Page 3 of Cluelessly Yours

We laughed and smiled and kissed as we walked toward his apartment. We stumbled down the hallway, anticipation coursing through our veins, hands greedily grabbing at each other’s clothes. We couldn’t get close enough.

Everything felt like bliss.

Everything felt perfect.

Until we reached his door, and she was there.

“I’m pregnant,” she told him.

Agony rips through every part of me as it all comes flooding back, and I let out a scream I didn’t know I was capable of. Doctors and nurses and what feels like a million people flood the room at once, and right in the middle of my cries, everything, once again, goes black.

It feels like a metaphor for my life.

Where Sammy Baker goes, disaster and chaos follow.

Friday, April 22nd

I tuck my big tote tightly beneath my arm, trying to ignore the fact that it’s boasting the smells of Italy to everyone within a one-mile radius, and churn and burn my legs like a lady on a mission.

After a quick check-in at the front desk, I smack the visitor sticker to my chest and push through the lobby doors of Calhoun Elementary. Immediately, I spot the sign that readsCareer Dayin a bold but playful font, pointing toward the auditorium, and I haul my skirt-covered ass as quick as my nude heels will take me.

Surprise, surprise, I’m late to somethingagain.

In my past life, I was a time-management beast. I made it where I needed to be five to ten minutes early, and I never, but never wasted anyone’s precious time.

But since the moment my birth canal opened its mouth and shot out my first babytwo full weeks after my due date, I’ve been perpetually behind.

I think it was a sign. Or an omen. Or fortuitous, at the very least. And unless they change the way clocks work, I’m pretty sure it’s my forever destiny. At least, it will be until my two boys are grown.

My phone pings from my garlic-scented bag—trust me, it’s alongstory—and I pull it out to find a text message from my sister. As I read, Ipower walk so hard I’m just short of a jog. My mall-walking grandma would be so jealous if she were alive to see me now.

Brooke: Where in the hell are you???

Me: Relax. I’m in the building.

Brooke: I’ll relax when you deliver the goods.

Ten seconds later, two more texts chime in.

Brooke: Actually, scratch that. I won’t get behind the mic UNTIL you deliver the goods.

Brooke: PS: Spoiler alert: Noah gets better looking every time I see him. Just WAIT until you get in here and see him too.

The Noah she is referencing isDr. Noah Philips, a man who is a good friend of my sister’s because their dogs are the HEA version of Romeo and Juliet—also, incidentally, a long story.

And unfortunately, over the past six months, Brooke has become a broken record on all thingsDr. Noah Philips and me.

Noah and I would look so good together and he’s such a good person and our souls are theperfect match—blah, blah, blah. Far too much of her energy is fixated on finding a way to be my unauthorized matchmaker.

Don’t get me wrong, IknowNoah is good-looking. Everyone in his vicinity knows he’s good-looking. The man has a head full of shiny, thick, dark brown hair and the kind of blue eyes that make your bones turn to butter. Not to mention, a straight, white smile that could light up a dark room and muscles that make the quartz countertops in my New York apartment look soft.

He’sillegallyattractive, a screaming success in his career, and kind. The real-life, unscripted, cheese-less version ofThe Bachelor.

But just like on the show, he’s not short on opportunities with the opposite sex. At any given moment, twenty-five women are undoubtedly vying for their chance to bag him.

The mere idea of him and me actually working out without carnage, catastrophe, and heartbreak? My sister is cray-cray.

I roll my eyes as I type out a response she most definitely doesn’t deserve, and I don’t have the time for.

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