“She’s with Nana.” I grab the menu, quickly searching it for the juiciest, meatiest thing I can find.
Both girls pout. “We wanted to see the baby!” Hope cries.
“Yeah. The whole point is for you to bring Jamie so we can coo over her. I’m almost done with the booties.” Carin pulls out a mess of yarn that looks nothing like a shoe or even a sock.
“What is that thing?” I lay down the menu to get a better view of the object she’s holding up. It’s kind of like the wool equivalent of Logan’s horrifying teddy bear.
“It’s a sock. Is it too big or too small?” She stretches it out and I vaguely see something shiplike in the mess.
“It’s…are you sure that’s a sock?”
Hope giggles behind her menu.
Carin scowls at me. “Have you ever tried knitting? It’s hard as fuck, thank you very much.” With a sniff, she stuffs the mottled mess in her bag.
“Besides knitting, which I do appreciate, how’s MIT?”
Hope lights up. “Carin knocked beard off her bucket list.”
“Nice.” I give her a thumbs-up. “Tell me about it.”
“Nah, it’s nothing.” Carin lifts the menu up to hide her face.
“Mr. Beard is Carin’s TA,” Hope explains. “She thinks you’ll be pissed.”
“He’s not my TA,” Carin objects.
“Okay, fine,” Hope relents. “He’s the TA in another class, which Carin will likely take next year.”
“Eh. I’m fine with it.” I pick up my menu again and study my choices.
I’m torn between the burger with blue cheese and the Philly steak sandwich. Can I even eat blue cheese? I lower the menu to ask Hope, only to find my friends staring at me.
“What?” My eyes drop to my chest in a panic. “Am I leaking?” No, my shirt is dry, thank God. Those little silicon nip pads are working great.
“We thought for sure you’d be upset over this because of the Dean thing,” Carin explains.
“Dean and I kind of made up.” If me breaking down and Dean giving me awkward pats on the back counts as making up. Which, in my book, does. Plus, as far as I know, he hasn’t said a word to Tucker about the fact that I’m madly in love with the guy.
“Well, that’s good.”
The waitress shows up and we all order. Hope gets a salad, Carin orders soup and salad, and I order the Philly cheesesteak with a side of fries because I’m so hungry.
“How’s med school?” I ask Hope.
“It’s going okay. The course load is crushing.”
“I hear you.”
“Med school is sapping all my energy to the point that I don’t have time for D’Andre. He keeps talking about skiing from sunup to sundown over Christmas break, and all I want to do is lie in front of the lodge fireplace and sleep. I don’t know how you’re doing it.”
“I wouldn’t be able to do it without Tucker. He’s always there. Well, most of the time,” I correct. Because lately, he’s been really busy and I’ve been quietly panicking.
Hope frowns. “Oh no. Is there trouble in paradise?”
“No, not really. He’s doing more than I ever dreamed of, actually. It makes me feel guilty.”
“Oh fuck that,” Carin says. “This is his kid too. Is he slacking off? Because I will kick his ass from here to the harbor for you.”
“No, not at all. It’s…” I pause, hesitant to give my fear a voice, as if saying the words will make them true. But these two are my closest friends, so I give in to the urge. “I think he’s found someone else.”
“No.” Hope denies it immediately. “When would he have the time? You said he comes over almost every night and you see him on the weekends too.”
“That’s just it. Before, he was around all the time, but in the past couple weeks, he’s been really busy.”
“Maybe there’s a bunch of builders trying to get projects done before the snow comes,” Carin suggests. “And so everyone’s working double shifts or something.”
“Maybe.” I heave a sigh. “It’s not just that he’s not around as much. He’s distracted and quiet, more so than usual. I feel like he wants to tell me something but is afraid of how I’ll take it.”
“Just come out and tell him you love him,” Hope orders, shaking her fork at me. “Actually, I’m shocked you haven’t slipped up and done it already. Even in texts and stuff.”
“It’s beyond hard,” I admit. “The other day he was reaching for a glass of water and his shirt slipped up and I almost dropped to my knees with lust. And when he’s with Jamie? It becomes nearly impossible. He was sitting on the couch the other night, feeding her. And I started to say I love you and caught myself, but not before I had the first two words out. I ended up saying I love your socks.”
“I love your socks?” Carin exclaims.
“It’s beyond ridiculous. I know.”
“Why don’t you just tell him?”