“Barely half way,” I said. “She’s been under a lot of stress. She works full-time, nights, and she doesn’t have family here.”

“She has us,” Caroline said.

I nodded once. “Yes, she does.”

Not that I can help with a baby. I can take out the trash. Mow the lawn. The dishes and shit like that. Cuddles? Diapers? Negative. I didn’t have siblings. The women in my family practiced holding guns, not babies. I’d never had a desire for children and, approaching my thirties, that biological urge others talked about just wasn’t there.

Zeke paused next to Darby and leaned down to whisper in her ear. She smiled.

Now I was red-faced. I hadn’t had as much to drink as everyone else, but the two I’d had and my temper made me wanted me to fight them both. Zeke was headed to the restroom but stopped next to me. “You okay?”

“Yep.”

He smiled, but the confusion on his face was evident. He walked down the hall and closed the bathroom door behind him. I rationalized the anger, and it slowly melted away before Zeke returned to nuzzle my neck.

He pulled back. “You’re not okay.”

“Fine,” I lied. Just him asking pissed me off. I was such a girl.

He pulled my hand as he walked down the hall, closing the door behind us. He’d had far more to drink than me, his body relaxed. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, let’s go back out before people realize something’s wrong.”

“Wait. Are we fighting?”

“You whisper shit into a girl’s ear—a girl you dated—yeah, something might be wrong with that.”

“It’s not what you think. I told her she looked beautiful,” he admitted.

Bile rose in my throat. “That’s so kind of you,” I said, my anger boiling just below the surface. “Definitely worse than what I was thinking.”

He held up his hands. “That’s not how I meant it. I was just trying to be nice because she looked embarrassed that she felt sick. I texted her when I found out the news, and I told her about you.”

“You’ve been texting her? Since when?”

“Pretty much since she got her phone. We’re just friends, Naomi.”

I sighed. “Fair enough.”

“But while I was washing my hands in the bathroom, I realized it might not have looked the best. Please don’t be mad. Today’s been amazing, and the last thing I’d wanna to do is fuck it up.”

“I’m not mad.”

“You’re a little mad.”

“I’m jealous, not mad.”

He grinned.

“It’s not funny,” I said, starting to walk past him.

He grabbed my arm and shrugged one shoulder. “It’s a little cute.”

I looked down at his hand on my arm. “Would my knee in your ball sack be cute?”