God,” I said, stomach dropping at her words. “Please, don’t throw anything crazy on me right now. I can’t handle much more.”
She smiled, but it was a sad smile. “It’s nothing bad. I just… I wanted you to be the first person I told. Besides Zach, of course.”
I blinked. “Okay…”
Gemma sat up straighter, hugging her knees. “I think… I think I want to have a baby.”
My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. “Wait… really?”
She nodded, smile growing. “Yeah. Really. I just… I can’t stop thinking about it. Every day that I’m with Zach, I think of how he’d make the best dad. I get butterfly belly just thinking about him holding our little boy, or girl, watching them play in the park, watching him teach them how to ride their bike…”
“And you told Zach?”
She nodded, biting her lip again. “I think we’re going to start trying. Like… starting with our wedding night.”
I couldn’t explain the range of emotions that flooded me in that moment. The first thing I felt was utter joy for my best friend. It’d been a long time since either of us had brought up kids, but I could remember drunken nights in college, laying together in my dorm and staring up at the ceiling talking about how cute our future children would be, how many babies we wanted, what we’d name them. I thought maybe she’d have a baby with Carlo, but she never did, and all my hopes for a baby went out the window when Nathan broke things off.
And that was the second thing I felt.
An empty, hollow longing for the exact same thing Gemma wanted.
I felt that excitement bubbling up in her belly because I could picture the same thing with Makoa. It was absurd. We’d only spent a few months together, and somehow, I’d fallen for him so hard that I could picture my entire life with him. I could see him down on one knee. I could picture walking down the aisle to him. And, just like Gemma, I could see him holding our daughter or son.
But the big difference between our dreams was that Gemma’s was in reach.
And mine would never come true.
“Gem, I don’t even have words,” I said, crawling over to wrap her in a fierce hug. “I’m so, so happy for you. And I’m going to spoil the shit out of that little baby.”
Gemma laughed in my arms, smacking my ass when we finally broke contact and I crawled back over to my wine. I took a long sip, and I felt her eyes on me the entire time.
“What?” I asked, arching a brow.
“You know, I want you to be happy, too.”
I swallowed, tracing the rim of my glass before I shrugged. “I am happy. I made a mistake and fell off the Badass Bitch Wagon for a hot minute, but I’m back now and better than ever.”
“Belle,” Gemma said, giving me a look — you know the one. That look. “You don’t have to pretend to be okay right now.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“Liar.”
I huffed. “What do you want from me? What should I do? Just… fall apart? Cry over the fact that I believed a liar, yet again, and ended up just as broken as I knew I would be?”
Gemma didn’t say a word to that.
“It is what it is, and now it’s over, and I’ve been reminded exactly why I have a three-date rule.”
She sighed, long and heavy before putting her wine down and turning to face me on the couch. “Alright. Time for some best friend tough love.”
I rolled my eyes. “Gemma, really, I’m—”
“You’re not fine, Belle, and you’re also being a real stubborn witch about this whole situation.”
“Hey!” I said on a pout.
“I’m sorry, but you needed to hear it,” she defended, throwing her hands up. “Now, I’ll be the first to say that what Makoa did wasn’t cool. He shouldn’t have lied to you about his really fucking cool job and the fact that he gets to hang out with my favorite players, naked, in the Bears locker room.”
I rolled my eyes again.
“But,” she continued. “Belle, I get why he kept this from you for a while. Don’t you? I mean, after everything he confessed to you…” Gemma shook her head. “We all do crazy things to protect ourselves from being hurt again. I mean, look at me. I almost turned my back on the best man to ever walk into my life, all because I was afraid of ending up in