Bottled Up: April Fools For Love by Roxy Mews

hair, and punched at the front door to make it open. He didn’t look back.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    Betty had no problem with groveling. She had no issue with begging for another chance with Nate. It was just damn difficult to do when he wouldn’t answer her calls. He even left the sales floor of the boutique when she went in. So instead of making amends and going on a date to try again, she was sitting on her couch, gaining another five pounds through gelato.
    Ang plopped next to her and stole the spoon for a bite, savored the taste, then put the spoon back in the carton. Then Twila plopped down on the other side of her and repeated the thieving process.
    After three weeks, it had become obvious Twila needed to be in their house. She was still paying off her lease from her former apartment until her boyfriend found a new roommate. Any guy that kicked out a pregnant woman and then made her keep paying her share of the rent deserved his tires slashed.
    Betty had talked Ang out of performing rubber surgery on the man’s vehicle. Instead they’d just decorated his bumper. They weren’t sure if Twila’s man ever looked at his bumper, but they made sure to stick the Herpes Hotline sticker on there good. The erectile dysfunction window cling had been especially fun to put on.
    Either way, Twila needed help. She wasn’t showing yet, but the woman was definitely eating for two. She hadn’t been consuming as much food as she needed before due to stress and that had been causing some serious brain fog. Ang said she was on top of her game now as long as they kept blueberry muffins in the break room.
    “Did you want to come with us for the ultrasound appointment?” Twila asked. “They are going to put this lube stuff on my belly and listen to the heartbeat.”
    “And then she’s going to cry. I am bringing the tissues. You can help me clean her up.” Ang grabbed another bite of gelato before stealing the whole container and taking it back to the freezer.
    “I can’t even get Nate to return my calls,” Betty pouted. She would have given up a week ago, but when she couldn’t make herself throw out that black sand, she knew she had to at least find a way to say she was sorry.
    “A guy not returning your calls? Best birth control ever,” Twila said. Her hands fell to her tummy.
    Betty put her arm around the other woman. They’d been living together for less than a month, but she was already starting to care for her. Staying up late and talking about everything under the sun tended to bring you closer. Or make you want to gouge out the other’s eyes with a spoon when they breathe loudly.
    Since she could still see, she figured Twila felt the same way about her.
    “You’re going to be a great mom. Just look at how well you took care of Ang after she drank that tequila two nights ago.”
    Ang smacked her and Betty laughed.
    “Tequila is not my friend. You were just too lazy to go get us more wine. You weren’t my friend that night either. So are you coming or not?”
    Betty looked at the bag she’d set by the door and at the clock on the wall. “I need to get to the library. I have some of the new release loans in there. The fees are a buck a day if I don’t get them back, and I’m pretty sure the little librarian with the glasses chain hates me enough to hold them out. I have to get them back to Patty.”
    “The fact that you are on a first-name basis with the librarian is a sad expression of your social life,” Ang said.
    “And my social life would be better sitting in a doctor’s office?”
    Ang mumbled something about how hot doctors were never a bad day.
    Twila tapped her shoulder. “We told you Nate’s going to school to become a nurse, didn’t we?”
    “Yes. You did.” And knowing that he was trying to do something as selfless with his life as take care of others, made her feel like even more of an ass. She hadn’t even bothered to ask him any of that. “I’m going to wallow a bit more before I take