by ANDREA SMITH
“Have you and Tristan thought about any names for the baby yet? I mean we need to make sure that we don’t have the same names lined up for our baby.”
(Okay - where in the hell is she coming off with this? My baby is freaking due first.)
“Well Ty, suppose we did have the same names selected for a boy? What then?”
Tylar looked at me quizzically. She got that I was getting a little bit irritated with her.
“Well, I don’t know. I guess I haven’t thought it through. I figured you would probably be naming your baby after Tristan.”
“I see,” I replied, “I guess I presumed that you would be naming your baby, if in fact it is a boy, after Trey.”
“Gina, are you pissed off at me for something?”
“Well maybe I am a little bit, girlfriend. I mean for Chrissake, you act like you are the only one with problems. You whine about Trey and Amber constantly; when you’re not whining about them you’re going on about how sick you feel. Now you freakin’ want to lay claim to a boy’s name when you aren’t even fucking sure you’re having one and I am. Plus, my baby is due first.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“That means I will name him anything I damn well please. I don’t need your permission to do so.”
I saw her tear up immediately. God, now I really felt like a piece of shit.
“Hey Ty, I’m sorry-”
She held her hand up and shook her head.
“Don’t apologize, Gina. You simply said what you felt. I’m sorry that I have burdened you with my problems. I didn’t realize how taxing that must have been for you. I won’t bring either of those topics up to you again. I promise.”
“Tylar-”
We were interrupted when Trey came into the room with the infamous Amber trailing behind him.
“Well hi, Gina. I thought that was your car out front. How are you?”
“Hey Trey, I’m doing fine. Just came out to check on my BFF. We don’t get to see each other much these days.”
Trey looked over at Tylar; he could tell she was upset. He looked quickly back to me. I gave him a non-committal shrug.
Amber cleared her throat beside Trey.
“I’m sorry. Gina, this is our new partner at the firm, Amber Stratton. Amber, this is Gina Hatton.”
Amber held her well-manicured hand out to me, flashing me what was meant to be her totally, intimidating, ‘I-can-have-any-man-I-want’ look. Oh yes, Tylar had reason to hate this bitch.
“Amber, so nice to meet you,” I cooed, flashing her one of my ‘don’t-be-messing-with-my-man’ smiles, with a slight nod of my head to top it off.
“Gina? Are you Tristan’s Gina, then?”
(Now how in the hell did she know that?)
“Well . . . yes. Do you know Tristan?”
I could see that Tylar had taken an immediate interest in the way the conversation was going. She was all ears now.
“Well ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ I guess,” she laughed softly. “I mean I know he is Trey’s older brother; and I know that I’ve caught a glimpse or two of him at The Shady Lady when I’ve been out with friends, but the reason that I put it together just now was from Ian.
(Huh?)
“I beg your pardon?”
I could tell that even Trey’s interest had been sparked by that one.
“Oh I am sorry,” she said, managing to produce a soft blush on her cheeks. “I suppose that is a sore subject with you.”
“Not really,” I lied, “You know Ian?”
“Well, I mean I only met him once. It was about a month ago at The Shady Lady. He was fairly talkative; he mentioned your name and pointed Tristan out to me. I’ve just got a great memory, I guess. It’s like a steel trap. Once imbedded in my mind, I don’t forget it.”
“Well I suppose that comes in pretty handy in the line of work you’re in then.”
“Why yes; it serves my purpose well.”
(Why do I think she’s not referring to case law here?)
“Well at any rate, it’s been a pleasure, Amber. Tylar, I’m going to take off now. Hope you feel better soon.”
“Gina you can stay longer if you want.”
It was Tylar’s half-ass attempt to say she wasn’t going to throw me out for being pissy with her, but I felt extremely uncomfortable at the moment for a variety of reason. Besides that, I had another stop to make before going home.
CHAPTER 8
It was not even five o’clock when I pulled up in front of the condo that Ian and I had shared. His Mustang was in the driveway. What the hell did he do these days? Did he even have a job? My guess was that he was blowing through the money he got from the sale of his half of the club. It was kind of sad.
I hoped that he was sober. I needed some information from him. He was an ugly drunk so hopefully the more sober I caught him, the more cooperative he would be.
I rang the bell a couple of times before he answered. He was surprised to see me. As near as I could tell, it was a ‘sober’ surprise. He was dressed, shaved, and looked presentable.
“Giner? Bloody hell. What do you want?”
“Ian, can I have five minutes of your time?”
He looked beyond me warily; he was trying to see if Tristan was lurking behind the bushes, apparently. How paranoid was that?
“It’s just me, Ian. No one is with me, for Chrissake.”
“Yeah - come on in,” he relented.
I followed him inside, taking a seat on an obvious second-hand plaid sofa. He looked over at me expectantly.
“Ian, do you remember talking to a very attractive brunette at the club a month or so ago? Mid-thirties, dark eyes -”
“Big, perky tits?” he finished for me. “Of course, I remember Amber. What the hell? I’m not eighty.”
“I know, I know; it’s just that you’re drunk most of the time, so I never know how your sense of recall is affected.”
“Look, if you came here to fucking insult me you can get the hell out of here right now!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just need to know what she talked to you about.”
“Why?”
(Holy shit! Why did I think Ian would cooperate? Even if he did offer information, how would I know if it was the truth or not? He wasn’t exactly in my court on this. I had to give him a reason not to lie.)
“It’s just that I went out to visit Tylar today. She mentioned that Trey is spending a lot of time with Amber. She’s a new partner in the law firm. Anyway, while I was there, Trey and Amber came to the house. I guess they are working a lot of late hours at Trey and Tylar’s. Amber somehow knew that you and I were divorced.”
“So?”
“So I just wondered if, during your conversation with her, she mentioned anything much about Trey. I think Tylar has concerns that Amber might be trying to hit on him, you know?”
“I don’t know anything about that. She mentioned Trey in passing a couple of times, but actually she seemed more interested in Tristan.”
(There it was! I needed to act surprised.)
“Tristan? How would she know Tristan?”
“Sorry, love. I didn’t press her on the details. He’s not one of my favorite people, as you know. She was just going on about his big dick; said something about a birthmark, too. That caught me funny. What’s the story on that?”
(I have no clue about any birthmark . . .)
“What? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen his bum, Giner?”
“I’m not going to share private information with you like that, Ian.”
“Hah, you don’t even know about it. I can tell. Well, next time you and King Stud are in the sack, roll him on his belly and look for a small birthmark on one of his bum cheeks; looks like a devil’s fork, according to Amber.”
“Whatever Ian; I came here to see what you knew about Amber and Trey. Obviously, you are still hell bent on making everything about Tristan.”
I got up and headed for the door. Ian was beside me in an
instant.
“Hey - you asked me what she talked about and I gave you the truth, Giner. She may be interested in Trey, she seems kinky that way, but she talked more about Tristan. That’s how she knew we used to be married. I shared my opinion of Tristan with her; I told her that my ex was involved with him. Trust me; I don’t bring either of your names up when I’m in the company of a beautiful babe. It can be a mood killer. She is the one who brought it up. I just gave my opinion.”
“Thanks Ian,” I said as I walked out of the condo. “Take care.”
I tried to process the information on my way back to our apartment. What the hell was that all about? I wouldn’t believe that Tristan had lied to me. As much as it was killing me, I simply had to bide my time and see what developed. I wasn’t going to stir the pot until I had objective evidence that Tristan had lied about being with anyone other than me. I had no clue how long Amber had been in Atlanta.
I thought back to Tylar’s ramblings about her. I wanted to kick myself in the ass for not paying more attention to her. She had mentioned something about Amber going to Stanford Law School. That was in northern California, I was pretty sure. What significance did that offer? Northern California was a huge area, in and of itself. Perhaps my best bet was to find a way to bring up the topic of Amber to Tristan. Yes, that would allow me to gauge his reaction.
Tristan was already home when I got there. He was stretched out on the sofa with ESPN blaring.
“Hey babe,” he said as I came into the living room. “Where you been?”
“I went out and visited Tylar as you suggested.”
“Great. How’d it go?”
“Well, actually I got a bit shitty with her.”
He cocked his eyebrow, waiting for me to continue.
“It’s just that she started on about feeling sick, rambling on about some law partner of Trey’s, and then wanting to make sure we didn’t have the same boy’s name picked out for our babies. It rubbed me wrong, that’s all.”
“Well how did you leave it?”
“Kind of up in the air, I guess. We were interrupted when Trey came home from work. He brought that new partner with him. I think her name is Amber. Have you met her?”
(Watching him closely; looking to read his expression at the mention of her name. Nothing.)
“Not really,” he said, “She’s been in the club a couple of times with Trey and some of the other lawyers at the firm for happy hour. That’s about the extent of it. Is Tylar upset about her or something?”
“Oh you know; it’s likely just pregnancy hormones at work. She’s certain that Amber is out for Trey.”
“Well as far as I could tell, nothing stood out to me while they were there. She seemed to be getting equal attention from all the lawyers at the table. Tylar needs to calm down; she doesn’t need to be getting herself out of sorts right now.”
(Exactly. Thank you, Tristan!)
“Hey,” I said, smacking his leg so that he would scoot over. “How about we snuggle for a little bit? I missed you today.”
“I missed you too, sweet baby.”
CHAPTER 9
It had been another couple of weeks and I hadn’t talked to Tylar. That was a record for us. I probably should have called to apologize to her; I had been pretty snippy. It would have been nice if she had picked up the phone first, though.
Tristan and I had the nursery in order. The only thing we still needed was a wooden cradle. That was Tristan’s idea. I frankly thought that a bassinet served the same purpose and they were easy to find. Tristan was adamant that we find just the right wooden rocking cradle for our room. We had been to several places, but nothing suited him. He was being extremely particular about this.
I was meeting Tristan at the club this evening. He wanted us to have dinner there together. As promised, he had hired a night manager and his hours had been reduced. We had more time together which was great. Ian had not bothered us any further. Everything was going well, which always put me on edge.
I showered and dressed for my dinner date with Tristan. My baby bump was very obvious now and I wore it proudly. Tristan and I enjoyed feeling the baby kick and would lie for hours in bed watching and feeling.
The doorman buzzed up that my cab was waiting out front. Tristan didn’t want me driving in Atlanta traffic at night. He was being overly protective, which I was starting to get used to.
Tristan saw me immediately when I entered the club. It was fairly crowded but it was Friday evening so there were a lot of professional people still enjoying happy hour; others were arriving for dinner.
“Hey sweet baby,” he said, lowering his face to kiss me. “You look very beautiful this evening.”
“You don’t look so bad yourself, babe,” I said, kissing him back.
“Hey,” he continued, “I heard that Trey and some of his partners are here. Let’s go say hello before we go to the dining room. I was told they’re sitting at a table on the other side of the bar.”
“Sure, let’s go say our hellos.”
(Show time!)
Tristan escorted me over to the table, his arm around me. I saw immediately that Amber was sitting next to Trey. There were two other male lawyers at the table both looking as if they were in their late forties or early fifties. All eyes were on Amber as she was going on about something. Trey spotted us and raised his eyes off of Amber to look up as we approached.
I watched as Amber turned her attention to follow Trey’s gaze. Her eyes skipped over me and went straight to Tristan where they stopped and didn’t move.
“Don’t get up,” Tristan said. “We just wanted to say hello. Jo Anna mentioned you were here.”
Trey introduced Tristan and I to the other two partners, saving Amber for last.
“Of course Gina has already met Amber at our place; but I’m not sure if you’ve met my brother, Tristan.”
“He looks vaguely familiar,” she cooed, eyeing him boldly. “Perhaps it’s from being in here.”
Tristan shook her hand; his expression offered no indication that he had met her before. She continued gazing at him as he told them to enjoy their evening and said something to Trey about coming over Sunday to watch the Braves on television. He then pulled me along with him as we made our way to the dining room.
As my luck would have it, Sunny was our waitress. She maintained her professional stance in front of me. There had been no further incidents of her being insubordinate to me; Jo Anna assured me that if she witnessed any flirtatious behavior towards Tristan I would be the first to know.
After she left with our orders I asked Tristan if he wanted to switch entrees.
“Why? If you’ve changed your mind I’ll call Sunny back and change your order.”
“That wouldn’t do any good. I’m sure the bitch is going to spit in whatever it is that I order.”
Tristan chuckled, taking my hand in his. “You really do have a beautiful glow about you, Gina.”
“Tristan, puleeze,” I said.
“What? Why is it you are so uncomfortable with me telling you things like that, Gina?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging, “I guess I’ve never believed that I’m pretty, much less beautiful.”
“That’s probably because Ian never told you that. He never appreciated what he had.”
“No,” I replied, “In all honesty, Ian did tell me that. I just never believed him, either.”
Tristan regarded me quizzically. He probably thought I was fishing for more compliments. The truth was, compliments made me uneasy. I didn’t feel compliment worthy.
“I guess I don’t understand. Did you have some sort of a weight problem, buck teeth, or Stage 4 acne growing up?”
I had to giggle at Tristan. He could be so damn funny at times.
“No,” I said, “I don’t know. I guess I just never ran with the popular chicks, or the sorority sisters, or the cheerleaders. I was just kind of a loner growing up. I actually wasn’t in to make-up or clothes back then.”
>
“That is difficult to fathom,” he said with a chuckle. “So, what was it like growing up in New Jersey? You haven’t told me a whole lot about it, or your family for that matter. I want to know everything about young Gina, teenage Gina.”
I wasn’t comfortable going there. Not with Tristan. Not with anyone. My past wasn’t all that pretty. I preferred for it to stay just where it was. I didn’t allow visitation.
“Actually Tristan, it was pretty routine and boring. I was raised Catholic; attended parochial schools. I have an older brother, Peter. He was two years ahead of me in school. He was very athletic and popular. I was more of a wallflower. That’s about it.”
“I’m sure there’s more to it than that. I imagine you have some fairly colorful stories to tell.”
“Well I don’t,” I snapped, instantly regretting my tone. “I’m sorry, Tristan. I didn’t mean to snap. I just really didn’t enjoy high school.”
“Well who did, I suppose? That’s alright, babe. We can talk about something else.”
(Yes, please!)
Tristan and I enjoyed the rest of our dinner. I couldn’t shake the image of Amber from my mind; the intensity of her gaze on Tristan. He had seemed oblivious to it. Right about now I was wishing that I wasn’t estranged from Tylar. This was the kind of stuff a BFF could help with.
Once home, Tristan hit the shower. I gathered the appropriate props for our room. I had an idea brewing that might help. I lit some aromatherapy candles placing them around the bed. I switched on the flat screen and located a music channel that was playing relaxation mood sounds. I changed into a silk nightgown and dimmed the lighting. I rummaged through my purse, locating my pen size flashlight and tucked it underneath the folded quilt at the foot of the bed. There. Tristan was going to get a full body massage and I was going to conduct a covert birthmark search in the process.
Tristan emerged from the bathroom with a bath towel tucked around his hips. He immediately noticed the ambience I had incorporated into our room.
