Picking up the empty potato salad dish, she offered a smile to the group and disappeared into the kitchen, which was where she found Nate looking out the window.

“There you are,” Carly said. She put the empty dish into the sink, and was tempted to leave it, but she hated mess. Turning on the tap, she began to clean it.

“I wondered where you had gone to.” With the dish clean, she left it on the draining board until later.

She didn’t want to be rude. Stepping up to the fridge, she grabbed the next bowl of potato salad. Everyone was always so hungry, even if it was the seven of them—eight if she counted Misha as eating for two people. She had hoped for more people to arrive, but she also didn’t mind that it was only the seven of them. She kept reminding herself of the little baby bump.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

Nate turned toward her and she saw the frown of his brows. She’d seen Nate glare or frown many times, but this was different. Something told her he seemed troubled today, unlike the other days.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong? I promise I will clean everything up. Was the steak not good? The chicken?”

“You want to have a child,” Nate said.

“What?” She hadn’t expected him to mention children.

“A child. You want to have a baby.”

She offered him a confused smile. “This is not news, Nate. You know I have always wanted to have children.” She put a hand to her stomach. Unlike Sarah, she hadn’t opted for a bikini, but a one-piece suit. She also went for some shorts for her own personal comfort, so she wasn’t showing off too much leg.

“You’re planning on going to a sperm donor,” Nate said.

“You’ve been talking to Sarah.” She sighed. She should have known Sarah wouldn’t keep her random declaration of wanting a child and how to get one, to herself.

“Yes, I’ve been talking to Sarah. Is it true?”

She took a deep breath. “I only thought about it last night,” Carly said. “Yes, it is a real possibility.”

“Why?”

Carly couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re being serious with this question right now?”

He did that one-raised-brow thing. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she had attempted to only raise one brow in the mirror, and it was next to impossible to do. She didn’t know how Nate could do it without practice. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was some kind of hereditary thing. They would never know as they had never gone back to their biological parents.

They’d stayed in the system until the end. Carly had been the last one to leave, and as she did, with the small black bag of clothes, and the few items, Nate, Sarah, and the guys had been waiting for her. She’d never looked back.

“This is serious, Carly.”

She blew out a breath. “Fine, and this is a serious answer. I suck at dating. I suck at meeting men, and the only way to have a baby is to, you know, be with a man, the right man, but he’s not appearing anytime soon. I’m probably the only freaking twenty-nine-year-old virgin on the planet, and I want to have kids. So, I’m cutting out the middle man, and I’m going to do it the modern way, with a guy’s sperm, and not the dating route.” She had no choice but to force a smile to her lips, as the ground refused to open up and swallow her whole, which is exactly what she would love it to do.

She couldn’t believe she had just told Nate she was a virgin. How lame she must look now.

There was no way she was dropping her head into her hands either. There was nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing at all. She was a virgin. There hadn’t been a good enough man in her life to lose it to. Not even at some crappy teenage party. There were parties she went to, but all of them were with the gang, and being around them never sucked.

“That’s not happening,” Nate said.

Now this did bring her back to reality, and she felt a little pissed off.

“What?” Carly said.

“You’re not going to get some random guy’s sperm.”

“And you think you can tell me what I’m going to do? I’m twenty-nine years old, Nate. I’m not some child you need to keep protecting. I know my own mind, and I know my own body, and if I want to have a child, I will have a child, and if that means having to use some stranger’s sperm, so be it.”

She took a deep breath and then realized he was coming toward her, and he wasn’t slowing down.

Taking a step back, then another step back, the bowl of potato salad would be no match for an advancing Nate. The fridge stopped her retreat. She attempted to square her shoulders and offered him a glare.

Nate smirked. That was all he did. One small smirk.

“You want a child so badly, fine, I’ll give you one, but you’re not going to have any stranger’s sperm being the father of your child. I’ll be the father of your child, and I’ll take care of your virginity problem. We’ll do it the good old-fashioned way.”