Page 11 of Hot Shot

The waiter stops over and we order. Thankfully he’s quick with our drinks. I’m sipping on my iced green tea when I look at my siblings.

“So, I’m pregnant,” I say.

Brendan chokes on his own tea.

Chelsea stares at me, mouth agape. Then she points at me and narrows her eyes. “I knew it! You totally hooked up with someone in Dallas, didn’t you? It’s about damn time you moved on from Evan.”

“Gross,” Brendan murmurs as he’s wiping up his tea. “I do not want to hear about either of you hooking up. You are both virgins and will die that way.”

Chelsea snorts. “Sure, big brother. But didn’t you just tell me to go jump my boss?”

“Yes, and I regretted it the second the words were out of my mouth.”

Chelsea rolls her eyes, then looks back at me. “Can you start from the beginning?”

“But leave out specific details about the S-E-X part,” Brendan says.

I laugh. “Did you actually just spell that?”

“Whatever. I don’t want to know about my sisters’ intimate lives.”

“To answer your first question, Chels, yes, I did meet someone in Dallas.”

“Was it the guy you’d been talking to? I thought he stood you up.”

“He did. This was someone different.”

“Damn girl! When Sister Mary Francis over here,” she throws her thumb in Brendan’s direction, “isn’t with us, I’m going to need all the dirty details. Just tell me this, was it good?”

I drop my head into my hands and peek at my sister through my fingers. “Let me put it this way, if that was an Olympic sport, he’d be the reigning gold medalist.”

“Oh damn,” Chelsea says.

“Y’all are the worst.”

The waiter appears with our bowls of ramen and my stomach growls again.

“Okay, so hot sex in Dallas and now you’re pregnant.” Chelsea grabs my hand. “Wait, did y’all not use anything.”

I shake my head. “Condoms every time.”

Chelsea opens her mouth to say something else and Brendan throws an edamame into her mouth. “No more questions from you, pervert. Just let her tell us the details about the baby.”

“Well, as you know,” I motion to Chelsea, “my periods are like clockwork. So when it didn’t show up this month, my first thought was early onset menopause.”

My sister rolls her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. I’m pretty sure you’re still ten years away from that.”

“Evidently you’re right, but that was what I originally went to see the doctor about. I asked them to run a hormone panel. Shocked the hell out of me, not going to lie. Pregnancy wasn’t even on my radar.”

“What did the father say?” Brendan asks.

I wince. “I can’t tell him.”

My brother frowns. “That’s bullshit. He deserves to know.”

“Calm down, I just meant that I can’t tell him because I don’t know how to reach him. We didn’t exactly exchange anything but our first names.”

Chelsea whistles. “How have I never known that you’re this dirty?”