Joy splattered over her heart and into her head, drowning out her friend's demand. The emotion filled every empty corner of her soul in blinding excitement. “I'm going to have a baby.”
“Correct.” Her other friend leaned on the counter, staring at her with as equally a determined look as Suz's. “However, the question of the hour, the day, the week—”
“The month, the year—”
“—eternity.” Tracy cut in. “Is whose baby is it?”
Lise looked at each of them. Glanced down at her tea and sipped.
“I hate when she does this,” her best friend grumbled. “It's going to be like pulling teeth, Trace.”
“Yep. Good thing I work for a dentist.”
“The sperm donor isn’t important.” He wasn’t, her brain insisted. Not important in any way. He wouldn’t want to know, her heart claimed. He wouldn’t care if she did tell him. She wasn’t going to tell him. Because he wasn’t important.
Her conscience rumbled inside her. A low, slow roll of guilt.
She pushed it down and away.
“‘Not important,’ the girl says.” Suz inspected her in complete skepticism, her accent now sharp. “This from a girl who's slept with exactly two men in her entire thirty years.”
“Actually,” Tracy folded her arms and winked at the other woman. “She's slept with at least three, now.”
“I'm twenty-nine,” Lise inserted. “And it's only been the three.”
Red nails tapped a refrain on the tiled counter. “The first two sexual partners were duds. Do you remember the geek from Oxford she chose for her first, Tracy?”
“Yep. A total dud.”
“He was nice.”
Both of her friends snorted.
“Then she picked the cold fish,” Suz kept going, “who couldn’t even claim to be nice.”
“I didn't mind going to bed with Robert.” She hadn’t known what real sex was at that point. Consequently, she’d been satisfied. Kind of.
“Right.” her best friend sniffed. “What did you say when I asked you about the sex?”
“She said the sex was fine,” Tracy said.
“Fine.” Suz's eyes sparkled with grim humor. “As I said, Robert was—and is—a dud.”
“You’re sure it’s not his, Lise?” Tracy’s eyes filled with sudden worry. “I mean, the guy’s not only a dud, he’s a cold fish. It would be awful if he were the father.”
“I’m sure it’s not his.”
“Interesting.” Her best friend’s brows lifted. “Except only six weeks ago you broke up—”
“If you have to know,” she gritted through her teeth. “We hadn’t slept together in awhile.”
“Awhile?” Suz’s brows arched even farther. “What’s awhile?”
Silence fell. The kitchen clock ticked. The refrigerator hummed.
“About three months,” she finally admitted.
“I’m thinking Robert is the dudiest dud there ever was.” Suz sniffed in disgust. “You made a lucky escape. Very lucky.”
“Who cares about him? I want to know about the third one.”
“The one we, her-best-friends-since-the-beginning-of-time, do not know a thing about.”
“Which is unbelievable,” Tracy concurred with the other woman. “Extremely uncharacteristic of our Lise. She’s predictable in telling us about her predictable life.”
“The sex was a one off.” She kept her gaze on the remnants of her tea. “A nothing.”
“A nothing which has turned into a very big something,” Suz pointed out.
“Wait, wait.” Tracy's voice rose in excitement. “Our girl had a one-night stand.”
“You're right. This is amazing.”
“Astonishing!”
Lise forced herself to look at them. She had to, in order to deliver the scowl both of them deserved. “Stop being ridiculous.”
“I can't believe it.” Tracy fluttered her hand in front of her face, as if she were about to faint. “Our cool, composed—”
“Always-in-control—”
“—friend,” Tracy continued, “got swept away.”
“By some man.”
“Got caught in the moment.”
“By a man who could not possibly be a dud in the sexual department.”
“Not if he cracked through Lise's dignity and got her into his bed.”
“Not only did he crack through her dignity, he swept away any thought of her cold fish of a fiancé.”
“No,” she interrupted, embarrassment warring with irritation at her friends’ delight at her downfall. “This happened after. I wouldn’t have cheated—”