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I can’t help it; I snort at her analogy, choking on my iced tea. It burns the back of my nose and my eyes water before I gasp, “Andy!”

“And look at him!” Her hand flies in Micha’s direction. “Dude is perfectly happy to give them all what they want.”

“Micha has always been a talker.” I brush off her fears. “He’s totally obsessed with you.”

She grunts as she sucks on her straw. “I just don’t know, you know?”

I nod, because I do. “Yeah.”

Her eyes find mine, mirroring the little shimmer of sadness I know I don’t hide. “I suppose you do.” She pulls on her straw again. “Who knew being an adult would suck so much?”

Yeah, who knew?

By the time ten rolls around and Tate still isn’t here, and Andy is drunk, drunk, I pull out my phone to shoot him a text.

Where are you?

I don’t get a response and huff a sigh as I settle back in the booth to watch the show of my friends all drunk off their faces and having a blast—ish. If Andy being jealous of every girl that even looks at Micha can be called having a good time.

Shy and Elijah dropped in an hour ago, and Shy caught up to Andy quickly. Now, they’re giggling about literally nothing at all, dreaming about booking a trip to Mexico after Christmas while Elijah and Micha talk about leaving home and finding places to rent.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to get drunk off our faces on a beach?” Shy sighs into her drink, eyes sliding to me with all the hopeful dreams of someone who isn’t—well, you know. “To lay in the sun and swim and eat. Argh—” She bounces in her seat. “It’d be so nice!”

It would, if I weren’t slated to be as big as a horse by then.

Andy shouts, “Oh my god, let’s go bathing suit shopping.”

I sort of want to cry into my iced tea.

Instead, I blurt, “I’m pregnant.”

The table goes silent. Four pairs of wide eyes land on me.

Even Elijah and Micha stop mid whatever-they-were-talking-about to gape.

“I’m sorry, w—what?” Andy stutters.

“Did you say you’re pregnant?” Shy gasps, alarmed.

A body slides into the booth next to me, an arm coming around my shoulders to pull me in close as warm lips connect with my temple. The scent of Tate, warmth and safety and saw dust soothes some of the freak-out I’d been nursing.

“I thought you were going to wait for me,” he drawls, though we’d never discussed how we were going to tell our friends. I’m thankful for the distraction. I’m thankful for him.

“Sorry.”

He smiles tenderly down at me a moment before he says to the table, “My girl is gonna be a mama.”

Silence. Nothing but shocked silence meets us.

Then Andy—of course, it’s Andy—coughs. “And you’re going to be…?”

This is her not-so-subtle way of asking who the baby daddy is. I try not to flinch at the sting of it, but I don’t quite succeed.

Tate beams, no flinch in sight for him. “I’m Daddy.”

“That’s why you’re drinking iced tea,” Micha observes.

Shy accuses, “I thought it was because you were getting over the stomach flu.”