“What’s with all the gloomy faces?” Patti and Jules looked up to find Piper waddling toward them with a big smile on her face. “This is a party you two. I want to see laughing and smiling and, gosh darn it, I want dancing.” She grabbed one of the empty chairs at their table and plopped down on it. “Good lord, if this kid doesn’t come out soon, I swear I’m going to lock Tate in the bedroom and make him orgasm me into labor.”

“That would barely be a hardship,” Tate said, grinning as he walked up behind her and dropped a kiss to his wife’s cheek. His hands found her shoulders and he began massaging them as he looked up. “Ladies.”

“Tate,” Jules and Patti said as one.

“What the hell are you eating vegetables for,” Tate asked, his face scrunched up in disgust, “when we hired ‘The Cook’ to make all those insanely expensive and flamboyantly designed cupcakes and hors d’oeuvres?”

“For the ten-thousandth time, his name is Tom,” Piper said, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

“He put his mouth on my wife, therefore, he will always be ‘The Cook,’” Tate retorted.

“Looking forward to being a father?” Patti asked him, hoping to change the subject before it spiraled out of control. Not that it was likely, since it was rumored that Tate and Tom had actually formed a pretty tight friendship once he was sure that Tom’s relationship with Sheila wasn’t just a sham.

A serene look came over him, but he shrugged it off, affecting a most unaffected look. “Eh, it’s no Cubs game, but it’s still pretty exciting.”

Piper reached back and smacked him on the thigh. “What he means to say is that he’s over the moon about it. Isn’t that right, honey?”

“That’s right, dear.” He chuckled, and then gave her another kiss. “Looks like we have a couple of new guests. I’m going to leave you ladies to it and go say hello.”

All three women turned to look in the direction Tate was headed, and Patti felt her stomach flip wildly when her gaze fell on the man with the dark countenance standing in the doorway.

“Holy shit, look who’s here,” Jules said under her breath. “And he brought a friend, too. Who the hell is that tall drink of water, Piper?”

“Oh, him?” Piper turned back around to face them, acting as though she couldn’t see that Patti’s whole world had come to a complete stop, and every ounce of oxygen had been sucked from the room the moment Jon walked through the door, leaving her gasping for air. “That’s Jon’s friend, Travis. Tate goes golfing sometimes with them. I guess he’s a nice enough guy. Why, you planning on introducing yourself?” She grinned knowingly.

“Nope, but you are. Oh and here they come. Look alive ladies.” Jules tossed back her hair and fluffed her boobs.

“Travis, this is Patti, Jules, and my lovely wife, Piper,” Tate said, pointing each of them out.

“Nice to meet you,” Travis said politely, smiling at each of them.

“And I’d introduce Jon, but I think you’ve already met.”

Patti’s heart pounded. She couldn’t take her eyes off Jon. He was so handsome in his black slacks and soft blue button down. His black tie had been loosened slightly, but he still looked every bit as dashing and professional as she remembered. He must have just come from work. She wanted to ask him how his day was, but realized that it wasn’t her place to do that anymore.

Jon glanced at her once, acknowledging her presence, but as the day wore on, he seemed to be deliberately avoiding her.

He moved around the room, chatting with random groups of men who were almost as boisterous as the women were when they became excited over something they found particularly interesting. It was good to see him in a social setting, watching him laugh and smile as though nothing was bothering him, but Patti thought she could see subtle signs that all was not right in his world. He had shadows under his eyes, like he hadn’t been sleeping well, and although he smiled often and at all the right times, it seemed tight to her, almost forced.

Could it be that he was having a hard time with all of this, too, or was that just her trying to reason out an excuse to talk to him?

By three o’clock, Tate and Piper stood at the front of the room calling everyone’s attention. “It’s time to open the gifts,” he announced. “And you’d better hope yours is good, or else you’ll be seeing it again come Christmas.” Everyone laughed at his little joke.

Patti watched dutifully as her friends began tearing into their gifts. She sipped her water. Tried to ignore her preening friend who was making a damned fool of herself trying to get the attention of Jon’s friend.

“He’s so hot,” she breathed, staring openly at him. “Don’t you think?” She glanced at Patti expectantly.

“Totally.” She nodded.

“You didn’t even look!” Jules hissed. “Look at that man, and then you tell me you don’t think he’s got it going on.”

Patti sighed and forced herself to look, but she wasn’t looking at the man Jules had her libido set on. She only had eyes for one man, and he was looking right at her. Their blue eyes locked, and Patti’s insides seized up. Everything that had been left unsaid was right there in his eyes for her to see, and Patti wasn’t sure how much longer she could wait to talk to him. After the party, she decided. She would catch him then and force him to talk to her. Come hell or high water, they were going to work this out.

“Okay, quit ogling my man,” Jules said, jerking back her attention. “So, what do you think?”

“He’s amazing. Perfect,” she said, but her words were directed toward the only man she had eyes for…

“So you think I should go for it?”

Patti nodded. “Definitely.”

Jules grinned, pleased with her answer. “It’s just too bad he’s friends with that asshole. You really dodged a bullet with that one, but at least you got something good out of it.”

Patti frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Him, Jon, or whatever his name is. The guy you were dating?” Jules sent him an evil glare. Patti glanced up, seeing his brows lift in question. Jules leaned in, whispering conspiratorially in her ear. “A couple of the girls went out for drinks after work the other night and Sheila told me that she saw him having dinner with some bimbo.”

“How does she even know it was him?” Patti inquired, her stomach beginning to knot. “She only met him once, and we weren’t even dating yet.”

“Well, she didn’t call him by name but she said it was that hot guy who followed you to our table a couple of weeks ago. The same one who had two girlfriends.” Her eyebrows rose up and she gave Patti a challenging look. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who she was talking about.”

No it didn’t. Patti didn’t want to believe it, but she trusted her friends, and if they said they saw him with another woman, she was inclined to believe them. “Well,” she said, shifting in her chair. She played idly with the food on her plate, trying to quell the growing sickness brewing in her stomach. “It’s not like we’re dating anymore. He’s free to see whomever he wants.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re taking it so well,” Jules replied stiffly. “Because if I were you, I would be plotting out how long it would take to slash all of his tires before someone realized I was missing from the party.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” Patti said jokingly, but a part of her really wanted her friend to do something heinous just for the satisfaction of seeing his day tainted like hers was now. She must have read too much into his appearance after all. Maybe those shadows under his eyes were from him losing too much sleep because he’d been too busy screwing his way through the female population while she was at home growing arms for his fetus.

“What in the world?” At the front of the room, Piper held up a small, cream-colored box with the word Lelo across the top. She smiled curiously, as she opened the lid and peered inside.

“Well, what is it? Show us!” someone in the group called out.

Piper turned the box to face everyone. Inside were four sets of balls. One pair was powder blue and about the size of a golf ball, and the other pair was baby pink, slightly smaller, and set into white rings that were joined in the middle, resembling baby rattles.

“Sheila?” Piper glanced over at their friend in question.

Sheila, who had her head bent toward her boyfriend, Tom, whispering to one another, feeding each other cupcake icing from their fingertips, lifted her head. A wicked smile split across her face. “Oh, you’re going to love those. Their Kegel balls.” Piper stared at her blankly, and then slowly, her face began to take on a slightly pinker hue. “After the baby comes you just pop those suckers in, and then your vag will be as tight as a virgin again.”

Tate snatched the box from Piper’s fingers and inspected them. “Sweet. Thanks, Sheila. We’ll make sure to put these to good use.”

“Yeah, Sheila,” Piper said tightly. “How can we ever thank you enough?”

“Just keep it tight, sweetie.”

Piper’s face turned a bright shade of red, and she turned her attention to another present. “This one is from Patti,” she announced, tearing into it.

“Come on vibrator,” Tate said eagerly, rubbing his hands together and earning a few laughs from the crowd.

“You wish,” Patti snorted. “But I don’t think Piper could get it far enough into your tight ass for it to be worthwhile.”

Tate pointed a finger at her and winked as though to say she’d won that round. Piper lifted up a small box. “Plaster of Paris foot molding kit.”

Patti smiled softly. “That way when your baby is all grown up you can still hold his or her foot in the palm of your hand.”

Piper’s eyes misted and she fanned her face. “Thank you. I can’t wait to use it.”

Patti smiled, because that was about all that she could manage with the growing lump forming in her throat. The gift was relatively inexpensive and it hadn’t taken her very long to pick out, but the moment she saw it, she knew it would be perfect. In the few days since she’d learned she was going to be a mother, she had begun seeing the world and the future through a mother’s eyes and, as she’d come to realize, some of the best things came in the smallest packages.

As much as she was looking forward to holding her own son or daughter in her arms, she knew that those days would be short-lived, which was why she’d purchased a kit for herself. She wanted to be able to look back one day, when the memories had grown fuzzy, and hold her child’s foot in her hand and recall just how tiny and precious they were.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jules touched her arm. “You’re not about to cry are you?”

Patti smiled tightly and waved away her concern. “Of course not. I have something in my eye.” She pushed out of her chair. “I’m going to go to the restroom.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No,” Patti said over her shoulder, already rushing for the door. She could feel the burn of tears in her nose. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

She burst through the bathroom door and locked herself in the first available stall. It was such a sick twist of fate that she would spend her life dodging love, guarding herself from heartbreak, only to find herself heartbroken and pregnant in the span of a month. The realization that she may have to raise a baby by herself hit her hard, like a sucker punch to the chest, and she broke down, right there in the middle of the women’s bathroom.

“Excuse me, Miss, are you okay?” a woman’s voice called out to her from just outside her stall door.

Patti tore off a piece of toilet paper and wiped her runny nose. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said with a hint of self-loathing. “Baby showers always get me.”

A moment passed where Patti stared at the toes of the woman’s pointy black shoes and wished she would just go away already. “Do you need me to get someone for you?”

A ginger ale and the father of her baby would be great. “No, that’s okay,” she told her instead.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Patti waited until she heard the bathroom door open and close and the clicking of the woman’s heels had completely faded before she ventured out. The moment she did, she instantly regretted it.

“Hey.” Jon stood there, leaning against the row of sinks, his arms folded across his wide chest, just staring at her.

Surprised to see him, Patti almost tripped over her own feet, but managed to recover before making a total idiot of herself. “Hey,” she said shakily, trying her best to sound upbeat and not at all like she had just been crying her eyes out. It wasn’t working. “What are you doing in here? You do know this is the women’s bathroom, right?”