César didn’t seem to notice anything wrong—he said I looked beautiful, because he was generous with compliments, and we headed to the party. Right away, I saw Katie Bell and a few of the other women from the game, the girlfriend crowd rather than the wives.
“I’ll find you something to drink,” César told me, and moved through the crush of people just as easily as he had parted the Junior Woodsmen on the field today.
“I’m glad you came!” Katie told me. She seemed very happy, and a little tipsy. She hugged me, saying, “You look so cute with your baby tummy! Come meet everybody again.”
I talked for a while to the people Katie knew from the Woodsmen, and their boyfriends, and then I saw a bunch of locals whom I knew from before, from college and high school and even an old friend from kindergarten. They all could see the baby, who was pretty visible in the dress I wore (which tended on the “sexy maternity” side), and there was a lot of surprise. Shock, really. I just smiled briefly at their questions and tried to change the subject.
“How did this happen? To you?” a girl from my high school asked, staring open-mouthed at my tummy.
“You seriously don’t get how?” I asked her back. “I sat next to you in Human Development and I thought you paid attention.”
César came and went with a glass of juice for me and as I chatted, I kept an eye on his tall figure. Usually he was pretty easy to spot and that made me feel a little better, despite how uncomfortable I was in my dress and with the scrutiny and questions I was getting. It was good to know that he was there.
“Camdyn, this is Britney,” Katie introduced me to another woman, who looked familiar.
“Do we already know each other?” I asked her.
“I was at César’s house for a party a few weeks ago. I’m friends with Arielle,” she told me, and her gaze flicked down to the baby and back up to my face. “I’m, like, dating the placekicker, Lorenzo.”
“Oh, great,” I answered, genuinely happy at the chance to pump her for information about her friend.
“Arielle isn’t here tonight,” Britney went on. “She’s with the long snapper now, not César Hidalgo anymore. Did you already know that?” she asked suspiciously.
“Arielle and César aren’t seeing each other?” I asked blandly. “No, I hadn’t heard. That’s too bad.”
“You don’t care?” Britney asked me.
Katie broke in. “Cam and César aren’t a couple.” She smiled at me, looking for my approval and I smiled back a little. “They’re not together at all.”
“Right,” I said. “Right.”
“Oh, I’m glad,” Britney said, her face brightening up. “I felt a little weird talking to you! Yeah, they’re done. Arielle is totally through with him.”
“Oh?”
“Totally,” Britney assured me. She smiled at me. “This is funny that we’re being so normal, because she felt, like, so threatened by you!”
“No, I’m not a threat,” I said faintly.
“Well, you were before, but not now, obviously! No offense,” she said quickly. “But, you know, when you’re pregnant, you’re not really at your hottest!” She swished down the cherry-colored drink in her glass. “Yum. You’ll get it back, don’t worry.”
“Sure, yeah.”
“I think you’re beautiful,” Katie put in. “Gorgeous!”
“Oh, totally,” Britney said, the liar. “Yeah, César told Arielle over and over that nothing was going on between him and you. He was so into her,” she said, and sighed a little. “It was like, relationship goals, you know? He swore up and down that you were just his roommate, but he did admit that he had slept with you. He said you guys had been a one-time thing and you were never going to get together again. But of course a guy would say something like that!”
“Of course. But he was telling her the truth about me.”
“Yeah, but even so, she was like, no!” Britney explained emphatically.
I felt myself bristle. “What’s wrong with César?”
Britney went on blithely, not aware of the danger she was in. “Arielle wasn’t happy with him living with a girl he had banged, no matter what he said about it never, ever happening again. And once she found out that you were stuck like that…” Britney gestured at my tummy and shivered in horror. “No way was she going to waste her time with a guy who knocks up random hos. Not that you are one!” she told me. “I meant, she didn’t want to be with a guy who gets random women pregnant. Even if he is so, so hot!”
“He is,” Katie agreed. “I have eyes,” she told me. “He’s gorgeous.”
“Totally!” Britney, said, nodding. “But Arielle knows that he’s not the type to ever settle and be, like, faithful, and she wants to get married. When he said that they were done, it was like, a relief.”
“Wait, César broke up with her?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah, but she was glad because she saw what he’s into, and it’s so not her,” Britney told me confidently. “Arielle’s not, like, some slut who sleeps around and gets pregnant. Oh, I didn’t mean you!”
I ignored that, because I was stuck on her comment about César not being faithful or wanting to get married. That was the opposite of what I thought of him. I briefly imagined a passel of bronze-haired kids sitting like ducks in a row on the little deck of his sailboat. “Really, Arielle didn’t think that he was the type to make a commitment?” I asked.
Britney stared at me like I was nuts, and even Katie looked taken aback. “There have been a lot
