by Rissa Brahm
“Oh,” she laughed, “right, the stroller.” She looked over her shoulder to find Ben so he could be part of the decision. No longer at the mesmerizing toy aisle, she caught him ogling her more-than-generous backside. It also had grown, and it surprised her how intrigued she was by the preparation her body took. No doubt Ben was intrigued, too.
She glared at him then lifted a seductive brow, followed by a head bob to come and join the discussion. “Hey, you.” She took her arms back from her father and Sylvia and patted then squeezed Ben’s ass before settling her arm around his trim waist. “I like the joggers, I think. I can get out there and exercise with the baby…but the storage capacity on the standard one, wow. What do you think, babe?”
Her father put his hand on her shoulder. “I could get you both, bitay, if you want?”
She glowered at her dad. Ben squeezed her hand, the one situated on his hip. God, she loved how he knew her thoughts, her anxiety at the moment of impact. She took a deep breath. “No, Dad, we’re okay.” Her father sometimes got carried away, forgetting she wanted her father, not his money. Always had.
And actually, they were more than fine. She and Ben were so on the same page with finances—frugal and conservative, they held most things priority above material wealth. Life and living, travel and impacting the world—oh yes, so “Mother Teresa” of them as band manager Dawn would have said. She laughed out loud at her life then compared to now. A hundred and eighty degrees. This, now was the thrill, the adventure she’d been seeking. Ben had helped define it for her.
Anyway, the itch for exploration, growth—it vibrated through them both and made Preeya even more certain of how right they were together. It connected them. One of many things that connect us, she thought as she squeezed him to her, his tight, lean waist in her grasp, sending a wave of heat from her chest to her core in a nanosecond. Her cheeks burned the next instant, but her father had been paying attention to his better half and so Preeya escaped the bout of embarrassment.
Sylvia fell back to walk with Preeya while her dad went to check out men’s ties. “Preeya, would you like to go with me to the café, grab a drink and a snack for the two of you?” Sylvia sent a warm glance toward Preeya’s belly. “And we can bring your father back a latte…and something for you, Ben?”
He nodded at Sylvia and smiled. “I’d love a double espresso, thanks.”
Preeya noticed how easy the two were around each other. The fact that Sylvia had survived cancer and Ben had intimately understood the fight, must have connected them on another level. Preeya didn’t have that with Sylvia. She hardly knew her dad yet, so to build a bond with a new stepmother was, again, not high on the priority list.
“Okay, sure, I could use a muffin or two.” Her stomach rumbled loud enough for the three of them to hear. Her cheeks heated. “Someone agrees.”
CHAPTER 48
“I’ve been thinking…” Sylvia towered over Preeya by about seven inches; add her three-inch heels and Preeya felt like a little girl next to the woman. Had she been a model? She hardly knew the woman’s background at all.
Preeya pulled out a bottle of water from her purse and chugged half of it. “Thinking? What about?”
“I wondered if after the baby is born…well, I know Ben works a great deal and Gigi will be having her little angel at nearly the same time. If you would like, I could come up from Berkeley and stay for a few weeks? I mean, I know we don’t know each other very well, but”—Sylvia sighed and held Preeya’s eyes with a look she’d never seen before—“I’d be honored to just be there for you. To help.”
Preeya inhaled, trying to cover up what might have looked like a gasp, but before a muddle of would-be words fell out, Sylvia cut in again.
“Not as a mom or even a stepmom.” The towering woman winked as she pulled out a chair for Preeya, then folded herself into the one across the café table. “Just as a friend. Preeya, I would love to be a part of this in any way that would help you.”
Preeya swallowed hard, not knowing how to answer. Moved but unable to picture the woman, essentially a stranger, in her house. For weeks. Helping Preeya adjust? Sore nipples and crappy diapers and crying—both the baby and her, potentially? “Wow, Sylvia…”
Sylvia placed her hand over Preeya’s. “Listen, I’ve been…needy this entire last decade—my treatments made life ugly, really ugly. I selflessly need to be needed for once, and for something beautiful, you know? Nothing’s more beautiful than a baby.”
Preeya felt her pulse in her toes and fingertips. Sylvia had her floored, just speechless.
“And…cancer took away my chances of ever having my own…so it would be a bit of vicarious baby joy. More than that, though, to get to know you, Preeya….” She got teary and blushed, then dabbed at her eyes with a rough café napkin. “Sorry, so silly…and melodramatic of me.” Sylvia shook her head and chuckled.
Preeya patted Sylvia’s hand and smiled, blinking away a surprise tear of her own. It was Sylvia’s vibe, her genuine desire to help, to be there for Preeya first and foremost…just surreal. Her chest felt warm, light, whirling with a distant and faded…something. Like a familiar, long-ago love. “Sylvia, I’d really like for you to stay and help with the baby.”
“Oh my…really?” Her stepmom covered her mouth, then her eyes, and shook her head for a few beats until she recomposed herself. “Wonderful.” And just like that, Sylvia the Sophisticated returned, now with an added glow to her softly aged, high-cheekboned face.
“It’ll be so nice to have you.”
She didn’t have to talk to Ben about it since he and Sylvia had established such a rapport—she knew he’d be glad for the help. Ben liked both Sylvia and her father very much. He’d said he “liked them separately and together, a rare thing.”
She smiled, then felt her cheeks heat. Earlier that day as they all had strolled through the department store’s crib section, her dad had gripped Sylvia’s butt—which swelled Preeya’s heart and turned her stomach at the same time. Ben had cracked up laughing, and through his outburst he’d promised to grip Preeya’s ass “hard and often” when they got old, too.
She relished the thought.
Strange, how balanced her dad and Sylvia seemed together—a weird but desired model to follow. Even with the several inches Sylvia had over her dad, they looked and acted like a fit. Less like a puzzle piece fit and more like two smooth and polished square stones whose surfaces complemented each other in color and design. Two whole and independent beings working in parallel. No overlapping, no one bleeding into the other. They seemed…synergistic. Yes, two souls working in unison toward…toward symbiotic contentment. With a lot of ass-grabbing thrill? Yeah, that’s it. What she’d always wanted for herself. Not the Josh Bolte inevitably derailing roller coaster, but rather the fast, splashing boat ride to the Marietas with her Ben.
Her heart swelled.
Sylvia tittered, her head cocked to the side. “You got lost in thought, sweetie?”
“Yes.” Preeya laughed then threw her hands to her cheeks, warm to the touch. “Just thinking about Ben. I hope we’re as happy as you and Dad seem to be.”
Sylvia glowed. “You will be, sweetie. In my heart I know you will be. Which leads me to a question…that you don’t have to answer.” Eyebrows up, chin down. “Between you and me, Preeya—so that I can help steer your father in the direction you’re really trying for—do you want a special wedding ceremony, even if it’s small? Or…just legal papers and done.”
Preeya nodded, appreciating Sylvia’s lack of bullshit. “I see it in Ben’s eyes, Sylvia…the ache. He does a strange thing when he remembers a time or an event—like his first wedding. His right eye twitches and he omits her name, just kind of motions with his head like she’s over his left shoulder or something. He does it more often now, when wedding-talk and questions come up from friends, family….”
Sylvia nodded with an understanding blink.
“But Ben offered—nearly insisted, in fact—that we do th
e whole aisle parade.” She chuckled. Walking down the aisle had never been a picture in her mind—not until Ben, but…“His words don’t match, you know, the other stuff, the signs. And I don’t want him to have any association, any guilt, any reminders. I told him, and it’s true, that all I need is him. The courthouse is fine. Just fine. Better than fine. I’m too tired for anything more, anyway.” She reclined into the hard wood café chair, giving her belly some space. “Hard enough planning my next meal, our next meal…” She rubbed her baby bump and puffed a light laugh, then reached for a fingerful of pumpkin pound cake.
“I get it, Preeya.” Sylvia leaned forward and lowered her chin. “Your father took three years to open up to me about anything, including starting a new chapter of life…with me. God, did he cling, you know, to the pain, to the memory of—”
Preeya swallowed, wondered. Would she go there?
Sylvia narrowed her eyes, cocked her head, and studied Preeya, a deep and in-tune several-moment analysis. “Your mom…haunted him…Preeya. But together we turned the haunting into…catharsis…and acceptance. So he, and I, could move forward. Not move on but move forward. With your mom. The good parts of her…like you and your sister, and the less than good parts, too—those parts and things and actions that had hurt your father and you girls, his babies. All of it taught and strengthened, right? And it doesn’t stop him from being with me. He’s better for it, more for it. He is who he is because of everyone and everything in his life up to now—including Jenny, his first love. Yes?”
Preeya could hardly breathe. “Yes.” An epiphany. She swallowed it, digested it, let it flow through her bloodstream. “I get it…I do.” How did she do that?
Preeya hated the delicacy surrounding the topic of her mother…and Sylvia just jumped right in. A big girl now, soon to be a mother with a dependent little girl or boy of her own, for Christ’s sake, Preeya hated the tiptoeing, the dancing. But Sylvia didn’t do the dance, the one that everyone—including her fiancé—had been dancing. Walls and halts and veering off this topic or that plan because Ben assumed he had to be so careful around her—and hell, she had to be ultra-wary around him…for his own sore spots.
And Sylvia’s perspective on marriage, and about her father—it just blew her mind. Sylvia had woken Preeya up to something.
Something huge.
Preeya licked her dry, cracked lips and inhaled, then tilted her head and leaned back, letting the new understanding fall into the slots of her brain and heart—the infinite categories she held for Preeya and Ben. Plink, plink, plink. Only five months of a whirlwind relationship enlightened in five minutes flat.
She stared at Sylvia, so wise—only two decades or so older than her, but the woman’s eyes carried lifetimes. Each expression line, every fine wrinkle, told some story. Sad, joyous, and everything in between. And with this woman, this essential stranger connected only by law, Preeya felt strangely…at home. She felt like confiding her underlying fears to Sylvia—about the baby, and not living up to Ben’s expectations, and becoming her god-awful mother, and her terrible grief over Prana. All of it snowballed, frozen hard in the center of her chest. She wanted it melted and drained. Her new stepmother’s warmth might just be her thawing fix.
“I’m scared, Sylvia. I’m scared that I won’t…I won’t be…” She cleared her throat, “…be who…ahem…God, excuse—” She coughed then swallowed then cleared her chest, but her parched throat tickled and itched, at the brink of a full-on coughing fit. “Excuse…sorry…water?” Was she choking on her dammed-up emotions, for Christ’s sakes? Those she’d been set to purge—finally? Now only wheezing rasps of harsh sound escaped.
Sylvia ran to the counter and snatched a bottle of water from the register’s display. “Drink, sweetie. Just go easy and drink.”
After several small sips between coughs, she caught her breath and composed herself.
“Better, sweetie?”
Meh. “Yes, better…” Except that she’d just coughed up her dread and couldn’t take it back. But redirection’s a thing. “You know, though, my bladder’s screaming at me pretty loud…”
“Right.” Sylvia nodded, maybe even catching the avoidance tactic. “Let’s go to the restrooms, then back to the guys.”
“Thanks, Sylvia.” Preeya might have been wrong. Maybe her new stepmom wouldn’t bring up the topic again. Her fear-based confession. Maybe this woman just really…went with the flow.
CHAPTER 49
Ben saw the women coming and cleared his throat, a sign for their discussion to end. Stat.
“Hey, boys…your hot love in a mug.” Sylvia giggled as she handed Preeya’s dad a coffee, then one to Ben.
Ben got up from the mall’s standard sit-and-wait-for-your-spouse seat so that Preeya could get off her feet.
“Did you get a good nap?” Sylvia asked Dr. Patel, who winked at Ben. God, the other man was bursting at the seams to talk about the surprise wedding. Ben prayed the silvering doctor wouldn’t blow it. “Yes, sweetie, we had a good rest together. Parallel snoozes.” Another wink in Ben’s direction. Did he not get that his daughter was maybe one of the most brilliant minds at one of the most competitive medical colleges in the nation? Please let her be too tired to notice her father’s over-the-top excitement.
They’d spent the past forty-five minutes going over dates and logistics. Who and how and when the few guests would be arriving in Vallarta, and where they’d all stay so that Preeya wouldn’t accidently run into anyone. He couldn’t lie, it was thrilling to think about—surprising her, sweeping her off her feet again in the very place they’d fallen in love, where they’d created their baby, and, yes, where they’d split up for a time but, against all odds, reunited.
Vallarta became their unofficial start, and a month from now it would be their official forever more. He took Preeya’s hand, pulled her up, slid under her, and brought her down onto his lap.
“Babe, I’m too—”
“Gorgeous and amazing to keep my hands off of,” he said, cutting her off with a harsh but playful whisper. With a gentle tug, he leaned her back to relax against him, then nuzzled her neck and rubbed her baby bump.
“Ben, we’re in the middle of a mall.” A return whisper of warning amid a betraying giggle.
Mmm, that giggle.
God, he could not wait. To vow in front of their family that he’d have and hold her through anything and everything, with their Marieta Islands in full, glorious view, their toes in the white sand, their hearts and hands intertwined.
Jesus, how cheesy, Ben.
Yes. But he couldn’t give a damn less—and could not wait a minute more…for Preeya to be his wife. But he would wait. A month. A month from now, after they’d handled final logistics, he’d make Preeya Patel, Preeya Trainer.
“I like those, Ben,” Sylvia said.
“What’s that, Sylvia?” He looked up from the crook of Preeya’s neck. Preeya’s stepmother leaned toward him as Dr. Patel stood up to take a call and Preeya thumb-typed like lightning on her phone—probably texting Gigi or Amy. “Sorry, Sylvia…I got lost in my own little world for a moment.”
“Of course, daddy-and-husband-to-be.” Sylvia winked and patted his arm. “Preeya was telling me the baby names. Puja for a girl—just lovely. And what was the boy’s?”
Ben cocked his head then covered himself with a quick smile. He thought they’d decided that not only would they keep the sex an unknown, but they’d also put off discussing baby names. They wanted to meet their baby face-to-face and let the name come to them. “Uh, yeah, Pree…what was the boy’s name we’d discussed again?” To Sylvia, “So many names thrown around, it’s hard to keep ’em all straight.”
Preeya’s thumbs paused before her chin lifted, then a beat or two passed before she met his pseudo-serious glare.
And cue her guilty, and damn gorgeous, smile. “Uh, yeah, no, I had just jotted down Puja and Palav the other day…you know, they just came to me. Brainstorms come when they want to.” Nervous laughter
fluttered from her lips as her father strolled back after ending his call. “But, yeah,” to Sylvia and her dad, “we’re waiting to meet him or her before we nail down any names.”
“Well, of course you are. I’ll call the family priest with the exact date and time of birth, like I did for you and your sister—get the true astrological chart done so you can select the right consonant sounds for the name. The true Hindu way.”
“Yes. Oh, that is what we want.” Preeya bounced with excitement on Ben’s lap.
Ben cleared his throat, then offered a pencil-line smile while his right hand squeezed Preeya’s thigh.
“Oh,” Preeya said, smiling back at Ben, “we haven’t actually talked about…religious affiliation yet, have we, babe?”
Ben gave her a slow, stern blink. “No, Pree, we haven’t. The courthouse makes that part easy, but how we raise our baby…gosh, we just haven’t discussed our plans yet.” He clutched Preeya’s hand harder at the we and our points of his statement.
It stuck in his throat, the principle of the matter—the potential that she had made a decision, decisions, without him. Without a thought? No hesitation. And yes, the matter of religion, though big to most people, was really not to him or to her, he’d thought. But again, it was the principle of it. He didn’t foresee any big conflict—just that he and Preeya had to put it out there and talk about it. Together. A new concept to her, he knew. He got that. And he didn’t mind showing her the way, how two people dealt with life matters together. He looked forward to it.
So forward to it.
In fact, he’d been trying to keep things so stress free for her—with her heavy class load on top of all the other crap she’d been faced with…since they’d met, really—that he maybe hadn’t set the right example. To protect her nerves, and the baby’s, he’d avoided all “big” topics, sparing her the stress.
But he couldn’t wait to plan their future, now that he felt excited to have a future.
