“You’re not supposed tolovethe fact that our local wildlife and trees are endangered,” I protested.
But thinking about that only made me think of how Ambrose and I had met, and how I had been surprised a man who seemed so stuffy and pompous could do something likethat.
And I was innomood to remember it.
The only way Ambrose had surprised me recently was how willing he apparently was to humiliate himself to keep me from marrying Finn, but that could be chalked up to the fact that Ambrose was usually the most handsome man in town, and now that Finn was around, he was only a second or third-placer.
“I will give a million dollars for every single tree you want to save,” Finn was saying, and I did not want to remember Ambrose, so I leaned back into my baby daddy and let him slip his fingers underneath the band of my shorts and start to stroke my pussy, always with that one rough finger on my clit and the others pressing deftly inside to that patch of sensitive skin that made me wild. . .
Maybe Ishouldsay yes. Finn was romantic, loaded, funny, doted on me and the baby, and was sexy as hell.
For the next few weeks, I tried to focus on planning my baby shower. Finn and I were not planning on finding out our baby’s gender, but it would still be fun to get together with friends and have a small, low-key party.
However, it seemed like every time I stepped out my front door or looked out the kitchen window, I saw Astrid, looking like Garfield with his nose pressed up against the window of a pasta restaurant, and one day she finally came up to me at the fence as I was watering my roses.
As usual, she looked pretty and perfectly done-up. At first glance. But the closer I looked at her, the more there was. . .wrong, like a badly-painted china doll that was beginning to crack.
“Indi, can I come in and talk to you?” she asked, her lips spread wide over those massive brilliant white teeth.
“No,” I said politely. “Finn is getting out of the shower and I’m afraid you are in no emotional space to be able to handle that.”
She gulped visibly, the carefully arranged curls around her head trembling.
Strangely, it seemed like since Finn had arrived she’d been trying to hide her bump, not show it off as she had been before.
“The shower? Oh god. Oh god. . . here’s the thing,” Astrid said, then she stopped and stared unblinkingly at me for several long moments.
“What’s the thing?” I prodded. “I don’t have all day.”
“The thing is—” Astrid said firmly. “That I don’t want Ambrose anymore.”
I crossed my arms over my belly.
“And? What’s that got to do with me?”
“I don’t want him anymore,” Astrid said, her eyes gleaming with a fanatical look. “You can have him back.”
“Sorry, no take-backs,” I said. “It’s a very well-known rule.”
Astrid blinked her huge china-blue eyes at me.
“What do you mean—you don’t want Ambrose back?”
“Whywould I want Ambrose back?” I asked coldly. “After I saw him fucking you on the back porch over there, I ceased to have any interest in him.”
“That was a mistake,” Astrid said anxiously, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “Just some messing around that went too far.”
“Indeed,” I said, turning to go. “I’m sorry, but I have no interest in your love life.”
“Please, Indi,” she cried suddenly, clutching at me. “I want Finn back! I neeeeeed him, you don’t understand!”
“Perhaps you should have taken better care to stay married to him,” I said, wrenching my shirt from her grip.
“Hewanted to divorceme,” Astrid said unhappily, pulling at her corkscrew curls. “I thought it was because he was too much of a free spirit to settle down. He is an untamed eagle you know, bold and free. It would have been so shameful of me to try to clip his wings.”
I listened without sympathy to her inane babbling. “He seems perfectly ready to settle down now,” I said.
Astrid’s narrow face turned practically green with envy. “Why? Why?” she yelped. “What do you have that I don’t? I don’t understand it!”
