Pregnant Pause [H.S]

Chapter 7

Every

Vic's parents set her up on a blind date with the son of a family friend, and I heard all about it on Monday morning. An hour alone in my cube bored me to death, so I joined her at reception to hear the tale.

"Completely horrifying," she summed it up, recounting the way he'd spilled red wine on her white shirt and attempted a game of footsie under the dinner table. "But it got even worse when he stopped to massage my shoulders on the way back from the restroom."

"Poor etiquette." I cringed, clicking my tongue in disapproval.

"Yeah," Vic nodded, agreeing with my reaction. She shrugged. "So I told him that if he didn't remove his hands from me, I'd take my time chopping off his balls with a butter knife."

My eyes popped at her threat, but I couldn't help my silent laughter. Unbeknownst to me, Beckett had just entered the office.

"Charming, Victoria," he said from behind me. He scooted around the reception desk to check his box for messages. "With that tongue, I fear that even McDonald's is too classy an establishment for your employment."

Lips pursed, she smiled sarcastically. "Don't you worry, Becks," she said, syrupy sweet, "my tongue will never be of your concern." "

Your loss." Beckett folded up the papers in his hand, giving her a tedious glance. "As usual." "You're curiously late, Beckett," I remarked, stepping in to prevent an escalating altercation between the two. "Sleeping off the weekend?"

"Of course not, Styles. I'm not you," he returned with a condescending grin.

"Actually, I met with a client this morning. May be too early to tell, but I'd say I made a sale."

"Oh, don't be so modest," Vic teased him. "If we're talking about what a git you are, you've sold me a hundred times over."

As if the reminder of her presence was a great inconvenience to him, Beckett rolled his eyes and gave Vic a patronizing glance over the counter. "If I were you," he sneered, "I'd make better use of my time by practicing this phrase: 'Would you like fries with that?'" Next, Beckett gave me a once-over. "And you, Styles," he said with a sneer, "baffling how much 'market research' you seem to do at reception."

With that, he gave us a quick raise of his brows and was off to his cube like the tosser he was. When I next looked at Vic, she was blatantly flipping him the bird behind his back.

"You showed him," I said with a nod of confidence.

"Dickless prat," she muttered. Shaking it off, she gave me a smile and put her hand away. "Anyway, back to that other dickless prat I met on the weekend."

"Right."

"He ended the evening by asking me my views on surrogates."

...

"Surrogates, as in..."

"As in a woman who carries another couple's baby."

"Oh." I frowned in confusion.

"I was too boggled at that point to ask, but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced he was searching for someone to carry the child he intended to have with another man."

"That's quite the first date."

"Isn't it?" She chuckled, though her smile faded after a few moments. She kept her voice quiet. "So, um, speaking of babies... how are you holding up? How's Fitz?"