“Uh, yeah, I don’t think we’re gonna do that again, and if this is the kind of conversation you plan on having, I vote you girls drive together,” he says.

“What he said.” Westinghouse points at Waters.

“Sunny’s not going with the girls if Violet’s driving.” Miller gives her belly a protective pat.

Violet puts her hands on her hips and pushes her chest out. She’s wearing a tank top that says AWESOME across her boobs. They really don’t need the extra attention. “I’m not that bad of a driver.”

That gets a round of throat clearing.

She looks around at the group. “Oh, come on, I’ve only had two little fender benders.”

“This year,” Miller says.

“You backed your car into an eight-foot fence last week,” Charlene points out.

“I didn’t see it!”

“Because you weren’t paying attention,” Sunny says.

“Because there was a spider on my windshield!” Violet protests.

“Lily can drive my truck, and we’ll take the SUV.” If we hadn’t just had sex in the changing room, I wouldn’t be so open to this arrangement, but maybe a couple hours of girl-bonding time will minimize the number of really fucking weird conversations they need to have after we’re all together.

“See?” Violet turns to Alex and gestures between me and Lily. “Balls lets Lily drive his truck, and I bet she doesn’t even have to bribe him with blow jobs.”

Miller holds up his hand. “Save the BJ convos for the car ride. And Randy lets Lily drive his truck because she doesn’t run into stationary objects. Can we get a move on? I wanna be on the road before rush hour hits.” He turns to Sunny and rubs her rounded stomach. “Sunny Sunshine, you need to hit the bathroom before we roll out?”

“It’s probably a good idea.”

The rest of us pile into the vehicles while Sunny makes one last bathroom trip. Apparently being eight months pregnant means you have to pee a lot more often. I’ve been warned that we may need to stop on the way. In addition to the people, we have Titan and Andy, Sunny’s dogs, along for the ride, plus an extra they’re fostering because Sunny had a weak moment. They’re calling him Wiener because he’s a wiener dog. Titan is a tiny little Papillon, and he’s riding with the girls, along with the wiener, but Andy is a huge Dane, so he’s riding in the SUV with us.

Miller makes Sunny sit in the backseat because he thinks it’s safer. Then he settles into the SUV and proceeds to text her every five minutes for the first half hour of the trip to make sure she’s okay. We can see the truck right next to us on the highway.

“Dude, Lily’s an excellent driver, Sunny’ll be fine,” I reassure him.

“I know.” He pockets his phone and taps on the armrest.

Sunny getting pregnant wasn’t planned, but Miller seems to be dealing with it pretty well. It’s weird to think about him becoming a dad when a little more than a year ago he was notorious with the bunnies. He’s a little overprotective, but I guess that makes sense. Lily and I were the first ones to find out about it. It was a huge shock, and there was some family drama—Waters wasn’t all that excited at first—but things are good now. For a couple of weeks after Sunny got knocked up, Lily and I went back to using condoms out of sheer paranoia.

It lasted two boxes, and then we were back to bag-free sex—because we ran out in the middle of the night and neither of us was willing to settle for oral. Lily’s been on the pill for a long time, and she’s really good about taking them at the same time every day, so we’ve relaxed about the whole thing. I still have no desire to get her pregnant—her mother might actually kill me if that happened. Right now Lily’s mom likes me, and I want to keep it that way.

An hour into the drive, we stop so Sunny can pee again. We all get out to stretch our legs while Waters gasses up the SUV. Miller heads directly for the washroom, presumably to check on Sunny. The amount he worries about her makes me question the whole parenting thing, possibly at any point.

Lily and I have been dating for less than a year. I’m good with the living-together deal, and she seems to be too. We’re both young, and we come from broken families. Statistically that doesn’t put us in the best position. But I try not to dwell on that too much, because it’s a shitty way to think.

I find Lily at the checkout of the convenience store with an armload of snacks. She deposits them on the counter as I pull out my phone to snap a couple of pics of her. I lean down and press a kiss to her shoulder, then run my nose up the side of her neck, snapping photo after photo the entire time. If I printed them out, it’d be like a flip book. The teenage boy behind the cash register looks away.

“You fueling up so you’re ready for me later?” I whisper in her ear.

Lily giggles. “Sunny’s hungry, and she can’t decide what she wants, so I stocked up on some of everything.”

I point to the bag of Doritos. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t eat any of those, unless your plan is to make your breath so bad I don’t want to kiss you for the rest of the weekend.”

“Those are for Charlene.”

“She mad at Darren or something?”

“Doesn’t seem like it, but you never know what’s up with those two.”

“Mmm.” I don’t really get that relationship. They’ve been together almost as long as Waters and Violet, but it still seems pretty casual. Westinghouse is hard to get a read on. He’s a quiet guy, and private. He and Waters are tight, which is why we hang out, but I still don’t know all that much about him.

I pull my wallet from my back pocket, find my credit card, and toss it on the counter.

Lily snatches it up before the cashier does. “I can get this.”

“I know you can, but I’m gonna steal that bag of gummy bears and the Twizzlers too, so I’d feel bad about you paying for those. Just let me get it, luscious, please.”

Lily gives me a look, but she passes back the card, and I hand it to the kid. Sometimes it’s hard for her to deal with me paying for things all the time. But I have the money, and while her job pays well, relatively speaking, it’s got nothing on my salary. I try not to make it a thing, but she’s got pride, and she doesn’t want a free ride. I understand that and appreciate it. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to spoil the fuck out of her anyway. I just find more subversive ways to do it.