But for Lauren to give up and proclaim me the safest alternative for handling her child without a fight or a snide remark led me to believe that whatever she was stalling about was major. Happiness could wait; drama was way more interesting.
I settled myself and my tiny ward as I impatiently waited for Lauren to begin. A fleeting thought entered my mind as I watched her examine her cuticles. Though she had shown up here to release whatever pressure was about to boil over, was she having a difficult time trusting me with her big reveal?
The tides had certainly shifted in our relationship within the past three years or so. We’d started out together in Indianapolis, allies brought together by a mutual employer. I’d been single, and she would have been better off that way. One promotion later, she moved away to Fort Wayne and bigger and better things - namely her cover model type husband. One look and a year and a half of angst after, they’d sealed the deal with both a wedding and a baby.
Me? I had still been single and living in Indy. So I’d gravitated slightly towards Blake, who hadn’t yet gotten everything worked out with Chris. We commiserated together, the beautiful single girls who somehow were always slated to be the bridesmaids instead of the brides. Until Blake had also succumbed to the power of the ring, leaving me the lone lonely one.
Except Blake and Chris didn’t have the same kind of relationship that Lauren and Matthew did. They were just as solid - perhaps even more so - but they weren’t as sickeningly sweet. And they hadn’t yet multiplied, so they weren’t chained to those types of responsibilities. As much as Lauren didn’t like Chris, I enjoyed his sarcastic nature. Somewhere along the way, I’d become his pet project and we’d developed this odd brother/sister sort of bond.
Blake and I had never had problems getting along, and the more time we spent with each other only cemented the fact that we were like two peas in a pod. If I’d really been thinking about things, the job offer shouldn’t have been the shock it was. Or maybe it had been a surprise simply because it had come at a most inconvenient time. Like when I was single by name only, but by interpretation so strongly attached to Will that I couldn’t even see straight.
Whatever the case, my familiarity with Blake and Chris on many different levels had moved them into the position of top couple in my book, even without them jockeying for the title. Without me intending for it to happen.
I eyed Lauren guiltily. Had I really grown that far apart from her, caught up in the mire of my own relationship turmoil, to not notice that she was having marriage struggles? It made no sense. Matthew lived and breathed for her, and she for him. And just Friday night, they’d been right here in my living room looking every bit the happy couple. No signs of trouble in paradise.
Unless she had read more into Matthew’s actions than she should have. I’d seen her stare at us, at her husband taking my hand in his and offering his support as Will had declared his words of love. Had her mind wandered off course and let her imagine something way more sinister?
“Lauren?” I asked finally when she still hadn’t launched into whatever she’d come here to say.
She snapped to attention. Her head shook as she attempted to clear her brain. She’d always been one to overanalyze, to pick things apart and whatever she was thinking of now was no exception. I only prayed it didn’t involve me doing unseemly things.
God, I was an awful friend if I couldn’t pick up on her emotions any more. Worse yet, I turned her inward unrest into something it likely wasn’t, making it all about me. For both of our sakes, I hoped I was dead wrong.
“Lauren, why can’t you go home?”
Instead of looking at my friend, I directed the question to her daughter. That was the easy way out. At least if Sadie was shooting daggers at me, it was probably just gas and not anything personal.
“I did something awful,” she breathed.
The uneasiness in my stomach lifted for a split second at the realization that I wasn’t directly involved. Here she was, rushing to me and confiding in me like always. I had nothing to be afraid of; we were on firm footing. The light mood disappeared quickly, the lump in my throat returning as I considered the possibilities.
“What did you do?” I repeated my earlier inquiry, hoping she would just come out with it.
“I talked to Patricia.”
The words came so quickly and were said not to me, but to the copper colored wall over in the corner. I almost asked her to repeat what she said. I did lean forward in my seat to hear her better. Sadie shifted right along with me, her remarkably heavy baby weight noticeable in my lap.
“Patricia?” I parroted. I debated the significance of that confession. First off: who the hell was Patricia? I ran through a list of possible characters, starting at the bank first. As I ticked off the names of her coworkers past and present in my head, Lauren nodded and wrung her hands.
“Patricia Barrett Snyder,” she clarified when I didn’t immediately gasp with recognition.
That got the desired reaction. To be fair, Patricia was a pretty common name. Why in the hell would I jump to that conclusion?
“What? When? Where? How? Why?”
The slightest grin crossed her face before she became brutally serious. “Well, since we already knew who, I guess that would cover all the other questions.
“Patricia called me at work this morning. Then she stopped by my office. For whatever reason, today was the day that she decided would be the perfect time to meet her daughter-in-law.”
“No shit.”
“No shit. So after a rousing game of show and tell starring the pictures on my desk, she gave me her true motive. She wants to be back in Matthew’s life. Blake’s too.”
“Why now?”
Lauren laughed, a sound tinged with bitterness and short on humor. Whether the joke was on Patricia or on herself, I wasn’t sure. I also didn’t know if I wanted to find out. Who was I kidding? Of course I did.
“I suppose because they’ve established themselves as semi-responsible adults. Because they don’t need her - or more correctly, her husband’s money now. She had a point: growing up, the Snyder family’s wealth enabled Matthew’s bad habits.”
Lauren winced. She might have outwardly come to terms with her lover’s past, but it was still hard for her to swallow. The Matthew of today wasn’t anything like he had been back then, long before she’d had an inkling of his existence. And that had been a good thing. She might not have been so accepting of his arrest record had she lived through the actual events. In her eyes, the Matthew Snyder who had served jail time was an entirely different person than the one she’d fallen in love with, the one who’d die for her if he had to.
“So then what?” I wanted to move forward, to not dwell on the drug use or the felony or the multiple women in his bed. Besides, that had been dealt with already and was old news.
“I was understandably standoffish when she first showed up. There was a part of me that wanted to refuse to see her to begin with, but curiosity took hold. And over the course of her staring at my photos of her family, she won me over.”
“Lauren,” I whispered, not entirely certain of the hidden meaning behind it. I was implying something; I was sure of it.
“I know,” Lauren said, rubbing her temples with her fingers. Apparently, she’d chosen my name calling to mean I was admonishing her. She had the migraine emerging to go along with it, and I supposed I was good with it.
“What did you do?” I pressed.
“I told her I’d help her.”
“Lauren!” This time, my meaning was clear. Even Sadie was clued in. She cried out and fussed in my arms.
“I know.”
“I’m not touching this one with a ten foot pole.” I shook my head, even as her gaze implored me for my help. “No way, no how.”
“This affects you, too.”
My eyebrow lurched upward in a silent question. As much as I liked Matthew, as much as he’d helped me out recently, what part did I have in fixing this mess? If he
turned on Lauren, I’d dry her tears just as I always did, but she was painting me as a participant in this, not as a member of her support team.
“Blake’s your boss,” my bestie reminded me. “You may not have to hear about it from Matthew, but you’ll definitely hear about it from her.”
“Fuck,” I said, but not until I’d covered little Sadie’s baby ears. Lauren had a thing about me cursing in front of her child, but this situation warranted it.
“For what it’s worth, Blake confides in you. She trusts you. So stop pretending like she won’t drag you into this, too. Possibly in a campaign against me.”
“Maybe you should have thought about this before you made a deal with the devil. Before you opened your big mouth, did you consider what Matthew would say? Or Blake?”
We both knew the answer, but she shook her head anyway.
“Coming from you, that’s totally out of character.”
“I got caught up in the moment. It was a now or never thing. She was walking out of my office, tail between her legs, and I broke. I stopped her and told her, without thinking. Then, I proceeded to think about it for the remainder of the day.”
“Now that sounds like you. And you haven’t come up with some wild plan to make the universe stop spinning? You didn’t talk to George about it and come up with a solution?”
“No. I holed myself up in my office all day and became virtually worthless. Kind of like I am right now.”
“Well, the way I look at it you have two options. One: you join the Witness Protection Program and live the rest of your days in hiding from your mother-in-law. Two: you fess up to your husband and deal with those consequences. Which includes the reaction from his sister too.”
Her fingers raked violently through her hair, almost as though she wanted to tear the strands from her scalp in order to relieve the tension invading her body. Though I felt for her, she alone had gotten herself into this predicament.
“Whatever you do, you can’t stay here forever. Matthew will look here first. And if I remember correctly, he’s pretty adept at finding you, anyway.”
“What am I going to tell him?” she asked, desperation creeping into her tone.
“He’s your man. You should know best how to approach it.”
I saw the wheels turning in her head, her debate being formed and memorized as she sat before me. By my calculations, it was a fifteen minute drive from my place to hers. Plenty of time for her to get a script formed. But what was she assuming Matthew would say? His part in this whole thing was so totally up in the air. And if he didn’t play his role the way she expected him to, her preparation would be all for naught.
“You can’t approach this as a conversation that’s already set in stone,” I advised. Her face fell, confirming that that was exactly what she’d been doing. “Your best course of action is to do what I do. Wing it.”
Chapter Six
Lauren
Wing it.
Lovely advice.
I felt like Gracie had been pushing me out her door, perhaps because she was anticipating an upcoming visit from her new paramour, Will. And damn. I’d not requested any details from her regarding her first weekend in coupledom. Maybe her refusing to be more helpful stemmed from her feeling slighted at my insistence to discuss only me, myself, and I.
“Oh, Sadie,” I sighed to my daughter as the garage door opened and I pulled my Sonata into the third bay. Matthew’s Mustang and Camry were already in residence, much to my chagrin. More often than not, he beat me home anyway. But today, I’d been hoping against hope for him to take a side trip to Chris’s or something, just so I had more time to prepare.
But preparing made me solid and rigid. I understood what Gracie was getting at, but I didn’t have her way with words or quick wit. How convincing would I be concerning my good intentions while stuttering and stumbling over my thoughts?
“He’s my husband,” I reminded myself as I unstrapped the car seat and lifted Sadie into my arms. She cooed encouragingly.
Matthew and I had shared plenty of uncomfortable moments during our relationship. Technically, most of the awkwardness had come prior to either one of us admitting our true feelings to one another. From there on out, it had been relatively smooth sailing.
Until today, when I’d let my motherly instincts get the better of me.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he greeted upon hearing the door open. Like always.
Except today, when I answered back, my response felt forced. “Hey, honey.”
He stood in the kitchen, six foot four inches or so of utter hotness. Since making my preferences for scruffy known, he more often than not kept at least a five o’clock shadow on his face, and his thick black rimmed glasses perched on his nose. That look framed by his messy blond hair never failed to make my heart accelerate, and today was no different. I paused momentarily to admire the view and to delay the inevitable.
“I figured that you would be at Gracie’s longer, so I started dinner.”
He pointed to the concrete island in the center of the room, which now displayed most of my cooking utensils and a fair amount of the contents of our refrigerator. Cooking wasn’t his forte, but he was markedly better than his sister. I knew that from personal experience.
My eyes appraised the mess, then swung up to meet his. “What is it supposed to be?”
“I was going for easy,” he admitted, “so I figured a salad? With some chicken cut up in it?”
“Sounds good to me. But now that I’m home, why don’t you let me handle it? I’ll trade you.”
He looked almost relieved as I handed off the baby to him. Sadie would be hungry soon, and he enjoyed the bonding time feeding her allowed. Preparing food came like second nature to me, and I needed something to do with my hands anyway.
Matthew left me alone with my thoughts, but not without a quick brush of his lips against mine. Fortunately in the thirty seconds that that exchange took, he hadn’t noticed my preoccupation. I breathed a sigh of relief as he grabbed a bottle from the fridge, then strolled off down the hall, blabbering baby talk to his tiniest admirer.
He had been gone for a few minutes and dinner was well underway when my cell buzzed with a text from Gracie.
Don’t chicken out.
She knew me too well.
And so did my husband, who upon his return sans Sadie, appeared to be concerned. “What’s wrong?”
A deliberate change in syntax from “are you okay?”, but ripe with just as much innuendo. I almost nearly asked him if he had received a similar text from my friend.
I sighed, glad that at least Sadie had cooperated and gone down for a nap. I really didn’t want to broach the subject of what I’d done with her in attendance, just in case things got ugly. It wasn’t like Matthew and I had lots of experience in the fighting department, and I didn’t want to scare her if our respective tempers came out in full force.
“Rough day at work?” He tried another tactic, determined to combat my stalling.
“You could say that,” I hedged.
I busied myself pulling plates from the cabinet and dishing out our meal. When there was nothing left to do, no props remaining to distract me, I settled into my seat with a pronounced sigh.
He didn’t have to ask if I wanted to talk about it. His blue eyes spoke volumes, encouraging me to continue. There was no turning back now. I cleared my throat and struggled to find my voice, determined to get this done and over with as quickly and painlessly as possible. Unfortunately for me, my mouth did not cooperate.
“I did something stupid today,” I admitted.
The word choice had been intentional. Recognition sparked in his eyes as he remembered back to when I’d said roughly the same thing. It had been early on in our dating history, when Gracie and I had driven past his parents’ house, more for curiosity’s sake than anything else. But I’d still been rendered guilty beyond belief. Thinking at the time it had been a bigger deal than it actually was, I’d tossed and turned that night unt
il I’d finally come clean.
That night had ended with Gracie fast asleep in the guest room of her now home, and Matthew coming over to comfort me, to hold me in his arms. If only I could be guaranteed of the same outcome, only here in our home and without a visitor in residence.
I wanted him to guess, to put his voice to the thing that I dreaded telling him, but he wouldn’t take the bait. He simply stared, prompting me to continue on. So I did. I had no choice.
“Your mom called me,” I said quickly, rushing through it so fast I wasn’t certain he could comprehend what I’d said. Such a benign statement for most couples, but such a scary topic for me to bring up.
His eyebrows furrowed and I knew he’d heard. “My mom?”
His speaking voice had ratcheted up an octave or two above normal. I stared at my salad instead of at him, afraid of what I’d see. It wasn’t hard to imagine. I knew he grabbed his drink and took a large gulp, for there was a pause in the time space continuum before he slammed it back down on the countertop.
I couldn’t help it. I had to look, to judge what it was I was now dealing with. Gracie had wanted me to play this by ear, but I needed context clues in order to deduce my next move. Unfortunately, it was his turn to have his eyes glued to his plate.
“What did she want?” he asked after a moment of silence. He still wasn’t able to meet my gaze, but I knew that everything had changed. This wasn’t going to be a light and easy discussion from here on out.
No longer hungry, I pushed my plate away. He did the same, sliding his stoneware dish across the island until the rim of the plate touched mine.
“She wanted to see how you were doing.” The truth, though it hung between us like a question. As though I was asking him if this was a good enough answer, if we could just drop it and go on from here like nothing had happened.
We both knew that wasn’t possible. If that was all it had been today, a mere phone call, I likely could have swept it under the rug and kept it from him in an attempt to save both of us the grief of dealing with it. In hindsight, that would have been the best option, though it sure wasn’t how things ended up.
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