Shatter (True Believers #4)(33)
Author: Erin McCarthy

I closed my eyes and made a wish. Then I blew it out before Rory’s fear of campus cops descending on us with billy clubs came true.

“What did you wish for?” Jessica asked. “I know you, you totally made a wish. You’ve been doing that since you were thirteen.”

I had. Actually, I’d been doing it since I was four. But Jessica met me in middle school. When I was thirteen I wished for my pimply complexion to clear up. At sixteen I had wished to pass my driver’s test on the first try. One year I’d been convinced my parents were getting a divorce and I had wished for them to stay together. But never had I made a wish about a boy, because birthday wishes were about me.

Technically, I still didn’t make a wish about a boy, but instead of focusing on me, I focused on the baby. Though alongside a wish for a healthy baby I crammed a wish for something else I wasn’t even sure I could admit to myself.

“I’m not telling you! It won’t come true then. You don’t want to curse my unborn child, do you?”

“Did you wish for a girl?” Rory asked.

“No. For her to be healthy. I already know she’s a girl.”

“How can you know that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just do.” It wasn’t because I wanted a girl more than a boy. I hadn’t really had any gender preference going into this. It just felt . . . feminine.

“Oh, what, now you’re like all wise because you’re a mother?” Jessica teased.

“Totally. Don’t I look wise?” I made a hair mustache.

Then I unwrapped my cupcake as we all laughed. “What flavor is this?”

“Red velvet. Your favorite.”

“Yay.” I sniffed it cautiously to make sure my stomach wasn’t going to protest. The cocoa in it was very prominent and I could smell the butter in the frosting.

“What are you doing? You look like a drug dog.”

“My sense of smell is super sensitive. I’m just making sure it’s not going to smell bad to me or get my gag reflex going. The weirdest things make me feel sick. Like tacos. I usually love tacos. But I walked past that Mexican restaurant and I almost threw up in the parking lot bushes.”

“That is unfortunate, and why I do not think I’m cut out for motherhood.” Jessica made a face. “That’s just one of them, actually. Riley and I are like total bumblefucks trying to raise Easton. I mean, he’s eleven, he’s half formed anyway, but still. Rory, you and Tyler are way better at it.”

“That’s Tyler, not me,” Rory protested. “I grew up an only child, remember? I don’t know anything about kids. I just hug him and bake him cookies and that seems to suffice.”

I was pretty sure that counted for a lot to an eleven-year-old.

“So Professor Kadisch told me I was selfish to ruin Jonathon’s life like this.”

Both their jaws dropped. Jessica looked outraged. “I hope you told him to go f**k himself! If Jonathon didn’t want his quote life ruined, then he should have doubled up on the birth control. God, he seems way less of an ass**le than his father. How did that happen?”

“His mother raised him.”

“Well, buy that woman a beer because she deserves it.”

I bit the bottom of my cupcake and, holy shit, it tasted good. It tasted like pure moist sugary magic. It was the first thing in three weeks that didn’t taste like cardboard. “Oh my God, I think I just came. This is so good.”

“Do you need to be alone with your cupcake?”

“Maybe. I think I need to rowboat out onto the river Seine in Paris and make out with my cupcake. God. This is like heaven in my mouth.”

“So it’s good?” Rory asked in amusement.

I tried to explain. “You don’t understand. For a month every single thing I put in my mouth made me gag and tasted like someone dumped something metallic into it. This is the first thing that tastes like food and it’s awesome. I want to make love to this cupcake.”

“At least you’re being romantic about your cupcake. Moonlight rowboating, Paris, making love. Your cupcake is more than just a piece of ass to you.” Rory grinned at me.

“Speaking of a piece of ass, Jonathon is texting you.” Jessica gestured to my phone sitting on the table.

“Hey!” I said, offended. “He’s not a piece of ass.”

“No?” Jessica looked pleased that she had gotten me to admit that so easily.

“No.” I stuck my tongue out at her before checking to see what he’d written. “Pieces of ass aren’t so concerned with my iron count.”

“He asked about your iron count?”

“Yes. He’s afraid I’m anemic.” Jonathon had just asked me how I was.

I wrote back, “It’s my birthday today.” Because, well, why not? It was my birthday.

Really? Happy Birthday! How old?

21.

Ah, I’m sorry. Do you have any plans?

Just a hot date with a half-eaten cupcake.

Do you want some company?

Hell to the yeah.

If you’re not busy. I’m back living at my place.

I’m never too busy for you.

If I weren’t already pregnant, I would have dropped an egg at the swoon-worthy quality of that statement.

K. Thx.

Rory and Jessica were both looking at me with knowing eyes. “Stop,” I groaned.

“Tyler said he heard you guys messing around,” Rory said.

“Tyler needs to mind his own business.”

“He wasn’t trying to listen, but apparently it was kind of obvious.”

“So? Jonathon was just trying to make me feel better.”

Jessica laughed. “How convenient for him. Let me make you feel better via penetration. And he didn’t even have to use a condom. It’s like he hit the sexual jackpot.”

“For your information, we didn’t have sex. He just got me off,” I said, with as much dignity as anyone can have issuing that statement. “And I don’t think it can be considered the sexual jackpot considering one, how shitty I look right now, and two, he will be paying for this for the next eighteen years.” Hearing that number out loud made me feel green. I shoved the cupcake away from me. That was a long time to be involved with someone. Freak-out time.

“Hey, sorry, I wasn’t being judgmental.” Jessica looked like she felt guilty. “Sometimes you really should just smack me. My mouth gets carried away.”

“It’s okay. I just, I don’t know. It’s just weird to be sort of involved but not really with Jonathon. I never know what I’m supposed to do, or what I’m allowed to say. But you know what? Fuck it. It’s my birthday. I’m going to say whatever I want.”