Ready or Not: A heartfelt, friends-to-lovers romance from the audio-bestselling author of CALL ME MAYBE! by Cara Bastone

Author:Cara Bastone [Bastone, Cara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2024-02-05T18:30:00+00:00

Fifteen

It’s a Saturday morning and I have tears in my eyes as I watch a woman with a beach ball under her shirt unroll a yoga mat and stretch into Warrior A.

She’s the most pregnant person I’ve ever seen this close up. Her shirt has given up on life, curling up at the hemline and revealing pink stretch marks over her pale belly. She’s sweating, her dark brown hair pulled into a neat bun. She exhales all of her air with her voice, a loud haaaaaaa that makes the others in the room turn towards her, but she doesn’t give a flying fuck. She’s got other things to think about. Like the fully grown person levitating between her ribs and pelvis right now.

I’m drawn to her like she’s a celebrity and I roll my mat out next to hers.

“I hope this isn’t rude,” I say. “But you. Are. A total badass.” It might be the cheesiest line I’ve ever fed to someone, but I mean it down to the marrow of my bones.

“Thanks,” she says without smiling. “I’m River.” She reaches out for a handshake.

Last night I sat at my counter eating my mandatory after-dinner bowl of cereal and looking at the new ultrasound photos I’d recently magneted to my fridge. That perfect tiny hand, a profile of a sweet little face. The person who, at some point, is going to be eating a bowl of cereal sitting right next to me. Words like natural birth and sleep training floated up out of the ether and taunted me. I mean, my God, I’m going to have to make sure this kid gets a Social Security number. How does one even go about that?

I whipped out my phone and the cursor blinked menacingly from Google’s home page. Go down the rabbit hole, Eve, the internet beckoned. Find out just how much you don’t know. Attempt to panic-research yourself into a knowable future. Ha.

But then a thought occurred to me. I think I might have been waiting (patiently? Yeah, no) this entire time for Ethan to make up his mind and provide me with a little stability. But . . . what if that stability came from me instead?

What if instead of panic-research, I found a way to prepare myself a little. Because no one else is going to be able to do it for me.

I don’t have questions so much as, ya know, rabid fears. Questions require answers. But fears? They require camaraderie. So. I did google something. One simple phrase: ways to meet other pregnant people in NYC.

There are ten or so of us in this prenatal yoga class. Some are visibly pregnant—though none as much as River—and some who seem much earlier along. We arrange our mats and smile shyly and ultimately wait in silence.

A triangle chimes and a woman in extremely sexy yoga wear floats into the room. She’s got an eyebrow piercing and an exposed midriff the approximate dimensions of a cereal box. I don’t think I’m

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