THAT ONE WORD fell into the room like a thunderbolt, except that after­ ward the room was quiet. So quiet that I could hear the blood pounding in my head. Nathaniel's body was so still against mine that if I hadn't felt his pulse against my hand, it would have been like he wasn't there. I was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. It was like a moment before a gunfight, when you know it's going to happen, that anything, any movement, will set it off, and you don't want to be the one that makes that happen.

Nathaniel looked down at me, and the look was enough. It broke the unnat­ ural silence, and sound spilled around us. Micah said, "Did Ronnie say baby}"

"Yeah, I said baby." Her voice was ugly with anger.

Nathaniel let me slide to the floor, his hands going to my shoulders. His eyes were so serious that I had to fight to keep meeting them. I did it, though my eyes flinched as if the force of his questions were a light too bright to meet.

"Are you pregnant?" he asked, voice soft.

"I'm not sure," I said, and I gave Ronnie the glare she deserved. "I was going to wait until I was sure before I told any of you guys. But I had to tell someone. I thought, hey, I'll tell my best friend, but I guess I was wrong."

"The kiss with Micah may not have been for my benefit," Ronnie said in that ugly voice that I didn't recognize as hers, "but your pet stripper and you, that was for my benefit."

I turned so that I was facing her, Nathaniel at my back. "You're jealous of the men in my life, yeah, I get that now."

She opened her mouth, closed it, and said, "I guess that's fair. I tell your secret, you tell mine."

I shook my head. "Me telling Nathaniel and Micah that you are jealous of how many men are in my bed, that isn't the same as you telling them that I may be pregnant." I had a mean idea, so I said it. "But it might be close if I told Louie that you were jealous of my boyfriends. Does he know that you can number your old lovers in triple digits?" Yeah, it was mean, but she'd earned it. Only family can fight as dirty as best friends.

She paled a little, and that was enough to answer the question. "He doesn't know," I said, and made it a statement.

"I think he deserves to know," Nathaniel said, and again there was that tone in his anger that said it was more personal than it should have been be­tween them.

"I'd planned on telling him," she said.

"When?" he asked, and he moved around me, so that he was facing her.

I glanced at Micah, and he shook his head, as if he didn't know what was going on either. Good to know we were both confused.

"When you'd moved in together, married him, or never?"

"We're not getting married," she said in a voice that was just a little des­perate, as if her fear was washing her anger away. She rallied then. "You did that little show with Anita to rub my face in the fact that I'm about to be­come monogamous. You're always doing shit like that."

"And how many times have you said, 'Oh, it's Anita's little stripper,' or 'pet stripper,' or 'how's tricks,' or my personal favorite, 'you're damned cute for a walking, talking, beefsteak,' or is that 'beefcake'?"

"Jesus, Nathaniel." I looked at Ronnie. "Did you say all that to him?"

The anger faded around the edges as she finally looked uncomfortable. "Maybe, but not like he makes it sound."

"Then why didn't you say it in front of me?" I asked. "If there was noth­ing wrong with saying it, why not in front of me?"

"Or me," Micah said, "I would have told you if she'd been saying things like that to Nathaniel."

"Why didn't you tell me, Nathaniel?" I asked.

He gave me his angry eyes. "I told you she didn't see me as real, as a person."

"But you didn't tell me what she'd said; I needed to know."

He shrugged. "She's your best friend, and you'd just made up after a big fight. I didn't want to start another one."

"I was just kidding around," Ronnie said, but the tone in her voice said she didn't believe it either.

I looked at her. "How would you feel if I said stuff like that to Louie?"

"You can't call him a stripper, or an ex-prostitute, because he's not." The moment she said it, her face showed me she knew she shouldn't have. "I didn't mean... ," she began, but it wasn't me that put her in her place, it was Nathaniel.

"I know why you call me names," he said, and he moved in closer, not touching, but invading the hell out of her personal space. "I see the way you watch me. You want me, but not like Anita does. You just want me for a

night, or a weekend, or a month, then you'd be done like you're always done with everybody. I know why you don't want to commit to Louie." I'd never seen him like this, relentless. I actually made a small move, as if I'd stop him, but Micah caught my eye, and shook his head. His face was serious, almost grim. I guess he was right. Nathaniel had earned this, and Ronnie had, too. But it wasn't going to end anywhere I wanted to be.

He said again, "I know why you don't want to commit to Louie."

She said in a small, weak voice, "Why?"

"Because it torments you to know that you will never know how I am in bed."

"Oh," she said in a voice that was almost her own, "so I'm not wanting Louie because you're such a stud?"

"Not me, Ronnie, but the next me. The next guy you get obsessed about. Not love obsessed, but I-wonder-what-he'd-be-like-in-bed obsessed. And you've always been beautiful enough, hot enough, to get anyone you've ever wanted, right?"

She stared at him as if he were something horrible. He prompted her, "Right?"

She nodded, and whispered, "Yes."

"You knew Anita wasn't fucking me, so you thought if she didn't want me maybe it would be okay, but I didn't pick up on any of it. I ignored the hints, so you started to get mean about it. Maybe you didn't even know why you were doing it." He leaned in so close that she moved back until her butt hit die cabinet, and she had nowhere else to go. "You kept belittling me in front of Anita, and worse behind her back, as if you'd convince her she didn't want to keep me. That I wasn't good enough to keep. Real enough to keep. Have you ever set your sights on anyone and not fucked them, at least once?"

She gave a little trembling shake of her head. She was biting her lower lip, and tears gleamed unshed in her eyes.

"Then suddenly, Anita is going to keep me, and you don't poach your friends' guys. That is a rule. You tJhought I was just food, and you could have me, at least once. Suddenly I'm a boyfriend, and it's against your rules to try for me, but you still wanted me. Just once. Just once to feel me inside you..."

I called it then. "Enough, Nathaniel, enough." My voice was shaky. This had gotten so ugly, so fast. How had I missed it?

Natlianiel moved back from her slowly, and said, "I used to believe in women like you, Ronnie. I used to think that anyone who wanted me that badly must love me, at least a little." He shook his head. "But people like you don't love anyone, not even themselves."

"Natlianiel," Micah said, as if he'd been shocked by that one, too.

Nathaniel ignored him. "You need to find out what you're running from, Ronnie, before it ruins the best thing you've ever found."

She spoke in a harsh whisper, "You mean Louie."

He nodded. "Yeah, I mean Louie. He loves you. He really, truly loves you, not just for a night, or a month, but for years. Part of you wants that or you wouldn't still be with him."

She swallowed hard enough that it sounded like it hurt. "I'm scared."

He nodded, again. "What if you love him? What if you give him your whole heart and then he dumps you the way you dumped so many others?"

She gave that trembling nod of hers again. "Yes."