Page 93 of A Pizza My Heart

“Her car broke down in town. She looked harmless enough—at the time—so I stopped to help her out, ended up giving her a ride. She’s been stalking me ever since.”

“I can’t tell if that’s in the literal sense or figurative.”

“Yes,” she deadpans, and we both fall into laughter.

I take a sip of my beer then decide to get right into it.

“Layla was pregnant.”

Wren freezes. She sets her whiskey sour down then picks up her other shot, downing it.

“I think I’m going to need this.”

I chuckle. “I probably need one too.”

“You know you don’thaveto tell me anything, Foster.”

“I know, but I want to. I feel like it’s time.”

“Then shots it is.”

“Shot.” I hold up a finger. “Singular. One of us has to drive back.”

“Fine, spoilsport.” She motions to the bartender for a refill.

Once we have our glasses, we clink them together.

“Liquid courage,” she says, though I’m not sure if it’s for me or for her.

We tip the drinks back in unison.

“So, you knocked up the beach bunny, huh?”

I laugh. “Well, that’s what she told me. That’s why I ran off and got married as quickly as I did. I wanted to do the right thing, to take care of my screwups. So, I insisted we get hitched, and off we went.”

She shakes her head. “I never understood that logic, getting married because of a baby. There’s such a thing as custody, co-parenting. You don’t have to make this huge, legal commitment.”

“I know that now, but in the moment, it felt right—or at least that’s what I told myself.” I take another drink, liquid courage and all that. “Turns out she was lying. She just didn’t want to go back home empty-handed. I guess all her friends brought these boys back from their vacations and she wanted someone too.”

“Her way of making that happen was to fake a pregnancy? She sounds super classy.”

I clench my beer tighter, my knuckles turning white around the bottle. “Classy is the last C word I’d use to describe her. Crazy would be a good start. She was very…manipulative.”

“To you?”

“To everyone. Everything had to be her way, or she’d flip her lid in the most dramatic fashion. She was never wrong, not even when I caught her in our bed with another man. It was stillmyfault somehow. The whole marriage was a shitshow.”

I chug the rest of my beer.

“How long did she pretend to be pregnant?”

“She claimed she miscarried about a month after we got married. I didn’t find out she wasn’t ever pregnant at all until the night I walked out.”

“That’s the most horrendous thing I have ever heard. I obviously wasn’t around to witness my mother’s turmoil when she was trying to get pregnant, but I know it wasn’t easy on her or my parents’ marriage. I can’t even fathom someonepretendingto go through that. It’s disgusting.”

I scoff. “Tell me about it. And to know I spent years of my life with someone like that…it’s a mindfuck, that’s for sure.”

“You didn’t know any better.”

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