I kept silently berating myself for my advice to him. Objectively, honesty was decent advice. But it was advice I really should’ve been taking myself.
Where did I get off telling Ashley he should bare his soul to Dylan when I didn’t even have the courage to do it myself?
Just like Ashley, I was afraid to tell Dylan how I felt about him. What I hoped to have with him. Somehow, the fact that the guy was so damn laid-back about everything only made it seem harder.
Before I met Dylan Cope, I might’ve thought it would be easier to pour my guts out to a person like that. Not so. Ashley was incredibly easier to open up to. I could predict his responses, and I knew he’d pull no punches with exactly what he thought. At least I would know where I stood with him the second the words were out of my mouth; sooner, even.
But Dylan?
The man had very possibly spent years pretending he didn’t notice his best friend was in love with him, and politely tolerating his affections, out of some misguided desire to spare him pain.
I cringed just thinking about it.
What if he’d been tolerating my affections for the same reason? Because he was just too damn polite to brush me off or tell me that the end was coming?
What if Ashley was wrong, when he’d texted me that Dylan was in love with me? Dylan had said we should talk about it. But we still hadn’t done that. Thanks to me avoiding the subject.
But then again, he’d avoided it, too.
Worse, what if his reaction to me opening my heart to him was the same as my reaction to Ashley? What if I was just an enjoyable kink to Dylan, but not much more?
Oh, Jesus.
Poor Ashley.
By the time we pulled into the driveway of the old heritage house in Dunbar, I was pretty wound up about it. But what could I do? I’d just have to get in line, behind Ashley, and wait my turn. If it turned out what Dylan wanted was Ashley, I’d have to deal with it. If not… I’d just have to woman-up and tell Dylan how I felt about him… and hope he felt the same.
“You want to pop in?” I asked Ashley, trying to sound cheerful as he put the truck in park, but as usual, I was shit at cheerful. “Say hi to the girls?”
“No, thanks. Baby showers aren’t really my bag.”
“Right.” I unclipped the seatbelt and leaned over, without thinking about it, and kissed him on the cheek. My hand was on his shoulder and I squeezed him lightly. He very purposefully didn’t turn to kiss me. I’d hurt him; I knew that. Or disappointed him. Or pissed him off. Probably all of the above. “I’ll probably just crash with the girls tonight, okay? You know, give you and Dylan some time…” My words trailed off and his blue eyes caught mine.
“Sure.”
“Thank you for the ride.” I slid out my door, dragging my purse, my camera, and the gender-neutral gift bag with me. Since no one yet knew the gender of Jessa and Brody’s baby, the bag contained an adorable selection of organic cotton baby onesies with elephants, owls and guitars on them, in yellow, green and taupe. “See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” He attempted something akin to a smile, but he was shit at cheerful, too.
“Take care, Ashley.” I cringed at how fucking casual that sounded.
I knew I could’ve handled this whole thing better, if I actually knew how to. But I’d done my best. I’d said what I felt I should say. I was trying to be brave here, and let the chips fall where they may.
What else could I do?
But somehow, as I watched Ashley drive away, it felt like my efforts had fallen way short of the mark.
I took a few deep breaths and put on my So happy for you and your baby game face, then rang the bell. It kind of felt like my heart had just been torn out and splattered all over the driveway. I couldn’t really stand Ashley in pain.
Maybe I did love him, in a way.
But just not the way I loved Dylan.
When I walked into the house, Jessa’s baby shower was in full swing. The house belonged to Dolly; I was told she was Zane’s grandma, and that she’d taken Jessa in as a teenager when her mom died. Zane had bought the house for Dolly, which was beautiful, but way too large for one little old lady. It was lovingly decorated, as well as clean and tidy—much like Dolly herself—which told me he probably also had someone here to help her take care of it, and possibly take care of her, too.
Dolly was super sweet and sat smiling in her rocking chair while the younger women whirled around her, drinking and chatting and fawning over Jessa’s belly, and Elle’s too. Elle was barely showing, but everyone seemed excited about both babies joining the extended family.
Maggie and Katie had thrown the shower, and it was smallish, ten women in total. Besides the two of them, Jessa, and Dolly, there was Jessa’s friend Roni, Katie’s sister Becca and her friend Devi, Elle, and Summer, who was apparently tight with Elle. I was honestly kind of surprised I’d made the cut. Though knowing Katie, as I now kinda did, she already saw me as part of the family. Or at least, she really wanted me to be.
I felt honored. It was a pretty cool family.
Plus, after pretty much living with two men, it felt good to be surrounded by women and do girlie stuff. And to try to forget, for a little while, that look on Ashley’s face when I told him what we had was just a kink.
God, I was such an idiot sometimes.
The caterers served up afternoon tea with dainties and those tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off. We drank mimosas, while Jessa and Elle drank sparkling apple juice. Meanwhile, I took photos of everything; the shower photos would be my other gift to Jessa.
We’d all been told to email Maggie a baby photo of ourselves beforehand, and we played that game where we had to guess which baby photo matched which woman. Some people were easy to guess, as they looked exactly like their baby picture; others were impossible. As far as baby shower games went, it was actually pretty fun; I got stitches from laughing so hard.
Dolly’s was the easiest to figure out because of the old-school photo style; it was a black-and-white photo that had been painted with color, the way they used to do it, her little lips and cheeks colored pink.
Mine was ridiculous, given the weird little suit I was dressed in, with the short pants and polka-dot bow tie. The bow tie was pink, but still. I’d tried to find a better photo—one where I wasn’t dressed like a boy—but no such luck.
“So who’s the boy?” Summer asked when the photo came up on Dolly’s TV screen, where Maggie was projecting the images. “Shit, is someone in this room trans and I didn’t sniff it out?”
“It’s Amber,” Maggie said. “Did anyone guess Amber?”
Everyone consulted their little pieces of paper where we’d written down our guesses earlier. I was kinda flattered that no one had pegged me for the kid in the suit.
“I wasn’t born a boy,” I said, feeling myself blush as everyone looked at me. “But my older sister was kind of… butch. So, you know. Hand-me-downs.” Unfortunately, baby Liv had preferred wearing boy clothes, and I’d inherited all her used clothing. You know, because my parents couldn’t be bothered to get me my own clothes, so that in the future, I wouldn’t have to endure moments such as this.
“You make an adorable butch baby,” Katie said, putting her arm around me.
“Thanks.”
In the end, Jessa won a giant gift pack of teas, chocolates, bath salts and other indulgences, for making the most correct guesses. And Maggie won a bottle of wine, provided by Katie, for being voted the absolute cutest baby, with her big gray eyes and honey-colored skin and her little round face. She was wearing a lace dress and her hair was in a bow in the photo.
“Sweetie,” Roni told her, “I don’t say this to women, believe me. But you need to procreate. Don’t waste those adorable genes.”
The rest of us agreed.
Maggie left that alone, pouring herself another mimosa.
Jessa opened her gifts, the most impressive of which was a whole collection of beautiful baby clothes knit by Dolly. Second to that
was the all-terrain stroller wired with its own sound system, from Zane; the girls who knew him best seemed the most surprised by his thoughtfulness. Elle actually texted him to tell him what a good job he’d done, but Katie brought us up to speed. “He just paid the bill,” she said. “Maggie picked it out.”
Again, Maggie just drank her mimosa and shrugged.
Afterwards, the girls wanted to keep the party going, and since I wasn’t really in any hurry to head back to Dylan’s and walk into whatever conversation he and Ashley might’ve been having, I went along.
We all went for dinner downtown. Then we sent Dolly home in a cab, and the rest of us went back to Jessa’s place in North Vancouver. We weren’t done celebrating; in fact, we were just getting going as the post-dinner drinks kicked in. But Jessa was so very pregnant, she needed to get off her feet and, as she put it, “put on stretchier pants.”
When we arrived at Jessa’s house, Maggie took us straight into the giant “party room” downstairs, where Summer did her DJ thing. She threw on a remix of Halsey’s “Bad at Love” and I glanced over at her; she wasn’t looking at me, at all, so she definitely didn’t mean to call me out with the song. But I felt pretty exposed. How had this become the theme song of my life?
Fortunately, no one seemed to realize it.
Katie poured the wine, and more sparkling apple juice for Jessa and Elle. Dimly, I wondered where I was going to sleep tonight and how I was going to get there, but the thought vanished with my first sip and never returned.
There was dancing, drinking and of course, girl talk. Brody wasn’t home; apparently, he’d gone on an ice fishing trip way up north with Jude, to give Jessa girl time. And without any men around, the conversation definitely took a different turn than it would have. Eventually, maybe inevitably, it landed on men.
Specifically, it landed on me and men. As in, the two men I was currently involved with.
Everyone seemed incredibly curious about my relationship with Dylan and Ashley, and I couldn’t blame them. But I really didn’t feel like voicing my feelings—at all—or even acknowledging them right now.
I knew I was falling for Dylan. Head-over-heels and hard. Scary enough on its own, if you were as bad at love as I was, but on top of that, I knew I didn’t feel the same way about Ashley. Which was natural, probably, but also fucking sucked.
I couldn’t even bear to fully face it myself, or relive the painful conversation with Ashley from today, so I definitely wasn’t going to open up about it here.
Instead, I gave the girls a vague response and a smile, and just let them assume whatever kinky shit they wanted to assume about the three of us. Then I helped myself to another glass of wine, passed the bottle off to Katie, and turned the conversation over to Jessa’s girlfriend, Roni. She seemed pretty game to talk about her love life. In vivid detail.
As it turned out, Roni had been seeing some hot biker guy who liked to fuck her on his Harley. And a few of the girls, including me, were pretty curious about the, um, physical logistics involved in that. Which Roni was more than happy to divulge.
Eventually, Maggie left the party with some flimsy excuse about having to be up early, even though the girls all boo’d her as she left. Roni ended up rubbing Jessa’s feet for her—grudgingly—on the couch. Summer and Elle were spinning music and chatting across the room, while me, Katie, her sister, Becca, and her best friend, Devi, ended up in a pile of cushions on the floor, talking.
Devi asked Katie how she was doing, which I discovered was partly because Katie and Elle, her husband’s ex, weren’t exactly close; they were civil and seemed to share a mutual respect, but they weren’t exactly friends. Also, it was because we were at a baby shower for Jessa, Elle was pregnant too, and apparently, Katie wanted to be.
“We’re trying,” Katie explained to me. “But it’s not happening.”
“You’re so young, though,” I told her, “and so healthy.”
“You have tons of time,” her sister agreed.
“If you want it, it’ll happen for you,” I said. I fully meant it when I said it, but really, what the fuck did I know about it?
It seemed to make Katie feel good, though. She gave me one of her sweet smiles and said, “Thank you, Amber.” And I just hoped I’d done my duty as a friend. The way Devi gave me a nod and clinked her glass to mine, I figured I’d said the right thing.
“Fucking right, it’ll happen,” Devi said. “Don’t stress about it, babe.”
“Besides,” I added, deciding to go that extra mile, “you and Jesse are gonna have like the world’s most adorable baby—”
“Uh… nobody panic…”
I stopped mid-sentence as Jessa shuffled into the room. I hadn’t even noticed her leave. Everyone looked over at her and went really still; she had a hand on her belly and looked kinda pale.
Katie and Roni got to their feet, and Summer turned the music down so we could all hear Jessa when she said, “… but my water just broke.”
I soon discovered that a pregnant woman’s water breaking was not at all like it was in the movies. At least, it wasn’t in Jessa’s case.
There was no giant gush of liquid on the floor. There was no mad dash for the hospital. Jessa just calmly went to call Brody, though I wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do about it since he was over a thousand miles away.
“Okay, ladies, I think that’s our cue to clear out,” Katie said, starting to clean. We all pitched in and had the party room tidied up in minutes, then beelined for the front door. Jessa reappeared as we were putting on our jackets, phone in hand, looking slightly less calm and more pale.
“Brody’s flying back?” Katie asked, which made the tiny crease between Jessa’s eyebrows deepen.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “That’s as soon as he can fly out. They don’t exactly have an international airport in Mosquito Lake, Saskatchewan.”
Frowns rippled over the faces of the gathered women. I’d never heard of Mosquito Lake, Saskatchewan, but it definitely didn’t sound like much of a travel hub.
“Who the hell goes fishing in a place called Mosquito Lake?” Devi remarked, and Katie elbowed her.
“Brody and Jude,” Elle offered dryly.
“They’re ice fishing,” Roni muttered, clearly unimpressed with the whole idea. “Which is even more ridiculous.”
“I think it’s just a name.” Jessa rubbed her belly in soothing circles. “It looks lovely there. Brody showed me pictures…”
“Not much of a name, tourism-wise,” Summer pointed out.
“I told him not to leave,” Roni said. “It’s too close to your due date. Now he’s sitting in some shack on the ice drinking beers when he should be here, with you.”
“It’s okay.” Jessa laughed a little, but she sounded kinda scared. “The baby isn’t due for two weeks. Who knew this would happen?”
Katie rubbed her back soothingly. “Sweetie, I’ll stay with you until he gets home. Jesse can come over, too.”
“No. It’s okay,” Jessa said, sounding less-than-thrilled at the prospect of her brother coming over. “Maggie’s my on-call Brody-fill-in. She’ll come. And actually…” She looked at me. “I was going to ask Amber to stay.”
Now everyone looked at me.
“Oh…” I said. “What?” I glanced at Katie and I knew my eyes were wide. Why did Jessa want me here instead of her sister-in-law?
“To take pictures,” Jessa explained. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. To surprise Brody. He’s been saying he wants to take photos, even video, of this whole process. I think he overestimates the free time he’s gonna have on his hands while this happens, and also, I really don’t want video of this. But some nice photos, I could live with that.” She smiled hopefully at me. “What do you think? I know it’s not exactly a glamor gig—”
“I would love to,” I told her, touched that she’d ask me.
“And I know it’s a lot to ask. We’ll pay you, of course. But if you already have plans over the next, well, twenty-four ho
urs or so, I understand.”
“No. Seriously.” I reached out and squeezed her hand. “I would love to.”
The smile spread across her face, almost wiping out the worry in her eyes.
“Are you sure?” Katie seemed hesitant to leave, though not offended. “I can stay with you until Maggie comes.”
“Really,” Jessa assured her, “it’s not a big deal. I already spoke with my midwife and she said the best thing to do now is sleep, so I can save my energy for when labor really starts.”
“It hasn’t even started yet?” Devi said, and Katie elbowed her again.
“Shit. This is not like in the movies,” Summer muttered, voicing my own thoughts.
“Nope.” Jessa sighed. “This is just the beginning of the beginning. Unless contractions start. And I’d really like as few people here as possible when they do. I’m nervous enough.”
“Okay. Well…” Katie hugged Jessa and held her, carefully but tight. “Please let me know if you need anything. I’m just a text away.”
“Thank you.” Jessa hugged her back, and they held on a while. “Next time you see me, though, I’ll be handing you your niece or nephew. Save the help for that. I’m gonna need it.”
I saw the smile spread across Katie’s face, over Jessa’s shoulder. There were tears in her eyes when she said, “I can’t wait,” but she whisked them away before she pulled away, before Jessa could see them.
Then the girls rallied out the door in a flurry of hugs and whispers of I love you and Call me.
“Call me,” Katie made me promise as she left. “Jessa won’t ask for help.”
“I will.”
“Like if Maggie needs a break, or if contractions start before Maggie gets here—”
“Believe me,” I assured her, “I’ll call you,” horrified at the thought: me, struggling to figure out what the hell to do if a baby started coming out of Jessa.
I closed up after the girls and when I turned back to Jessa, she held her phone out to me. “Could you try Maggie again? I haven’t been able to reach her yet.”
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