Page 12 of Bar Down Baby!
“He was on another team in Columbus, but now, yeah, he’s on the team.”
Kate grabbed her phone immediately, already halfway through searching his name, and I put my hand on the screen to stop her. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or…”
She agreed and put the phone face down, crossing her hands in front of her and nodding for me to please continue.
“I ran into him this morning, and I was wearing the blue polo.”
“The tight one?” Kate asked.
“Yeah, it was very obvious that I am with child, and I sort of blurted that it was his baby.”
“Oh my God.”
“I know,” I said and took a long drink. Kate poured this prenatal powder into my bottle, which tasted weird and always made me wince. It was supposed to be “pink pear” flavored, whatever the hell that meant.
“Why didn’t you text me?” she demanded.
“He took me to breakfast. I was in shock.”
“That was hours ago!”
“Okay, focus, Katie.”
Kate took a breath, like she was being the bigger person by not pressing that I hadn’t texted her live updates through breakfast or immediately afterwards. I suppose I would’ve demanded the same. I gulped the rest of the pink pear water and moved to take her empty plate and mine from the counter.
“Can we walk?” I asked before Kate could ask another question.
Kate has this old dog—Greg—who she brings over for lunch and a walk on most warm days. The cat who walked into my house one day a couple years before and never left, whom we call Greg Junior (Junior for short), likes Greg Senior just fine.
At even the word “walk,” Greg’s tail started thumping against the floor.
“Fine.” Kate closed her Tupperware, stowed them in her lunch box, and grabbed the leash for Greg Senior.
“What did he say about the baby?” Kate asked as I shoved my feet into sneakers, stomping a few times to get the backs right.
“He was mad I didn’t tell him.”
“Makes sense,” she said, and then, “lock the door, you’re always forgetting to lock the door.”
“Well sorry, damn,” I dug the key out of my pocket. “He said he got traded, is that because he’s, like, bad?”
“Could be because he’s really good, but I’ll have to do some research. Jeremy would know.”
I groaned. “Don’t tell Jeremy, he’ll be insufferable.” Our brother could talk at length about many things, but sports were a special interest of his that we learned to tune out at a young age.
“He’ll be able to tell us like fifteen fun facts about the guy, come on.”
“No, focus.”
“Fine, what happened after breakfast?” Greg led us down the sidewalk, slower than he used to be, but still just as weird, marking his territory every twenty feet even though it was the same path we walked every day.
I tried to relay as much of the conversation as I could, Kate stopping me to gasp or smack my arm all the way through.
“Is he still into you?” she asked.
“No,” I said, decidedly. “I think I hurt his feelings by ghosting him and then only telling him I was pregnant with his child after running into him by luck at his new place of employ.”
“Well, at least you told him,” Kate pointed out, ever the optimist.
