“Great. You can come over tomorrow night. I can cook, and we can just relax.”
Cook and relax. That sounds promising. Like Ren’s version of Netflix and chill.
“That works. But let it be known, I’m going to expect you to pay visits to my humble bungalow, too. I like my hobbit hole.”
“Sure. I’ll spend time at the bungalow. Only thing I’m not sure about is overnights. I need a king-size bed. I don’t fit on those queens.”
“I—what?” I stumble over my train of thought. Sex is one thing. Sleepovers are another. Sleepovers mean cuddles and bonding. Intimacy I haven’t accessed for years except for when I let Pazza smoosh me with her “hugs” on the sofa and I feel the ridiculous amount of love you can harbor for an animal creature.
“So, uh—” I clear my throat behind a fist, trying to look not entirely freaked out. “You’re planning on overnights?”
Deep breath, Francesca. One step at a time.
Ren pins me with his cat eyes. “You’ve seen me work every moment I have under the lights, Francesca. I plan on being similarly dedicated when the lights are out.”
Holy soaked panties.
He looks up at the waiter when he arrives at our table. “Can we have the dessert menu? Thanks.”
“You’re getting dessert?” I croak. I chug some root beer and try to snap out of the sex haze. “What’s Lars going to say? He’ll smell those simple carbohydrates on your breath. Then it’s game over.”
Ren grins. “Not for me. I know enough by now to understand that if I’m eating with you, dessert’s in order.”
“You’re buttering me up.”
“Hardly. I’m just trying to put a smile on that lovely face with the help of a little culinary indulgence.”
I level him with a sharp look. “Don’t count on too many smiles. I think I’ve hit my quota for today.”
His grin deepens as sunlight spills through the restaurant. “Yes, ma’am.”
Taryn, our water aerobics instructor, whips her body through the pool, her limbs knifing fluidly as if water’s viscosity is just an urban legend rather than indisputable physics. “Let’s go, ladies! You’re pussing out on me.”
Annie snorts to my left. “I don’t think she should be saying that.”
“Nope,” I pant. God, these treading water segments. “That’s asking to get sued.”
“You’re quiet tonight, Frankie. What’s up?”
I shake my head. “Just winded.”
“Which wouldn’t be a problem if you came to water aerobics with any kind of regularity.”
“Eat me, Annabelle. I have a demanding job. And not all of us have fifty pounds of pregnancy buoying us up in the water.”
Annie gasps, then slaps the water toward me. “How dare you! This is stamina that I’ve built. And while my excess fat stores and uterine fluids are less dense than water—”
“Stop.” I almost gag. “And never say ‘uterine fluids’ ever again.”
She rolls her eyes. “My point is, I’m kicking this treading water challenge’s behind because I’m in shape, not because of the baby.”
“Okay, Annabelle.”
“Francesca, I swear—”
Taryn clears her throat. Loudly. “Do you two mind?”
We smile sheepishly and say in tandem, “Sorry.”
Once Taryn’s attention is directed at the seniors using those flotation devices that I’d give my left tit for right now, Annie glances over at me. “Something’s up with you. I want to hear about it.”
Dammit, why must I be so transparent? Ma’s always said I wear my moods on my face, which brings us to another benefit of scowling—it hides everything else that you’re feeling.
Ever since lunch, my gears have been spinning, my brain won’t shut up. My anxiety’s roaring at full throttle, and if I could wring my hands without drowning right now, I would.
I’m not good at transitions and changes. I’m terrible at facing newness. I’m worse at anticipating everything that could go wrong. This threshold I’m about to cross with Ren typifies all of that. Thus, the freak-out.
“I had a long day,” I tell her. “You know how I get. I zone out when I’m wiped.”
“Hm.” She sniffs. “And here I thought it would be a good idea to go get shakes and fries after we finished class—”
“Okay! I mean, I could carb up after this.”
She narrows her eyes. “And tell me what’s going on while you’re at it.”
After another twenty minutes of water aerobics hell and a quick shower to rinse off the chlorine, Annie and I drive to our nearby go-to dive diner. Once we have our goodies, we settle into a corner booth.
Sitting with a sigh, Annie lifts her legs, propping her feet on my side. “Do you mind?”
I gently pat her swollen ankles. “Of course not. So. How’s the lab?” I ask, struggling with the ketchup bottle.
Giving up, I hand it to her. She pops off the lid and hands it back to me. “Exciting. Challenging. But it’s also the same frustrating bullshit as always. Lots of mansplaining. Trying to get myself heard and respected. Pregnancy requiring special considerations in the lab for my safety hasn’t helped, either. I swear, if I were a guy, I would not be having this hard of a time getting funding.”
On a sigh, she sweeps up her milkshake and takes a long drink. “I hope I have a boy so I can raise him to be feminist as fuck. Another man in this world who values women as he should, who supports their equal abilities.”
A weird twinge in my chest makes me set down my handful of fries. Ever since Annie told me she was pregnant, the far-off idea of children has hovered closer in my mind—how scary it would be to love this tiny helpless creature, but how incredible it would be to see them grow up and become the kind of wonderful human that Annie and Tim’s baby will be. Ren and his talk about a houseful today in that beautiful beach pad, driving his dad-van, it’s pressing in on me—one moment a claustrophobic fear, the next a dizzying hope.
“Frankie?”
“Sorry.” I shake my head and snap out of it. “I’m with you. And I think you’ll raise a great little feminist.”
“How are things at work?” she asks. “And what’s got you so distracted?”
“You know how I get during playoffs. It’s this crazy duality of hype and burnout. We want to win, but we’re all sick of each other. We’re tired, the guys are nursing banged-up bodies, and we’re all wiped from traveling for games. Same shit as this time last year and the year before that.”
“Is that really all?” She reaches for my hand and pats it. “We can talk about him now. We’ve passed the Bechdel test.”
“The what?”
Annie frowns at me. “Frankie.”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“All the TV you’ve watched, all the books you’ve read, and you don’t know the metric for ensuring film and fiction don’t just portray women only gathered to talk about men?”
“Uh. No. Guess I missed that in my quest for ultimate dorkdom.”