Free Fragged: A BWWM Military Romance by Paige Notaro Page B

have already revealed too much, but Lilly apparently hadn’t given Calix’s file the attention that I had.
    Anyway we weren’t even dating. He’d given me his number as he left, but maybe he was just looking for a proper lay when his leg healed. That didn’t sound so awful to me. It wouldn’t be much worse than what my other relationships turned into. If it didn’t crash and burn, it’d even be a step up.
    My mood sank a bit. Were my expectations that low?
    “Even what?” Lilly asked. “Did he help hunt Bin Laden or something?”
    “No. I was just going to say he even spent a couple years in Afghanistan,” I said.
    “Well, duh, where else is he getting a purple heart?”
    I pumped myself back up. “Anyway, I’ve got a good feeling about him.”
    Lilly squeezed my hands. “He does sound like more than a good lay.”
    “He is,” I said. “Though I want to be clear that he’s also a good lay.”
    “Mmmhmm.”
    I scooted my chair closer to her. “Speaking of that,” I said. “How’d it go last night with Paul?”
    “You know pregnancy tests don’t work right away,” she said.
    “But did you have a good feeling?”
    I immediately wished I had picked that moment to shut up. Lilly’s hands fidgeted on the keyboard.
    She bent over and whispered. “I don’t think so. Paul just didn’t seem into it. I think I’ve made this whole thing so clinical it’s turning him off me completely.”
    “Just play it cool then,” I said. “There’s no rush right?”
    “No.” She flicked her lip. “I’m just really ready to be a mom. The last thing I want to do is scare him off. But I don’t want to act like I don’t care about something that’s so important to me either.”
    “Paul’s not going to run off,” I said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
    “Used to look at me.”
    She slumped onto a hand. Her mood was infecting mine hard, but I wasn’t about to walk away.
    “Just ask him if he’s really ready for the change,” I said. “He probably is but you’ll get some peace of mind. You’re probably right that baby making is turning sex into work.”
    I thought back to the feel of Calix’s wet heat surging up into me. I couldn’t ever imagine that not being all fun. I wondered if the little pill I took this morning was really enough to fight a load that size.
    “So communicate better?” Lilly said. “That’s Rosa’s sage advice?”
    “I didn’t say it was an original answer. I’m not the next coming of Oprah.”
    “Oprah’s still alive.”
    “Whatever. It’s still probably the right call.”
    Lilly straightened. “I know. I’m just afraid of what he’ll tell me.”
    “You’ll still have me no matter what he says.” I laced a hand around her neck.
    “Aw Rosa.” She rubbed my hand. “Thanks for the offer. I would gladly take your DNA any day.”
    “Ha ha,” I said. “I’m so not ready for a kid.”
    “You’ve got a decent guy lined up. You’re only a step or two away.”
    The only step I could see coming was seeing him a second time. Everything else was beyond a horizon I still had no desire to cross.
    Even if I wanted to, I was nowhere near it.
    I shuffled up Lilly’s hair and ran off to my rounds before she could catch me.
    By the time I went home for lunch, I had settled into a nice haze. It was the right level of happy. I didn’t want my family even suspecting what had happened in the living room last night.
    Mamá, Elsa and I sat in the dinner nook off from the kitchen eating leftover pabellon criollo. The beans, steak and rice were scattered and not quite living up to the dish’s name, but even reheated, it was one of my favorite foods.
    I still remembered the meat being such a treat for us when I was still a little girl in Venezuela. Even though we ate it almost every week now, it still felt like a trip back home.
    At least the good parts of home. Like sitting around under a light bulb in plaster and concrete walls watching a black and white TV. The