Free Committed Passion by Bonnie Dee

that. I was nervous enough about bringing my stripper friends and my future sisters-in-law together.
    I loved my girls, but Cyndi was crude, loud, and opinionated, while Abbie tended to ramble on about her sex life in way too much detail. Our backgrounds were similar, all of us leaving home young, choosing bad boyfriends, and barely getting by financially. Leah and Gina came from such stable, normal homes, I was afraid they’d see my friends as stereotypical hillbilly chicks and not look any deeper.
    I shouldn’t have worried. Gina and Cyndi immediately clicked like sisters from another mother. They outdid each other telling dirty jokes all night, started doing shots early and ended up, many bars later, bellowing drunken karaoke at the top of their lungs.
    I could hardly breathe from laughing so hard at the pair of them onstage. Cyndi’s bachelorette-party tiara barely clung to strands of her blonde hair and tipped low on her forehead. Gina had decided she hated shoes a few hours earlier—Leah took charge of them for her—and without heels, she was almost as short as Cyndi. They had their arms around each other, swaying back and forth and belting I Will Survive .
    Cyndi threw up her arms, knocking Gina in the face. “Come on. Everybody!”
    Most of the bar joined in.
    “As long as I know how to love, I know I’ll be all right,” I sang along in a happy haze. I hadn’t been drunk since I’d become a mother, so even a little alcohol affected me a lot. The last thing I wanted was to suffer a hangover on my wedding day. When somebody bought us a round, I started passing my drinks to strangers. The bachelorette party at the table beside us was happy to accept them.
    Abbie had fallen asleep, head on the table, one hand still curled around her glass. Her curly hair flopped over her face, but I could tell from the rise and fall of her shoulders she was still breathing. Leah sat near me. She was smiling at the karaoke duet, though she wasn’t singing along.
    I scooted my chair closer so we could talk about the noise. “You feeling okay?”
    “Yeah. This is fun. I’m just kinda tired.”
    I couldn’t help but notice she’d drunk virgin cocktails all evening, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to suspect there was a good reason for it. “Are you…pregnant?”
    Her brows rose. “Yeah. How did you know?”
    “Well, the lack of drinking for one thing, but I’ve noticed you taking a lot of naps since you got here. Unless you had the flu or something, it was pretty easy to guess why. Congratulations.”
    “Thanks. It’s been…” She shook her head. “Kind of a huge day. I finally told J.D., and he’d brought this along and planned to propose.” She stuck up her hand with the engagement ring. “I’m happy, but it’s a lot to process all at once.”
    “Of course.” I rested a hand on Leah’s arm, thinking it must be strange to be blind in an unfamiliar place like this and only have sound to clue her in to what was happening. “I know you guys will do fine as parents. It’s not as hard as you think it’s going to be.”
    I kinda lied on that last part. Travis could be a real handful. But why freak her out any more than she already was?
    “I haven’t even told Gina yet. I thought I’d do it before we left the house, but then we ran out of time.” Leah laughed. “If I told her now, she probably wouldn’t remember by morning.”
    I laughed too. “Maybe not. She and Cyndi are besties now. I think they—oh my God!”
    “What?”
    “Cyndi nearly fell off the stage. Gina had to catch her. But they’re okay and heading this way.”
    The drunken duo reached the table and collapsed into their chairs.
    “I love you guys, man. You know that?” Gina demanded. “Love you both so much. And we’re so lucky. We’re going to be like sisters now! I never had a sister. Just three bossy brothers and a sister-in-law who’s a mean old cat.” She made claws with her fingernails and hissed. “But you guys”—she