Take the Chance (Top Shelf Romance #9) - Brittainy Cherry Page 0,326

to go a round. As sweet as she is, she’s a massage therapist, so she’s strong, and dating Lance means she has to have a backbone of steel. She also has a fiery personality to match her hair.

“It was an accident. Randy came home from an away series, and I answered the door wearing a bow like a necklace. I didn’t know Lance was with him until it was too late,” Lily explains.

“And Alex saw her naked when she was six, so that doesn’t really count,” Violet adds.

“Oh. Right.” That seems to calm Poppy down.

“My boob popped out when I was breastfeeding Logan at a team BBQ last summer.” Sunny pats her little baby bump. “But only Miller saw, so I guess that’s not the same.”

“It’s a good one, though.” Violet claps her hands. “Okay. Who needs a drink before the sex-quisition?”

“The what?” Sunny asks.

“The sex-quisition. The sex inquisition. I’m sure everyone has questions for Charlene after last night. I figured nothing goes better with uncomfortable questions about our sex lives than booze! Sunny, I have dealcoholized champagne for us. It basically tastes like fizzy grape juice, but we can drink it out of fun glasses and pretend we’re getting drunk, too.”

Sunny shrugs. “I don’t need to pretend to be drunk, but I like fizzy grape juice.”

Violet serves everyone drinks, and we all head to the living room. This whole thing makes me nervous. I mean, they’re all my friends and we’re all pretty open with each other, but with all the focus on me, I realize that they’re open, while I’ve spent the past two years saying little about my sex life. I wish we could go back to the way it was before all my secrets were spilled out with the dragon-shaped plastic schlong.

I root around in my purse for one of my candies and pop it into my mouth. I need all the calm I can get. I don’t care that the candy is going to make my mimosa taste like crap.

“I have a question.” Lily drops into the chair parallel to mine.

“Oh, I bet you do.” Violet grins.

“Randy wants to know where you go lingerie shopping.”

That seems to break the tension a little. “Depends on what I’m shopping for, but I can give you a list of places.”

“Or maybe we can go together,” Lily says.

Poppy raises her hand. “I would like to go lingerie shopping.”

“I need new maternity lingerie. I don’t think the ones from Logan’s pregnancy are going to fit for much longer.” Sunny blinks a few times and then sniffs.

Lily and Poppy are out of their chairs with tissues and hugs before the first tear falls.

It’s another minute of consoling before Sunny is okay again. “Sorry,” she sniffs. “I’m already showing, and I just found out there’s a baby in there. I can’t imagine how big I’m going to be this time around.”

Lily and Poppy murmur their understanding, even though Lily is the size of my wrist. Poppy is curvier, but being able to see her toes isn’t an issue, and likely won’t be for a while yet. At least I don’t think she’s going to jump on the baby train, but then who knows?

Darren and I have never talked about kids. He held Logan when he was born for, like, a minute and a half or something. He doesn’t seem to have anything against kids, but he’s never mentioned wanting them. Personally, I’m on the fence, mostly because my childhood was seriously fucked up, and I worry no matter what I do, I’ll mess my own kid up by default.

Darren grew up in a very strict house with a lot of rules about what constituted acceptable behavior, which may account for how private he is and his sometimes commanding presence in and out of the bedroom.

Sunny’s mini-breakdown seems to have shifted the subject away from my unconventional sex life. For a few minutes, anyway.

“Once the playoffs are over, we should plan a trip to the cottage,” Violet says.

“That would be so great! I want them to do well, but it would be nice if they were finished before June so they get a bit more of an off-season and Miller can spend more time with Logan,” Sunny agrees.

“We could roll it right into a birthday celebration for Charlene or something!” Violet flaps her hands excitedly and nearly topples her sparkling grape juice.

“Aren’t there a million black flies up there at the end of May?” I ask.

Once we left The Ranch, my mom and