“Oh. Right.” That seems to calm Poppy down.

“My boob popped out when I was breastfeeding Logan at a team BBQ last summer.” Sunny pats her little baby bump. “But only Miller saw, so I guess that’s not the same.”

“It’s a good one, though.” Violet claps her hands. “Okay. Who needs a drink before the sex-quisition?”

“The what?” Sunny asks.

“The sex-quisition. The sex inquisition. I’m sure everyone has questions for Charlene after last night. I figured nothing goes better with uncomfortable questions about our sex lives than booze! Sunny, I have dealcoholized champagne for us. It basically tastes like fizzy grape juice, but we can drink it out of fun glasses and pretend we’re getting drunk, too.”

Sunny shrugs. “I don’t need to pretend to be drunk, but I like fizzy grape juice.”

Violet serves everyone drinks, and we all head to the living room. This whole thing makes me nervous. I mean, they’re all my friends and we’re all pretty open with each other, but with all the focus on me, I realize that they’re open, while I’ve spent the past two years saying little about my sex life. I wish we could go back to the way it was before all my secrets were spilled out with the dragon-shaped plastic schlong.

I root around in my purse for one of my candies and pop it into my mouth. I need all the calm I can get. I don’t care that the candy is going to make my mimosa taste like crap.

“I have a question.” Lily drops into the chair parallel to mine.

“Oh, I bet you do.” Violet grins.

“Randy wants to know where you go lingerie shopping.”

That seems to break the tension a little. “Depends on what I’m shopping for, but I can give you a list of places.”

“Or maybe we can go together,” Lily says.

Poppy raises her hand. “I would like to go lingerie shopping.”

“I need new maternity lingerie. I don’t think the ones from Logan’s pregnancy are going to fit for much longer.” Sunny blinks a few times and then sniffs.

Lily and Poppy are out of their chairs with tissues and hugs before the first tear falls.

It’s another minute of consoling before Sunny is okay again. “Sorry,” she sniffs. “I’m already showing, and I just found out there’s a baby in there. I can’t imagine how big I’m going to be this time around.”

Lily and Poppy murmur their understanding, even though Lily is the size of my wrist. Poppy is curvier, but being able to see her toes isn’t an issue, and likely won’t be for a while yet. At least I don’t think she’s going to jump on the baby train, but then who knows?

Darren and I have never talked about kids. He held Logan when he was born for, like, a minute and a half or something. He doesn’t seem to have anything against kids, but he’s never mentioned wanting them. Personally, I’m on the fence, mostly because my childhood was seriously fucked up, and I worry no matter what I do, I’ll mess my own kid up by default.

Darren grew up in a very strict house with a lot of rules about what constituted acceptable behavior, which may account for how private he is and his sometimes commanding presence in and out of the bedroom.

Sunny’s mini-breakdown seems to have shifted the subject away from my unconventional sex life. For a few minutes, anyway.

“Once the playoffs are over, we should plan a trip to the cottage,” Violet says.

“That would be so great! I want them to do well, but it would be nice if they were finished before June so they get a bit more of an off-season and Miller can spend more time with Logan,” Sunny agrees.

“We could roll it right into a birthday celebration for Charlene or something!” Violet flaps her hands excitedly and nearly topples her sparkling grape juice.

“Aren’t there a million black flies up there at the end of May?” I ask.

Once we left The Ranch, my mom and I never made a big deal about birthdays.

“Fine,” Violet says. “We have the party here and plan a weekend at the cottage for later in June.”

I wave off that idea. “I don’t need a party.”

“That’s what you said last year. You’re turning twenty-six. It’s your champagne birthday, so we need to do something fun.” Violet bounces, making her boobs shake and my mimosa slosh perilously. “It should be themed! We can all wear leather chaps!”

“Could you be any more cliché?” I roll my eyes. “Just to be clear, Darren doesn’t own chaps.”

“Just a ball gag and a mask with no eye holes, according to Alex.”

And we’re back to my sex life. I knew I was getting off so easy.

I wonder if Darren is catching this kind of heat today. I seriously doubt it’s worse than what I’m getting since I don’t think his friends are likely to push his buttons, but I’ll have to ask when I speak to him next. I’m not sure when that will be, either. The message I sent about Gertrude was pretty straightforward and doesn’t necessarily require a response. Maybe I should’ve worded it differently.

Sunny raises her hand, like we’re all still in middle school and she’s waiting her turn to speak. “Wouldn’t a mask with no eyeholes be dangerous? You wouldn’t be able to see where you’re going.” Her eyes widen, and she looks around the room. “And what’s a ball gag?”

I honestly love that Sunny has grown up in this highly overinformed society and still manages to be innocent. I was sort of like that, at least until we left The Ranch. Then I went from blissfully innocent to exceptionally knowledgeable in a very short span of time. The internet, while helpful for finding information, is also not the best place to learn about things like sex. It was a rough transition.

“Yeah, Char, wouldn’t a mask with no eyeholes be dangerous?” Violet props her fist on her chin and smiles. “And please, do explain what a ball gag is.”

“I’m not sure you really want the answer to that, Sunny.” Poppy gives me a look I can’t quite decipher.

Sunny twirls her hair around her finger. “Why not?”

“Where’s the harm in a little bondage-sex education? It’s not like Miller’s ever going to go out and buy either item for her. First of all, Alex would murder him, and secondly, I don’t think that’s Miller’s thing.”

Sunny’s face lights up, and she does jazz hands. “Oh! I think I know what Miller’s thing is!”

Lily grins. “Eating your cookie?”

“He really likes to do that, a lot. When my belly gets too big I’ll have to watch from the mirror.” She gets a faraway look in her eyes. “But he has another thing! Kind of like how you and Randy are always getting it on in bathrooms, except I think it’s a bit more sanitary.”

“And it doesn’t cause thousands of dollars of damage,” Violet adds.

Lily throws her hands up in the air. “That sink was already falling off the wall. It’s not my fault it broke!”

“That was one expensive orgasm,” I say.

“And Randy says it was worth every penny.” Lily’s smile is devious as she bites her knuckle, then turns to Sunny. “Anyway, back to Miller’s thing.”

Sunny wiggles around excitedly in her chair. “So Miller paints my toenails for me.”

“Miller’s thing is painting your toenails?”

“Yes. Well, no. I think he likes my toes.” Her fingers go to her lips, and she looks around the room, her cheeks flushing.

“Say what now?” Violet asks.

”Sometimes he kisses them.” She covers her mouth with her palm and says something unintelligible.

Violet sits forward in her chair. “Hold on a second, does Buck have a foot fetish?”

“Um, I don’t know.” Sunny looks worried now. “Is that weird? Is it, like, mask with no eyeholes kind of weird?”

I dig my toes into Violet’s calf, a warning for her to keep her mouth shut. “No, Sunny. It’s not weird. Lots of people like feet.”

“All our nerve endings are in our feet,” Sunny says matter of factly.

“That’s actually true,” Poppy confirms. “I’ve taken a course on foot massage.”

“Miller gives the best foot massages! Anyway, he didn’t say anything about what happened yesterday apart from that he saw your boobs and some things he shouldn’t have, so I want to hear more about that, especially the face mask and ball gag thing. Who else wants to know what they are?” She raises her hand again and looks around, expecting everyone to raise their hand, too.

“Am I the only one who doesn’t know what this stuff is?” Sunny frowns.

“It’s okay not to know,” I tell her.

“But all of you know.” Sunny sits up a little straighter and flips her hair over her shoulder. “I want to know then, too.”

I look to Poppy and Lily, who both shrug. They spend more time with Sunny than me. They would know what could potentially upset her, which is not something I want to do to a pregnant woman—especially not one as sensitive, and obviously na?ve, as she is. I’m almost sad that I’m taking this little piece of innocence from her. “I guess a ball gag is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a rubber ball that goes in your mouth.”

Sunny looks horrified. “Isn’t that dangerous? You could choke!”