“I have cankles,” Addie says, wrinkling her nose. “No matter what I do, my ankles won’t stop swelling. Not to mention, my hair and nails grow so fast I have to go get them done twice as often as I used to. And you don’t even want me to tell you about my butt problems.”
“You have butt problems?” Mia asks, her eyes wide with concern. “What kind of butt problems?”
“I’m constipated most of the time. And when I do go, it’s like Satan himself is coming out of my ass because I have hemorrhoids.”
“Eww,” Cami says, making the I-just-sucked-on-a-lemon face.
“Exactly,” Addie agrees. “I’m not sexy at all. Yet Jake wants to have sex with me anyway.”
“You’re sexy,” I inform her. “It’s just the kind of sexy with hemorrhoids.”
“I don’t think that sexy exists,” Addie insists.
“Does the sex hurt the baby?” Mia asks. “I mean, I would guess not because people have been having sex forever, and I’m sure they’ve done it while pregnant, but I wonder about that.”
“I don’t think so,” Cici says with a laugh. “They’ve got a lot of padding in there.”
“All of this is disgusting,” I reply with a shudder.
“Jake says I have a sexy glow.”
“Well, since he impregnated you, he should think that,” Riley says. “It’s pretty cute to watch him when he puts his hands on your belly.”
“He’s started reading to the baby,” Addie says with a soft, lovesick smile. “I said no to Fifty Shades.”
“He wanted to read Fifty Shades to the baby?” I ask with a laugh.
“He said it didn’t matter what he read because the baby can’t understand the words, and we might as well read something entertaining, but I said no way. No R-rated books for the bambino.”
“So what does he read?” Riley asks.
“Guitar magazines, mostly. He did recently read a biography of Johnny Cash.”
“I wouldn’t mind listening to that,” I murmur. “So, speaking of reading aloud, Mac reads to me all the time.”
“Why?” Mia asks.
“Because I like it.” I shrug. “He even reads my romance novels to me. It’s incredibly sexy. They’ve inspired some really fun sexy time.”
“Huh.” Riley taps her finger on her lips, contemplating. “I can see that. Do you read back to him?”
“I did once.” I smile slowly. “When we were in the car on the way to the beach. It turned him on so much he fucked the shit out of me as soon as we got to the condo.”
“Wow,” Addie says, and puts her fist out for me to bump. “Good for you.”
“I’m telling you. Best. Sex. Ever.”
“That’s when you know he’s The One,” Cici informs me. “If it’s the best sex of your life, you hang on to him.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Mia says with a shake of the head. “I’ve had the best sex of my life, and I’m definitely not marrying him.”
“Why not?” Cici asks.
“Because he dumped me and married someone else,” Mia replies. She does her best to make it sound like it’s old news that no longer affects her, but we all know differently.
Camden was the one who got away. Or, more accurately, the one who left with no explanation.
“Well, I’m not talking about marriage either,” I say, and sigh in pleasure when Cici moves over to my feet and gets started on them. “Who knows what will happen? For now, we’re enjoying each other, and that’s good enough for me.”
“Okay,” Cici says with a wink. “Your feet are torn up.”
“That’s what happens when you wear heels every day to work and you’re on your feet for ten-plus hours.”
“My feet don’t do that, and I wear heels just as much,” Addie says. “Well, I used to. Before I got the cankles.”
“You have good feet genetics,” I reply. “I have to work to have mine look nice.”
“No,” Cici adds, “I have to work for your feet to look nice.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“I’m on my way home,” I inform Mac about three hours later. “Do you need anything?”
“Just you, but thanks for asking,” he replies. “Did you have fun?”
“We always have fun.”
Suddenly my car jerks and black rubber flies up from the passenger side. I swerve, narrowly missing another car.
“Holy fuck!”
“Kat? Kat, what’s happening?”
“Oh my God!”
A car clips my back fender, sending me onto the shoulder of the road. They don’t stop, and I don’t have time, or the wits, to get their plate before I come to a crashing stop at the side of the road.
“Holy shit, Mac.”
“Baby, what is happening?”
“I think I blew a tire. Someone hit my back fender.”
“Did they stop? Where are you?”
I’m breathing hard, my heart is beating a million beats a minute.
“They didn’t stop.” I get out of the car and circle to the passenger side. “Front right tire is shredded.”
“Where are you?” he asks again.
I find a sign, and give him the nearest exit information.