by Jackie Lau
Hard.
I need to remove such words from my vocabulary.
I cut several slices of cheese and baguette, then put two plates on the table. I fill my plate with salad.
Just kidding. I help myself to a little of both salads before placing a generous amount of cheese, bread, and crackers on my plate, just as Vince comes over with the sausages.
Sausages. Hard.
I’m practically shaking with excitement, and I’m definitely drooling.
And now I’m embarrassed that I’m wearing a large—though appropriate—“pregnant and hungry” shirt and literally drooling over sausages.
Perhaps I should have dressed up for his visit. Like, put on clothes that aren’t pajamas.
Vince deposits two sausages on each plate before helping himself to some salad. For a few minutes, we eat in silence, me wolfing down my food at an alarming rate, him eating at a more sensible pace.
It feels very domestic, just sharing a meal together at my condo.
“So, you told your family about the pregnancy? How did it go?”
I may have spoken while chewing. I just can’t help stuffing my face with all this delicious food.
“It went fine.”
That’s a slightly terse response, coming from Vince Fong.
“It doesn’t sound like it went fine,” I say, my heart hammering.
He takes in my expression. “I didn’t mean to worry you. They’re happy. Surprised, of course, but happy. My grandma isn’t thrilled that we’re not married, but she’ll get over it. She was pleased when I called you bossy.”
“Hey! I am not bossy.”
Vince looks pointedly at the food on the table.
“I’m not bossy,” I say. “I’m pregnant. And you told me to text you whenever I needed anything, and I needed these sausages.”
To emphasize my point, I pop a bite of sausage and bakeapple jam in my mouth, and this time, I don’t hold back my groan of pleasure. In fact, I make the groan just a little obscene.
Vince’s eyes are heavy-lidded.
I wipe my mouth with a napkin. “Yes, that was definitely necessary sausage.”
“I believe you.”
“Don’t use that sarcastic tone on me!”
His lips twitch. “I’m not trying to sound sarcastic. I do believe you. And I’ve never been pregnant, so who am I to argue? Most of the time I’ve known you, you’ve been growing another person inside you, so I’m not well acquainted with what you’re like otherwise.”
“Aside from that weekend.”
“That weekend. Yes.”
Although I made orgasmic sounds a few minutes ago, his smoldering gaze still surprises me. I feel bloated and clumsy and I’m hardly dressed for company.
Yet he looks at me just like he did on the night we met.
“Anyway,” he says, “getting back to my family dinner... They, uh, started teasing me about all the things I did in my childhood. Like eating Play-Doh and pouring shampoo on the carpet. Stuff like that.”
Ah. I smile. “Those don’t sound so bad. What else did you do?”
He scratches the back of his neck. “I had a stuffed dinosaur called General Bloopy the Bloopisaurus that I carried everywhere. Apparently he was destroyed and replaced at one point, and my mom lied to me and said he went to a spa.”
“Oh, the outrage!” I laugh.
“The point,” Vince says, leaning forward, “is that they all seem convinced our child will be a terror. I apologize in advance.”
I’m not fazed by this. Children are always a bit troublesome. I doubt ours will be a complete terror.
And that dinosaur story? It’s cute.
“Who was at your family dinner on Friday?” I ask.
“My mom, my dad, my grandma. My oldest brother, Julian, and his wife and baby. My other brother Cedric.”
“That sounds nice.” I have a bite of salad. “I know my mom wanted to have more kids, but...” I pause. “My dad died when I was three, a few months after we came to Canada. He was hit by a car. My mom asked him to go to the convenience store for a bag of Cheetos, and he never came back.”
“Marissa,” he says, reaching across the table. He brushes his fingers against mine, and I grab onto him. “I’m so sorry.”
“I want our child to have what I didn’t. Extended family nearby. Another parent. That’s why it’s so important to me that you be involved.”
“Thank you for telling me.” He squeezes my hand. “I will do the best I can, I promise.”
I swallow, my throat a bit scratchy.
“Anyway,” I say, sounding more upbeat than I feel, “my dad’s death cast a cloud over my childhood, and my mother had to work hard to provide for us. I couldn’t cause trouble for her. Not that she was overly strict, but she was always tired, always working.”
I look at the last bite of sausage on my plate. I’m not craving it anymore.
“You going to eat that?” Vince asks.
“Nah, you can have it.”
He finishes the sausage, then takes out the plastic container with chocolate cake.
Yes, that’s exactly what I need. My mouth starts watering again. He slides his chair around the table so we’re sitting next to each other, and he lifts a forkful of chocolate cake to my mouth.
I moan. “Oh, that’s delicious.”
He has a bite of his own. “It is, isn’t it?” He pats himself on the back. “Good job, Vince.”
I roll my eyes, but my heart feels full. Vince has been here for me, he’s listened, and that’s just what I needed.
From lusting after him while he cooked sausages...to this.
It’s a little overwhelming.
After we finish the cake—Vince lets me eat two-thirds of it—he takes my hand and leads me to the couch in the living room. He pulls me into his lap, and for a while, we just sit there together.
Eventually, he cups the back of my head and brings my mouth down to his.
He kisses me slowly, gently, as though we have more than a night or a weekend. I feel both boneless and a little keyed-up.
“Can I ask you something?” he says.
I nod, even though I have no idea what he’s going to say, and it makes me a bit nervous.
“Will you go on a date with me?”
“You asked me to marry you when I told you I was pregnant. Now you just want a date?”
“Well, you weren’t happy with the proposal. You—quite reasonably—pointed out that we hardly knew each other, so let’s spend more time together. A date.”
I hesitate. “Why haven’t you had a girlfriend since university?”
“For many years, I had no time. My company was my life.”
“Which was your choice.”
“True. I’m not good at balance, which is why I burnt out. Badly.”
Sometimes it’s hard for me to picture Vince’s former life, given his playboy image. But I can see it now, can imagine his utter devotion to his work.
I can imagine him burning out, too, and there’s an ache in my chest.
“Then I sold it,” he says, “and I was suddenly free. But at that point, it didn’t feel like a choice. I had to change. I just couldn’t continue.”
“So that’s when you went all-out on with your life of leisure.”
“Life of leisure. Yeah.” He pauses. “A relationship didn’t appeal to me. Too much commitment. But also...the past few years have been a mess of burn-out and depression. I wasn’t in a good place.”
I squeeze his hand.
“Now,” he says, “I’m doing better and I do want the commitment. I want you and our baby together. That’s what matters to me now.”
“You can be a dedicated father without being with the mother of your child.”
“Yes, but I want you, too. I told you that I could just give you a weekend, but it was the best weekend of my life, truly.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s why you made no effort to contact me.”
“It’s what I know,” he says apolog
etically, “but I’m trying, Marissa. I want to kiss you when we wake up in the middle of the night to the baby’s cries. I want to get matcha double fromage cheesecake for you even when you don’t have pregnancy cravings. Let’s go on a date and see how it goes, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Next Friday?”
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”
He kisses me, and I lean against him.
I’m tired. Maybe from everything we’ve just said to each other about his burn-out, and my dad, and General Bloopy. I’m probably also going into some kind of food coma after all the sausages, bakeapple jam, cheese, and chocolate cake.
Vince does indeed treat me well, and I feel like I understand him better now.
I don’t love him. I’m not ready to marry him.
But I’ve started to feel open to the idea of a relationship. I don’t think it would be a good idea to jump into bed together just yet, though.
Bed. Mmm. What a lovely thought.
As if reading my mind—or maybe just noticing that my eyelids are closing—Vince gathers me in his arms and carries me into the bedroom.
I do want to sleep, but first...
I pick up a faded photo from my night table. The photo that has been resting on my night table for as long as I remember, in all the different places I’ve lived.
“That’s my dad,” I say.
It was the eighties, and he’s wearing glasses that seem woefully uncool now. Or maybe they’ve become cool again—I’m not an expert on these things. Carrie would know.
My dad is holding me. I’m in a fussy pink dress, grinning impishly at the camera, and my dad sports a similar grin.
He’s looking at me as though I’m the greatest thing that ever happened to him.
At least, that’s what I always imagined when I looked at this picture.
My mom told me real stories about him, but sometimes she’d invent fantastical stories in which he’d save the day. I’d listen with rapt attention, and I did my best to behave.
But one time when I was thirteen, I wanted to go to the mall with my friends, and my mom wouldn’t let me because I had chores and schoolwork.
“I bet Dad would have let me,” I shot back.
As soon as I said it, I knew I’d gone too far.
My normally-stoic mother burst into tears.
The absence of my father has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, but this pregnancy has made it more difficult than it’s been in years. The major life change...it makes me think of what might have been.
Pearl’s pregnancies were planned, unlike mine, and she put off having children for a while because she couldn’t imagine doing it without her mother, who’d died when Pearl was twenty-three. She couldn’t imagine not having her mother to turn to for help—and to provide unwanted advice. She couldn’t imagine being in the hospital with her new baby and not getting a visit from her mom, who’d coo over the baby and say they were beautiful no matter what.
And then you add shit like this on top of pregnancy hormones and complicated feelings for the father of your baby, who opened up to me in a way I suspect he rarely does.
When I met him, I saw only one thing.
But I’ve begun to trust him. Trust him with more than my pleasure, which I’m actually not trusting him with right now, in part because I’m afraid it would mean something, unlike that first weekend, and I’m not ready for that yet. It’s hard for me to have meaningless sex with a guy when I’m having his baby.
Though I did agree to the date.
Vince kisses me again, and I feel raw and vulnerable and safe all at the same time. I didn’t tell him everything going through my mind, but somehow, I feel like he knew.
* * *
When I wake up from my nap two hours later, Vince is gone. He’s left a small slice of chocolate cake—where did it come from? I thought we ate all the cake?—on a plate with fruit salad, next to a fork on the kitchen table. There’s also a “pregnant and cute” shirt, which makes me chuckle.
I send him a text.
Thank you.
Chapter 17
Vince
I set out to prove to Marissa that I’m more than a playboy. That was my goal. Then she’d hopefully fall in love with me and agree to marry me, and I would have the family life that I suddenly craved.
I would devote myself to being a good father and husband.
But whenever I do something for Marissa, it’s not because of my goal. I don’t think to myself, This will make her like me more!
I do things for her because it’s what I want to do.
I like seeing her drool while I cook sausages. I love the way she moans when she eats cheesecake. I love telling her stories about my family and childhood so she can gently laugh at me.
I enjoy these quiet moments.
It didn’t used to be this way. I used to need everything to be as loud and hedonistic as possible, as I tried to forget about my inner turmoil. Even when that life started to lose its appeal, I didn’t know what else to do with myself.
But then there was Evie. She’d wrap her tiny hand around my finger and give me a glimmer of a smile, and that filled me with joy.
And then there was Marissa and our unborn child.
I wanted her to fall in love with me because she said love was a requirement for marriage for her. I figured I’d come to love her, but I didn’t think about my feelings too much; I was focused on Marissa.
And now, it’s happened.
I’ve fallen in love.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but sometime between the appointments and running around to get her food and kissing her in her kitchen and bantering and listening and tucking her into bed...
Yes, I’m in love now, and I’m determined that our first date—weird to think of a first date when she’s pregnant with my child—will be wonderful.
It can’t be too showy though, because Marissa wouldn’t like that.
She can’t drink alcohol or eat raw fish...and various other things, so there are some limitations. I also don’t want to go to any of my usual haunts, because I don’t want anyone to recognize me. I don’t think Marissa would enjoy that.
Well, this will be a bit of a challenge, but I’m up for it.
* * *
Friday night finally arrives.
I doubt Marissa wants to be shuttled around by a driver, so I drive myself. I park in the outside visitors’ parking area at her condo and take the elevator up to the third floor, as I’ve done several times before.
When she opens the door, I grin. She’s wearing a red dress that doesn’t show a huge amount of skin, but it clings to her curves. Curves I haven’t gotten a close look at since January.
But I remember every detail.
Her body looks a little different now, thanks to the pregnancy, and I feel a possibly-ridiculous sense of pride.
“Shit.”
That’s the first word she says to me.
“Are we going somewhere really fancy?” she asks, taking in my outfit. “I’m not dressed for that.”
“You look lovely,” I say, “but if you don’t feel like being seen with me in a three-piece suit, perhaps I can take you to the bedroom instead?” I lean casually against the doorframe.
She rolls her eyes.
I don’t know why, but I enjoy her eye rolls.
“No, we’re going out,” she says. “I can get changed if I need to.”
“You look perfect. Honestly, we’re not going anywhere fancy. I just enjoyed the way you threw yourself at me the last time I wore this.”
“I did not throw myself at you.”
I smirk at her expression of outrage. “Fine, fine, you didn’t throw yourself at me. You just said, and I quote, ‘You’re really fucking handsome in that suit,” and kissed me. Now, I have lots of plans for tonight. Let’s head out.”
We go downstairs and I help her into my car. I haven’t seen her in almost a week, not since I realized I love her, and it feels lik
e far too long. I itch to touch her more, but I’ll save that for later.
It takes us close to half an hour to get to our destination. I park on the street and lead her to a bar on Ossington.
She looks at me skeptically. “Is the food really good?”
“No, we’re eating somewhere else.”
“You know I can’t drink.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
She doesn’t ask any further questions as we head inside. I’ve gotten to know this bar well over the past week. It’s one of these quirky, dimly-lit places with antique lampshades. I lead her to the back corner, where there are two red armchairs by a low wood table. There’s a menu on the table, and I hand it to Marissa.
“There’s an extensive selection of mocktails on the last page,” I say. “So I can still take you out for drinks even though you can’t have alcohol.”
I hope she likes this. I spent a lot of time looking online for mocktails in the city, and then I went out and tried three places. This one was the best. I came back a second time so I could try more drinks, the better to properly advise Marissa.
“The one with ginger beer is my favorite,” I say. “Ginger beer, pear, and vanilla. It works really well.”
Ugh, maybe I’m trying too hard. I don’t know. “Trying too hard” hasn’t been a problem for me in the past few years, but yeah, I did extensive research on mocktails just for this date.
“You come here regularly?” Marissa asks. “And you’re familiar with the mocktails? I’d expect you to drink, well, alcohol.”
“I knew nothing about mocktails until five days ago.”
And then I went totally overboard.
Her eyes soften.
“Vince,” she says, patting my hand.
Nobody looks at me like Marissa does. Nobody else is moved by my actions.
Will she come to love me?
I swallow. “Anyway, if that ginger beer mocktail sounds good to you, you should get it.”
“Okay,” she says, but rather than putting down the menu, she continues to study it. “I’m curious about the one with lemon, rosemary simple syrup, and muddled strawberries.”
“I haven’t tried it before,” I say. “I’ll get it and you can have a taste, alright?”
She nods before turning back to the menu, as though she cannot leave a single menu item unstudied, even if she knows what she’s ordering. She’s thorough. I like it.
