“Yep. Next weekend. I can’t believe it’s already been two years.” Her lips curved up into a pretty smile.

“Time for you to start popping out some babies,” advised Katie.

Abby’s eyes widened. “I don’t know about that.”

I grinned, thinking a little. Abby and Colton baby would be adorable. I was absolutely fascinated with how the two had reconnected. It was like something straight out of the romance books Abby edited for a living. They’d known each other in high school. Abby had innocently crushed on Colton even though she’d married her high-school sweetheart, but her husband had sadly passed away. Then, years later, Abby had run into Colton after witnessing a murder—a freaking murder that Colton ended up investigating. The odds! Seriously.

“What about you?” queried Abby, her stare pointed. “When are you going to give up the pole and have some kids?”

“Give up the pole?” Katie tipped her head back and laughed. “If and when I have kids, that doesn’t mean I’ve got to give up dancing.”

I pressed my lips together to stop the giggle building in the back of my throat as I pictured a pregnant Katie working the pole. If anyone would strip while obviously pregnant, it would be Katie. She’d work it, belly and all.

The waitress finally arrived with our checks and we headed out into the bright August morning sun. As I pulled the sunglasses off my head and over my eyes, I promised Katie I would try to visit her tonight at the club.

I always promised her that.

I never went to the club she worked at.

Not because I had anything against strip clubs. I just knew, knowing my luck, I would run into a family member and that would be about seven different kinds of awkward.

My family was so large, you couldn’t throw a rock and not hit a Lima. Cousins and nephews and nieces, and—oh God—uncles were literally everywhere. It was like a higher being threw up, spraying Limas all over the city of Philadelphia. Once, I went to a gyno appointment and my uncle Julio was in the damn waiting room with his much, much younger wife.

Younger, as in Nicole was only six years older than me. Brock’s age. She was a ring-card girl. It was love at first booty shorts and bikini top sight. Nicole was super sweet. Super hot. And super pregnant. Like, every time I saw her, she was pregnant again. During Christmas I always managed to almost forget one of their kids. They had an entire litter. Julio was one of the middle brothers, younger than my father, and in his early forties, so you’d figure at some point he’d run out of active sperm.

The answer was nope.