Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
My heart ached when Donnelly struggled to explain how he didn’t trust Vanessa, but more than that, he was afraid he couldn’t trust his mom anymore. Again. Because it wouldn’t be the first time.
“Of what I could fucking hear,” Sulli says, returning to the loveseat where I’m perched on the armrest, “they’re discussing a ‘perfect peach’ poll online that Thatcher won.” She plops on the cushion, very pregnant and in threat of giving birth any day now.
“Recon Queen,” I praise.
We fist-bump with grins. It’s only been this month where our friendship has peeked out of the rubble. And not because I could remember all of our past together, but because our banter naturally returned bit by bit during roommate dinners. It’s largely due to her effort. Sulli would sit beside me and not create a clique with her husbands.
I started feeling more like we were a friendship pair the way Moffy and Jane often grouped off, but Jane isn’t with my brother now.
“Oui,” Jane smiles brightly beside Sulli and strokes Ophelia, a white cuddly cat on her lap. “Five gold stars for our Sulli.”
Of all Jane’s fur babies, Ophelia has been the most jealous of Baby Maeve’s arrival. Sulli says she’s a stage-five clinger. To which, I would agree, but I wondered if they thought I’m a stage-five clinger to Donnelly. The “you’re obsessed” and “trauma attachment” comments from my old therapist have stuck with me. I am usually with my boyfriend when I’m not at college and he’s not working.
Very quickly, they both professed, no. Well, Sulli said, “Fuck no.” And Jane said, “Absolutely not.” But it was this month I realized I needed to spend more time with my roomies and less time stuck in my room. Especially before Sulli gives birth and is in the joys and throes of caring for a newborn.
It’s why I’m actively separated from Donnelly at this party. We can be apart. Space isn’t a bad thing. He’s not so far away.
I should probably stop ogling him though.
“…I hope they keep posting pics of the three of us giving them the bird,” Sulli says about the paparazzi, who swarm the happy triad every time they step out of the penthouse. “They’re so fucking aggravating. Like, we get it—who’s the baby daddy? No one knows. Not even me, so stop fucking asking.” She huffs.
Jane gives her a comforting back rub.
“And on top of me freaking out about delivering a human being, it’s terrifying thinking I won’t make it to the hospital in enough time and I’ll have those creeps filming me.” Tears spring out of her eyes, and she grimaces. “What the fuck? Why am I crying?” She’s often said her least fav part of being pregnant is her hormones going haywire.
“I only see tears of joy,” I note with a nod.
Sulli starts to laugh, wiping the creases.
I smile, and ask the two of them, “Whose idea was the psychic anyway?” I wasn’t present during the party planning.
Jane drums her lips. “It was a collective thought, I’m fairly certain.”
Sulli gapes. “No, it was your idea.” She explains to me, “We were at a production meeting with Jack for We Are Calloway.” They’ve been filming the docuseries, which I decided to bail on this year. “And Jack asked which events we’d consent to be filmed, and we got off on a tangent thinking about parties we could throw. Jane then mentioned how it’d be fun to invite a psychic to the penthouse.”
“You seconded me,” Jane grins, her chin resting on her knuckles.
Sulli grins back. “Yeah, but only because I want to know your future, not mine. Remember the fortuneteller we met when the tour bus broke down?”
Jane clues me in, “It was during the FanCon tour. You’d flown back home by this time.”
Good to know I’m not actively missing this memory. I wasn’t a part of it to begin with.
Sulli twists her water bottle cap. “Fontina predicted my future. She said I’d fall in love with two men.”
Jane looks unconvinced. “I believe she said you’d fall.”
“The rest was implied,” Sulli reasons. “What if this psychic says I sense grief in your days to come—then I’m going to panic and think this baby won’t make it…”
I pat her shoulder.
“It’s not real,” Jane says consolingly. “It’s a parlor trick. They analyze your body language and any information you happen to give them. It’s a cold reading, not a precognitive power.”
“Tell that to Kits. And Banks. And your husband!” They’re all very superstitious.
Jane informs me, “Thatcher was a vote against the psychic.”
“Not everyone has to participate, right?” I ask them.
“She might read the room,” Jane warns.
I straddle the fence of wanting to hear a possible future outcome and sitting this one out. Sulli says she’ll be on the sidelines with Akara and Banks. For how stoic and stringent Thatcher is, he’s a softie for Jane, and he’s agreed to do a reading with her.