My untouched flute stands full on the nightstand—“for toasting,” Paul said as he poured, “not drinking.” The last of the carbonation clings in tiny bubbles to the glass, next to Paul’s empty one. I eye the liquid in the bottle, only a few inches or so. Paul is the only person I know who recuperates from a hangover with an early-morning run. One good hill, and his metabolism will have burned through the alcohol like propane, which, now that I think about it, is probably why he looks so good.

But all last night, he googled and drank, googled and drank.

“It says here there’s only one percent chance of getting pregnant on the pill,” he’d said, looking up from his laptop.

We were in bed, our backs propped up by pillows and the headboard, our bare feet tangled on top of the comforter.

He grinned, his eyes shining with pride and champagne. “One point three, to be exact. That’s some pretty shitty odds, but I really cracked that nut, didn’t I? I really got in there.”

I laughed. “You really did.”

He reached for the bottle and topped off his glass—his third by my count—then plunked it back to the nightstand. “Apparently, you calculate the due date by the first day of your last period. When was that?”

I shrugged, not considering my calendar but whether or not I should suggest going easy on the booze. My father used to drink like that, in greedy pulls that turned his words mushy around the edges and sent Chet and me skittering for the opposite end of the trailer. He was a mean drunk, but a lazy one, too. The trick was to stay out of range.

Paul frowned. “You don’t know, or you don’t remember?”

“My periods have always been wonky. But I can figure out when it was supposed to be if I count the pills left in the pack.”

He read aloud a long, boring article about folic acid, and how I should be taking it to prevent birth defects. He searched out every local ob-gyn and settled on one in nearby Highlands with a degree from Johns Hopkins and a five-star rating on healthgrades.com. He declared ginger tea the best remedy for morning sickness and that it’s important to hydrate, even though one of the symptoms of early pregnancy is more trips than usual to the bathroom. He claimed sex was allowed and so was cheese, as long as it’s pasteurized, but no more sushi for me.

By eleven, he’d passed out, smiling.