Because I didn’t see the point of throwing away thousands of dollars on an event space when we had a perfectly good gymnasium? Especially when the event space was just a glorified old barn.”
“Maybe we’ll host the baby shower in the garage, then,” Meredith said.
Reyna shrugged. “Just let me know when so I can sweep it out.”
Sydney laughed. “We’re having the baby shower at Meredith’s house. Right on the lake? Summertime? I think the theme will be lounge chairs and cocktails. Oh, and lemonade, since you’re the guest of honor.”
They went off on a baby shower planning tangent, and Reyna tuned them out again. Not deliberately, but she had more pressing concerns than how many chairs they could get their hands on, and whether it would be rude to ask the baby’s grandmother to make the cake for the shower.
She had to figure out how to tell Brady that it was time for their fake relationship—no matter how real it felt—to come to an end. She’d promised to cut him loose, and it was time.
Even if she didn’t want to.