“Which is when?”
I pressed the screen of my phone as it sat on a shoe shelf, scrolling through my schedule. “How’s the eighteenth?”
“That’s two weeks away, Billie.”
I checked again, trying to see if I could move anything around. “You know I’d make it sooner if I could.”
“I know, babe. Put us in for the eighteenth. I’ll text the girls once we get off the phone to let them know.”
Ally and I had been roommates all four years at NYU and for another five after we graduated. Then, at twenty-seven, we finally got our own apartments. Mine was a loft in Greenwich Village where I’d lived for the last three years. Ally’s was a studio on the Upper West Side, which she shared with her boyfriend. He was now her husband, and I had three plants—all of them herbs.
I blocked off the whole night and clicked out of the app. “You’re in my calendar.”
“So, where are you headed to now, Miss Wanderlust?”
“San Francisco, and it’s Italian,” I said, referring to the restaurant I would be reviewing, as I walked into the kitchen.
In college, whenever I had eaten out, I would take pictures and rate the food, posting it on social media. It was a passion that had slowly morphed into a career, and now, I was a full-time food vlogger. I was hired by restaurants all over the country to eat and review their cuisine, sharing it with my followers that was nearing toward ten million.
“One of your favorites.” There was a crinkle of paper in the background and then the sound of heavy, sticky chewing.
“What are you eating?”
“Gooey red fish.”
I had poured myself a glass of wine and opened the containers of Szechuan pork and sautéed baby bok choy with garlic before I started packing. Now that it had cooled down, I grabbed the chopsticks and gave the food a quick stir.
“You’re not late … are you?” I asked before putting the first bite in my mouth.
“I just came off birth control two months ago. It can’t happen that fast.”
But it could, and she knew that.
And I was pretty sure it had because, “Ally, you’re eating candy.”
She didn’t have a taste for sweets, not even cake on her birthday.
“Oh my God.” Each chew sounded like a suction cup. “I didn’t even realize I’d opened the bag, but I’ve been standing in front of the fridge, popping them in my mouth like freaking popcorn.”
“I know. The entire world can hear you eating.”
“Sooorry.” She paused. “You really think I’m pregnant? No. I can’t be. I …” The noise intensified, telling me she’d put more in her mouth. “I’m about to eat this entire bag, Billie, and then I’m going to walk to the bodega on the next block and buy another one.”
I pulled up a delivery app on my phone, added five bags of gooey red fish and three pregnancy tests to my cart, and gave them Ally’s address before I submitted the order.
“No need,” I said, returning to the chopsticks, using them to take another bite. “There will be some delivered to your apartment in about twenty minutes.”
“I love you.”
My swallow ended with a sigh. “It’s for missing your doctor’s appointment that I have a feeling you’ll be going to in the next few days.”
Robert would be taking her—I was sure of that—but I wanted to be there after to celebrate.
And I wouldn’t be.
This was one of the downfalls of my career—missing things at home when work required me to be away so much. But traveling was part of the job, and I loved it just as much.
There was a balance, and most of the time, I found it.
“Do you really think we’re having a baby?” she asked softly.
The emotion in her voice worked its way into my chest. Ally had wanted a baby for as long as I’d known her. It might have happened quickly, but the years it had taken to get here weren’t fast at all.
I waited until my chest calmed down before I said, “I’m already planning what I’m going to serve at the shower.”
“I just got hungrier.”
“I’ll order you more—”
“Listen to me, Billie Paige. I’m not going to be the girl who gains a hundred pounds with her first pregnancy. Do you hear me?”