The Stupid Side of Practical

Chapter 1

"Well, you have to tell him," Emily Springfield huffed, "you tell him now, or you tell him in nine months with the baby in your arms. Either way, you gotta tell him."

"I know that," Gina Costa explained reaching for her coffee cup from the middle of the table and bringing it closer to herself. Her hands her were already sweating profusely as she tore through another packet of sugar and added it to her coffee. "I'm just saying that I don't know how I'm going to tell him. I mean what do you say to man who more than likely doesn't remember ever having slept with you. Hey remember me. Probably not, but we're pregnant."

Life for Gina Costa wasn't exactly a storybook laced fantasy of romance and happy endings. In fact, the next person who tried to tell her how great it was to have five older brothers might get a special feeling like her fist in his or her face. Because being the youngest child, and the only one without a penis, in a big Italian, Catholic family, in Chicago...well, it sucked.

"You don't think Josh, who has known you since diapers, will remember you?" Emily, her more grounded, and raised as an only child best friend, raised a brow.

Gina took a deep breath, "You know what I mean. He doesn't remember what happened that night, he was drunk, remember?"

Maybe, if she had seen it coming, she would have had a better chance at surviving that weekend without ending up in this situation. She would have guarded her heart or kept her legs closed.

This entire situation could have been avoided if her parents would have just left her as a baby on the doorstep of some nunnery in the mountains of Austria. At least then she might have had a little more action in the form of a cute shepherd passing by with his herd once she grew up and not one of her older brother's drunken best friends.

She was definitely hotter than sheep.

But no, there she was laughing at his jokes, hanging out with him all night. He was just another one of the guys. He'd grown up in the pizza shop right along with the rest of them. Josh's father passed when he was little. At first it was awkward, the way he hung around her family all the time. It was annoying the way he fell in line like the rest of her brothers. Ordering her around, trying to control who she talk to, where she went, what she did, who she did, her entire life had been about being the littlest Costa.

At first it felt so easy. He didn't treat her like a kid, didn't call her Gigi or do that annoying little tap on the nose thing. They were just two adults at a party, drinking the wine and laughing about old times. And she soaked it up like a sponge, his perfect smile, and his gorgeous blue eyes. The way he tucked her hair behind her ear, and said she was beautiful.

Men like Joshua Sanchez shouldn't be allowed to call women beautiful. It was dangerous. It had resulted in one of the most embarrassing moments of her life and growing up with five old brothers... that was saying something.

Who gets knocked up on a one-night stand, which was clearly the biggest mistake of their entire existence?

It was right after Nick's engagement party. Josh was in town for the weekend staying in the house they grew up in. They were in what use to be Nick's and Eddie's old room. She laid there for what had to be at least ten minutes soaking up the morning after delight running through her body. She scooted toward him and was relieved when he wrapped an arm around her. It felt nice to sleep against him.

Almost as nice as their lovemaking had been, until his phone rang, and reality came back at full force.

He shifted, getting up slowly, lifting a hand up to his head as he reached for his phone and brought it up to his face. "Shit." He murmured quietly.