Olivia let out a groan and toppled backward on the bed. I couldn’t really blame her. This was not a new conversation. I spent a good portion of my time now moaning about Quentin to Olivia. And my best friend, bless her, was getting tired of it. She didn’t say it, and I knew she never would. She was taking her role as my support system and confidant during this whole thing very seriously, and I knew she wanted to be there for me. But there was only so much she could cover her exasperation when I started talking about him… again.
“Is that it?” she asked.
“It was during lunch. He was walking his puppy up from the garages, and he smiled and waved. It was a genuine smile, like he wanted to come over and talk to me. But he didn’t. He just went on by. Brandon was with me, and he’s already told me I should maybe give everything with Quentin a second chance. He looked at me like he was waiting for me to get up and chase after him or something.”
“And you didn’t?” Olivia asked.
There was a slight note of sarcasm in her voice, and I scoffed at her.
“I just sat there watching him. Waiting for him to turn around and come back to sit with me. Can you even believe that? I was sitting there under a tree, holding my sandwich like I was on the front cover of some time-warp family magazine, hoping his puppy would break free from him to come steal it so he’d have to run over.”
Finally, Olivia sighed. She reached over and smacked me on the thigh with the back of her hand.
“Just talk to him. That’s the only thing that’s going to make anything better. You have to talk to him,” she said.
“I know.”
I let out a long breath, and she opened her eyes a little wider like she was expecting me to say more.
“And?”
“I will. On Monday. I’ll go to his office and I’ll talk to him and tell him about Little Bean,” I told her.
“How?” she asked.
I turned my head to look at her, my eyebrows furrowing together.
“‘Quentin, I’m pregnant.’ What do you mean how?” I asked.
“Your plan is seriously just walk into the man’s office and just blurt out that you’re carrying his child? Don’t you think you should have more of a lead into that? Somewhat of an approach so you aren’t blindsided by what he might say?”
“How am I supposed to prepare for what he might say?” I asked. “I have literally no idea how he’s going to react.”
“That’s why you have to have an approach,” Olivia told me. “Cut him off at the pass. Rather than him being the one who gets to react badly, and you haven’t responded to it, come up with a way to tell him that covers all your bases first. That way if he’s going to have a negative reaction, you’ve already said everything so he doesn’t have to say it to you again.”
“All right,” I said. “That actually makes sense. I guess I’ll tell him it wasn’t something I was expecting, but it’s happened, and we have to deal with it.”
“That’s a little bit aggressive,” she said.
“You’re probably right. What about I tell him about the baby, then say it’s both our faults, not just his. I’m not blaming him for anything or saying he did anything wrong. We both willingly slept together, and neither one of us made the decision to stop because we didn’t have a condom. So, we’re both equally responsible,” I suggested.
“I mean, that’ll get the job done,” Olivia said. “It’s not exactly the gentlest or most meaningful of ways to tell a man he’s going to be a father. And you left out one important thing.”
“What?” I asked.
“How you feel about him,” she said.
“I don’t need to talk about that right now,” I told her. “That’s really not the important thing. He needs to know about the baby and not have anything else clouding his thoughts.”
“Anything you say,” Olivia told me. “As long as he knows about the baby, you can deal with everything else some other time.”
She saw right through me. She knew I had a hard time talking about my feelings and would have no idea how to even approach that conversation. But she was right. We could do this one step at a time. First, we talk about Little Bean. We figure out what we’re going to do about that, and then we go from there.
“What do you think his family is going to say?” I asked. “I’ve gotten pretty close to them. Especially Minnie. Do you think she’ll get mad about it? Or will the idea of a new grandbaby who isn’t covered in fur be enough to ignore the whole mess her son and I made?”