Page 55 of Never Forever
“To your love shack you mean?” I asked her with a lecherous wiggle of my eyebrows. My sister was in a hot and heavyrelationship with world-class photographer and upstairs tenant, Levi O’Rourke. I was all for my sister getting some action that turned her cheeks pink.
Did I worry about her heart getting broken? Of course. But everyone’s heart got broken at some point, didn’t it?
“It’s not like a relationship,” she whispered, looking around. “He’s not staying. The whole thing isn’t…real.”
He seemed pretty real to me. The way he looked at her? Very real.
However, if anyone could make a love affair complicated, it was my sister. She probably gave him a to-do list and a spreadsheet before climbing into bed with him.
Of course, I was one to talk. I didn’t have love affairs. Complicated or otherwise. I had donor 8065.
I gave her the side-eye. “Just tell me this, you not going all in, is not about the curse, right?”
“Of course not,” she snapped.
“Because the curse is bullshit,” I said.
“Well, to be fair, between Gran, Mom, and…” she stopped and looked at me guiltily.
“Me? You can say it.”
“Yeah. Okay. You and Matt. We haven’t been very lucky.”
“Just because Mom, Gran and I have had our hearts broken doesn’t mean you will too. In fact, if I did believe in curses, which I don’t, I’m betting on you to break it.”
I nudged her shoulder with mine. She nudged mine back.
“So, where are you going to live once this movie wraps?” she asked again. “If you’re pregnant, you’ll need a place to nest.”
“Well, once I am pregnant I imagine Mom and Gran will want me out at the island.”
“The back porch fell off!” Annie said. “I’m not sure anyone can stay in that house, but certainly not a pregnant woman.”
“That’s why we’re bringing out the contractor,” I said, grabbing her hand with mine. “We’ll figure it out.”
My sister squeezed my hands. “Mom and Gran and you, making a baby,” Annie said.
“Mom and Gran and me, making a baby,” I echoed. That was fucking…terrifying.
At my preliminary appointment the doctor had proclaimed me an ideal candidate for IUI. Intrauterine insemination, which was a fancy way of saying getting spermed up, was going to be my first option.
I was healthy, fertile and had taken myself off the pill a year ago. Also, she’d given me a low dose hormone to help me get pregnant.
A baby-making machine, she’d declared.
Even though I was still miserable and exhausted, I smiled at the thought.
“You’re smiling. I like to see that,” Annie said.
“I’m just really excited,” I said. “Once this movie is finally over I get to just concentrate on knocking myself up.”
Annie laughed and gripped my hand. “You’re going to be a great mom,” she said.
Yeah, that part I was a little worried about. No mother was perfect, but I thought if I could combine the best of my mother and my gran and my amazing sister sitting next to me, I might just stand a chance.
The bell over the door rang, and like one of Pavlov’s dogs, Annie’s head went up.
She was hoping for Levi.