Something told me that any guy who declared his love for a woman in front of three of their mutual unsuspecting friends wasn’t exactly intimidated about wearing his heart on his sleeve. Matthew didn’t count, since he’d been the only one to get both Gracie and Will to crack. Even if my brother had given him a pep talk, the end result had been all on Will. And he’d performed remarkably.
As I expected, the sitting area of my studio was empty. I barely gave the contemporary stylings of the reception space a glance as I passed on through to my true destination. This in itself was noteworthy, as I always did a once over upon arrival, if only to make certain the cleaning crew had done a respectable job. Today, as long as no tumbleweeds rolled across the bamboo flooring and bumped into me, I couldn’t be bothered with an assessment.
Gracie was perched on her stool, hunched over her work area as she flipped intently through fabric samples. She didn’t look up as I breezed past, so my worry was all for naught. Even so, I secured the folder in my desk before I acknowledged her.
“I’m surprised you can sit down,” I greeted upon my return to the head of the massive table.
She jumped, then recovered quickly by flipping me the middle finger. Boss or not, our working relationship was anything but formal. I grinned at her as I slid her keychain across the surface. Her hand snapped out to stop her keys from continuing off the edge of the counter.
“The Lexus parties like a rental,” I baited, knowing she wouldn’t fall for it. Truth be told, once we had brought it home from her place, it had remained in my driveway until this morning, when it had brought me here for the big return. A former Mercedes owner myself, I didn’t have luxury car envy. Sure, it was nice, but driving it wasn’t a giant wet dream.
“Will and I had sex in your car,” she countered, not missing a beat.
“That’s not my car,” I reminded gently, “not any more.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Will and I had sex in Chris’s shrine to you.”
Her striking face was so devoid of humor, I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. She was right about one thing, though: after my father had sold Chris my very first car, my now-husband had treated it like pure gold, washing and waxing it religiously to a showroom finish. Even when I had pushed him away, neglected telling him things he always deserved to know, he had maintained it like he was somehow incubating the love he’d never given up on. Turns out Chris had been right all along. And anyone who didn’t know better would be hard pressed to believe that the car had been purchased during my high school years.
“I’m kidding,” she clarified upon not getting the rise out of me she wanted.
Perhaps she’d forgotten who she was addressing. I was the last person to shy away from public displays of random affection. The least prudish woman in possibly a twenty mile radius, with the black book to prove it. I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if she had done certain activities in the front or back seat, but I likely wouldn’t have mentioned it to Chris. Now there was someone who would freak.
“So you and Will?” I questioned, taking my stool and propping my chin upon my hands.
Gracie picked that moment to stall. She snatched her keys up and hopped down from her seat to put them away and to get me my own. Her actions were deliberately slow, designed to drive me crazy. I wasn’t going to fall for it.
So I waited patiently for her to return. She dangled my keys in front of me wordlessly, dropping them into my outstretched palm. I smiled at her sweetly but didn’t press any further. I was ready to make this last all day if I had to. To that end, I jumped up from the chair and trekked back to my desk to store my keys in my purse.
Gracie’s eyes were laser focused on the sample book in front of her when I came back. I hopped back on my stool as quietly as possible, the slight breeze I created as I moved past and the squeaking of the stool legs against the floor the only indications that she was no longer alone.
“Don’t act like you’re surprised,” she said when she’d decided enough time had elapsed. The way she picked back up the conversation, you would have thought mere seconds had passed since I’d raised the topic of discussion, not the ten or fifteen minutes that actually had. “You’re the one who wanted to set us up in the first place.”
“True, but I wasn’t sure how you’d take to the idea. And your response wasn’t exactly favorable when I put it out there to begin with.”
“Only because for all intents and purposes, we were already together. Will just didn’t know it yet.”
“So was he a pity fuck that turned into something else, or had you been crushing over him for a while?”
She bit her lip, considering. “I didn’t really know him well enough to consider him anything. I mean, he was cute. He seemed nice. And I’m not sure who would have been the recipient of the pity fuck anyway: him or me. We’re both pretty lacking in the dance card department.”
“For different reasons entirely.”
“I suppose so.”
“So, I’m assuming that you returned the whole ‘I love you’ part when you got over there. Where do two commitment-phobes who’ve sworn their devotion to one another go from here?”
“Hell if I know,” she admitted.
I chuckled at her honesty.
“I don’t even know when I’m going to see him next,” she admitted. “What I do know is that we can be seen in public together. And he could call me on the phone right now if he wanted to, and I wouldn’t have to pretend he was a telemarketer.”
“That makes things easier.”
“I’m trying not to worry about the whole ‘where do I see myself in five years’ exercise. This is a big step for me. It’s a big step for him.”
“Is he worried about the future?”
“Probably, though he’ll never tell me. Our issues are in the moment for the time being.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he’s worried that the age difference will be our undoing. He’s already proclaimed that he’s not doing the whole marriage and kid thing again, and even though I’ve told him ad nauseam that’s not what I want, he’s convinced I’ll change my mind. That’s why he didn’t want to tell you guys in the first place.”
My blank stare must have clued her into the fact that I didn’t comprehend Will’s struggle.
“Look at it this way. Matthew and Lauren are married. You and Chris are married. Which leaves me and Will as the wild cards. If we were operating under the guise of casual sex, that wouldn’t fit in with the whole team philosophy. He was afraid of the pressure to commit. And while I got that, at least while we were on a trial basis, I think it ultimately ended up stunting our growth.”
“I stunted your growth?” I teased. “I’m the last person to stand on my soapbox and preach about what makes a healthy relationship. I still haven’t figured it out.”
“That was the easy explanation,” she mused. “I think that underneath it all, he didn’t believe that someone like me could stay interested in someone like him for very long. The divorce hangs heavy over him, makes him feel unworthy of anyone else. He promised to love and cherish and all that stuff, and he gave that to someone who proclaimed herself done with him, then flushed her wedding ring down the toilet.”
“And I thought the whole ‘rot in hell’ thing was harsh.”
“It was, Blake. But you didn’t mean it; it was a cry for help that you didn’t let Chris answer. But he never stopped believing in you. And I think that deep down, that carried you both back to each other.
“Stephanie’s just a bitch and that’s all there is to it. There’s no traumatic event hiding in the corners of the ill fated Delaney marriage bed. She got bored and wanted out and Will didn’t. And she took the most deliberate path she could think of to send him that message.”
“Does it hurt that he assumes you’ll do the same?”
“Yes and no. It’s definitely something that we will have to work on. But I see glimpses of him attempting to trust me. And it’s a start.”
Her brown eyes shifted away from mine, and I knew her mind was miles away, remembering something she wasn’t sure if she should share.
“What?” I asked, wondering if she’d confide in me.
“I already hurt him once, and the scars from that on top of what bitch girl Stephanie left behind aren’t fading away quickly. I have a feeling they will probably always be there.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that he has this thing about me leaving. This morning, I went back home to get ready for work and he was reluctant to let me go. He wouldn’t even watch me walk out the door, didn’t say goodbye, nothing.”
“That’s fucked up. But kind of cute.”
“I know I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of that man. There’s a whole can of worms left there for me to explore.”
“Among other things.”
Our eyes met across the table and we burst out laughing. Though Gracie hadn’t been intolerable these past few months, there was a definite attitude shift coming from her direction. The conflicted person I’d grown to know had disappeared in the span of three days, leaving behind the carefree woman I’d been introduced to what seemed like eons ago.
There was something to be said for having everything out in the open, to having your secrets - dirty laundry included - on display for everyone to see. No masks to hide behind, no lies to remember, no omissions to sweep under the proverbial rug.
Never mind that I was keeping something big from her again. And from everyone else except for Chris. I’d had to run it by someone, and now that he was firmly back in my life, he filled that position of being my go-to person. As he’d declared when I’d used him as a sounding board for my idea, this was the good kind of secret, as benign as a surprise birthday party or something. Or so I hoped. Time would tell I supposed.
“Moving the microscope over to you,” Gracie transitioned, “how goes Operation Babymaking?”
Okay, so I wasn’t a prude, but her abrupt change of subject still caused the heat to rise to my face. Before Will had crashed our little get together, I’d breathlessly announced that Chris and I had decided it was time to try for another baby. It was a monumental decision for the both of us, just like it would have been for any newlyweds, but magnified tenfold by our history.
“Technically, we’re in the training phases. Considering that I just stopped taking birth control, I’ve probably got a month or two before it’s show time. At the very least, a couple of weeks.”
“True. But I’m sure it’s fun to practice. And here you made me the butt of your joke; I should probably have asked you right back if you could sit down.”
“I can sit down just fine,” I confirmed.
“So was it your idea? Or Chris’s? To start a family now?”
I sighed. How to explain the mixed emotions that came with this decision?
As if she could read my mind, Gracie’s hand came across the table top and covered my own.
“Let’s say it was a mutual thing. After Chris found out about the miscarriage and we officially got back together, he dropped hints. Sometimes it wasn’t even a veiled suggestion, it would be a flat out question. ‘Can you still have children?’ Not like it was a prerequisite for him being in love with me still, but because he wanted to know.”
“Okay. So he’s the type of guy who wants the picket fence and the dog and the two and a half kids.”
“Yeah. He’s the traditional type. You know, several years removed from everything that happened, I question why I was ever afraid of telling him what was going on. Sure, my pregnancy was unplanned as all get out, but he would have found the beauty in it eventually. And for those few weeks that I thought everything was going okay, he would have grown accustomed to the idea of being a dad. In the end, it wouldn’t have changed anything, but it would have given me one person in my corner.”
“Chris was always in your corner,” she said sincerely.
“I know. And now we’re making up for lost time.”
“I feel a ‘but’ coming on.”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat, feeling stupid. Starting a family should be a joyous occasion, right? But for me, the happiness of embarking upon that adventure would forever be partially eclipsed by the overwhelming fear of loss.
“I love babies,” I stammered, not even making sense to myself.
Gracie nodded. She understood what I meant, even when I wasn’t sure I did. “Anyone who doubts that only has to look at how you treat Sadie,” she confirmed.
“But the thought of me being pregnant again,” I trailed off, leaving the unspeakable unsaid.
What I was afraid to voice aloud sounded like a foghorn in my subconscious. So many questions. Could I have children? I’d shrugged it off when Chris had asked, deciding to worry about that when the time came. There was no reason to think that I was any different from the many other women who’d miscarried and then had subsequent successful pregnancies. But the truth was, I’d never know without trying again. Was I even able to conceive now? What would we do if the answer to all of this was a resounding no?
Even worse, what if the unthinkable happened again?
The fingers around my hand tightened, Gracie’s silent vow that she was firmly aboard my train of thought.
“Things are different now than they were back then,” she soothed. “You have your whole support team intact. Chris isn’t going anywhere. Matthew’s not in jail this time. Plus, you have me and Lauren. No matter what happens, you won’t be alone this time. You’ll probably wish you were sometimes, but we’ll always be here for you.”
“I know. And I appreciate that. Realistically, I know that this is the perfect time to do this. I know the ink is barely dry on the marriage certificate, but I’ve been in love with Chris for over half my life. We have good jobs, a nice home. The makings of an awesome extended family. It’s the things that I have no control over that freak me out.”
“I’m sure it’s normal to be scared. Lauren was scared when she was pregnant, and she didn’t have any horrific experiences to dwell upon. You have those in spades.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Yeah, but you also have so much to give a tiny Blake or Chris. You’re already a wonderful aunt. And I know that you don’t shy away from a challenge. From overcoming insurmountable odds. You’ve already mothered your older brother, and he didn’t turn out half bad.”
I snorted. “It was debatable for a while. But I eventually got through. Or maybe it was all Lauren.”
“Nah.” Gracie waved away my comment with a flick of her wrist. “You need to give yourself some credit. Without you laying the foundation, Lauren never would have been able to build the house. I know it’s not the best analogy in the world, but you know what I mean. And besides, it’s early. My creativity hasn’t woken up yet.”
“I do know what you mean.”
My arm reached across the table to grab the pen resting there. Not because I needed to write something down, but because the retractable mechanics of it allowed me something to do with my nervous energy. Gracie watched as I clicked the top repeatedly, the ballpoint tip emerging and disappearing in time to the random thoughts that flew rapid fire through my brain. After about thirty seconds of this, she yanked it away from me with an exaggerated sigh.
“You know what they say about being scared?” she quizzed. I knew where she was going, but let her continue anyway. “That the things in life that are the most worth having are the riskiest. And what you are wanting is definitely worth having.”
“I wish I knew who ‘they’ were,” I mused, “because I’d tell them they are all wrong. I’m not scared. I’m terrified.”
Chapter Five
Gracie
“I can’t go home,” Lauren said without preamble.
She stood on my porch, Sadie cradled in her arms, a hint of madness in her hazel eyes. Her being here in itself wasn’t odd; more often then not she stopped by after picking up her daughter at Regina’s house for at least a f
ew minutes of idle chatter. Especially today, I had been waiting for my doorbell to ring, my bestie eager for the dish on my weekend of ecstasy with Will. Instead, I faced deadly serious Lauren, who didn’t look nearly as fun for me.
Apparently this morning I’d put on my psychotherapist hat.
“What did you do?” I asked as I propped open the storm door, flattening myself as much as possible against it, and permitting her to pass.
As she pushed by me, I searched for context clues. Her red Sonata was intact in my driveway, she hadn’t shaved her head, and Sadie wasn’t missing a shoe or anything. Her picture perfect life was still outwardly immaculate. I shook my head and shut the door, following her into my house.
“You don’t have any visitors hiding in the closet, do you?” she asked.
“I’m assuming you mean Will. And no, he didn’t beam himself over here as an alternate form of transportation. To be honest with you, I’m not sure if he’s even planning on coming over tonight.”
And to be honest, that fact still kind of burned in the pit of my stomach. Normal Lauren would have picked up on that comment so fast my head would have spun, but preoccupied Lauren let it drop like a hot potato. Guess there was time for gossip later.
She perched herself on the couch, her leg bouncing a mile a minute with nervous energy.
“Give me the baby,” I demanded as I hovered over her, “you’re going to make her seasick.”
Lauren handed Sadie off to me and I took the infant a lot less clumsily than I would have mere months before. Bless the fact that Sadie now had better head and neck control. I’d give her the credit just so I didn’t have to admit that we’d grown accustomed to each other. No longer did she burst into tears of unholy rage when I entered her field of vision. Sometimes I even garnered a smile.
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