Page 24 of Only for Tonight
“I’ll have sparkling water,” I tell her and she nods at me, then looks over at Zoey.
“I’ll have a glass of pinot,” Zoey orders and smiles at her, waiting for her to walk away before turning back to me.
“Okay, well, let’s start with things slowly,” she starts, moving the big brown leather menu from in front of her. “Why the fuck are you here and you didn’t call or come and stay with us?”
“I think that’s not starting slowly.” I laugh and take a sip of the water that was poured when Zoey got here. “I had some work,” I lie to her and her eyebrows pinch together. “Okay, fine, I didn’t have any work,” I tell her and stop talking when someone brings over a basket of bread with a plate of butter.
“So what are you doing here?” she asks. “I’ll get into why you aren’t staying with us in a bit.”
“I came out to talk to the father,” I state and she gasps.
“Have you spoken to him?” she asks and I shake my head. “Have you called him?”
“I sort of showed up at his house,” I tell her, without mentioning his name. She gasps again.
“Shut the fuck up.” Her eyes are big and her mouth hangs open. “You just showed up at his house?” All I can do is nod. “Talk about freebasing.”
“I don’t think that saying makes sense in this situation since that’s about cocaine”—I shrug—“but what do I know about lingo?”
“You showed up at his house,” she repeats, still in shock. “Like, knock, knock, knock. Can me and your child come in for a cup of water?”
“Well, I showed up and—” I close my eyes and tell her all about the scene.
“His girlfriend was there.” She slaps the table. “I’m going to kick his ass, and I don’t even know who he is.” She picks up her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling in reinforcements,” she scoffs at me. “I think this is what the Bat Signal is used for,” she mentions the way her mom’s side of the family deals with things, “but I’m not sure.”
I reach up and grab her phone from her. “Can we not send out any signal?” I put the phone down beside me.
“Well, I have to at least tell Nash that he is going to have to bail me out of jail.” I laugh when I see she is one thousand percent serious.
“I love you so hard, but no one is going to kick anyone’s ass.” I try to defuse the situation. “He said he didn’t have a girlfriend when we hooked up.”
“Of course he did.” She shakes her head. “Maury says that’s a lie.”
“I have no idea what that means either,” I tell her and stop talking when the waitress comes over with our drinks.
“I’m going to need you to keep this coming,” Zoey says, grabbing her glass of wine and taking a huge sip.
The waitress smiles at her. “Will do. Do you want to hear about the specials?” she asks us.
“No,” Zoey snaps out. “Sorry, we’re in the middle of something. How about you bring out the meatballs, the beef carpaccio, and the Italian salad to start?” She nods at her. “Then we’ll see if we need more food.” She walks away and then Zoey turns back to me. “Okay, so you show up, and his girlfriend is there. You don’t say anything and you just walk out?”
“Pretty much.” I grab a piece of bread and slather it with butter. “I wasn’t going to be like, ‘Hey, can we have a minute so I can tell your boyfriend that I’m pregnant with his child and he can be as involved as he wants to be. Come back in five minutes.’ She was wearing his shirt.”
“And that was two days ago?”
“Correct,” I confirm, taking a bite of the bread.
“What the fuck have you been doing the past two days?”
“I’ve been having some me time, and burying myself in carrot cake and cheesecake. Sometimes in the same bite.” Her face grimaces. “It’s not as bad as you think it is. Okay, well, I have to go to the bathroom again because now that I’m pregnant my bladder has become the size of a pea.”
I push my chair back and get up. “Wait until you sneeze and pee yourself. Good times ahead. We are so excited to be pregnant.” She claps her hands while smiling at me.
I wash my hands when I’m done in the bathroom and pull open the door. I walk back toward the front of the restaurant at the same time the door opens, and I look over and stop when I see him. His face shows me he’s just as shocked as I am that we’re both here.
