Josie had a feeling that this was an argument they’d had on and off for the past few weeks. Dylan just sat between them, trying to relax and drink a cup of coffee at the same time. Nothing Mike did calmed the baby down, though. He stood and began pacing, four steps away, four steps back, four steps away, four steps back. The rhythm seemed to soothe Jillian, and then, BUUUUUURP. The biggest, juiciest, nastiest burp that Josie had ever heard came out of the baby, and then the inevitable spitup, all over Mike’s clean collar.
“You forgot a burp rag, dude,” Dylan said, reaching in the diaper bag to pull one out. He handed it to Mike. The baby whined a little bit at being wet, the front of her little onesie now soaked a couple of inches down. Mike traded the sour-milk-smelling infant to Dylan for the burp rag. “Thanks,” they said in unison.
Laura just laughed, concern turning to relief.
“You’re really living the life, aren’t you?” Josie said.
“I am, I just wish that I could appreciate it a little more from the stance of having a little more sleep. Otherwise…” Laura leaned back and watched as Dylan took Jillian into the men’s room to change her, and Mike patted at his shirt, uselessly, with the burp rag to clean himself up. “I am very, very grateful for what I have,” Laura said softly. “How ’bout you?” Her eyes narrowed, and there was a look of real perception.
Josie knew she was being studied by the one person who knew her the best. Her niece Darla was a close second, and now that she knew she was coming here to live with her, Josie felt like a lot of her carefully constructed walls were starting to fall away, brick by brick. Alex, one of the many masonry workers, chipping away. “I’m well…no, I’m not okay. I was about to say ‘I’m fine,’ but we all know what bullshit that is.”
“You and Alex still fighting?”
“Me and Alex aren’t anything. He made a series of assumptions in the middle of a conversation that went from mild irritation to stalking off in…in anger.” Josie deflated. She could feel the air pushing out of her as the memory took over. It had been two weeks, two weeks since they’d fought, and she hadn’t heard a word from him. On the other hand, he hadn’t heard a word from her, either. She wasn’t about to make the first call, the first text, the first anything. Why should she? She wasn’t wrong, she hadn’t done a damn thing wrong by suggesting that maybe Dr. Perfect should get his grandfather a second opinion. His silence, though—that had surprised her. She’d figured that cooler heads would prevail, and he would call, but he hadn’t. Ed was due in for a new appointment in two weeks, and she was holding out hope, but it was fading as her phone was only populated by calls and texts from Darla and Laura. Her world was shrinking and expanding at the same time, just as her heart felt like it was getting smaller, too.
“I’m sorry,” Laura said, sliding one hand across the table, grabbing Josie’s. It was the first time she’d had compassionate touch in morethan two weeks, and it startled her how much her inner core needed that.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, too. I don’t know what I did to break this and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“You could text him.”
“I’m not texting him.” Josie pulled her hand back. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know that, and you know that…” Laura said.
Mike sat next to Laura and watched the conversation in rapt attention. Josie realized he was there suddenly, dipped her chin down, and gave him a death stare. Laura joined her, and with four angry woman eyes on him, Mike did the smart thing without a word passing between the three of them, and got up and went to help Dylan with the baby.
Josie leaned forward and whispered, “The results came in.”
Laura went pale. “And?”
“We don't need to change the name.”
Laura squinted at Josie. “You guessed right?”
Josie nodded.
“You have a hunch, don't you?”
“I did. And I was right.”
Laura bit her lips, closed her eyes, and sighed. “Thank you.”
“Any time. I know you'd help me if I need it.”
“Alex is too nice to let get away.”
“And here we go,” Josie said dryly.
“I'm right! Sometimes I get to be right, you know.”
“Well, if he’s so nice,” Josie hissed, “then why would he accuse me of making these gigantic ethics violations? I would neverdo that, ever.”
“I don’t know,” Laura said, “but look at what being stubborn got me. The guys missed out on the entire second trimester—hell, almost two thirds of my pregnancy—because I was a stupid, stupid idiot. I don’t want to see you do that.”
“Well, I’m not pregnant.”
Laura sighed, shook her head, and rubbed her eyes. “No, you’re not pregnant, and no, it’s not the same. You didn’t sit there and watch yourself be humiliated on national tel—well, on local television, and find out the two guys that you’re sleeping with were both billionaires. I was stubborn because they kept a secret from me, and it was wrong of both of…of all three of us. Ugh, I still don’t have a vocabulary for the fact that there are three of us,” she muttered, laughing to herself. “But the bottom line is that I let my pride get in the way. I let my insecurity, too, get in the way of the greatest love that I could everhope to find, and Iwant youto learn from my mistake. I do not want to see you do this to yourself, Josie.”
Leave it to Laura to say the one thing that could crack her f**king wall. “You know, I hate you,” Josie said.
“I know, it’s because I make sense.”
“Now I hate you more, for saying that, because you’re right,” she said, slamming her hand against the tabletop, just as Mike and Dylan returned with a freshly changed baby.
“But there’s something I still don’t understand,” she said, her mind spinning, trying to find the right formula of words to make the equation balance as the guys settled down, the baby half asleep already. “How is it that you—what exactly…” She stumbled through her own thought process, trying to say it aloud.
Just then, Madge interrupted them. “Dessert?”
Laura groaned. “Oh, God.”
“What?”
“I’m not pregnant anymore so I don’t have an excuse.” She patted her belly. She still looked pregnant—at least, Josie thought so, though she’d never say a word. Then again, it took a while for organs to shift and move, and some women held on to weight when it came to breastfeeding. It didn’t detract from Laura’s natural glow and she was slowly regaining that gait that she had, a self-possession and femininity that Josie could never emulate.