Piece of My Heart (Fostering Love 4)

Morgan had stopped, and she was searching through a box full of socks as we reached her.

“I took Etta shopping with me last year,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to look at us. “I took her everywhere, and she was young enough that I could get her presents and she had no idea.”

“I didn’t mean—” I stuttered. I hoped I hadn’t hurt Morgan’s feelings, because that wasn’t my intention at all.

“I know you didn’t,” she said, cutting me off with a wave of her hand. Morgan laughed. “I got some dirty looks, but most people were nice about it. It doesn’t bother me—I’ll take Etta into any store I want.”

“And they can suck it,” Ani piped in.

“Exactly,” Morgan said with a smile. “But it is nice to leave her home this year. Especially since we came in the middle of the fucking night.”

“Early bird gets the worm,” Ani said. She was kind of fidgeting as she looked around where we were standing, her head nodding to the music coming over the store’s sound system.

“I need whatever you had,” I said, laughing as her hips did a little twist. “It’ll help me stay up late to study.”

“Just energy drinks,” Ani said, smiling. “I’m excited. I love this. I’m not crazy about the amount of people in here, but if you look hard enough, you can find some killer deals, and I’m all about saving money.”

“Amen,” Morgan replied, still searching through the socks.

“So, how did you and Alex meet?” Ani asked me as she scooted in next to Morgan and started rifling through another box of socks.

Why was she asking something that she already knew the answer to? I watched her for a few seconds, then my lips tilted a little. “I ran into him with my car,” I said easily.

Morgan jolted, but Ani didn’t show any response at all.

“Once I got him to the hospital and knew he wasn’t in any serious danger, that was it,” I said happily. “We were in love.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Ani said, looking at me over her shoulder.

“You’re Alex’s best friend. You already knew how we met,” I replied.

“I was working up to the hard questions,” she said, shaking some socks at me. “You’re welcome.”

I got tired of standing behind them, so I found a spot on the other side of the boxes and dug in. “What are we looking for?” I asked.

“These,” Morgan said, holding up a package of little girls’ socks. “But I need the next two sizes. Etta’s feet are growing really fast.”

“I’ll take the ones in your hand,” Ani said, grabbing the socks from Morgan and throwing the package into her cart. “Arie’s in that size.”

“So, ask me the hard questions,” I said, searching for the socks.

“Okay. What do you love about Alex? Have you ever been married before? Engaged? What do your finances look like? Health insurance? Is your family wealthy or poor? Has Alex met your family? How did that go? He’s not Jewish and you are—is that going to be a problem for you? How will you raise your children? We’re not really churchgoers, but we believe in sweet little baby Jesus. Do you even want kids? How many? Have you talked to Alex about it? Because it’s kind of important to get that stuff figured out. You know that Alex isn’t going to be in the Army forever, right? I mean, it’s great for now, but eventually, he’ll want to move home and help his brother and Trev with the family business. Are you cool with that? How do you feel about living closer to family? We’re kind of all up in each other’s shit, but we also are a huge help when you need it, flip sides to the same coin.”

I stared at her in shock, my mouth hanging open.

“You wanted the hard questions,” Morgan said with a chuckle.

I took a deep breath. “I’ve never been married or engaged. I have health insurance through the company I work for; it sucks, but I have it. My finances are shit, but I’m not in a crazy amount of debt. My family isn’t wealthy or poor—they’re somewhere in between. I’m not sure why that matters—I pay my own bills and have since I moved out. I was raised Jewish, but I’m no longer practicing, so it doesn’t matter what Alex believes in.” I paused for a moment, then clarified. “Actually, even if I was practicing, I don’t think I’d care.”

I stopped there, mostly because I couldn’t remember exactly everything she’d asked, but also because she was asking a lot of questions about things I hadn’t even discussed with Alex yet.

Ani gave me a small smile. “You’ll do,” she said.

“Found them!” Morgan announced triumphantly, holding up a couple of packages of socks.

“Sweet,” Ani replied, turning toward her cart. “Because the woman on the other side of me has been up my ass for the last five minutes instead of waiting her damn turn.”