Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

“Hm.” She sniffs. “And here I thought it would be a good idea to go get
shakes and fries after we finished class—”
“Okay! I mean, I could carb up after this.”
She narrows her eyes. “And tell me what’s going on while you’re at it.”
After another twenty minutes of water aerobics hell and a quick shower to
rinse off the chlorine, Annie and I drive to our nearby go-to dive diner. Once we
have our goodies, we settle into a corner booth.
Sitting with a sigh, Annie lifts her legs, propping her feet on my side. “Do
you mind?”
I gently pat her swollen ankles. “Of course not. So. How’s the lab?” I ask,
struggling with the ketchup bottle.
Giving up, I hand it to her. She pops off the lid and hands it back to me.
“Exciting. Challenging. But it’s also the same frustrating bullshit as always. Lots
of mansplaining. Trying to get myself heard and respected. Pregnancy requiring
special considerations in the lab for my safety hasn’t helped, either. I swear, if I
were a guy, I would not be having this hard of a time getting funding.”
On a sigh, she sweeps up her milkshake and takes a long drink. “I hope I
have a boy so I can raise him to be feminist as fuck. Another man in this world
who values women as he should, who supports their equal abilities.”
A weird twinge in my chest makes me set down my handful of fries. Ever
since Annie told me she was pregnant, the far-off idea of children has hovered
closer in my mind—how scary it would be to love this tiny helpless creature, but
how incredible it would be to see them grow up and become the kind of
wonderful human that Annie and Tim’s baby will be. Ren and his talk about a
houseful today in that beautiful beach pad, driving his dad-van, it’s pressing in
on me—one moment a claustrophobic fear, the next a dizzying hope.
“Frankie?”
“Sorry.” I shake my head and snap out of it. “I’m with you. And I think
you’ll raise a great little feminist.”
“How are things at work?” she asks. “And what’s got you so distracted?”
“You know how I get during playoffs. It’s this crazy duality of hype and
burnout. We want to win, but we’re all sick of each other. We’re tired, the guys
are nursing banged-up bodies, and we’re all wiped from traveling for games.
Same shit as this time last year and the year before that.”
“Is that really all?” She reaches for my hand and pats it. “We can talk about
him now. We’ve passed the Bechdel test.”
“The what?”
Annie frowns at me. “Frankie.”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”