“Seriously?” Libby hisses, leaning across the table toward me. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I obviously wasn’t thinking. But in my defense, the second he touches me, all rational thought goes out the window and I lose my mind. I know that it’s stupid, but it’s the truth. I swear I can’t help myself around him.”
“If you end up pregnant—” Fawn says, but I cut her off.
“I know,” I whisper. “Believe me, I know. I’ve got a prescription for birth control, but I have to wait for my period to start this month to begin taking it.”
“Well, you know Mom would be thrilled,” Fawn laughs.
I cover my face and groan. Our mom would be thrilled if I got pregnant. She would think she hit the mother lode. With Fawn and me both in serious relationships and me pregnant, she’d probably faint from sheer happiness.
“What’s the chance of it happening? I mean, it has to be like one in a million, right?” I ask.
Fawn shrugs, but Libby seems to ponder the question before giving her answer.
“I don’t know. It’s probably a lot more likely than you think it is. But then again, who the hell knows? There are a million variables that go into getting pregnant. Some women have to use thermometers, calculators, and calendars in order to get knocked up. Let’s just hope you’re like one of those women and not as fertile as Mom.”
“Yeah, every time Mom said she wanted to have another baby, she got pregnant. So if you’re anything like her, you’re probably already carrying our niece or nephew,” Fawn says, looking at my stomach.
I cover it with a hand without thinking, then quickly drop it away.
“Shut up and don’t curse me! I don’t even know what I would do if I ended up pregnant. And Wesley . . .” I shake my head. “I can’t even imagine having to tell him that news. He would probably lock me in a room or roll me up in bubble wrap.”
“Remind me why that’s a bad thing?” Libby says, smiling at Lisa when she drops off our food at the table.
“It’s not a bad thing. His crazy possessiveness gives me tingles, but it’s annoying when he’s overbearing. It’s hard to explain—I love it but hate it.”
“I get it,” Fawn says, taking a sip from her wineglass. “Levi is a little cray-cray, too, but I try not to let him get away with it. I don’t want him to think it’s okay to boss me around or control me.”
“Exactly. It’s like a game of tug-of-war. He pushes, I pull, then he pushes again,” I say, sliding my glass of wine across the table.
“I think I’ll stick to loving myself. All this relationship business sounds way too complicated,” Libby mutters.
Fawn laughs.
“It is complicated,” I agree, wondering if it might become even more complicated.
Chapter 9
NO FREE MILK
WESLEY
“Why on earth would a man want to buy the cow when he can just get the milk for free?” Miss Ina asks Mackenzie.
I see a smile twitch in the corner of my girlfriend’s mouth. Libby, who has been attempting to get a rise out of the old lady since we sat down to Christmas dinner, tips her head to the side and puts on a look that’s way too innocent.
“How will they know if the milk’s not spoiled if they don’t test it out?” Libby asks.
Miss Ina huffs.
Swallowing down a chuckle of my own, I look at my mom. She’s sitting across from us, and I can see her shoulders shaking as she laughs silently.
When we arrived at the house and she was introduced to everyone, all my anxiety melted away. I should have known better than to be worried. There is no way Katie Reed would make anyone in her house feel uncomfortable. She made my mom and stepdad feel at home, and so did everyone else.
If I’m honest, today has been nice. When my parents divorced, there were no longer big holiday dinners with lots of family. It was mostly me with my dad on Christmas Eve, then with my mom on Christmas Day. Just us. Always just us. My mom didn’t have any family, and my dad’s family wanted nothing to do with my mom.
“Child, a man knows everything he needs to know about a woman the very moment they meet,” Miss Ina says. “You don’t need to give your milk away for him to know more. I met my late husband on a Monday and married him that Friday. He knew. We both knew what we were to each other—without any kind of taste test.”
I cough into my hand to cover my laugh.
“That’s amazing, Miss Ina, but the world is a different place now. Dating nowadays isn’t like it used to be,” Libby tells her truthfully. “Most people my age want casual relationships until they feel they are ready to start a family. Now most people I know don’t date seriously unless they are looking to have a child, and then they are only looking for someone they believe will be a good parent, not necessarily a good partner.”
“Bawww,” Miss Ina says loudly, tossing out her hand. “You kids and all your fancy gadgets. You’re always twittering, matching, and farmering.”
“Farmering?” Libby repeats.
I wonder what the hell farmering is.
“Just yesterday, I saw an ad trying to recruit women to be farmers’ wives on the television. What is this world coming to?” She shakes her head as her lip curls up in disgust. “You kids are so caught up in those gadgets you carry around in your hands that you don’t even notice what’s right in front of you anymore.”
“That’s very true,” my mom agrees, nodding her head. “But Libby is also right. Dating nowadays isn’t what it used to be.” She picks up her wineglass to take a sip. “Even at my age, it was hard finding someone who wanted more than just a hookup.”
“What is a hookup?” Miss Ina asks, frowning.
Libby leans to her side, “whispering” loud enough for everyone to hear. “It’s another way of saying that you’re giving your milk away for free.”
“I know that, girl.” Miss Ina glares at Libby, who smiles.
When we first got into the car that morning, I could tell that Libby didn’t know what to think of Miss Ina. I don’t know what changed, but about halfway to Long Island, something did. She started giving the older woman a hard time—and has clearly gotten a kick out of getting a rise out of her since then.
“We didn’t ‘hook up’ in my day. We didn’t live with each other for fun. We didn’t play house. We met, we got married, we moved in together, and we had kids. Then we stayed married until the day one of us died.”
“I’m glad it’s not like that anymore,” Libby says, looking around the table. “I know some people were happy, but there had to be a lot of people, a lot of women, who were unhappy and unable to do anything about it because society would have cast them out.”
Miss Ina shrugs. “You’re probably right, but this hooking-up business is not how you find someone you want to spend your life with. If you are constantly looking for the next hookup, as you say, you won’t know when you find the right one.”
“You’re probably right,” Libby agrees.
“I know I am. You and your sisters are sweet girls. You deserve to find nice men who want more than just to drink your milk.”
Hearing Mackenzie snort next to me, I look at her just in time to catch her covering her mouth. “Sorry.” She waves her hand toward Miss Ina, who narrows her eyes.
“This is the weirdest conversation I have ever heard,” Levi says, picking up his beer.
Fawn smiles at him, resting her hand on his chest—a hand that is now sporting an engagement ring. When he told me a week ago that he was going to ask Fawn to marry him at Christmas, my first insane thought was th
at he was a lucky bastard. A few months ago, my first thought would have been that he was a crazy fuck.
Mackenzie has made me want those things for myself—a wife, a family, someone to come home to at the end of the day. She’s my best friend. A best friend I have unbelievable chemistry with.
“Put down your darn phone, girl.” I look up just in time to catch Miss Ina snatch the cell phone out of Libby’s hand and toss it behind her onto the floor.
“You . . . oh my god! You did not just do that! I was posting a photo of what the table looked like after we all decimated it!” Libby cries.
Miss Ina waves her off. “You can’t live life through a phone. You need to live in the moment by being present in the situation.”
She isn’t wrong about that. People now live on their phones. They date on their phones, communicate with family and friends on their phones. Face-to-face contact has become almost nonexistent.
“Yeah, but I wanted to share with my friends online who aren’t here to share it with me.”
“Share it with them firsthand when you see them. Not by taking a picture of the moment and sharing it on your Facesbooks or Intergrams,” she says.
I smile at that.
“It’s Facebook and Instagram. I don’t see the people I chat with online often,” Libby says.
Miss Ina frowns. “Then why do they need to see what your table looked like?”
“I don’t know. It’s just what you do. You share online what you’re doing and where you have been.”
“Well, it’s ridiculous, and it takes away from the occasion and the experience. When you’re enjoying a beautiful moment in life, really enjoying that moment, you can remember it in your mind’s eye years later. You can remember what you heard, what you smelled, how you felt. Sometimes the memory will be so clear you’d think you were back there all over again. No picture is going to give that to you. If you don’t put down your phone and look around, when you’re old like me and your sight is starting to go, you will have no memories at all.”
“You’re right,” Libby huffs. “But you still shouldn’t have tossed my phone.”
“You can get it after dinner,” Miss Ina says before looking over at a stunned Katie, who is holding her glass of wine inches from her mouth. “Thank you for dinner, dear.”