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LACEY HOPPED DOWN OFF the washer box and returned to her team, high-fiving them. She hadn’t scored so high in weeks. She felt looser, more relaxed than she’d felt in weeks. Maybe the aroma of the beer her teammates were drinking affected her. Maybe it was the freedom of knowing her life was her own.
She admitted she was a little disappointed Beck hadn’t shown up today. She didn't know where he was, or why he hadn’t been around. She missed him, because he was always so easygoing and fun to be around, but he must have something else going on. Too bad, because she’d heard about a job he might be interested in. In Midland, so far away, but something he might be interested in.
“That’s our little good luck charm,” Poppy laughed, rubbing Lacey’s tummy.
“Lowers her center of gravity,” joked Con, taking his spot on the opposite box.
But before Con could toss, Hailey came out with their order of wings, so they took a break to gather around the table. Lacey was craving spicy foods, so she dived into the pile of wings, dragging her bottle of water closer before her hands got all greasy.
As a rule, she avoided wings because they were messy and not a lot of food. But since last night, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking of them, and she closed her eyes in pleasure as she bit into the first wing.
When she opened her eyes, Beck was standing across from her, hands on his hips, grinning. Her heart skipped a beat, which surprised her
“Good?” he asked.
“So good.” She put the wing down on a brown paper towel and took a sip of water to cool her tongue before she gestured toward the basket. “Help yourself.”
“Con’s eyes are watering, so maybe I’ll go order something else,” he said with a crooked smile.
She had to admit that the inside of her nose was burning, and her throat, but her tummy was happy, and her taste buds, so she smiled anyway. “Suit yourself. They’re good.”
He disappeared for a little while, and by the time he showed up to sit beside her, she had quite a pile of bones in front of her. Maybe more than her fair share, to be honest. Then again, her friends had drifted away, many toward the bar for another drink.
She reached for another wing. “What did you order?” she asked Beck when he returned.
“Ribs.”
Her tastebuds, burned and battered, sprang to new life as she thought about the sweet taste of barbecue sauce coating the grilled meat. She didn’t eat ribs, either, for the same reason she avoided wings, but now that was what she wanted.
Man, was she going to go through four and a half more months of this?
“Hey, y’all,” Beck said when everyone was back at the table. “Lacey and I were talking about us all taking a day trip up to Fort Clark Springs this summer. We could take a picnic and play in the water, and just hang out.”
“We’d have to go early,” Poppy said. “We went up there last month and the park was full, so they wouldn't let anyone else in. So we’d have to aim to be there before it opens. Or we could try to go on a week day.”
“We can do that. Come on, it will be a blast.”
“Not everyone can just take a day off to go swimming,” Con said, his tone a little bitter.
“Just one day. We can come and help you do whatever it is that needs to be done so you can come with us. Come on. It’ll be like old times.”
“I’m not sure,” Javi said. “Not much of a swimmer. I heard it gets pretty deep.”
Lacey gave him a smile of commiseration. He had been pretty traumatized by the bus accident. She could imagine he avoided water at all cost. But at the same time, she didn't want him to feel excluded from their trip.
“So just hang out on the side. I’ll probably just float around on a tube. You should have seen me on that lazy river in San Antonio. Beck thought he’d never get me out of the water.”
“So what happened in San Antonio last week anyway?” Javi jumped on the chance to change the subject. “I thought you were going to leave her up there, and the next thing I hear, you’re both back in town a day later.”
Lacey lowered her head. “Yeah, well, Jesse and I broke up.”
“I should never have pushed you together,” Ginny said. “Never. You didn’t have anything in common, and I just wanted to be with Josh. And you see how well that worked out.”
“Yeah, yeah, Jesse was an asshole, we all knew that,” Con said. “I want to know what happened in San Antonio.”
“Well.” Lacey looked at Beck. “I called Beck when Jesse didn't show, he picked me up, we checked into a hotel room, we went swimming, we ate, we shopped the next day, we came back.”
“A hotel room.” Javi lifted both eyebrows. “Are y’all together now?”
“Yeah, I went right from Jesse to Beck. Because that’s who I am.”
Javi lifted his hands in surrender. “I’m just asking. Because you act like you’re together.”
“We’re just friends,” Beck and Lacey said together.
Okay, maybe that synchronization didn't help their argument, so Lacey turned back to Fort Clark Springs. “We can pack a picnic, and caravan out there.” She would have to make sure she didn't ride with Beck, at least not alone, on the way.
“Maybe.” He didn't sound convinced. “How deep is it?”
“I’m not sure, but I think there are different depths. I wouldn’t want to go too deep, either. I like having my feet under me.” Even as she said it, she realized that that was really what she needed in her life. Her feet under her. Her path before her.
“Britt is coming back.”
All heads pivoted toward Con when he said the name of his ex.
“What? When? How do you know?” Sofia asked.
Con nodded toward Poppy. “Poppy talked to her cousin Meredith. She’s coming to town for her grandmother’s eightieth birthday.”
“When is that?” Ginny asked.
“Next weekend.”
“You think you’ll—do you think you’ll see her? Do you want to see her?” Lacey asked.
Con turned and met her gaze. “I’m not going to hide from her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Well, what she wanted to know was if he was going to seek her out, but she didn't say so. Still, she wondered why he brought it up.
“Do you want us to invite her?” Sofia asked.
That whipped Con’s head in the other direction. “No. I mean, I don't know if I want to see her in a public place. Not at first, anyway.”
Britt had destroyed Con’s heart. Not just broken it. Con had loved her, and she’d left him after the hardest year of his life, after his sister drowned. The thing was, she hadn’t just left. She’d gone to college, leaving him behind, sure. But she had completely ghosted him. Completely. If she’d come home to visit her family, she’d done so in a way that Con wouldn't know, and after a year or so, her family moved away, too. As far as any of them knew, Britt hadn’t been back to see her grandmother in all that time.
“So what do you want us to do?” Beck asked. “You want us to run interference? Or set something up? What can we do?”
Beck. Always looking for solutions.
“I don't know yet. I’ve only known for a couple of days, and I go back and forth. And you know, I’m just a rancher who never made it out of town.”
“That was always your plan, wasn't it?”
He shook his head. “No. Claudia was going to take the ranch. I was going to go to school and be a vet.”
“I didn't remember that. I just remembered that you were going to get married.”
“Yeah, well, now I see that never would have worked out. We know what her priorities are now.”
“What did she do with her life?” Lacey turned to Poppy. “I didn't know you were keeping in touch.”
“Not with Britt, but with Meredith, her cousin. She said Britt is a party planner in Houston.”
“As far away as she could get from Broken Wheel and still be in Texas,” Con muttered. “A party planner? Yeah, I guess I could see her doing that. She probably makes some good money.”
“And it’s not something she could do in Broken Wheel,” Poppy said. “That kind of money is only in Houston.”
“So what kind of party is the grandmother having? Like a big party?” Beck asked.
“Family reunion, I guess,” Poppy said. “They’re using the church hall for part of it.”
“So should we like crash it or something?”
“No, let this be about Mrs. Drexler,” Con said, his focus on the bottle of beer he cradled on the table. “She hasn’t seen them in a while. Let her enjoy her family. But you know, if we run into her here or something, just, I don't know.”
“Dude, twelve years. You’re differently people now. We’re all different people now.”
“I don't feel different when it comes to her. Maybe if I see her, I’ll feel it, but now, damn, I feel like I’m eighteen again, and shattered.”
Beck and Lacey exchanged a glance, and Lacey decided it was time to change the subject.
“So, I heard about a job you might be interested in,” she told Beck.
That drew everyone’s attention.
“You’re looking for a job here?” Con asked, straightening.
“Ah, well, just temporary. Until Mom’s house is done.”
“You could come work for me,” Con offered.
Beck made a face. “Did that before. Kinda over mucking stalls.”
Con lifted a hand as if he was going to make a comment.
“This is something I think you’d be interested in,” Lacey inserted. “It’s a company in the basin who’s recycling wastewater from the oilfields. That seems like a perfect job for an engineer, don't you think?”
His eyes brightened when he looked at her. “I think it’s definitely something to look into. Thanks for thinking of me, Lace.”
“Yeah. Ah. Sure.” She was aware that she was now the focus of attention, and she squirmed on the bench seat. She was tempted to turn the conversation back to Britt, but instead she made her escape for the bathroom.
Times like these, being pregnant was pretty convenient.
*****
POPPY MADE A POINT to get a substitute teacher for Lacey’s next doctor appointment. Lacey would have come after her, anyway, because since the afternoon at The Wheel House, she had been avoiding Beck as intensely as he’d been avoiding her. Neither of them wanted their friends to misunderstand their friendship, and both figured the best way to do that was to put distance between them.
So Poppy agreed to go with Lacey, and this time they were totally going shopping and for a girly lunch before coming home. And Lacey was going to buy herself a little wading pool to put on the back porch so she could cool off at the end of the day.
And a bathing suit. One that was cute and would grow with her.
“Do you want to know the sex of the baby today?” Dr. Fredrick asked when she entered the exam room.
Lacey’s pulse leaped. “I didn't think it would be today.”
“Well, you’re far enough along, it just depends on the position of the baby. Do you want to know, or not?”
“Can my friend come back here with me, when I find out?”
“Of course. I’ll get Jane to call her back after I examine you.” She gestured to the nurse in pink scrubs standing by the door. “Any problems?”
“She wants spicy food all the time.” In fact, Lacey was going through bottles of salsa faster than the coffee she used to live on.
“You better watch out about that. You don't want acid reflux once the pregnancy progresses. It will not be fun.”
“Is it a little early for cravings?”
Dr. Fredrick shook her head. “When I was pregnant with my son, I wanted sour cream on everything, and that was before I even realized I was pregnant. The body craves what it craves.”
“The spicy food won’t hurt the baby, will it? I tried to look online, but I thought I’d ask to make sure.”
“He’ll be fine. You might want to dial back once you start nursing, though.”
“Oh. Yes.” She hadn’t even gotten that far, to think about nursing. She needed to look into it more. Her work schedule might make it pretty challenging, unless she could pump in the car between patients.
She scooted back on the exam table and put her feet in the stirrups, staring at the ceiling while she was examined.
“Everything looks good,” Dr. Fredrick said, snapping off her gloves. She turned to Jane. “You want to go get her friend now?”
Both women looked at Lacey. “Her name is Poppy.”
“Sure, of course.”
Jane left the room while Dr. Fredrick got the sonogram machine into position.
“I’m going to double check the due date, too. Easier to tell when the fetus gets this size. You sure you don't have any more questions?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“Well, if you do, you can call. But one of the questions I start getting around this part of the pregnancy is how safe sex is for the baby. Most of my young moms start getting a different kind of craving right about now.”
“Oh. Well. His dad is deployed, so...”
“Ah. You did tell me that. I just saw the young gentleman with you last time and assumed.”
“No, oh, no. He’s just a friend.”
“Good. Well, what I tell my young moms is that the craving is perfectly natural, and perfectly safe, if you want to take care of it any other way.”
Lacey was pretty sure her face was as red as Poppy’s hair when Jane opened the door to lead her friend inside.
“Hey,” Lacey said, maybe a little louder than normal. For a moment, she almost wished Beck was here instead of Poppy, but she chased that thought away. Poppy was her oldest friend. Of course she should be here. Weird that she didn't think about wanting Jesse here at all. “We might get to find out the gender today.”
Poppy clapped her hands. “And you want the doctor to tell me? So we can have a gender reveal party?”
“Oh, no. I don't want anything like that. I just wanted you in here with me so, you know, I’d have someone to be excited with.”
Dr. Fredrick pushed aside the exam gown and smoothed the cold gel over Lacey’s belly, causing Lacey to arch her back as she tensed.
“Aww, look at your cute little belly,” Poppy said with a grin, sitting on the stool beside the exam table as Dr. Fredrick ran the wand through the gel, her attention on the screen.
“Well, I’m afraid it’s not going to be little for long,” Dr. Fredrick said, pointing at the screen. “I’m not sure about Baby B, but Baby A is a boy.”
“Wait, what?” Lacey shot up on her elbows. “Baby B?”
Dr. Fredrick’s expression was both joyful and sympathetic. “Twins.”