The Bloom Girls

by Amy Pine

  Gabi had been afraid to ask what came next because he was in Ireland indefinitely and she was traveling the continent until August. Plus, it wasn’t as if they had a future together. This was it. No interviews. No worries. Just fun—fun that had Gabi’s heart in her throat as they sat on a bench and waited in silence, Ethan’s head on Gabi’s shoulder.

  “I can meet you!” Ethan had blurted as the bus pulled up. “I don’t work every day, and I have a rail pass that’s good until September. I mean—I don’t want to step on your toes. This is your trip and—”

  “Yes!” Gabi had interrupted before throwing her arms around his neck, shocked at the tears that sprang from the corners of her eyes.

  It was her trip. But she could still do all the things she wanted to do and not have to say goodbye to him yet. They ate gelato on the Spanish Steps like Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck while Gabi told Ethan about one of her favorite movies, Roman Holiday. Ethan had somehow scored them tickets in France to watch the United States compete against Spain in one of the women’s World Cup matches. They saw each other for two days here and three days there until Gabi’s final week when Ethan had shown up at the Berlin train station with a much larger backpack than she’d seen before.

  “What are you doing?” she’d asked.

  “It’s a long story…But I’ve been hiding out here for months. It’s time for me to go home and face the rest of my life. Figured we could spend your last week together and then head to the airport while I try to find a way to make this not be the last time I see you.”

  She opened her mouth to react—to tell him she was relieved this wasn’t the end, but he kept going.

  “I know we agreed not to ask questions and to just enjoy our time, but Gabi, I don’t need your address or life story to be sure of one very important thing—that I am in love with you. I’m sorry if that goes against our arrangement, but I’m not sorry for telling you.”

  Tears pricked her eyes, and her cheeks burned. She waited a beat, making sure it was safe to speak—and that she didn’t turn into a blubbering mess once she did.

  “Chicago,” she finally said. “Well, the suburbs. Highland Park to be exact. And I’m here to scratch an itch so I won’t want to later when the timing is all wrong.”

  Ethan’s eyes widened. “Chicago,” he echoed. “Here because I don’t want to face what I lost. At least I didn’t before I met you.”

  “It’s a sign,” Gabi said. “Even though I don’t believe in them.” But the thing was, she loved him too. And now they were back in Chicago. Together.

  “Or that nude beach in the south of France,” Ethan said, waking her from the daydream.

  “The what?” she asked, then gasped and backhanded him on the shoulder. “We aren’t alone in the car!” she whisper-shouted.

  “It’s okay,” Saul, their driver, called back to them. “I didn’t hear anything about a nude beach; but if I went somewhere like that, I’d make sure I put on my SPF—everywhere.”

  Usually when Gabi got into an Uber or Lyft or taxi, she’d first snap a photo of the license plate and then text it to her best friend, Miriam, with the message, In case of murder or kidnapping, find this person. But Saul had reminded her of her great-uncle with the same name. Saul felt like family. And now family was listening to her talk about nude beaches and recommending SPF.

  “Thanks, Saul.” Ethan chuckled as Gabi cringed. “Plenty of SPF was used.”

  “You’re a smart man,” the older man said. “He’s a keeper.”

  Gabi figured that last part was directed at her. Which brought them back to the point.

  “Are we crazy thinking this can work now that we’re home?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s not what I meant about avoiding reality. We made it work with me in Ireland and you all over the Continent. I think we can manage a short drive or train ride.”

  “Yeah but…” she started, then paused. “My mom’s whole side of the family is going to be at my house. And my dad. He and my mom have been divorced since I was four, but whenever he’s in town, she invites him to everything and acts like she’s happy to do it when—how can she be? How can either of them be? I mean, they broke each other’s hearts, right?” She gulped in a breath before continuing. “Then there’s my aunt Becca and her husband—and their five-year-old twins. My grandparents who are great, but my mom and my grandma always get into it about something. I love my family. I do. But it’s—a lot. And they’re not good with surprises and ohmigod why didn’t I tell them I was bringing someone home with me? Like to the house? On the day of my return?”

  Europe had been—well—Europe. They didn’t have to worry about family or reality, so Gabi had gone with the whole out-of-sight, out-of-mind logic. Why make things complicated when they didn’t have to be? Except now complicated was going to greet her on the driveway of her childhood home.

  He leaned over and kissed her, then rested his forehead against hers. It was her favorite thing in the world when he did this. Warmth spread from her belly to every extremity.

  “I’m not afraid of family.” He laughed. “Especially yours. You and me? It’s the real deal, which means no matter what, we’re going to be fine. I knew it the second you hit on me when I crashed Colin’s scooter.”

  She scoffed. “I was talking out loud to myself when I said I liked your eyes. I thought you were dead—or at least in a coma or something.”

  He sat back and crossed his arms, brows raised. “And now?”

  She groaned. “Now I’m glad you’re not dead or comatose. And it’s not like my family is anything to fear, but—they don’t know anything about you. That’s on me, but you’re going to have to bear the brunt of being a surprise they aren’t expecting.”

  “I can handle it,” he said.

  “There will be questions. Like…My grandmother will need to know if you were bar mitzvahed. That way she doesn’t have to blatantly ask if you’re Jewish.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll have answers. September of eighth grade.”

  “And my mom will force you to watch old movies and eat too much junk food.”

  Ethan chuckled. “You’re right. I’m terrified.”

  “And…” she continued. “My dad will want to kill you for deflowering his little girl.”

  “Wait, what?” Ethan asked. “I didn’t know you were—”

  Gabi burst out laughing. “Kidding! My dad is a big ol’ teddy bear, though you’re the first guy I’ve brought home to meet—well—anyone. So who knows what’ll happen? And I’m not a virgin.” She leaned closer to him for some semblance of privacy from Saul. “You do remember the hotel after the nude beach?” she whispered.

  Ethan grinned. “It was better than all my birthdays and Hanukkahs combined.”

  She leaned back and gave him a self-satisfied grin. “Yeah, well, a first-timer doesn’t know how to do that. Trust me. And I would have told you if I’d never, you know, done that before. But my father doesn’t see me as someone who knows stuff about—I mean who has experience with—ugh. Let’s just say our relationship is complicated. I only see him a couple of times a year, so I think in his eyes I kind of age slower—like relative to the time I’ve spent with him. He probably still thinks I’m an awkward freshman with braces, a unibrow, and no boobs.”

  Ethan’s eyes widened. “Is there photographic evidence of this?”

  “Not that you’ll ever see.”

  His gaze softened. “They’re not going to scare me away.”

  Gabi’s throat tightened. “They might.”

  “I’m really the first guy you brought home, though?”

  She nodded. “To my dad, at least. He—wasn’t always around when I was growing up.”

  She’d dated plenty throughout high school and college with one goal and one goal only—not to repeat the mistakes of the past: her parents’ mistake, which, technically, was Gabi herself. Gabi Bloom was the product of two teens falling too hard too fast. And while she was thankful for her existence and th
at she did have two very loving parents, she always felt the unspoken tension between them whenever Gabi’s dad was in town. Though neither of them ever talked about it, they must have hurt each other something good. Gabi never intended to set herself up for the same.

  She wasn’t, though, right? She and Ethan were different. They were young, but they weren’t teens. Ethan was moving home for good after months in Ireland, and Gabi wasn’t going to be her dad—jetting off on a moment’s notice to plant trees in Mexico to help sustain a monarch butterfly habitat. She was going to put down roots, like her mom did in order to raise her.

  He placed a palm on her knee and gave her a gentle squeeze. “Hey,” he said softly. “It’s in the bag. I probably should have mentioned earlier that moms love me. Grandmas too. They’re going to forget all about you being gone for two months once you introduce me.”

  She pushed him playfully on the shoulder, and he surprised her with another kiss.

  She hummed against him. “You keep doing stuff like that, and I won’t care if my family forgets me completely.”

  He wrapped his arms around her the best he could with their seat belts on, and she tried scooting closer. Instead she managed to knock her open tote bag off the seat, its contents spilling onto the vehicle’s floor.

  “Shit!” Gabi yelped, but she was laughing.

  “Sorry,” Ethan said.

  She bent down to pick up her things, but Ethan did too, so instead of locking lips, this time they knocked foreheads.

  “Ow!” they said in unison.

  “You kids okay back there?” Saul asked.

  Right. Saul. She kept forgetting they weren’t alone.

  “We’re good,” Gabi said. “Just a couple of minor head wounds.”

  “Because we’ll be there in about seven minutes, and I want to make sure you’re sure about the whole meeting-the-parents thing. I remember when I met my Sarah’s family. They hated me. Forty years later, though, I think I’m starting to grow on them.”

  Gabi let out a nervous laugh. She picked up her bag. Ethan picked up a couple of the items that had fallen out.

  “You first,” he said, the two of them still hunched over. “We don’t need an instant replay.”

  She sat up, hugging her bag to her chest.

  He followed, her few spilled items in his hands.

  “Phone.” He handed over the device. His brows furrowed as he held up another item from his dwindling pile. “Camera battery?”

  She nodded. “One in my camera bag, one in my purse, one in the camera. Always.”

  He whistled. “Move over, Boy Scouts. Gabi Bloom takes preparedness to a new level.”

  Gabi batted her lashes. “It’s why you fell in love with me.”

  “Hmm.” He narrowed his eyes. “It was more of a package deal for me. Extreme preparedness, not leaving me to die in the street—”

  “You weren’t dying.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Also those lips I can’t stop kissing,” he added. “I could keep going.”

  She shrugged. “Please do.”

  He held up the final item from her spilled bag—her unopened bag of airplane pretzels.

  “Ooh! Snacks!” She was suddenly starving.

  Ethan opened the bag and pulled one out, twisting it between his thumb and forefinger as he studied it.

  “Do they not have pretzels in Skokie?” she teased.

  “Not the round ones like this.” He paused for several long seconds, then tilted his gaze up to hers.

  “You want to know how I know I’m sure about us?” He was still focused on the piece of airplane food.

  “How?” Gabi’s pulse quickened.

  Finally, his eyes met hers, and a big, beautiful smile spread across his face. All playfulness was gone from his eyes. He stared at her with such intent, with such unwavering certainty, that it was hard for Gabi to breathe.

  “Because I want to marry you.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath.

  Ethan unbuckled his seat belt and wedged himself on the ground between the front and back seats, all of his weight on his good knee. “Sorry. That was supposed to come out as a question.” He blew out a shaky breath. “I crossed an ocean with no idea what I was looking for and found you. Maybe our meeting was unconventional…”

  “You almost killed me.” Gabi laughed nervously.

  “I almost killed me,” he amended. “But we both survived and had the most unexpected and incredible summer. I love you, Gabi. Nothing in my life has ever made as much sense to me as us.” He held out the pretzel. “If I promise to get you a real one of these, do you think you might want to marry me too?”

  How could she say no? In her logical, photographic evidence sort of world, here was another sign—not that she believed in signs—that this, the two of them, was right. He was only supposed to be a fling, but here she was, head over heels in love, and he wanted to give her forever.

  She fumbled in her bag for her camera.

  “One second,” she said, sniffing back tears. Then, hands shaking, she captured the shot of the man she never planned on meeting kneeling on the floor of a moving vehicle, and turning her carefully planned world upside down.

  She let out something between a laugh and a sob and grabbed the pretzel, sliding it onto her ring finger.

  “Yes!” She nodded. “Yes!”

  Chapter Four

  Alissa stood over her kitchen island and piped the final flower onto the last of the red velvet cupcakes—Gabi’s favorite—and brushed her hands off on her apron. This was going to be great. Everything was going to be great. Matthew was back in town to see his daughter. They’d talk about—things. Then she’d tell Gabi some things. And everyone would be happy with all of the things, right?

  What the hell was she doing? Alissa had no plan. She just figured she’d wing it like she’d done the last twenty-plus years of her life. Gabi had still turned out pretty fantastic, hadn’t she? That had to say something about Alissa’s ability to parent no matter how unprepared she had been.

  Sure, her mom had plied her with pregnancy manuals, followed by parenting manuals, and baby sleep manuals. But the pregnancy books scared the crap out of her, telling her each month what could go right—and what could go wrong. The parenting ones made her feel like a failure if she didn’t do exactly what the book told her to do. And she wouldn’t even get started on the sleep guides. Sure. Let the baby cry it out and learn to self-soothe. But who was going to soothe the sobbing eighteen-year-old mother sitting outside her daughter’s door listening to her infant’s pleading for Mama to just come scoop her up and tell her everything was going to be okay?

  Her throat tightened at the memory. Matthew had done that. He’d soothed her, held her in his arms, letting her soak his chest with tears.

  “Liss. Everything’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  How young and madly in love they were. How naive they were too.

  Alissa shook away the memory and reminded herself that she was a grown-up this time around. A full-fledged adult who thought she was past her child-bearing years but—surprise! Once again she was terrified, but some of that terror had given way this morning in Becca’s office to remind her that Gabi was the greatest gift she never knew she wanted, and maybe this baby was too.

  Women had babies at forty all the time. Though she wondered how many of them also had grown children and a brand-new business…or had as complicated a relationship with their baby daddies as Alissa did.

  Ugh. Was the Jerry Springer Show still around? It might be easier to let the cat out of the bag with a live studio audience who expected things to go sideways—or in her case, batshit crazy.

  She heard the front door open and snick shut.

  “I’m here!” Becca called out as she made her way to the kitchen. “Oh wow. You’re either expecting Gabi to be really hungry, or you stress-baked.”

  Both women scanned the small center island where the three-tiered cupcake stand sat full of the two dozen red velvet cupcak
es she could fit on it. Next to the stand was the giant Tupperware container with the extras because welcoming your daughter home after two months away and telling her she was going to be a big sister called for plenty of her favorite cupcakes. Then there was the tray of mandel bread—chocolate chip, cinnamon, and raspberry jelly—Alissa’s father’s favorite. If Dad was happy, then he could be a buffer when Alissa’s mother flipped out that not only was her daughter pregnant but that she’d “let” it happen with the last person on earth she approved of. And because she had fires to put out all over the place, Alissa had stopped by her bakery after the canceled ultrasound and grabbed what was left of the black-and-whites—the cookies that Matthew loved almost more than his daughter.

  Alissa was still itemizing the baked goods when the front door opened and slammed shut.

  “Oh my God!” Becca said. “What if it’s Gabi? Have you told her yet? Have you told the father? Who’s the fa—?”

  “There you two are!” a woman called from the dining room, her voice growing closer.

  “Shit! Mom!” Alissa motioned zipping her lips, and Becca did the same.

  Evelyn Adler waltzed through the kitchen’s swinging saloon doors, her perfectly coiffed, not-a-speck-of-gray-to-be-found brunette bob lying straight and sleek against her cheeks. She wore a scarf-print maxi dress and beaded sandals—the picture of elegance. For Evelyn Adler, image was everything.

  Alissa had been with her mother when she bought the dress at Nordstrom Rack, but if anyone asked, the woman would swear it was Nieman Marcus.