Page 90 of Unlikely to Stay
“I take it you’re over your morning sickness now?”CC asked.
“Bequiet!” Breckin said.“These walls have ears!I’m sure they probably report back to Kelda on a nightly basis.How else does she know everything she knows about the town?”
CC and Annie stared at their friend.“Surely you’re joking,” Annie finally said.“Please tell me it’s the preggo brain talking and you don’t really think the walls are talking to Kelda.”
“Yeah, Joyce Byers,” CC added, laughing.“Don’t be putting up any Christmas lights to prove your point.People will think you’re crazy.”
“Huh?”Breckin asked.
She rolled her eyes.“It’s fromStranger Things.”
Her friends still looked at her, saying nothing.“The Netflix original series.”
Crickets chirping.
“The Upside Down?Dustin?”CC threw her hands in the air.“Brant would get my joke,” she muttered.
“Oooh, they have ashow!”Annie squealed.“We had shows with Griff and Wyatt, too!”
“We don’t have ashow!We both like thesameshow.There’s a difference.We haven’t even watched it together.”They had planned to, but had just gotten preoccupied.
Breckin smiled at her knowingly.“Notyet, anyway.Just you wait.One minute, you’re watching your show.The next minute…bam!You get a bun in the oven,” she said, pointing to her belly.
“Oh.My.God!You’repregnant?”Sadie walked up to their booth at the exact time Breckin uttered the words.
Breckin’s face turned red and she slammed her head on the top of the table.“I’m never going to be able to keep this a secret.”
“Honey, why are you keeping it a secret fromme?”Sadie asked.
“She’s not,” Annie replied.“She just thinks your walls have ears and will dispatch the message to Kelda, who will make her have a double cat wedding with her and Burt.”
Breckin’s head rose from the table and she pointed a finger in Annie’s face.“Don’t youdarecurse me like that, Annabelle Clara Diane Cleaver Holloway!Idon’twant a cat wedding!”
CC twirled her finger on the side of her head.“Just ignore her.It’s the preggo brain making her crazy.”
Sadie clapped her hands excitedly before whispering, “I’m so excited!I’m going to be a nanny!When are you due?”
“September,” Breckin said.“Right at the beginning of school.”
“Well, that’s an inopportune time to have a baby.At least for the school counselor.”
“That’s another thing,” Breckin added.“The bar is doing so well that Griff thinks I should take a year off.Spend time with the baby and take the classes I need to get certified to become principal.”
“Oh, honey.I think that’s awonderfulidea.”
“I don’t know.I’ve just never…not worked.I don’t know what I would do.”
“I tell ya what you’d do,” Annie said.“You’d spend time with your little angel and bring her to Sophie’s Haven so she can ride the elephants and play with baby tigers!”
“It’s agirl?”Sadie asked.
Breckin rolled her eyes.“I don’t know yet.”
“Well, if it’s a girl, I can paint her toenails and fingernails pink!”CC added.“And if it’s a boy I can cut his hair into a baby Mohawk!”
Breckin frown turned into a smile.“You guys are the best, you know that?”
“We know,” all the others said at the same time.CC smiled especially big.Talking about Breckin’s baby meant they werenottalking about her meeting Brant’s mom.Or figuring out what she and Brant were doing last night.Her friends had the uncanny ability to practically read her mind.