Page 6 of The Best Friend Problem
Finn.
For the first time in all their years of friendship, she was nervous to share something with her best friend. She knew he’d support her—Finn always had, even when she’d declared a major in business and accounting instead of pre-law like her great aunt had encouraged her to do. Finn had her back. Always.
So why was she scared to tell him her plans?
Maybe because it had to do with babies, and babies usually meant sex, and sex was one topic they’d silently agreed never to discuss. They might be friends and rescue each other from bad dates, but she and Finn never, ever discussed their past sexual experiences. That would just be…weird.
Tossing off the covers, she hopped out of bed, threw on some clothes, and headed out to the kitchen. The strong, rich scent of coffee hit her nostrils the moment she opened her door. Lilly must be up already.
Not a surprise. Lilly coined the term “early riser.” In college, Pru and Mo never needed to set an alarm because they knew Lilly would be up and on their butts at the crack of dawn.
Sure enough, as she stepped into the kitchen, there sat Lilly, coffee in hand, paper on the tabletop in front of her. “Morning,” Pru said.
“Good morning. Coffee’s ready.” Lilly didn’t glance up from the paper she was perusing, just pushed her black-framed glasses up her nose when they slid down. Pru made her way to the pot, grabbing the cup filled with cream and sugar Lilly had already prepared for her and pouring the sweet nectar of life into it. Her roommate spoiled her, and she loved the woman for it.
“What’s that?”
Lilly answered, nose still turned down, eyes focused on her paperwork. “The Mendez-Franklin wedding. They want to push up the date by two months, so we need to shift some things around. Difficult but not impossible.”
“Ugh! Please don’t tell me you’re working already.”
Pru glanced up as Mo shuffled into the kitchen. Curly blond hair streaked with bits of red and blue dye frizzed around her head in a multicolored poof, and her robe hung off her shoulders, open to reveal her sunshine and rainbow pajamas.
“We have an emergency,” Lilly answered, still focused on the work before her.
“We also have an office,” Mo replied. “Downstairs. That we pay rent for so we don’t bring our work home.”
She had a point. Four years ago, Pru had managed to convince Lilly an office space was in the budget and a good idea. They couldn’t bring clients to their apartment for consultations; no one would take them seriously. Luckily, an office on the first floor had become available for a reasonable price, and since they lived in the building, the owner had knocked off another hundred bucks a month. Sometimes it paid to be a new urbanite.
“Yes,” Lilly agreed, “but you rarely get dressed before nine, and as I said, we have an emergency.”
“Who the hell gets dressed before nine?”
Lilly finally glanced up, raising one dark brown brow and pointing to herself and Pru.
“Et tu, Brute?”
Pru simply shrugged and smiled at her very non-morning friend.
“I’ve only been up and dressed for about ten minutes if it helps.”
“It does not,” Mo said. “Not when arguing with the queen of punctuality.”
“Get your coffee and get over here—we have things to discuss.”
Mo rolled her eyes and made a gagging motion. Pru chuckled into her coffee, crossing the tiny kitchen to sit at the table. The women shared a small three-bedroom apartment. Well, actually, it was a two bedroom with a glass-door office, which Lilly had strung curtains across and claimed as her room. No one would wake her with their morning noise, since the woman woke before the sun.
No one right now, anyway.
She supposed she would have to move out once she had the baby. She, Lilly, and Mo had roomed together since freshman year of college. They’d been through late-night cram sessions, all-night crying jags, and sock-on-the-door sleeping in the common area evenings. And of course, her sweet friends had been there with gallons of ice cream during the abandonment by Terrence the Terrible. But they’d never had to deal with a crying baby waking them up at all hours of the night, something Pru was looking forward to, in part, but that her friends hadn’t signed on for.
She knew her friends would never kick her out, but what single twenty-eight-year-old woman wanted to live with a crying baby?
I do.
Her heart clenched with the inner whispered confession. But that was her choice, her decision. Not her friends’. She had to give them the opportunity to express how her decision might affect them. It wasn’t like the women planned on living together forever. She knew Lilly was saving for a house and Mo, the eternal optimist, believed she’d find her one true soul mate, settle down, and live happily ever after before her thirtieth birthday.
“Hey, guys, I have something I need to tell you.”
