Match Me (7 page)

I followed along as Paul grabbed another test off the shelf, a handful of candy bars and some fancy lotion. The security guard said his wife swore by it to keep stretch marks at bay.

By the time we got to the register, Baldie was congratulating us.

Paul insisted on paying. He thanked the cashier and we left the store.

I didn’t know what to say to him as we crossed the parking lot. He’d just saved me—again. Why?  Why was he being so nice to me?  Every time he showed up, I was in some sort of mess and without asking me any questions, he helped me out of it. Why? 

But I couldn’t get any of those words out of my mouth so we walked to my car in silence.

I unlocked the door and took a deep breath. “So, thank you seems a bit understated. But thanks.”

He nodded. “You’re welcome.” He handed the bag to me.

I fumbled with my purse, embarrassed and worried and too many other things. “Let me pay you back.”

There was something in his expression that I couldn’t read. “Don’t worry about it.”

And he left.

SEVENTEEN

I sat cross-legged on my living room floor and stared at the deck of cards in front of me.

I knew what I was going to ask my tarot cards. Should I test?

Because the AccuTest boxes sat next to me on the floor, waiting to be opened and peed on. It had been six hours since my almost-arrest and I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. Not because I couldn’t pee. I’d drank two diet Cokes and a glass of water. And every time I’d slipped into the bathroom, I tried to take a test with me. And failed.

I needed moral support. I needed Jill.

For the hundredth time, I picked up my phone and started typing a text. And for the hundredth time, I closed it out, unsent. I wasn’t ready for her wrath. I wasn’t ready for her judgment. And I wasn’t ready for her common sense. I wasn’t ready for anything.

Someone pounded on my door and I groaned. I should have known she would come by, should have known the best-friend radar would kick in. It was like I emitted some secret Bat Signal that told her I was in trouble.

“Come in,” I called, defeated. I cradled my head in my hands, not even bothering to hide the tests.

“Headache?” Paul asked. “Is that a symptom, too?”

I jerked into an upright position. “What are you doing here?”

“You told me to come in.”

“I thought you were Jill.”

“Nope.” He strolled toward me, his hands shoved in his pockets. His eyes zeroed in on the tests. “You haven’t…?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He sat down on the couch. “OK. Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to know.”

Paul shook his head. “What? You think if you don’t test, you won’t be pregnant?”

Yes. That’s exactly what I was hoping for.

“Look, you need to know,” he said. “So you can prepare. Decide what you’re gonna do.”

I couldn’t believe I was sitting on my living room floor, having a conversation about pregnancy with Paul. My pregnancy. Why was he so interested? What did it matter to him? We hadn’t slept together.

He motioned to the deck. “Distracting yourself with solitaire?”

“No.” I smiled. “Tarot.”

“And how does that work?”

I never did complicated spreads with my tarot cards. I didn’t know how. I’d occasionally do a three-card spread but usually, I just formulated a question and then pulled a card to read the answer. Pulling cards rarely helped, but I loved the idea of tarot cards, of finding inspiration and answers hidden within a mysterious deck.

I told him.

He nodded. “OK.” He shifted off the couch and settled himself next to me. “So ask your question.”

“I’m trying.”

“There is no try,” he said, his voice Yoda-like. “Only do.”

“Greatest misquote of Star Wars,” I said. “’Do or do not. There is no try.’”

“Actually, it was The Empire Strikes Back. But whatever. You know what I mean.”

I did.

I sighed. “OK. I’ll ask.”

He leaned in. “So how does it work? Do you ask the question in your head or out loud or…?”

“I usually say it out loud. So I know what the question is. But usually I’m alone so that someone doesn’t interrupt me with a million freaking questions.”

“You want me to leave?”

Oddly, I didn’t. I didn’t want to be alone when I found out. “No. It’s okay.”

He nodded. “Right. OK. Do it then.”

“So, I’m thinking, should I test?”

He smacked his forehead. “No. No, that isn’t a question that’s negotiable. It’s not a question with multiple potential answers.”

When I didn’t say anything, he said, “Maybe you should ask why you’re afraid to test.”

I already knew that. I was afraid to pee on the stick because I might be pregnant. Duh. But I was terrified because it opened up a whole different can of worms.

Telling the father.

Chase.

EIGHTEEN

“I can’t do it.”

“Fine.” Paul reached for the deck. “I’ll ask.”

“Why is Bonnie so scared to test?” He looked at me. “Now what do I do?”

I chewed my lip. “You spread them in front of you. Pick the one that speaks to you.”

“The cards talk?”

“Yes, let’s be quiet, so we’ll hear them. Their voices are very soft.”

He craned his neck toward the cards.

I rolled my eyes. “No. I mean, pick the one that catches your eye. The first one you notice.”

“What if there are two?” He played with the deck, shuffling them haphazardly.

“There won’t be. There’s always one.”

He nodded. “OK.” He spread the cards facedown and grabbed one from the middle. He turned it over.

A king on a throne, holding the scales of justice. The Judgment card.

I cradled my head in my hands and moaned.

“What?” Paul asked, alarmed. “What does it mean?”

Wordlessly, I motioned to a small book. He grabbed it and thumbed through the pages.

“There’s like two pages of info,” he said.

“I know.”

He scanned the book. “
The Judgment card indicates you have had a recent epiphany or life-changing event,” Paul read. “It often can indicate that life-changing decisions are at hand. However, unlike those associated with the logical Justice card, these decisions require a delicate blend of intuition and intellect. You may be at a crossroads, as you are aware that any decision you make will bring about significant change. The choice can be an obvious one, or perhaps the only viable one. You know that this choice must be made and you are facing it with maturity and level-headedness.”

He set the book down. “Wow. That’s a little freaky.”

“I know,” I said again.

“But it’s nothing you didn’t already know,” he pointed out.

Again. “I know.”

“So test. I’ll stay. If you want, I mean.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

Paul shrugged. “Because my best friend is kind of an asshole.”

I hadn’t told anyone about Chase. About the night of his bachelor party a month ago. How he’d shown up at my apartment, pounding on the door at two o’clock in the morning. Drunk and rambling that he wasn’t sure he was ready for marriage. I hadn’t told anyone that I’d sat him down on the couch and brewed coffee in the middle of the night and listened while he talked.

Not even Jill.

Because, even though he downed a cup of coffee and appeared to have sobered up, it didn’t stop him from kissing me. From lifting me off the couch, from burying his face in my shoulder and nuzzling my neck and carrying me to my bedroom.

“How did you know?” I finally asked.

“I went by his place the next morning,” he said. “To check up on him, you know? He was pretty wasted. He wasn’t there. But Angela was.”

I stared at him.

“I made up an excuse. Told her he was passed out at my house. That I was grabbing a change of clothes for him. Texted him right after and told him he better have a damn good explanation for where he’d been.”

“And so he told you? That he was with me?”

Paul nodded.

I sighed.

“Look, Bonnie,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I slept with him,” I pointed out. “I wanted to.”

“Well, yeah.” Paul considered this. “But, he put you in a vulnerable position. Just like always.”

“What do you mean?”

He didn’t answer right away.

“It’s irrelevant,” he finally said. “What you need to do now is test. Get it over with. So we can figure out what you do next.”

I knew he was right. And I liked that he said we, that he was stepping in when I needed a friend. And I was also pretty sure he wasn’t going anywhere until I peed on one of those little sticks tucked inside the boxes.

I pushed myself off the floor. “Fine. Hand me a box.”

He picked one up and tossed it to me. “Go. Don’t think. Just do.”

I took a deep breath and headed toward the bathroom.

I shut the door and set the box down on the counter. I could do it. I needed to do it.

I unwrapped the test and examined the stick. It was hard to believe one tiny thing could hold so much power, so much information. It was also hard to believe my pee was going to be the messenger.

I tried to keep my heart from beating out of my chest and my breathing steady as I hovered over the toilet. I tried to keep from hyperventilating as I set the completed test back on the counter and watched as the liquid moved through the testing screen.

And I tried to quell the howl that threatened to erupt when the test was complete. But I failed.

My ecstatic squeal could probably be heard through the entire town.

Because I was absolutely, positively not pregnant.

NINETEEN

“We should celebrate.”

I disentangled myself from Paul and smoothed down my shirt. I’d tore down the hallway and launched myself into his arms, shrieking and laughing.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Absolutely. How?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. What would you do with Jill?”

There would have been no celebrating with Jill. Not right away, at least. She would have lectured me and chastised me for a good long while. And then we would have gone for ice cream.

I decided to skip to the good stuff. “Ice cream.”

His face brightened. “Excellent. Let’s go.”

I glanced at the clock. “Are you sure? It’s almost six o’clock. I don’t want to keep you…”

He’d been with me for over an hour. Almost two. He’d more than fulfilled any sort of obligation he might have felt toward me over his best friend’s poor judgment.

“You’re not keeping me,” he said. “I don’t have plans until eight. No worries.”

Dairy Queen was less than two blocks from my apartment. It was surprisingly empty for a late summer day; only a handful of people sat at the picnic tables outside, licking cones and digging into Blizzards.

“Pre-dinner lull,” Paul commented as he held the door open for me, revealing no line at the counter. “Don’t be fooled.”

We ordered two hot-fudge sundaes and I paid. Paul started to protest but I stopped him.

“It’s the least I can do.” I handed the teenager behind the counter a ten dollar bill. “Besides, I’m the one who’s celebrating.”

He frowned.

“And you paid for the tests. And some stretch cream I’m thankfully not going to need.”

He laughed.

I took my change and we waited for our sundaes. Paul grabbed a couple of napkins and we headed outside to one of the empty picnic tables. Clouds dotted the sky, shielding our ice cream from the late summer sun.

I dug into my sundae, more fudge than ice cream on my spoon.

Paul noticed. “Too bad you can’t just order the hot fudge, huh?”

“Best part. Hands down.”

He polished his off in a matter of minutes.

I sucked the fudge off of my spoon. “So, thanks. You know…”

He nodded. “You’re welcome.”

“We keep having this same conversation. I say thanks. You say you’re welcome. It’s a bit repetitive.”

He shrugged, examining the interior of his now empty sundae cup.

“You didn’t have to do all of this.”

I thought of all the ways he’d helped over the last week. At the wedding. At the grocery store. At the restaurant. At the drug store. At my apartment.

“I know.” He smiled. “I wanted to.”

I smiled back. It was nice to have someone in my court. Someone like Paul.

A car pulled into the parking lot and I stiffened. A black, canvas-topped Jeep. There weren’t many in Minnesota. And I only knew of one in Mansfield.

Chase.

“We can go,” Paul offered, following my eyes.

I shook my head. “Nah. It’s OK.”

And it was. I could sit there and eat my ice cream and try not to think about the night of his bachelor party and the wedding and the pregnancy that wasn’t.

Chase didn’t see us. He strode toward the shop, texting as he walked. I ate my sundae and kept my eyes on the entrance. He emerged a few minutes later, an ice cream cake in his hands. He shoved his phone in his pocket, looked around, locked his eyes on me.

And headed our way.

“Hey.” He wore sunglasses so I didn’t know who he was greeting.

Paul answered. “What’s up?”