Page 72 of Sure Shot
“Oh! A summer baby. Great timing.”
“Yeah. Now I have a question for you.” Zara sets her cup down.
“Hmm?”
“How much did it cost you to ask me that question?”
Shit. I lift my giant mug and try to drown myself in it.
“I’m worried about you,” Zara says quietly.
“Whatever for?”
She gives me a look of mild disdain and picks up her cup of half-decaf again. “Because you’re not happy.”
“Who’s perfectly happy? I’m happy enough.”
Zara shakes her head slowly. “You are very good at faking it. But I know you want more than what you have. How’syourlife plan going?”
“It’s…going,” I hedge. “Slowly.” The truth is that Tank has derailed all my planning. And I hadn’t even had the courage last night to tell my brother I was dating him.
Zara looks me in the eye. “Bess, it’s time we had a performance review. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to be your agent.”
“What?”
“That kid Richie Kristov has you, right? Well, you haveme. I’ll be the voice on the phone who asks for a full accounting. Now tell me—have you been dating? Wasn’t that Chapter One of your plan?”
“I did a little dating, yes.”
“I see,” Zara says. She gives me a sage nod, but her eyes twinkle. “Well, that’s a good start. You’ll keep it up, right? You can’t make the right guy appear. But you can control your own attack.”
“Oh myGod, Zara. You’re a little too good at this.”
She cackles. “Now let’s talk about Chapter Four.”
Oh, hell. Sharing my five-year plan with her was a tactical error. “I have made no progress on Chapter Four.”
“But you told me two months ago that you were going to make the first appointment. What happened there?”
The appointment she’s referring to is another secret of mine. I’d decided to make preliminary inquiries with a fertility specialist, just in case I decided to have a child without a man in my life.
“I’m not ready for that, as it turns out. Other, uh, things have kept me busy.”
Zara’s dark eyes double in size. “Really. What things?”
I look over both shoulders to make sure my brother hasn’t snuck up on us somehow. I’m dying to get this off my chest. “There’s this guy. He’s terrific. But he’s not in the right stage of life to settle down.”
She leans forward. “What stage is he in?”
“The just-got-divorced stage,” I admit at a near-whisper. “He said he’s never getting married again.”
“Does he have kids?” Zara whispers back.
I shake my head. “They were married for—” I do the math. “Five years. Or almost six.”
“Well…” Zara cocks her head. “Did they not want kids?”
“Maybe,” I say, because the truth is I have no idea. Tank doesn’t like to talk about his divorce, and I sure don’t like to pry into his marriage.
