Nicole

Penny plucks the pouch of a pair of maternity jeans, pulling it taut like a slingshot. She fires and the blue cotton bounces. “Oh! Look at the stretchiness! This is such a winner.”

I narrow my eyes at her and deliver my absolute best you’ve got to be kidding me stare. “Those. Are. Hideous.”

Penny bats her eyelashes. “They’re a building block.” Her voice is pure innocence. “A stepping stone to mom jeans.”

“Did someone say mom jeans?” Delaney rushes to us with a shirt wadded in her hand. “Your mom jeans would go so well with your new peekaboo.”

She unfolds it with a ta-da and strikes a pose.

I mime gagging. The shirt has a cutout over the belly. “Why? Tell me. Why on earth does that exist? Who even authorized a cutout maternity T-shirt?”

Delaney cracks up. “If you were a fashion writer, you’d have to do a column on the five worst maternity items.”

Penny snaps her fingers. “I know one to include. That Christmas maternity shirt that said ‘Santa’s Favorite Ho.’”

I laugh. “That is totally going on the list.”

Delaney hangs up the holey shirt then adjusts her bright blond ponytail. “Have you found anything you like?”

I shake my head. “Not a single stitch of fabric. Am I just too picky?”

“No way. You can never be too picky with clothes,” Penny says, her brown eyes intense. “Let’s keep looking.”

We wander through the racks in the maternity section of a department store in Brooklyn that we traveled to for this purpose. The chichi maternity boutiques in Manhattan are just too pricey for items I’ll wear only a few times. As Penny considers a rack of tent-like shirts, my phone pings.

My Pavlovian response kicks in.

Butterflies descend into my chest.

I grab my cell and slide my finger over the screen.

Ryder: Look. I’m just going to be blunt here. That okay with you?

In the two weeks he’s been gone, our texts have veered from gentle concern over my wrist—it’s totally fine now—to flirty, so I have a hunch I’ll enjoy his bluntness.

Nicole: I like blunt. Especially blunt hardness.

Ryder: Yes, blunt hardness is apt, since I need to tell you that your boobs look spectacular.

Nicole: You were always a big fan of the girls.

Ryder: I’m their number one fan. I had one of those big foam fingers commissioned to say Number One Fan of Your Tits. But it seemed a little too—how shall we say—inappropriate to actually wave around.

Nicole: Appropriateness is overrated.

Ryder: Anyway, I noticed the spectacularness of your chest last time I saw you.

Ryder: Let me amend that. I always notice your breasts. They are always spectacular. And now they’re at a whole new level of spectacularity.

Ryder: Fuck, now I’m really fucking turned on, and I have to go on air. Thanks a lot for having such perfect tits.

Nicole: I wish I could say I was sorry that my boobs are distracting you from 2,000 miles away, but I’m not. I’ll leave you with this thought—they’re even more sensitive now.

Ryder: Did you hear me groan across half the continent? Dear Lord, woman. What are you doing to me?

Nicole: Distracting you, since I’m buying a new lacy bra to hold my bigger boobs in.

Ryder: I demand pictorial evidence.

As I contemplate the best angles for shooting a selfie boob-shot later tonight, I look up from my phone. I flinch when I see Penny tapping her Converse-sneakered toe against the floor. Delaney joins in, beating out a rhythm with her dove-gray boots.

Both stand with arms crossed.

The sharp look in two pairs of eyes reads busted.

“I couldn’t help but notice Ryder’s name pop across your screen.” Penny sounds like a cop interrogating a suspect.

“And I couldn’t help but notice the ridiculously silly grin on your face,” Delaney adds.

“Umm . . .” But I’ve got no alibi. No excuse. I’m flirting with my baby daddy.

“What’s going on?”

I sigh, shrug, and hold out my hands. “I don’t know.”

“But you’re texting, as in sexting him?”

I grip my phone tighter, the words we just sent—words like boob and hard—flashing as neon signs before my eyes. “I think so.”

Delaney gives me a sharp stare. “Think? You of all people should know what sexting is. Were you or weren’t you?”

“We were,” I admit.

“Were you going to tell us?”

“That we were sexting?” I furrow my brow. “That hardly seems like something I need to issue a bulletin for.”

“Nicole,” Delaney says, admonishing, “this isn’t flirting with an ex. You’re flirting with the guy who knocked you up.”

They point in unison at my belly. I’m twenty weeks now. It’s no longer flat. My stomach is a crescent moon, and I love it.

Penny rests her arm on the silvery bar of a rack of tunics. “Is something happening between you guys?”

I drop my face to my hands momentarily, hiding behind my utter I-don’t-know-what’s-going-on-ness. But this isn’t my style. I don’t run from things. I don’t hide. I look up and meet the twin gazes of my best friends. “I like him so much,” I say, though that hardly feels like enough. It barely covers the way his kisses make me weak in the knees, how his touch is both reassuring and an absolute turn-on, how my stomach executes backflips when he stares at me like he wants to eat me up. And like doesn’t even skim the surface of how my heart soared when he took care of me a few weeks ago after my fall, treating me like I was the most precious thing in the universe.

My throat hitches. “He’s kind of amazing.”

Penny clasps a hand to her chest and sighs dreamily.

Delaney shoots her a look then turns to me. “It’s not that simple. Amazing isn’t what this is about. You gave me tough love when I was debating whether to give Tyler a second chance. It’s your turn to be the recipient.”

I back up to the mirror, lean against it, and beckon with a curl of my fingers. Bring it on. I can handle it.

Delaney talks into her fist. “He’s the father of your child.” She drops the imaginary mic.

“You’re falling for the father of your baby,” Penny says, stating the obvious because, evidently, it needs to be stated.

“I don’t know if it’s falling in love,” I say, trying to approach my feelings like a show topic. “How would I know, after all? I’ve never felt that before. It might just be pregnancy hormones. You’ve got to understand, everything feels good right now. In the second trimester, you’re like this gigantic walking endorphin. Every single thing is wonderful. I’m all happy hormones and love right now.”

“I know, but even so,” Delaney says, keeping on point, “what are you going to do?”

I’m a planner. I should have a plan, but I don’t. “I honestly don’t know.”

Delaney tries to provide one for me. “If you guys are spending time together, don’t you think that might mean he wants to be involved with the kid?”

I flash back to Ryder’s reaction to the heartbeat. To the magic I saw in his eyes. To his care and concern for the baby. And it hits me. He’s falling for his child.

Talk about endorphins.

I’m made of nothing else right now. I float to the ceiling of the store, and I don’t even need a bouquet of balloons to hold on to.

But I drop back down with Penny’s next words. “Are you going to amend your agreement?”

Right. We have a contract. We have no expectations. He has no parental rights.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I’ll see how it goes.”

And later that night, it goes like this.

I slide into my new black, lacy bra. It makes my breasts rise even higher. The swells of flesh are visible against the lace. I take aim, snapping a few shots.

I send one to him.

His reply is instantaneous.

Ryder: You’re an angel. And I want to bury my face between those beauties.

More replies rain down, rapid fire, ping after ping on my phone.

Ryder: Kiss them, suck them, pinch them.

Ryder: Worship them.

Ryder: Kiss you everywhere.

Ryder: I want my tongue everywhere on you.

Flames lick my body, and I do the next logical thing. He doesn’t even ask for it. But I take off the bra. And I snap another photo. No nipples. But plenty of flesh. I hit send.

Ryder: If you don’t hear from me, assume I’ve died and gone to heaven.

And so have I, because minutes later, I’m starfished on my bed, my new vibrator playing his role, as I call out Ryder’s name when I come.

Attraction has always been the easy part. I’ll figure out the hard stuff some other night.