Ally’s smile tells me she wouldn’t mind that at all. “Let’s go. The girls are all in your cars.”
On cue, I hear someone lay on the horn.
Ally rushes down the stairs. “Hurry up boys, we got some horny girls out here. And a hungry mama-to-be,” Ally tacks on. “Don’t mess with a pregnant lady’s dinner.”
“She’d be a fuckin’ awesome mother,” I say, thinking out loud as I stuff my phone into my pocket and hit the light switch.
Austin heads down the stairs, Aiden is behind him.
“A hundred bucks says I knock Carly up first. You wanna bet?” Aiden holds out his hand when he gets to the garage door.
I smirk. “You’re on.” I shake his hand.
***
That night after Buchanan’s with our friends, I lean over and whisper into Ally’s ear while we’re on the rooftop, cuddled, and looking at the sky.
“Will you marry me, then make a baby with me?”
She wraps her arms around me and kisses me, whispering yes against my mouth.
It’s two in the morning, but she immediately phones Baka before anyone else, to tell her the good news.
“Baka. It’s time to spill your wine and cooking secrets. We’re getting married and starting on a family immediately.”
I hear my grandmother squeal through the phone.
***
Carly
A Week Later
“So, Houston, we have a potential problem,” I say to Jada and Ally who are sitting with me in Austin’s backyard. We’re sipping iced teas.
“And what’s that?” Ally asks.
“Cait made goo-goo eyes at Shane at dinner the other day.”
“Really?” Jada asks.
“Really,” I confirm.
Cait, aka Caitlin, is my sister, who just got out of jail. She came for a visit. I drove her to the airport this morning. It was a good visit and we’re working on mending our relationship. I’m really happy with the progress she seems to have made and she’s taking responsibility for her problems in the past.
Shane is Jada’s brother, who got out of a psychiatric hospital several months back. Austin gave him a job at CC and he and Jada are really close so he’s often around when we do group and family stuff.
“Shane told Cait he has an extra bedroom if she’s thinking of coming to Cali,” I tell them.
“Ooh, you know what that means!” Ally exclaims, clasping her hands together.
“God no. This can’t happen. They’re both recovering addicts. It’s a terrible idea,” Jada is vehemently opposed. “We can’t let them share an apartment.”
“I agree with you,” I say.
“They’ve both been clean a long time, though. It’s not like they’re fresh out of rehab,” Ally puts in.
“No, but Cait is fresh into the real world,” I say. “And we all know what happens with boy-girl roommate scenarios.”
“Just because things aren’t perfect on paper doesn’t mean they can’t be amazing,” Ally shrugs and sips her drink.
Ally is always trying to matchmake. She tried to set up Sonia with Rex and that resulted in three dates, but no further. She even tried to get Ash to date someone at work and drove him half-crazy about it. He wanted to just focus on his children and Ally pouted about it for a while.
She was right about me and Aiden being meant-to-be, though. Definitely.
“Shane has been doing really, really well,” Jada muses. “Maybe it’d be okay. And maybe they’ll just be friends.”
“And not every roommate sitch winds up with marriage,” Ally gestures to me, “freshly engaged,” she pats herself on the chest, “or marriage and babies.” She leans over and rubs Jada’s giant belly. “But… if it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” Ally adds sagely.
Yeah. We’ll see.
Something crazy happens when a single male and a single female share an apartment.
The End