The Girlfriend (The Boss 2)

“I’m really drunk,” I pointed out. “People die like that.”

“I’m not drunk, I’ll watch out for you. Come on. Do you need a suit?”

I hadn’t really thought to pack a bathing suit for a trip to London. “Yeah, do you have one that will fit me?”

Emma was about my height, but smaller than I was, with a totally different body type. I was slender, but curvy, with a little extra padding in the rear, and she was slim and graceful and delicate. She probably wore cool triangle top bikinis that looked totally awesome and sporty on her.

“I’m sure. Come on.”

I’d never been in Emma’s room before, but it was exactly as I would have pictured the childhood room of Neil Elwood’s daughter. The walls were pale pink, striped with darker pink, like the nursery in the pop-up book of Peter Pan I’d had as a kid. The floor was carpeted wall-to-wall in dusky rose, and a tall canopy bed with frilly white curtains stood in the far corner.

“I was kind of a Barbie girl when I was younger,” Emma said, almost as though she were ashamed.

“My mom hasn’t changed my room since I was living at home,” I told her, in solidarity. “I think she’s holding on to it so I won’t feel bad or something... but I would really rather she take down the Nick Lachey posters.”

“Ew, yeah.” Emma headed to the closet. She came back with a simple black tankini. “Here, try this.”

I went into the en suite bathroom and tried it on. It fit well enough, and I was checking out the rear-view in the mirror over the sink when I noticed the ovulation predictor box on the vanity.

At first, I thought it might have been mine. Directly after the abortion, I’d been hyper-vigilant about my fertility, so we wouldn’t have any accidents in the gap in my birth control. But I’d never been in Emma’s room, and definitely not her bathroom. Plus, if I’d left something like that where she could see it, she would have most definitely confronted me or her father about it.

Stepping out of the bathroom, I weighed the chances of ruining my tentative friendship with Emma against the possibility that we might be close enough at this point that we could discuss such a thing. “Um. This is going to sound... There’s something in your bathroom.”

“Like a spider?” Emma charged toward the door with huge eyes. “I hate those bastards!”

“No.” I waited until she flipped on the light. She went very still, her hand lingering on the door.

When she turned around, she said, “Don’t tell my dad.”

She said it like I had caught her with cigarettes in the fifth grade or something.

I shrugged. “I won’t. One, because I think it would actually kill him to have some kind of proof that you and Michael are having sex, and two, because it’s really none of his business. You’re an adult.”

“Oh.” Emma blinked at me in surprise. “Well, I would appreciate it. I don’t think he’d be happy that his daughter was trying to conceive out of wedlock.”

“Can I ask why you are? Not that I’m making a moral judgment or anything. I’m just wondering why you’d make wedding dress fittings a nightmare.” I laughed at my own joke before I saw how sad Emma looked.

“It’s not something I tell a lot of people, but I’ve got issues with my fertility. My doctor said she wants me to try for at least a year before going on any hormone treatments. And we want children so badly. Michael suggested we start now, in the hope that it will save us some time after the wedding. I may walk down the aisle pregnant, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take.”

“That’s exciting!” I really did hope Neil wouldn’t find out. This was far too private an issue for him to try and control his daughter’s decision. “Emma, really, I think it’s great.”

It struck me then that Neil was going to have a hard time letting go when Emma married. He was going to flip out when he was no longer the most important man in his daughter’s life. In a way it was cute, but mostly it was just frustrating. I had a suspicion that Neil, for all his progressive leanings, would not have been so protective of a son.

“I hesitate to ask, but do you and my father plan on having children?” Emma asked with feigned casual interest as we got into the elevator. She pushed the button for the basement. “You heard about my step-mother, I’m sure.”

“Yeah… I don’t really know where your dad stands on that. He says he doesn’t want any more children, but I got this weird feeling...” I mentally put on the brakes, to keep from revealing too much. Then I thought of all the other embarrassing shit she’d been privy to, least of all the fight with her mother today and, to borrow an expression I’d heard Neil use before, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Can I be totally upfront with you about something?”