Discussing divorce with the man you were having a baby with and still very much in love with felt surreal, but here I was.

Theo and I had decided to meet at one of our favorite lunch spots in Yarmouth to talk about … everything that was going on. Between the baby, my family’s company, the divorce papers, Theo’s unemployment, his decision about going back to Nantucket …

We’d been avoiding it all. Christmas had come and gone, and we’d spent it together. All issues were pushed aside, and the holidays had felt like they always had when we’d been happily married with nothing hanging over our heads. And then we kind of just let that happiness melt into the weeks following, except all of those issues were still plaguing us.

It was a new year, and the time to avoid reality was pretty much up.

Ordering a salad for me and the French dip for him, I pick a table and take out my phone as I wait for Theo to meet me.

Scrolling through my Instagram feed, I digest the pictures of high school and college classmates, influencers, fashionistas and celebrities alike. They all look so happy, as if each piece of clothing, home decor item or child they’re showing off fills them with so much joy that they can’t not share it on social media. I know that much of what we see on our social networks is an idealized version of life, but with this little girl on the way, I can’t help but want her here to take a million styled photos and show her off. Not because I need to show off, but because I’m so proud of this little miracle we created.

And because I can’t contain this burst of excitement, I text Nicole.

I laugh at her question, not because it’s not true … but because it’s so true, it seems hilarious. Theo actually asked me the other day if he could bubble wrap my growing bump when I went to work, just to know it had a little extra padding in case someone walked into me.

“Immy?” A voice asks somewhere over my head.

Snapping my chin up, and out of my cloud of baby protection measures and ridiculous texts from Nicole, I see Kieran Hayes standing above me.

“Kieran! What … what are you doing here?” I stand quickly, and we scoop each other into a hug.

Kieran looks much the same as he always has; the all-American blond hair, blue-eyed, tall, lean thoroughbred male, he is one of the precious Hayes sons, poised to take over the world. Our families have been friends since our great-grandfathers met at Yale, or something like that, and we grew up together. In a world where enemies make better friends, Kieran has always been a true ally. He is kind, fair and constantly listened to me complain about not being given the same chances as a Weston woman. For the past two years, he’s been running his family’s London branch of their financial management company.

This man is everything Theo is not … and I couldn’t have been less excited about his looks, personality, and overall way when my family was trying to push us together for all of those years. That’s right, Kieran is the guy my father wanted me to end up married to. And when we both realized, after one awful kiss at the age of seventeen, that we were much better off as friends, Morgan Weston didn’t take too kindly to that conclusion.

Just having Kieran stand in front of me, I know that I made the right choice. I married for love, and I married my blue-collar, bearded, hunky, determined, quiet husband who continued to make me weak in the knees all these years later.

“My father needed me back on the home front, so I’m working a couple of months from the office in Boston. But I wanted to come up this week for a little getaway. There is nowhere in the world like the Cape.” Kieran lets me go but looks at my abdomen with strange curiosity.

He’s too much of a gentleman to ask if I’m pregnant, and I won’t divulge my semi-secret to him. Not that I don’t trust Kieran, we’re friends, but there is a chance he’d mention it to someone in his family, and the news would spread like wildfire.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to figure out how I was going to tell my father.

I sit, motioning for him to join me. Theo is running late and it would be rude of me to dismiss Kieran … we can have a quick chat in the meantime.

“No, there is not. You’ll have to visit the creamery, and The Red Cottage for cinnamon bread. Oh! And don’t forget the Marshside.” My mouth is now watering.

Kieran smirks. “Hungry, eh, Immy?”

I nod, blushing. “How is Boston? And your parents?”

He sighs. “My parents are my parents, same old stuffy, conservatives we knew growing up. When are we going to be allowed to take our family companies into the next generation?”

I roll my eyes, laughing at our shared problem. “Tell me about it.”

The sound of something dropping or breaking has me jumping, since the noise is right at my back, and when I turn, I’m met with the iciest of stares.

Theo is standing in the middle of the cafe, gaping as Kieran and I smile at each other over the table.

And then he stomps out, rattling the door of the eatery on its hinges.