a toast, smiling at me. “Regardless, here’s a toast to the birthday girl.”
“That’s not for another couple days,” I remind her, raising mine.
“Yes, but you’re not spending it with us, you’re going to be with your family. Oh, and this meal is just part of your present. I’ll get the rest to you later.”
“You don’t have to get me anything,” I protest.
“Of course I do. I’m your friend, Perry. That’s what friends do.” She takes a sip of wine, her lipstick leaving behind a crimson stain. Her eyes go back in her head for a moment. “God, this wine is brilliant.”
She’s right. It’s delicious. We have a bad habit of drinking two bottles of wine between us on our lunch dates and getting totally day-wasted. Lucinda is the saving grace today, I hope.
“I’m not pregnant,” I assure Rebecca again, my voice low. I bite my lip for a moment, about to take the plunge. “But…”
“But?” Her brows arch.
“Well…maybe it’s a little ironic that it was over lunch that we first discussed me getting an IUD and now I’m talking to you about getting it…out.”
She blinks at me. “You’re what?”
“I want it out. I want to start a family. I want a baby.” I don’t know why it sounds both immature when I say it, my voice shaking and everything, as well as incredibly right, but it does.
“You’re kidding me!” she exclaims. “What? Really?” I nod and she claps her hands together gleefully. “Yay! Perry. Oh my god, no wonder you’re having all the sex. What has Dex said? He must be over the moon!”
“Uh, well,” I say, taking a quick sip of wine to steady my nerves. “He doesn’t exactly know.”
“What? He doesn’t know?”
I nod. “No. Only you and Dr. Leivo. And you have to promise me you won’t tell him.”
Her mouth drops open. “You can’t do that to me!”
“You have to promise, Rebecca. I’m going to let him know when I’m ready to let him know, so for now, just keep it to yourself.”
She crosses her arms and makes a huffing sound. “Well, that’s rubbish. Why am I always caught in the middle of you guys with all your secrets? You know how hard it was to pretend he wasn’t going to propose to you? And now I have to pretend that you don’t want to have babies.” Her features soften and she sighs, giving me a weepy face. “Oh, Perry, you’re going to have babies. Beautiful little babies. God, I hope they get all of your personality.”
I laugh. “Good lord, that would be a tragedy. No, I need Dex in there to balance me out. And anyway, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.”
“So why haven’t you told him?”
“I’m just…waiting for the right time, I guess.”
She gives me a soft smile, her eyes twinkling. “He’s going to be so bloody happy. You have no idea. He wants to be a father so badly.”
My heart does a backflip at hearing that.
“He does? Really? He doesn’t talk to me about it all that much.”
I know he’s brought it up a few times, in a very light, almost joking way, but I’ve always brushed it off, refusing to let myself really think about it and what it means.
Still, to hear this from Rebecca, that he wants this badly enough to talk to her about it, well, fuck. I’m positively melting inside.
Rebecca scoffs. “Maybe he doesn’t talk to you about it because you’re always so squirrely around the subject!”
“I have my reasons,” I protest. And he knows that, too.
“Yes, well, I have to say I’m glad you’re ignoring all that shite and going for it. It’s not like you’re cursed, Perry.”
“I know,” I tell her.
Or do I?
“Please tell him soon,” she implores me. “I need to live vicariously through your romance.” She takes a big gulp of wine, her expression wistful as she looks down at Lucinda who is glued to her game. “You know, I wouldn’t trade Lucy for the world. She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. I just…” She closes her eyes for a moment, exhaling. “I wish I had what you and Dex have.”
“Things with Dean still weird?” I ask. Rebecca’s history is all sorts of complicated. For one thing, she’s a lesbian (though now she says she’s more pansexual, but doesn’t want to label things), had a girlfriend named Emily, and went through a bad breakup, which resulted in her sleeping with Dean and then getting pregnant. She and Dean have this Ross and Rachel