I had something to get excited about too.
Lucas answered the door. “Hey, Erin. How are you?”
“Good.” I grinned at him like an idiot. I know something you don’t know.
“They’re upstairs whispering about something. Want to take a cup of coffee up?”
“Sure, thanks.” I followed him into the kitchen, where he poured me a cup from a carafe on the counter and took the cream from the fridge.
“Cream and sugar, right?”
“Right.”
“Sugar’s in the bowl on the counter. Here you go.” He handed me the cream, and after doctoring my coffee with plenty of white stuff, I took a spoon from the silverware drawer and gave it a stir. “So what’s going on up there?” he asked.
I stared into my cup, swirling the spoon much longer than necessary. “Oh nothing. Coco wanted to get together. Probably just wedding stuff.”
“That’s what Mia said.”
I smiled, although he couldn’t see it. “I can’t believe it’s less than a month away.”
“I know. For a wedding planner, it’s probably torture to have to put things together so fast.”
“Better Coco than Mia. She’d have freaked out at the thought of doing things last-minute, although Coco’s wedding is a much different kind of affair.” I put the spoon in the sink and the cream back in the fridge.
“Right. Although Mia is pretty distracted by something these days—not freaking out, but just not herself. I’m worried about her.”
“Really?” I leaned back against the counter and casually picked up my cup. “I haven’t noticed anything.”
Lucas frowned as he lowered himself onto a counter stool. “Oh. Well, maybe I’m just imagining things. There’s been a lot going on, we’ve been really busy at the bar…thanks again for filling in.”
“Anytime. Seriously.” I smiled at him.“Well, I better get up there.”
He returned the smile, but it was more polite than genuine. I could tell he was worried. How sweet to have a guy that’s genuinely concerned for your feelings. But then I reminded myself that I wasn’t worried about feelings. Fuck feelings, I thought. Hard. In the nostril. With a cactus.
I felt better after that.
Upstairs, I found Coco in the master bedroom, fidgeting outside the closed bathroom door. “She didn’t wait for me?”
“We heard you knock. You were taking too long,” she complained. “She just went in.”
Setting my coffee cup on the dresser, I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I think it’s going to be positive.”
“Me too,” she whispered back. Then she knocked on the bathroom door. “Mia? Can we come in?”
The door opened and Mia came out, still in her pink flannel pajamas. She walked over to the bed and got in, pulling the covers all the way over her head. “It’s on the counter. You look. I can’t.” Her voice was muffled by the blankets.
Coco and I exchanged a look.
“Why don’t you come with us?” I suggested. “You should be first to see the results.”
“No. I can’t handle it.”
Sighing, Coco went to the bed, grabbed the top of the bedding and threw it back, revealing Mia curled into a little pink flannel ball. “Get the hell out of bed and get in there. We’ll go with you.”
Reluctantly, Mia got to her feet and gave each of us a hand. “OK. But I’m closing my eyes.”
I squeezed her hand. “Why? Mia, you want this. You’ve always wanted this. If it’s positive, it’s a great thing! If it’s not, that’s OK too.”
“I do want it, but not right now. Lucas was just telling me this morning how busy he’s going to be in the next few months. He wants to open a bar in Chicago, which means he’ll be gone all the time. And then he said he wants to spend some time in Provence next summer because he’s thinking about buying a vineyard up north in the near future.” Only Mia could make buying a vineyard in northern Michigan sound like catching the pox. “I had no idea about any of this. I feel blindsided!”
“OK, OK, shhhh.” Coco put a hand on Mia’s shoulder. “Listen. I know you. And I know that what upsets you more than anything is not having a plan.”
“I had a plan,” Mia insisted, dropping my hand to swipe at her nose with her sleeve. “A bar in Chicago and a vineyard up north weren’t a part of it, and neither was a surprise pregnancy. But if it’s true, Lucas will blame me for not being able to do what he wants to do. He’ll think I did this on purpose.”
“Stop it right now.” I tugged her long wavy hair in a gesture I recognized as Charlie’s. “You’re being ridiculous, which is understandable if you’re pregnant because your emotions are all crazy. We told you last night—Lucas will not think that. He’s crazy about you, and he was just telling me downstairs that he knows something is worrying you and he’s concerned.”
She sniffed. “Is he? He’s so cute.”
“Yes. Now let’s go see what the test says, and then we can make a plan for telling him, OK?”
“OK. Hold me.”
Coco and I each took one of her arms, and we walked toward the bathroom. My pulse drummed and my stomach was flip-flopping madly, as if it were my pregnancy test, not Mia’s. I knew Coco must be feeling it too.
“Let’s close our eyes and look together,” she said. “Count of three.”