"You're laughing at me again."

"I know. I'm sorry–"

Elizabeth can't even finish her sentence as she laughs even louder. I don't understand it. She's never laughed this much the entire time I've known her nerdy ass. She's lucky that she's growing a little baby Roman inside of that tummy of hers, because I swear that I'm ten seconds away from throttling her.

"I mean it, Elizabeth Hill. Shut your cute little pregnant trap."

We're in our old favorite haunt, Java The Hut, and I'm waiting for my caramel macchiato with a double shot of espresso while she waits for her mug of decaffeinated green tea.

Elizabeth holds her stomach, palms flat on her growing pouch, as she tries to subdue her laughter. "But your life is incredibly funny."

"My life is not a sitcom. My life is shit. I'm starting to hate my job. I have a black eye. My sister is barely speaking to me. I can't get laid to save my life. And the icing on the cake? The number one person that I need to steer clear of is now my freakin' landlord."

"He had some sort of fight with his brother."

"So?"

"I guess he needed another place to live, so he bought one." Elizabeth isn't laughing anymore, but it doesn't matter, because I can see it all in her eyes, that she is completely entertained by this twist of fate.

"Wait . . . do you think that he's going to actually live in the building too? What's he going to do. Kick out one of the tenants because–"

"What?"

"Wait he can't be."

"He can't be what?" she asks with a look of anxious glee.

"There's only one vacancy in my building that I know of. On my floor. Next door to Kyle. But he wouldn't."

Elizabeth takes a sip of her tea and smiles at me over the top of the mug. "Aah, but he would. He's a King."

I take a sip of my coffee like it's a shot of whiskey.

"So what you're saying is that you think it's totally possible that he bought my building and is moving in next door to me?"

"I'm afraid so. Hey, lift up your bandage so I can take a peek."

I lift up one side of my bandage for a few seconds then stick it back down.

"Is it presumptuous of me to say that he did this solely to get on my one last good nerve? I mean it can't be a coincidence. Didn't the dark knight tell you anything?"

"No, I only know about the dispute between the Kings, because I was eavesdropping on Roman's phone conversation with Camden. I didn't know anything about him buying your building."

"I'm never going home."

"What?" She giggles. "You have to. You live there. Let's order some croissants. I'm starving."

"It's cold in my house. My thermostat is broken. The super said the thing is busted, but that he'd need the landlord's purchase approval to install another one. The landlord never got back to him. Now I see why. He was too busy selling the damn building to a lunatic."

"Get an electric blanket and go home."

"If there were mice in my house I wouldn't go home."

"That's stupid too, and don't talk about mice when I'm hungry."

"You're afraid of mice as much as I am."

"Yes, but I'd hire an exterminator to get rid of them. I wouldn't just leave my home, crazy girl. I didn't realize that Cutter brought out this type of visceral reaction from you. What else happened when he came by your job that you're not telling me about?" She grins mischievously.

The best kiss of my life.

"You're getting some sick pleasure out of this which is very uncharacteristic of you, my dearest friend. That man of yours is rubbing off on you in all the wrong ways."

"What do you have against Cutter anyway? As you get to know him better, I think you'll begin to get a better understanding of who he is. He's really–"

"Let me stop you there." I throw up my hand in the formation of a stop sign. "I don't plan on understanding anything about Cutter King at all. My hope was that I wouldn't see the guy again until your wedding day or until the baby comes. Whichever comes first since you seem to keep changing your mind about when you're getting married."

"Blame Aunt Juliette. She keeps changing my mind for me."

"Guess it's all a moot point. I'm going to have to see him now. Doesn't mean that I have to like it though."

"But isn't that the real reason why you're so upset? You do like it?"

"Let's just talk about decorating my goddaughter or godson's room."

"Changing the subject on me?"

"I have a vision. Do you want to see what I have planned for the baby or not?"

She finally yields and pretends like she's zipping her lips with her fingers. Then she gets up to order us two croissants. While she's ordering I decide to pull out my pen and sketchpad. I like to make rough drawings of what I want a room to look like before I begin decorating it. Decorating rooms is just a hobby for me, but one that I take seriously if I'm going to do it right, and I can't wait to make Elizabeth's nursery a beautiful sanctuary for her and the baby.

She returns with the food and sits down. "Okay, I'm ready. Lay it on me."

"So I thought about going with a deep cherry wood crib, changing table, and dresser but selecting pure white bedding and window dressings."

"White?"

"I think the contrast will look beautiful and natural regardless of the sex of the baby. I'm going to do everything in organic or recycled fabrics and materials too. The bedding. The curtains. The flooring. It's going to look amazing and be chemical free for the baby."

"I'm sure I'll love everything you've got planned."

"You will." I smile. "And don't worry I'll make sure that you are involved in every part of the process. It will be fun for us to hang out and do this together. I feel like I haven't spent any quality time with you in eons."

"Agreed. Speaking of quality time, have you talked to Tiny lately?"

Tiny is one of our closest friends from college. She lived on our floor and is the third missing piece from our bestie trifecta.

"Not really. All the stuff going on at work has been kicking my ass lately. Last time we spoke was probably two weeks ago. I think she met a guy. I'm not sure. I was half listening and half arguing with a saleslady in the mall about a return when we were on the phone."

"Well at least she's alive and breathing. I haven't heard from her in a long time. So what's going on at work?"

"I'm sure that I've mentioned her before but there's this woman, Regan, who just won't leave me alone."

"Has she ever gone to drinks with us?"

"No, she doesn't really fraternize with coworkers. Not unless they're management. So anyway, if I didn't already know that she is strictly dickly, I would swear to you that she wants me in the biblical way. She's obsessed with me. Let me rephrase that. Obsessed with crushing me. And I can't for the life of me understand why. She's been at the company longer. Her sales territory is more established than mine. Her team makes more money than we do. And if the rumors are true, the head of our division is some old friend of her family's. So her job is secure. She'd damn near have to commit a felony to get fired. So why is she so worried about what I'm doing?"

Elizabeth sighs. "More pretty girl problems."

"What?"

"I call what you're going through pretty girl problems. You're just one of those women, Sloan. It's been like that since I've known you. It was probably that way before we met. You're gorgeous, you come from money, a famous parent, and you're good with people–especially men. Women either love you or love to hate you. They're either in awe of you or they're intimidated by you. You're a threat to that Regan person for some reason that only her psychotherapist can probably explain. It's her problem. Not yours."

"Pretty girl problems huh? Well I think my butt is way too big and it's my parents who have the money, not me, but I get what you're saying."

"Perhaps another theory is that Regan is one of those women who believes that there can only be one female at your level. I mean I'm no expert on office politics, but I imagine that some women prefer to be the only ones in the room."

"You could be right. I swear to you that my team supervisor, another woman named Fern, likes to pit the two of us against each other. She masks it as two sales teams battling it out for bragging rights and bonuses, but I think that she may possibly be trying to weed one of us out."

"That really sucks."

"Yeah, it does. You don't know how lucky you are to be an entrepreneur and not have to worry about crap like this."

"I'm not sure that it has anything to do with luck. I made a conscious decision that I would work for myself when I was an undergrad because of this very thing. I hate office politics. I'd never be any good at it. You could try working for yourself too if you wanted to you know."

Elizabeth has always been a huge proponent of women starting their own businesses instead of working for the "patriarchy." I can't honestly say that I ever gave it any serious thought. I was just glad to get a job after graduation and prove to my family that I could do more than post Instagram photos."

"I can't sell Viagra independently like its Avon."

"Obviously you would do something else, Sloan."

"Eh, maybe."

I get our conversation back on track and start explaining my intentions for the nursery. I show her the sketch of a very basic floor plan, so that Elizabeth can visualize what the space will look like once I've worked my magic.

"Also I'm thinking about placing some built-in shelving here. Do you like that idea?"

She shakes her head with a mouth full of croissant. "Umm-hmm."

"You seem hungry."

"I am. This croissant isn't cutting it."

"You want real food?"

"Yep."

"Where do you want to go? It's on me."

"Maybe you could cook me a little something at your apartment?" She starts laughing hysterically. "I wonder if we'll see your new neighbor there.”

I crumple up my napkin and throw it at her forehead.

That settles it.

Pregnant women are bitches.