Ready or Not

by Cara Bastone

“This is…a weird thing to ask but could you just…please…could you just not look at me for a minute,”

Gonna start implementing this one

She’s clickity-clacking an email

me all day at work

The first booth we come across contains highly realistic-looking puppets. I’m leaning forwards to inspect them when one of them stands up and is actually a living, breathing man. “Holy mother of God!” Shep shouts, stepping between me and the puppet salesman from hell.

I am actually SHAKING trying to contain my laughter at this

“You can do this, you know. The single mom thing. Corinne did. And you had all those years of watching her do it.”

This -my older brother is so much older that he dated my best friend’s mom back in the day- dynamic is strange but SO sweet

I’m in my apartment on a sunny Saturday most of the way through February, looking at the internet and doing some light crying,

Me actively while reading this book on this Saturday afternoon

PLEASE

Each piece has been chopped messily into a different shape and size. It’s so cute I’d like to personally kiss each and every piece.

You ever down so bad you think the way a man cuts fruit is cute?

I’ve never been wild about Heather—it’s hard to like someone who looks at you like you smell bad—but

I may or may not be experiencing some difficulty with playing it cool.

“Eve Daisy Eileen Marlene Sharona DooLittle Hatch,” she says, and now I know she means business because she’s hit me with the made-up names. “Do you currently have a crush on my brother?”

I think this might be what “got it bad” looks like.

You think????

“I was the brains and Shep was the brawn.” “He had to tell me everything to do,” Shep says groggily. “I definitely should have taken a birthing class.” “No,” Ethan says with a shake of his head. “Then there wouldn’t have been anything for me to do.”