Sunnie grinned. “Landon and I have been painting-and-decorating fools. The nursery is already ready for this little munchkin and he’s not showing up until May.”
“He?” Emmy asked. “Did I miss something?”
Yvonne and Kelli also perked up.
“If you did, we did too. It’s a boy?” Kelli asked excitedly.
Sunnie grinned and nodded. “Yep. Aaron Jackson Riggs will be here before we know it. We’re naming him after my dad, and he completely flipped out when we told him. I think he might have cried a little bit. We’re planning to call him AJ.”
They all lifted their glasses—four margaritas and one iced tea—and clinked out a toast to baby AJ, as Sunnie filled them in on the nursery’s color scheme and theme. Kelli suggested several baby must-haves Sunnie needed to include on her baby shower registry. Yvonne and Caitlyn chimed in as well.
Typically, Emmy loved listening to all of their family/husband/kid stories, but today it was reinforcing the desire she’d been unable to shake the past few months. It was definitely time for her to take control of her life.
Topping up their glasses yet again—Emmy was really going to pay for this tomorrow—Kelli turned her attention to Emmy. “Okay, your turn, girlfriend. What have you been doing since the holidays?”
“Two things, actually.”
“Ooooo…I love it. Lots to share. Spill,” Sunnie insisted.
“First of all, I hit The New York Times best seller list again.”
Everyone at the table cheered, and Yvonne admonished Emmy for not telling them that the second she sat down. She’d hit the list three times since her first visit to Pat’s Pub, and the Collins family always made her feel like a million bucks. Every single time, Riley baked her a cake, while the others bought her drinks at the pub, toasting “her brilliance.”
Kelli leaned forward, her face filled with mischief. “You do realize I’ve been stockpiling the Times, and I’m,” she pinched her thumb and index fingers tightly together, “this close to figuring out your pen name.”
Emmy laughed. “Which is why I never tell you I’ve hit it on the actual week I make the list. Let’s just say I was on the list sometime in the last month…or three.”
Kelli groaned and good-naturedly called her a bitch.
No one in the Collins family—with the exception of their grandfather, Patrick—knew her pen name. Originally, she’d held back telling them because her romance novels were spicy and she’d been a little embarrassed. Not of what she’d written but of how the Collins family might use that knowledge. In addition to their love of betting, they were experts when it came to teasing and practical jokes. She could just imagine Kelli and Colm standing up at the pub one night to do a dramatic reading from one of her bedroom scenes.
Lately, however, she was withholding the name simply because it was fun. They were all working overtime to try to discover it, and she didn’t doubt for a moment there was some sort of betting pool running over who would figure it out first.
Sunnie fired off a text. “I told Mom to start baking your cake. Told her to go red velvet this time. I’m having a craving for red velvet. So you have to share it with me.”
“That was only one thing. What’s the other?” Caitlyn prompted. “Because I’m not sure you can top that news.”
Emmy forced a grin, perfectly aware her next words were probably going to shock everyone at the table. “I’ve started online dating.”
As she expected, all four of her friends erupted.
“What?” Sunnie asked. At the same time Yvonne shouted, “When?”
“Have you actually been going out on dates?” Kelli chimed in, barreling over the other women’s questions.
Emmy shook her head. “Not yet. I’ve just been messaging with a few guys, but, well, I think I’m ready to progress to the next stage. Going to propose face-to-face meetings the next time I chat with each of them.”
“Them?” Yvonne asked.
“I’ve been talking to three men.”
“Three different guys?” Sunnie asked, Emmy pleased to hear a definite “impressed” tone.
“Yes. They all seem super nice and haven’t given off a creepy vibe.”
Yvonne laughed. “God. How many creeps did you have to sift through to narrow it down to those three?”
Emmy blew out a long breath. “Too many. I’d tell you about some of the dick pics random guys sent me, but I’ve had to work overtime—and drink a lot of wine—to erase them from my memory.”
Sunnie scoffed. “I will never understand why some men think women want to see their freaking dicks. I mean, who even told these guys that wrinkly, hairy appendage is attractive?”
“I have no idea,” Emmy replied sincerely. “But I swear the second I mentioned I was a romance writer, no less than five guys followed that pronouncement up with a picture of what they all assumed would serve as great inspiration for my next book. So gross. Needless to say, that’s when those conversations ended.”
“Damn right. So…I’m curious. When’s the last time you went out on a date?” Yvonne asked.
Emmy had expected this question. Mainly because since meeting and befriending these women, Emmy hadn’t been on a single date. Instead, she’d spent practically every day sitting at the end of the bar at Pat’s Pub, trying—and failing—to hide the fact she’d fallen in love with their cousin, Padraig.
Dating was one of those things that fell off the radar about the same time she’d dropped the reins on her life. Her world had imploded slowly over the span of eight years, beginning with her mother being diagnosed with ALS when Emmy was seventeen, dying of the horrible disease shortly after Emmy turned twenty-three, followed by her dad’s massive heart attack, and then her brother being sentenced to prison.
But the details about her mother’s disease wasn’t something she’d ever come out and talked to her girlfriends about. Her friends knew both her parents had passed away, but Emmy had never gone into much detail.
Padraig—whom she considered the best friend she’d ever had—knew a bit more about her family issues because they spent a lot of time together and, true to the cliché about bartenders, he was a great listener and very easy to talk to.
As such, he knew how her parents had died, the fact her brother was in jail, all the nitty-gritty details of her career writing and publishing romance novels, except for her pen name. He also knew she was crazy about her cats, loved white wine, and that she was obsessed with Hallmark Christmas movies.
Honestly, Padraig knew more about her than anyone else in the world, but there were still parts of herself—big parts—that she’d held back, hidden from even him.
Like what she was about to confess now.
“I haven’t been on a date in nearly three years. And I haven’t had a real boyfriend since high school,” she admitted, fighting the urge to giggle when the table went unusually quiet.
“High school?” Yvonne asked.
“Yep. I was seventeen. His name was Brandon. It was love at first sight and lasted about four months,” she emphasized. “Practically a lifetime in high school years.”