Page 2 of The Best Worst Thing
How Babies Are Made
That night, Nicole was lying on the off-white sectional in her living room, eating precut watermelon from a plastic container, when the front door unlocked. It was half past ten.
“Sorry, babe,” Gabe said, tossing his keys onto the entryway console as Nero greeted him, tail wagging. “That due diligence came in late, and then Kyle wanted to grab a drink, talk it over. I tried to cut out early, but you know how he gets.”
Nicole nodded. She knew exactly how Kyle got—and it wasn’t worth the fight. It wasn’t like there was anything she could do about him, or the fact that Gabe hadn’t been home before nine all week.
“Well, we can just record tomorrow, I guess. After you get home from golf?”
“Definitely,” Gabe said as he kicked off his dress shoes.
He wandered into the open kitchen, poured himself a drink, grabbed his foil-covered plate, and then slid onto the couch next to Nicole.
By the time he finished eating, he’d already told her all about his day—how he wasn’t loving the numbers on that Irvine deal, how he might need to travel back and forth if he couldn’t close it before they left for Colorado next month.
The Aspen trip was an August tradition for everyone who was anyone at Gabe’s office.
She and Gabe had first been invited a couple of years ago when Nicole stopped working, and they hadn’t missed a season since.
That said, attendance was, as far as completely optional vacations were concerned, thoroughly mandatory.
“Anyway.” Gabe tossed Nero his last flake of salmon, then set his dish on the coffee table. “What’s up with you? You talk to the agency at all?”
“Yeah.” Nicole tugged one of Gabe’s old sweatshirts over her stomach. Her ovaries, these past ten days, had swollen to the size of grapefruits. “We’re still on track for a week from Monday. Valerie’s got everything lined up with childcare too.”
Valerie—Nicole and Gabe’s gestational carrier, the same one Nicole had been texting for the past four hours—lived in Virginia.
Five days after Nicole’s egg retrieval, the clinic would perform genetic screening on the embryos, then overnight them across the country.
It wasn’t ideal, working with a surrogate on the East Coast. But wait times to match with a California-based carrier were unbelievably long, and Valerie had been, from day one, an absolute dream.
“You still going?” Gabe said.
“To Norfolk? Yeah. If nothing else, for Val. You should come. You should meet her, even if … She’s just really great.”
“I want to.” Gabe’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He silenced it, then took a long sip of his whiskey. “I really do. And I know you guys have gotten superclose. But you know how it is at the office. The guys don’t understand this stuff. And I’m finally in Kyle’s ear.”
Nicole tugged at the tassel of a throw pillow. “I just wanted to do this last one together, that’s all.”
“I know,” he said. “But it’s a really tough month for me, okay? I’m sorry.”
Nicole gave that tassel another tug, then rested her head on the thick, square arm of the sofa and stared straight into the TV screen.
Gabe exhaled, then scrolled through his phone.
And then, a few minutes later, just when Nero had fallen asleep underneath the coffee table and Nicole had sufficiently squashed whatever it was she really wished to say or do or scream, Gabe glanced up at the suddenly moaning television and raised an eyebrow.
“What on earth are you watching? Should this be my sperm-collection porn?”
She snickered. Gabe scooted closer, laughing, demanding details as he pulled her feet into his lap. Luckily for him, Nicole had seen this episode twice already.
Usually, when Gabe worked late, Nicole would dive into a new book or breeze through an old favorite.
But lately, she hadn’t had the energy. Besides, Valerie was doing a rewatch too, and it was nice, connecting over something mindless—something low stakes.
Pretending their friendship was normal when, quite clearly, it was not.
“Okay, so,” she said, just as Gabe’s thumbs found her ankles. She reached for the watermelon, then passed him the container. “That’s Fitz—he’s actually president. And he’s supposed to be at the inaugural ball. But he’s just gonna rail her instead. Right there, on his desk.”
Gabe smirked. “Must be nice.”
Every muscle in Nicole’s body clenched. “I …”
“I’m kidding, baby.” He pulled her into his arms, then grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. “Let’s just watch your ridiculous show, okay? I love you.”
Nicole nodded, scrunching her eyes closed as he softly scratched her back and the television talked and talked until, finally, she drifted off to sleep.
And then, just before midnight, Gabe tapped her awake, swiped her backside with an alcohol swab, and jabbed her with a three-millimeter syringe of Novarel right where her ass met her hip.