“Just think about it, okay? Really think about it.” I tried to keep the desire and desperation out of my voice.
I’m not sure why I was pursuing this. Or, maybe I did. Maybe I’d known all along that in the end, it would always be me and Erin. That instead of running from Renée and Dallas and my life, I was instead coming back to the place and the person I was always meant to be with.
“Fine.” She backed away, breaking the moment. You could cut the sexual tension with a knife. “I’ll think about it.”
Thirteen
Erin
“Give me sex kitten.”
“Okay, now give me dewy-eyed love.”
I flutter my eyelashes, trying to look off into the distance like I see a long lost love.
Fat chance, I can only fake it until I make it so much.
My friend James kept clicking, photographing the fifth outfit I’d changed into for this shoot. I was creating content for a summer wardrobe blog post that would be going up later this week, and he was my go-to photographer. James understood style, makeup, the mission of my blog and brand … and was a self-declared fabulous gay man with, “fashion better than my blow jobs.”
No really, he’d actually said that to me once.
And although we had been friends for two years, ever since I met him at an amateur bloggers happy hour, he didn’t know me, know me.
Or how fucked-up I really was.
Being a child of divorce, especially one whose parents decided to implode their marriage later in life, will fuck you up six ways from Sunday. And my parents picked the jackpot of horrible times to announce their separation … a week after I’d gotten my job at the Journal.
What should have been a time for celebration, proud family moments, nervous energy and first day jitters was spent in complete grieving mode.
For me, at least. Morgan curled into herself and into her husband, too distraught to deal with it and already established in her marriage. She could focus on her little family unit, while I imploded.
Maybe that was why I’d always had a bad taste in my mouth when it came to my job. It started in such a bad mental state for me personally, that I don’t think the position or the workplace ever stood a chance. I spent my first week crying in the bathroom when I knew that no one else from the building was in there.
Mom was an emotional wreck; walking around the house in a bathrobe like Mrs. Havisham. I’d still been living there, my search for an apartment put on hold as I picked my own mother up off the bathroom floor every night before bed.
That was how I learned about the death of love. Even before that, I’d always been a bit awkward when it came to dating and relationships. I never felt emotionally connected to men, considering for a short period that I might be gay. But after a one-off experience in college, I came to the conclusion that while beautiful, women weren’t for me.
No, I was just simply built with a tougher exterior. I didn’t fuss, I was never boy crazy.
But after my parent’s divorce, that outside shell hardened to the point of steel-enforced concrete. That’s what watching a heart physically break will do to you. I could see the beating organ in my mother’s chest just stop. The sounds that she would make, the deep, soul-wrenching sobs that would wrack her body.
I simply never wanted to go through that.
Which was why I couldn’t think about giving the pact a real shot. Reese should get it, he knew me better than anyone. But he’d still asked me, even after we’d said we’d leave it alone.
My insides burned with that question, with his plea to consider it. With confusion for everything that had transpired these past weeks, months. I’d gone from blissfully ignorant, living my single life in a sarcastic, glittery bubble, completely fine that my best friend lived hundreds of miles away.
And then he had to up and move back, and shake my whole life as if I were a magic eight ball that could rewrite the future.
“These are going to look great in your new blog post for summer.” He turns the camera to me, scrolling the images.
He’s not lying. He always manages to make me look five pounds skinnier, which is why I kept paying him to shoot my content. “Damn, you’re right. And I am actually still squealing over the fact that Nordstrom wants me to do this blog post as sponsored.”
“Just remember me on your way to the top, honey.” James waggles his fingers at me.
We’re at a rooftop bar in Center City, flowers and greenery trying to mask the fact that we’re sitting floors above an urban jungle. I love it here, with the hot sun beating down on my back, some fruity, alcoholic drinks on standby, and a bag full of my latest fashion finds waiting to be paired together and photographed. This was me in my element, doing the work that wasn’t like work at all.
I could see the Instagram posts now; the summery collection posed on my body in front of rows of flowering trees, overlooking skyscrapers. It would be edgy but flirty, summery but sophisticated.
As we finish up, James packing his camera bag and me folding the last of the outfits, patrons start coming in. They say that being a lifestyle blogger is all fun, parties, clothes and booze, but really, it’s early morning calls and sneaking in shoots when locations weren’t occupied. I’d done some fact-checking on this place for a piece in the Journal, and I’d gotten to know the bar manager a bit throughout the process. That’s why she’d agreed to let me use it for one of my blog posts, as long as she didn’t spill the beans that I had a blog to my day job. She said that was fine, as long as I was okay coming to do the shoot at six a.m., before the restaurant opened on a Saturday.
I think I owed James an arm and a leg, or a Kate Spade bracelet, for his trouble.
“Thank you so much, buddy, I really owe you one.” I hug him before we begin to walk toward the elevator back downstairs.
“Yeah you do. Making me get up at the ass crack of dawn. But hey, there are some gorgeous shots in there, so it helps my portfolio, too.”
“As if you need help with your portfolio. You’re the best photographer in the city.”
“Erin?”
Fuck. That voice. I’d know that voice anywhere.
I turn, and there she is, in an obnoxious magenta fit-and-flare dress that does nothing for her figure. “Katie … hi.”
I try to shoulder the bag full of clothes on my hip around my back, so that she can’t quite see it. Not that James and his camera standing next to me aren’t obvious. Clearly, we’ve been doing something here, and her powdered shit nose is trying to sniff out what it is.
“Oh my lord, I trekked all the way up here for brunch with the girls and they’re running late. But it looks like you got an early start … who’s your friend?” She bats her eyelashes at James, and she’s certifiable if her gaydar isn’t pinging right now.
But there she is, shamelessly flirting with a man who could care less about her boobs.
“We did, thanks. We were actually just going, have a good brunch.” I might be a bit callous in that moment, but I didn’t care.
She’d never done me any favors, and Katie Raymer was the last person I wanted finding out about my blog. I may sound paranoid or harsh, but she was just one of those women. One of those women who didn’t grind for other women, who would use information against them to watch them fail. I’m not being dramatic when I say that she’d stab me in the back, and the front.
Katie is stuttering as I push past her, and my hasty dismissal probably doesn’t do much for getting her off my scent, but I’m exhausted from shooting all morning and want to spend the rest of my Saturday watching Hallmark movies and painting matte lipstick swatches on my arm.
In the elevator on the way down, James speaks first. “Who was that awful cow? And why was she salivating over any ounce of information you were about to give her?”
I roll my eyes, breathing a sigh of relief that we’re out of her presence. “A coworker, and yes, she’s definitely awful.”
“Girl, you need to quit that hellhole. Now.”
&nbs
p; I fan my face. “Yeah, that’s what people keep telling me.”
Fourteen
Reese
A new mother, bloodshot eyes barely able to contain the tears about to burst from her eyes, is wheeled into the NICU.
I see this every day, a fresh off delivery pair of parents who are scared and have no idea what is going on. It isn’t natural, that they’re in here. When they tell you you’re having a baby, you imagine holding that tiny human in your arms and sleeping with it on your chest.
They don’t want to be here. They don’t want to see me. So I try to brighten their day, and the short hours they are allowed to see their child, just a little bit.
“Welcome to the hospital’s best wing. Male nurse, reporting for duty.” I salute them, weighing the mother’s personality simply because I’ve seen so many and know how to play situations.
She looks at me, cracks a smile, and chuckles. “I guess if you’re having a baby boy, you’ll want someone who knows how to deal with that anatomy.”
She’s joking with me, and I thank God she is. “Very true. You must be Nicole, with baby boy Graden?”
“That’s our boy.” The father looks like he’s trying to keep it together, and is doing just barely better than her.
“Let me assure you, we’re doing absolutely everything we can to get him better and out of here. Now, I know you don’t care about the tour. Just know you have to wash and put scrubs on each time you come in, but other than that, you can come anytime of the day or night to visit. Except from two to three p.m., because that is the nurse shift change. Let me take you to Graden.”
They look desperate to hold him, but their little boy will probably be in the incubator for another two weeks before that happens. I watch as they sit, smiles spreading across both of their faces as they reach their hands into the gloves to touch his tiny arms and hands without skin-to-skin contact.
I’ve been working at CHOP for three weeks now, and already, their technology, process, and staff is light-years ahead of any other hospital I’ve worked in. Even after being in this field for almost seven years, I was learning new techniques and procedures.
And there was even another male nurse, as well as two male doctors on the NICU floor.
“Are those the parents of the baby boy who came in this morning?” Preston Graham, one of the two male doctors, asks.
We’d become bros, even though he was technically my superior and younger than me at the same time. A resident, Preston was a calming force in the sea of estrogen, and smarter than anyone I’d met. And that was saying a lot for this field. We’d geeked out over our love of comic books when I’d been watching one of the Avengers movies on my phone in the break room. I had a feeling that he didn’t get out much. And I said that because I literally never saw him leave the hospital.
“Yeah, they seem like they’re keeping it together. They’ll be okay.” We looked on at them as they smiled at one another, and then looked back down at the baby.
“By the way, Lucy asked me if you were straight.” Preston had a no-nonsense way about him … which was probably why I’d liked him so much as we worked together more.
“Shit, I owe Erin twenty bucks.” I walked with him, taking the vitals of the babies on the row he was observing as we went.
“Huh?” He laid his stethoscope to the chest of a baby girl who was due to be discharged today.
“My best friend, she always bets me how long it will take for someone in the hospital to ask that. You wouldn’t get it, you’re a doctor.”
Preston looks at me, his head cocked to the side. “I wouldn’t be gay because I’m a doctor?”
The guy was damn smart when it came to medicine, but his common sense was a bit lacking. “No, no. You’re a doctor, therefore no one assumes you’re gay. There is some weird vibe about being a male nurse … people automatically think you like guys. And there is nothing wrong with liking guys, if you do, but, I’m straight. And well, stereotypes suck. I guess that’s really the point of it.”
“Ah, I see. Well, I can tell her you’re not, if you want me to. Why do I feel like I’m stuck in a bad after school special right now? Maybe you can give me a note to give her next.”
Okay, so apparently the guy wasn’t as street dumb as I thought he was. “No, that’s okay. Keep them off my scent. She’s asking because she wants to see if I’m straight and single, in which case, she’ll probably want to go out.”
Preston pulls the chart off of one of the incubator beds, studying the status reports on the baby. “That’s quite cocky of you.”
I shrug. “It’s happened many times before. Cocky? Maybe. Accurate? Definitely. And I’m fresh off a train wreck of a relationship, so no thanks.”
Preston looks up, his close-cropped blond hair reminding me of some kind of orderly military man. “I don’t date, out of principle. It’s messy, unnecessary, and I just don’t have time for it.”
He reminded me eerily of Erin. “Good man. I think I’ll take a page from your book.”
Except that I’d asked my best friend to consider marrying me on the grounds that we’d make a better partnership than actual lovers would. And she hadn’t responded yet, or spoken to me in three days. That was practically a century for us, and I was scared I’d finally spooked her. Why was she acting like the man in this situation? Noncommittal, aloof, it was like she was ghosting me after a one-night stand. Yet, we hadn’t slept together and the one kiss we had shared … she wouldn’t admit to even feeling anything.
“Hey, listen, we should go get a drink. Watch a baseball game at the bar across the street.”
A lot of my guy friends from home had either moved away, gotten married, or hadn’t kept in touch. I needed to hang out with the bros, do some fist pounding, beer drinking and just get my goddamn mind off of women and their mysterious ways.
Preston looked at me cautiously. “I usually study at nights …”
“Come on, man, you can take one night off.”
His shoulders slump, almost as if he’s being punished. “All right, fine. Maybe one night next week. But I’m too busy this week.”
“Well don’t sound so enthused. Next time I won’t put a gun to your head.” I laugh.
“No, I want to. We’ll catch a few … quarters. Cheer on the guys on base.”
Jesus. This guy apparently lived under a rock, he didn’t even know that baseball had innings. Well, at least I knew that if he ever had to tend to my kid, his whole life and knowledge was about fetal medicine.
Fifteen
Erin
“God, stop making me laugh. I pee every time I get up to stand, let alone contract my muscles in merriment.”
“That sounds truly awful.” I tilt my head to the side, regarding Morgan’s enormous belly.
I scored a blogger discount to Pottery Barn Kids for my sister and brother-in-law, and we’d done the room in neutrals and pinks, with a small elephant theme running throughout. Although, I’d thrown a unicorn stuffed animal in her crib. Kid had to be a little unique, let her freak flag fly.
Morgan was sitting on the floor, looking like a buddha, folding small clothes and putting them in the small drawers assigned for my future niece.
“That’s not even the worst part. I woke up the other morning with dried crust all down my arm. I thought maybe my nose had been running in the middle of the night. Then I took off my tank top to get in the shower … nope, turns out my boobs have started to leak. It was freaking milk, crusted all down the front of me. I feel like a damn cow and the baby isn’t even here yet.” Morgan rolled her eyes, the same shade as mine.
“I don’t understand why anyone would want to be pregnant.” I truly don’t, but then again, I value my freedom and sanity.
Morgan smiles, in that big sister way that tells me I’m about to hear some sappy speech.
“Because as much as it’s gross and you feel terrible, the other half is amazing and wonderful. When I feel her kick, it’s pretty incredible. Like … Jeff and I made this tin
y human being that is going to pop out and become a part of our family. And when I think about her, what is she going to look like? Then there is the sex drive, out of this world.” She whispers the last part.
“Ew, I do not need to think about you, or Jeff for that matter, having sex.” I shudder.
“But seriously, this is all worth it, because at the end, I’ll get a baby.” She rubs her belly like the baby can actually hear her.
Who knows? Maybe my niece can hear her. “Yeah well, I’ll stick to fun aunt status. And I won’t lie, I’ve gotten the cutest clothes for that little lady. And I’ve gotten a ton of traffic on the blog doing so. Mommies are a big audience.”
Morgan nods, folding the tiniest pair of overalls I’ve ever seen. “I saw that, very clever, Aunt Erin. When are you going to give your two weeks at that hell hole?”
Unlike some people who knew about it, my sister believed full force in my dream to become an entrepreneur slash full-time blogger. And when I said some people, I meant my mom. Who I loved dearly, but she thought that having a job meant you got in at eight a.m., did your traditional, professional duties, and went home at five p.m. And that you did that in the same company for twenty-five years. She didn’t understand that that wasn’t the way the world worked anymore.
“I think you’re about the fifth person to say that to me this week. Reese was hounding me the other day, and James, my photographer friend, asked too.”
Morgan pulls my hand to her stomach. “Oh my God, she’s kicking.”
We both listen for a minute, feeling the distinct pitter-patter of tiny baby feet pounding against the lining of her uterus. It was freaky and amazing all at the same time.
She drops my hand a few moments later. “How is Reese since he moved back, by the way? Still with that southern monster?”
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