She hoped that her sarcasm came across, and it must have because Patrick smirked. “That seems serious.”
“Don’t worry. I will have a whole reading list ready for you.” She turned him around and pushed him toward her already color-coded bookshelf. “We’ll start you on this one.” She pulled out her dog-eared copy of one of the greatest romance novels of all time and put in his hands. “I think you’ll particularly enjoy the talisman work in this.”
He caught her off guard by pulling her into his arms and kissing her. She stopped assembling a romance curriculum in her head. When he pulled back, he said, “You’re not upset about the hair. I kept it because—I don’t know—it reminded me of you.”
“It’s very gross, but you’re very handsome and good at sex and I love you. So, I guess it’s sort of romantic.”
“Good.” He took his book of philosophy and put it on his side of the room. Away from Sasha’s romance novels. She smiled at him.
“But can I throw it away now?” she asked. “I can always grow more.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
HANNAH’S BABY SHOWER WAS an event. Her and Jack’s wedding had been pretty great, if filled with drama. But this one was going to be drama free. All of their friends and family were there and happy, and there was no one there to have a massive fight that would preoccupy them for days.
Sasha had been deliberate and ruthless with seating arrangements. Hannah’s mother needed to be seated far away from Molly Simpson and Sean Nolan, because Hannah’s mom and Jack’s mom were bound to start divvying up holidays with Baby Nolan before they were even born.
Hannah had agreed to talking any of their know-it-all mommy friends—who’d put up a fuss about a co-ed shower—into leaving an hour before the shower officially ended so that she could have one glass of the very good champagne that Bridget and Matt had contributed to the cause.
It didn’t matter that they were all gathered at their usual gathering place—Dooley’s—with people they usually saw. The space was transformed. When they’d finished decorating, Patrick had congratulated her very personally in his office in the back.
And the shower itself went off without a hitch. Sasha had nipped any stupid games in the bud, knowing that a thirty-eight-thousand-weeks-pregnant Hannah would punch anyone who put a perfectly good chocolate bar inside a diaper in the face.
In the few months since they’d moved in together, Sasha and Patrick had put any talk of their future on hold. Everything had moved so fast up to that point that they didn’t want to rush. They’d agreed that they were both in it for keeps, but they hadn’t really talked about marriage or kids. Sasha had always pictured kids in her future, but she could live without them if Patrick didn’t want to be a parent.
Their relationship was enough for her.
Sometimes, like at big family events where everyone used to look to Patrick for some words of spiritual wisdom, she worried that Patrick missed being a priest.
And the nice thing about hanging out with her friends and their dudes was that the dudes helped with cleanup. Hannah and Sasha got to spend some time hanging out in one of the booths talking about nothing and everything like they didn’t really have much time to do anymore.
“How are you feeling?” Thankfully, Hannah’s pregnancy had been very normal after the first trimester, but she could not possibly be comfortable.
Hannah sighed and took another sip of her ob/gyn-sanctioned champagne. “Pretty good. I’ve been having some contractions, but my doctor said those were Braxton-Hicks. Fake ones.”
“Are you ready to be a parent?” Sasha knew that Hannah had long-standing misgivings about her own maternal instincts. She didn’t share the same doubts about her best friend. For one thing, Hannah was a lot softer than people thought she was when they first met her. For another, she was going to be a ferocious mama bear when it was called for. She’d pretty much mama-beared Sasha into doing a whole host of things that had changed her life.
Hannah looked over at her husband and smiled. “With him? Definitely. I never feel like I have to teach him how to be a functioning adult person. We fill in each other’s weaknesses. I know that I have him as my backup, and so I feel like I can do anything.”
“Yeah, he might be able to keep you from overthrowing the PTA when they make unreasonable demands.”
Hannah gave her a skeptical look as she finished her glass of champagne. “You know that’s happening. You’ll have to whip support from the moms who think I’m dangerous to the status quo.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be eligible to be a member of a PTA.”
“Haven’t you and Patrick talked about kids?” Coming from someone else, that question might be offensive. But this was her best friend—the person whom she’d confessed her deepest innermost thoughts to for over a decade. And Hannah wasn’t going to judge her for her answer either way.
“Not yet.” Sasha hesitated. One thing about being in a relationship with her best friend’s husband’s best friend was that anything she said tended to come back to her as a conversation. Most of the time, it was fine. This was big, important, life-changing stuff, though. “We’re just taking things day by day.”
Hannah grimaced, and that made Sasha doubt her approach. But while her best friend took charge and stormed the barricades whenever an issue needed to be addressed, Sasha tended to skirt around the issue and take bites off the edges until it was more manageable. Their differences made them wonderful business partners but sometimes caused them to get frustrated with each other.
“I mean, we have time, and things have been so good. I don’t want him to start thinking of all the things he’s missed out on by giving up the priesthood. Like—he probably didn’t want children if he was going to go ahead and become a priest?”
Hannah grimaced again and touched her stomach. “No, it’s probably fine that you haven’t talked about this. I actually think that I’m having a real contraction. Like a real, real one.”
Sasha stood up and yelled, “Jack!”
* * *
—
THERE WAS A QUESTION for a few minutes as to whether they would make it to the hospital before Hannah dropped a baby. However, she’d been adamant about having her baby in a hospital and not the “fucking floor of Dooley’s bar,” so they’d rushed her to the University of Chicago Hospital even though she’d looked like she was working harder to keep the baby in than push it out at that point.
Not that Patrick knew very much about the birthing of babies. But they’d made it with minutes to spare. And even though Hannah’s birthing plan had provided for Sasha to be in the room with her and Jack, the hospital put the kibosh on it.