Above the doorway, a banner with my name and Cass’s name was decorated with gold-foil stars. The favors, the confetti, the napkins—everything was navy blue, not a whiff of pink anywhere to be found. There was a long table with place settings for dinner, a second table for gifts and a third, smaller table topped by a beautiful cake decorated with a pacifier on top.

“I... How? How did...” I motioned at the room, then at Jack and his mom.

Mom came over to kiss my cheek, her arm sliding over my shoulders and anchoring me in case I was a flight risk.

“You go to sleep at like six o’clock. I stole your phone and texted Jack and the gang to set it up. Everyone deserves the hellscape that is a baby shower. And because I love you, we’re not playing pin the tail on the infant. Infant rentals are expensive, come to find out, and stealing them from the grocery store is a felony. It’s kind of unfair.”

“Oh. I—oh. Okay. Thank you!”

I smiled at Jack, who looked nervous. He kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, glancing at his mom, glancing back at me.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey!”

“Hope you don’t mind that we came. But since it’s for my kid, too, I thought—you know.”

His mom grabbed his hand, her eyes going big in her pale face.

“Hi, Sara,” she said. “You look beautiful. You’re glowing.”

They looked kind of pathetic. It was like that scene in Gladiator when everyone was waiting for me to thumbs-up or thumbs-down them being there—thumbs-up, they were welcome. Thumbs-down, they’d be eaten by a pack of lions. Or Mormor. I’d probably pick the lions myself.

I didn’t want them to feel that way around me or my kid. That wasn’t fair—not when they sincerely wanted to be part of the baby’s life, and that was a heck of a lot more than I had with my deadbeat dad. I did the only thing I could think to do and left Mom’s side to go to them, pulling them both into a hug that was seriously awkward with a beach ball–sized fetus between us.

“Yeah! We’re family now, right? For Cass? It’s cool.”

Jack’s mom was so relieved she started to cry.

Outside of her blowing an accidental sob booger on my coat, it was a fantastic day.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Five

Tuesday, February eighth was a day that would go down in infamy.

It was the day I did not give birth to my kid. I thought I might but it was a big whopping nada on the reproduction front.