I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just craving them.” In my mind, I glared at the angel, who was acting all innocent, while the devil cracked uplaughing.
“You’re. Craving.Fries?”
Wasn’t that what I justsaid?
“Why?” I asked. “Is that a problem?” Maybe a sign of some sort of terminal disease I hadcontracted?
“Do you crave them often?” Erinasked.
“Not really. This is probably the first time.” At least that was what I tried to say. And I would have succeeded if I hadn’t yawned while sayingit.
I really needed to get moresleep.
This wasn’t the first time in the past few weeks that I’d wanted to crawl under the table (or desk) and steal a nap. Which was odd. I wasn’t the nappingtype.
“Are you not getting enough sleep?” Erinasked.
I picked up my glass of water and sipped the cold liquid. “I thought I was, but apparentlynot.”
“How are your breastsfeeling?”
Now if only she hadn’t asked me that while I was taking another sip of water. It went down the wrong way and I startedcoughing.
Kelsey laughed. “What kind of question isthat?”
Erin ignored her. “Is there a chance you could bepregnant?”
Now it was my turn to laugh…until I was no longer laughing. I just stared at Erin, the blood in my head pooling somewhere near myfeet.
I couldn’t be pregnant, right? Josh and I had used condoms. Or at least I remembered using one the first time. And I was pretty sure we had used them the other times too that first night. We weren’tthatdrunk. Plus we had definitely used them inAustralia.
But what about the expiry date on the box in my bedroom?a pesky voice asked as I mentally counted the days since my last period. Turns out the condoms had been more than seven months older than the date marked on the box when Josh and I used them, which was why I had long since tossedthem.
The problem was, I had no idea when it was. Normally I was super-organized, but writing down the first day of my period was never on my monthly to-do list. Apparently, it should havebeen.
My hesitation was all Erin needed. “Ohmigod, you really could bepregnant?”
“No…I can’t be pregnant. I mean, I’m positive I’m not,” I fumbled out, but the last thing I sounded was positive. “I’ve been stressed at work. That’sall.”
Relief rushed through my body. That must be it. Stress was known to wreck havoc on a woman’s menstrual cycle. That was why I waslate.
Why my boobstingled.
And why the waistband of my clothes felt a little tighter thannormal.
I wasn’t late—I was getting myperiod.
The voice in my head cracked up—which was hardly verycomforting.
“There’s only one way to know for sure,” Erin said. “As soon as we’re finished lunch, we’ll go to the drug store and pick up a pregnancytest.”
“Sure. Okay.” Might as well…for their reassurance that I wasn’t pregnant. Which I wasn’t. At.All.
Kelsey slid me a sympatheticglance.
In an attempt to distract me, they talked about an ad campaign Erin was working on for a very difficult client. “The jerk even insinuated that I wasn’t allowed to take any maternity leave. I’m supposed to be there at his beck andcall.”
“What did you do?” Kelseyasked.
