Curled up on the couch, halfway through my takeout fettuccine Alfredo, I sigh. There’s a rerun of some old sitcom on, although I have no clue what it is or even what the episode’s about. One of the dangers of cable, I guess. You can easily veg out, and the box isn’t going to stop pumping sound and video into your living room.

“What the . . .?” I wonder, setting down my fork. The fettuccine is cold. I’ll probably have to nuke the stuff to make it halfway palatable again, but that’s not what’s roused me from my stupor. Looking around my small living room, I blink for a moment before there’s another knock at the door. “Oh . . . just a second!”

I climb off the couch and hurry over, opening up to find Brad leaning against the frame. Before I can say anything, he looks me up and down and starts tsking me. “Girl, you own the premier fashion institute in town. The one and only person I trust to find me accessories, yet currently, you look homeless, and not in the distressed chic scissor-slashed way.”

After completing his head-to-toe summary of my disheveled appearance, he sashays in, not bothering to wait for an invitation.

The brassy bitch. I stare after him, knowing that if anyone else barged in on my downtime, I’d be pissed. But Brad is allowed certain privileges since he’s my nearest and dearest in Great Falls. But that doesn’t mean he gets a free walk. “It’s called comfort home wear, Brad. You should try it sometime. Unclench your nuts from those skinny pants.”

“Mmm-hmm . . .” he says, not disturbed at all. “Trust me, honey, I get plenty of chances to free-ball in my free time.”

I groan, closing my door as Brad heads to the kitchen. “Well, then I get plenty of dress-up time too. And now it’s my dress-down time . . . but please, no free-ballin’ now.”

“Touché. Fine, I’ll stay dressed appropriately and you can stay . . . like that.” I can hear the smirk in his voice as he roots around in the cabinets. As his head pops up, he lifts a green bottle. “All right, I hereby call this night to order. Initiate wine and dinner. I brought chicken and feta salads, but I see you’ve jumped the gun and started in on the pasta. Thankfully, this Chardonnay goes well with both.”

I laugh at how comfortable he is, taking over the evening without so much as a second thought. “Fine,” I reply, elbowing my way past his thin frame to head over to my cabinet. I grab him a plate and pull down two wine glasses. “I brought home enough pasta for us to split if we share the salad too.”

Shaking his head sadly, Brad starts putting salad on one plate, leaving a good chunk of it in the bowl he brought it in. “No pasta for me. Trey has me counting my carbs, and pasta in cream sauce would be my allowance for days. Salad only.”

Looking back down at my previously delicious plate with a frown, I sigh and stick the rest of it in the fridge. “Yeah, going over to Casa de Rosseti is probably not the best choice, but it was fresh and hot, and the best part . . . I didn’t have to cook it.”

Brad laughs and uncorks the bottle. “I know just what you mean, girl. And if I could, I would, but considering my trainer also sees me naked, it serves me well to follow his nutrition plan. Otherwise, I hear it from both my trainer and my boyfriend. Hell no on that.”

Grinning, I think of Brad’s boyfriend. They met at the gym. Where else, I guess. What started out as a ‘free trial trainer consultation’ progressed to Brad asking Trey out a few days later. They hit it off pretty quickly and have been inseparable and adorable ever since. Yeah . . . I’m a little jealous. “Where is Trey tonight? Figured y’all would be out?”

Brad shrugs and does little air quotes with his fingers. “He had a ‘work emergency’ down at the gym.”

“He’s a personal trainer,” I note, confused. “How the hell does he have a work emergency at nine on a Friday night?”

Brad sighs and takes a sip of his wine before he continues. “It’s fine. One of his high-paying clients had a schedule change this week, so their regular time had to move too.”

I look down my nose at Brad for a moment, considering what he said for a moment before airing my worries. “Does that, uh . . . concern you? Late-night impromptu training session sounds like a cover if ever I heard one. No offense, Brad, but Trey is hot as fuck and you two did hook up at the gym.”

Brad smirks, draining about half of his glass before getting a refill. “Not in the least. His client is a cougar . . . of the human female variety. She’s a professor at the university who’s got a conference in Italy next week, and I think she wants to sample more than the local cannoli. So I’m thinking my hottie is just fine. Maybe not as fine as me,” he says as he pops his ass out in his signature move, “but for reals, have you seen his ass? My man is fi-i-ine. Mmmhmm.”

I bust out laughing because while Brad might be over the top, he is right about Trey. He’s a good-looking guy, all muscle and skin so smooth I might consider killing for it. And a bubble butt that no man should ever, ever have naturally.

Settling on the couch with our plates and glasses of wine, we catch up on work. “So, how’s the Triple B?”

“Oh, salon’s going well. We’re rollin’ for the winter formal season. I bet that’s a good time for you too.”

“Not too bad,” I admit. “Most of the stuff for the next few months is rentals. High school kids can’t afford to buy, but that still means a lot of good money in the register. And let’s face it, being able to dry clean and then sell some of those dresses later is sweet.”

“I remember my prom,” Brad says, giggling. “I ended up giving the captain of the football team a blowjob in the locker room. Ten minutes later, he and his girlfriend were elected King and Queen. What about you?”

“Me?” I reply with a small sigh. “I’ve actually never been to a dance. Like, ever. I went to a high school that thought proms were too old-fashioned for modern times. So, no dance, no King and Queen. Although they did have Student Leaders take a lap around the track at the homecoming football game. The winners my senior year were two girls who were the farthest thing from leaders as you could get unless you wanted to be led to the liquor aisle at the Pick ‘n Go. After high school, I buckled down in college, just studied and never went to a single party. And now, in the blink of an eye, here I am. Never been danced, although I’ve definitely been kissed.” I laugh at my own bad joke, but it’s halfhearted.

Brad catches a hint of wistfulness in my tone and sets his glass down, leaning forward. “What’s wrong?”

I shrug and drain my first glass of wine before holding it out for a refill. “Same as always, nothing to get your panties in a twist. I’m thrilled with everything I’ve accomplished at the boutique, but there’s just a big void where I thought my personal life would be by now. All I do is work, work, work, and while I love that song, as a description of my life, it sucks.”

Brad hums and refills my glass. “All right, so you want the whole hubby and two point five kids deal? Hit Tinder, hit eHarmony. Find a guy who’s after the same things and go for it. They can’t be that hard to find.”

If only. “Ugh . . . blind dates, swiping left and right, and matching all just sound like heartbreak. Finding a guy is the hard part! You know what I sort of miss, Brad?”

“You mean besides a man?” he asks, and I nod. “What?”

“I’ve never done anything really out there. I mean, I was serious in high school, even more serious in college, and then I jumped into the boutique and I’ve been basically living there ever since. I’ve accomplished my to-do list, but maybe I didn’t realize that I should’ve had things like do something wild, meet Mr. Wrong and Mr. Right, get married, and have babies on the list too.” As I list things out, I make checkmarks in the air.

Brad shakes his head, sipping his wine again. “So do something crazy! You don’t need a guy to have a baby. Tackle both goals at once. Have a whole ‘I am woman . . . hear me roar’ moment and do it the turkey baster way. You’d be a great mom.”

My jaw drops in shock, and I double-check my glass just to make sure I have downed only one. “Turkey baster way? What the hell are you talking about? Like get inseminated? I don’t think I could do that.”

Brad lifts an eyebrow and drains his first glass. “Of course you can. Single moms are all the rage now . . . well, really, I think they’ve always been a thing, considering my mom raised me alone, and look how fabulous I turned out. But there’s no stigma these days, just one of many ways families are made. You could totally do it.”

Brad judges my reaction, his grin widening. “You’re thinking about it! You are! Where’s your laptop . . . give it to me, bitch!”

“Well . . . I guess there’s no harm in just looking. But that’s all it is, okay? I don’t think wine and artificial insemination mix.”

“Nope,” Brad says while doing a quick Google search. “Wine tends to help with the natural way though. That’s been going on for thousands of years.”

The dry humor helps, and in moments, we’re on a website full of the dos and don’ts of artificial insemination. It’s not trashy or desperate, as I thought it could be, and Brad nods.

A few more clicks and he’s in a database of sperm donors, all available for purchase for artificial insemination. “Okay, hocus pocus, tell me your dream baby daddy and we’ll cook him up right here.”

There’s a series of drop-down fields, and I answer them in turn. “Tall, over six foot for sure . . . dark hair, brown or black. I don’t care about his eyes. Teeth . . . well, I don’t want anyone snaggletoothed, I guess, but I mean, who cares, right?”

“You’d be surprised,” Brad says, clicking away. “Education level?”

I think, but it’s really not that hard. “I don’t care if he’s a doctor or anything, but I want him to be smart.”

Brad nods and clicks a few times. “And here . . . we . . . go.”

Admittedly, I’m shocked when multiple options come back for my criteria. I mean seriously, where are all these tall, dark, handsome, smart guys in my life? There have to be some around here if I actually got out a little, but here I am, looking at a website full of men who match all of my boxes. We click around at the different listings, some with pictures and some anonymous.

As we start going through the profiles, Brad chuckles. “What about Tyler here? Says he makes soap.”

“Does not!” I giggle. “It says he’s a plastic surgeon.”

“Which means those dimples for damn sure aren’t natural.” Brad laughs. “Hmm . . . Michael?”

“Looks like he’d be a lumberjack,” I protest. “Beards might be in fashion with some guys, but he most certainly needs a trim.”

“Good point. What about Rex?”

I pretend to gag, shaking my head. “Oh, hell to the no. He looks like Pee Wee Herman!”

Brad throws up a hand and gives me a look. “Fine, you tell me. Who’s your type here?”

I look up and down the list and point out one with piercing green eyes and a clean-shaven jaw that looks strong enough to slice through steel. “Here’s one. Whoa, that Superman could save me any day!”

Brad hums, nodding as we pull up the profile. “Six-four, two twenty-five? Too bad for me he’s straight.”

“How can you tell?” I ask. “It’s just a picture.”

“Trust me,” Brad says. “I’ve got an eye for it. Now Don, here . . . just no,” Brad hisses, shaking his head with distaste. “Jesus, girl, he looks like Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson had a baby!”

“Lord have mercy,” I say with a laugh, almost thinking the same thing as I see one scary-looking dude with a mullet.

Brad lets out a harrumph, turning the picture to the side. “Well . . . I don’t know, girl, from this angle he does look kinda cute . . .”

“Don’t even start,” I say dangerously, cutting my eyes.

We both stare at each other for a moment before erupting into gales of laughter.

After an hour of looking and the rest of the bottle of wine, Brad leaves, but not before one last parting shot. “Figure out what you really want and go get it. If it’s a man, you’ve gotta get out there. But if it’s the baby, just get yourself some baby batter and call it done.”

I know he’s right, but I’m not really sure which of those options is what I want. Instead, I crawl into bed, not even bothering to clean up the dishes or brush my teeth.

It can wait.