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“I’m really showing now, aren’t I? It’s great—I’m not sick anymore, I’m not exhausted all the time like I was for the first few months, I have a ton of energy. This part is fun.”

Sam sighed.

“A little too much energy, if you ask me.” She gave Taylor a quick hug. “She’s spending all of her time organizing things with Sloane. I swear, if one more thing in our house gets a cute little label on it, I’m going to be afraid that I’ll wake up one day and look in the mirror and right there on my forehead there’ll be a little handwritten label in perfect script with ‘Sam’ on it.”

Ugh, of course Sloane had perfect script and would put handwritten labels on everything. She probably put them all on cute little baskets all over her house.

Erica just swatted her wife on the shoulder and laughed.

“I’m notthatbad. We might as well get our house all in order before crunch time. We hadn’t really gotten ourselves organized since the move, and we needed to! And it’s so nice to be able to find everything.” She turned to Taylor, her face all animated. “Did I text you pictures of our linen closet? It’s so great now; we have designated labeled shelves for everything, and little baskets for washcloths and toilet paper and extra beauty supplies.” Baskets. Yep. “And what used to be our junk closet now has baskets for the random cords we have and lightbulbs and batteries and instruction books and all of that stuff. Someday, I’m going to bring Sloane over to your apartment and we can do this for you.”

Taylor burst out laughing. Erica just shook her head.

“You laugh now, but just you wait. Next time you come over, you’ll see how convenient it all is. It maximizes so much space. Plus, I can write so much of this off on our taxes because it’s for the home office.”

You know who would probably be fascinated by this organization talk? Avery. She was far more of an adult than Taylor was. She probably had baskets and labels and stuff, too.

“I need to get to the food before it’s all gone,” Taylor said. “Come tell me more about these organized cords or maybe even,for the love of God, something more interesting while I get some food and say hi to Callie.”

Callie’s parties always had great food. That’s why Taylor had to get some right now before whatever the best thing was disappeared into the stomachs of the people who had gotten there before her.

Sam pulled out her phone and made theI have to take a callgesture, while Erica followed Taylor outside.

“It’s the little phyllo dough turnovers,” Erica said under her breath. “They’re the best thing this year. Everything is great, obviously, but those are incredible. She has them with a spinach and feta filling, and a sausage filling; get both. I’ve already had probably ten of each.”

Taylor widened her eyes.

“There’s always someone who eats all of the best snacks at Callie’s party in the first hour. Has it always been you?”

Erica shook her head and laughed.

“No, no, it’s not usually me, I swear. But I’m pregnant! I’m always starving! And I can’t eat any of the charcuterie and most of the cheese, and you know how tempting her cheese and charcuterie platters always are, so I had to just…”

“Go to town on the turnovers?”

Erica grinned.

“Exactly.” Then a mischievous look came over her face. “You should get the recipe from Callie so you can make them for my baby shower. You know, when you have to throw it for me. Have I won that bet yet, by the way?”

“Nope, and you’re not going to. I can’t wait to hear all about that baby shower as I lounge at my spa day.”

Erica looked smug.

“Feeling very confident, aren’t you? And yet, I’ve already seenyou exchanging looks with at least two people at this party. You’ll cave soon, I know it.”

Taylor slid three of each kind of turnover onto her plate.

“First of all, I was not ‘exchanging looks’ with anyone, I was simply smiling a hello to people who smiled hellos to me. Do you want me to be rude? And secondly, wow, you have so little faith in me.”

She tried to make that sound like a joke, but it wasn’t really. Itdidkind of hurt her feelings that Erica thought like this about her. It stung that she thought Taylor was so childish or so ruled by her hormones that she had to be celibate for months to, what, learn how to be a grown-up like Erica?

Erica just laughed.

“You know that’s not true; I have all the faith in the world in you. I know that you can get literally any woman that you want if you set your mind to it. Your power is too strong; the queer women of Northern California need a break, that’s all!”

Taylor ignored that as they walked over to Callie.

“Happy birthday!” She gave Callie a hug. “Avery couldn’t come, but she wanted me to say happy birthday, too. She has a work event tonight, but she told me to tell you she wished she could be here, and she hopes you have a great birthday.”