Beautiful

by Christina Lauren

  “Actually, no,” she said with a laugh. “Max and the family are staying at a hotel. Bennett and Chloe are staying with us.”

  “Bennett and Chloe?” I asked, grinning. “You’re not afraid?”

  “No, that’s the best part.” She leaned in, eyes wide. “It’s like Chloe and Sara have traded personalities during their pregnancies. You seriously have to see it to believe it.”

  As predicted, when Ziggy opened the door Saturday morning, the only thing I could see behind her was a flash of color and silk and tiny sprinting bodies. A small child ran into her legs, hugging them fiercely and propelling her forward into my arms.

  “Hey,” my sister said, grinning up at me. “I bet you’re already glad you came.”

  I glanced over her shoulder at the entryway beyond. A pile of assorted children’s shoes lay near the front door, and I could see a mountain of birthday presents stacked on the dining room table through a wide, Craftsman-style doorway.

  “I’m always up for some of Will’s cooking,” I said, setting her upright and stepping past her into the melee. In the distance, over the sound of Will’s deep laugh in the kitchen, was a chorus of squeals and shrieks and what I imagined to be Annabel’s clear cry of “It’s my birthday! I get to be Superman!”

  I needed more coffee.

  I wasn’t really a very deep sleeper and had spent a majority of the middle of last night awake, sitting in my living room and trying to remember each of the times I’d done something purely social—for myself—in the past five years.

  The problem was, other than the gym, my softball games on Thursdays, and drinks or coffee with one of my friends afterward, I didn’t feel like I had all that much going on. My social calendar was packed, sure, but it was nearly always a work dinner, a visiting client, some milestone the partners wanted to mark with a lavish meal. Two years ago I’d come to the depressing realization that too much time on the road and the couch had left me out of shape. I’d started running and weightlifting again, dropping thirty pounds and putting on some muscle. I rediscovered my love for fitness only to realize that I hadn’t actually done it to look better or catch someone’s eye. I’d done it to feel better. Aside from that, nothing significant in my life had changed since then.

  My failed marriage was something I tried not to think about, but late into last night I had registered that Becky’s leaving me had set off a chain reaction: heartbreak led me to dive into work, which brought me success, which grew into its own sort of obsessive reward. And at some point I knew I had to commit either to work, or to a life outside of it. Six years ago, with bitterness fueling most of my thoughts about romantic relationships, the decision had been easy.

  Now I was happy, wasn’t I? Not entirely fulfilled, maybe, but content, at the very least. But my sister’s mild needling last night had sent me into a cold panic. Was I going to die an old man in my neat-as-a-pin not-so-bachelor pad while color-coding a closet full of cardigans? Should I give up now and take up gardening?

  I slipped down the hall and out the back into the yard. Dozens of balloons were tied to the fence and the trees, anchored with ribbons to white folding chairs, and arranged along a series of small round tables. A white cake with ruffled frosting topped with a little plastic giraffe, elephant, and zebra sat in the center of the largest table near the patio.

  A handful of small children in sweaters and scarves raced across the lawn and I stepped carefully out of their way and toward the cluster of grown-up-size humans near the grill.

  “Jens!” Will’s familiar voice called to me, and I maneuvered my way over to him. More balloons hung from a vine-covered pergola, along with a safari-themed birthday banner.

  “I have never had a birthday party this cool,” I said, staring behind me at the color explosion in the backyard. “Annabel doesn’t even live here. Who are all these kids?”

  “Well, Liv’s kids are . . . somewhere,” he said, glancing around. “The rest belong to Max and Sara, or people Hanna works with.”

  I blinked at him before looking back out at the yard. “This is your future.”

  I said it with a joking bleakness, but Will beamed. “Yep.”

  “Okay, okay. I think I’m past the opportunity for more coffee. Where’s the beer?”

  He pointed to a cooler beneath their large oak tree. “But there’s some scotch inside you might want to try.”

  I turned just as Max Stella stepped out onto the patio, grinning over at the gaggle of kids sprinting around the lawn. Max and Will had started a venture capital firm together years ago in New York, and seemed to be the exalted odd couple of arts and sciences: their expertise and keen eyes for their respective fields had made them both very rich men. Though, I’ll admit, at six foot six and a genuine wall of muscle, Max looked more rugby brute than art fanatic.

  “If only we all made friends so easily,” Max said, watching the kids run amok.

  His wife, Sara, followed him out, holding her heavy pregnant belly and sitting in the chair Max held steady for her.

  I shook his hand in greeting before turning to Sara. “Please don’t get up,” I told her, bending to place a kiss on her cheek.

  “I’m trying to be in a bad mood,” she said, a hint of a smile tugging at her mouth. “Your chivalry is melting my pregnancy rage.”

  “I promise to work harder on being a jerk,” I said solemnly. “Though congratulations are in order—I haven’t seen you since this one started cooking. What is this? Number four?”

  “Four in what is it now, Max? Four years?” Will said, grinning over the top of his beer. “Maybe take a nap or something. Find a hobby.”

  The door opened again and Bennett Ryan stepped out, followed by Ziggy and a very pregnant Chloe.

  “I’d say he’s already got a hobby,” Bennett said.

  Bennett and Max had been friends since they’d attended school together in Europe. And while Max was all friendly smiles and charm, Bennett was the personification of stony. He rarely joked—or smiled much, that I had seen—so when he did, you noticed. His mouth went a little lopsided, the line of his shoulders softened. He got that way when he looked at his wife, too.

  He was practically beaming now.

  It was . . . disorienting.

  “Jensen!” The sound of my name jerked my attention around behind me again. Chloe crossed the patio and pulled me down into a hug.

  I blinked for a moment, glancing curiously over to Will before finally wrapping my arms around her. I had, without a doubt, never hugged Chloe before.

  “H-Hey there! How are you?” I said, pulling back to look at her. Both pregnant women were small-boned, but where Sara was willowy and delicate, there was a fierceness about Chloe you couldn’t overlook. The Chloe I knew was not exactly what you’d call touchy-feely, and I was at a bit of a loss for words. “You look—”

  “Happy!” she finished for me, and reached down to place a hand on her round stomach. “Ecstatic and just . . . blissed the fuck out?”

  I laughed. “Well . . . yes?”

  She winced, looking down at the kids on the lawn. “Shit, I’d better work on not swearing.” Realizing what she’d just said, she groaned, laughing. “I am hopeless!”

  Bennett slid a gentle hand around her shoulders and she leaned into him . . . and then giggled.

  We all stared on in bewildered silence.

  Finally Max spoke: “They haven’t tried to kill each other in at least four months. It’s confusing the hell out of everyone.”

  “I’m worrying everyone with how agreeable I’ve been,” Chloe said with a nod. “Meanwhile sweet Sara couldn’t open a jar of peanut butter last week and lost it so completely she launched it out the window and onto the sidewalk of Madison Avenue.”

  Sara laughed. “No one was injured. Just my pride, and my long-running streak of good behavior.”

  “George has threatened to leave Sara and go work for Chloe,” Bennett said, referring to Sara’s assistant, who had a famous snark-hate relationship with Chloe. �
��Armageddon is clearly upon us.”

  “Okay, okay, quit hogging my brother.” Ziggy stepped around Chloe and threw her arms around my neck. “You’re still here!”

  I gazed again in confusion at Will. “Of course I’m still here. I haven’t been given cake yet.”

  As if I’d uttered the magic word, a handful of children appeared, bouncing excitedly and asking if it was time to blow out the candles. Ziggy excused herself and led them to where another group was playing Red Rover.

  “When are you both due?” I asked.

  “Sara is due at the end of December,” Chloe said. “I’m December first.”

  At that, we all seemed to take a moment to look around us, sitting in the mild October chill with leaves falling sporadically.

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” she said, noting everyone’s mother-hen expressions. “This is my last trip and then I’m back in New York until this little thing arrives.”

  “Do you know if you’re having a boy or girl?” I asked.

  Bennett shook his head. “Chloe’s DNA has definitely been handed down, because the baby was too stubborn to let the technician get a good enough look to tell.”

  Max snorted, glancing expectantly at Chloe for her sharp comeback, but Chloe just shrugged and smiled.

  “So true!” she sang, stretching to kiss Bennett’s jaw.

  Given that Bennett and Chloe’s unique brand of flirtation looked strongly like verbal sparring matches, watching her brush aside his attempt to rile her up was . . . well, kind of disconcerting in a way. For all its normalcy, it was a bit like watching an alien courtship ritual.

  Ziggy returned from the yard with the birthday girl in tow. “The kiddos are getting restless,” she said, and everyone took that as a sign that it was time to get the party started.

  I made small talk with Sara, Will, Bennett, and Chloe while Max, my sister, and a few of the other parents handed out ingredients to make some sort of dirt cup, complete with crushed Oreos, pudding, and gummy worms.

  Max’s brother Niall and his wife, Ruby, were the last to arrive, but I missed it in the chaos of sugar-fueled preschoolers.

  It was slightly jarring meeting Niall Stella for the first time. I’d grown used to being near Max, whose height was easy to forget because he seemed so comfortable in his skin, so eye-level emotionally with everyone. But Niall’s posture was textbook perfect—nearly rigid—and although I came in at a respectable six foot two myself, Niall had several inches on me. I stood to greet them both.

  “Jensen,” he said. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”

  Even their accents were different. I remembered Max telling me of the time he’d spent in Leeds, and how that had shaped the way he spoke, his words much looser and more common. But like everything else about Niall, even his accent was proper. “It’s a shame we couldn’t meet while we were all in London.”

  “Next trip,” I said, and waved him off. “I was slammed this time around. I wouldn’t have been much company. But it’s really great to be able to meet you both now.”

  Ruby pushed past him, stepping toward me and opting for a hug. In my arms, she felt like a willowy puppy: vibrating the slightest bit, bouncing on her toes. “I feel like I already know you,” she said, pulling back to smile widely up at me. “Everyone was at our wedding in London last year, and they all had stories about ‘the elusive Jensen.’ Finally, we meet!”

  Stories? Elusive?

  I wondered at that as we all took our seats. I didn’t feel like the most interesting person these days. Helpful? Yes. Resourceful? Sure. But elusive has some mystery to it that I just wasn’t feeling. It was strange to be thirty-four and sense that my life was slowing down, that my best years were somehow behind me, especially when I seemed to be the only one who felt that way.

  “Ziggy didn’t stop talking about you for about a month after the wedding,” I told Ruby. “It looked like an amazing event.”

  Niall smiled down at her. “It was.”

  “So what brings you to the States?” I asked. I knew Ruby had moved to London for an internship that eventually led to a graduate program, and that the couple currently called London home.

  “We’re taking a trip to celebrate our first anniversary, just going a little later than planned,” he explained. “We started here, to pick up Will and Hanna.”

  Ruby bounced on her feet. “We’re doing a tour of breweries and wineries up the coast!”

  Her enthusiasm was infectious.

  “What places are you hitting?” I asked.

  “Hanna rented a van,” Niall said. “We’re starting down in Long Island and over two weeks are working our way to Connecticut, and then to Vermont. Your sister organized the entire thing.”

  “I used to work out there at a winery on North Fork,” I told them. “Every summer in college, I worked at Laurel Lake Vineyards.”

  Ruby’s palm playfully smacked my shoulder. “Shut up! You’re an expert at all of this!”

  “I can’t shut up,” I said, grinning at her. “It’s true.”

  “You should come along,” she said, nodding as if it were already decided. Glancing at Niall, she gave him a winning smile, and he laughed quietly. She turned toward Bennett, Chloe, and Will. “Tell him he should come.”

  “Innocent bystander here,” Will said, holding up his hands. “Keep me out of this.” He paused, taking a drink from his bottle. “Even though it sounds like a pretty great idea . . .”

  I stared blankly at him.

  “Just consider it, Jensen,” Ruby continued. “Will and Hanna and another friend are coming—and thank God Hanna doesn’t drink much, because at least one of us will be able to drive. It will be a fantastic group.”

  I had to admit, a local trip would be perfect. Although I had what felt like a million airline miles, the idea of flying somewhere for vacation sounded awful. A road trip, though . . . Maybe?

  But I couldn’t do it. I’d already been away from the office for more than a week, and I couldn’t fathom how I would tackle everything in time. “I’ll think about it,” I told them.

  “Think about what?” Ziggy said, joining us again.

  “They’re trying to convince your brother to join you on your trip,” Bennett told her.

  Ziggy nodded slowly at Ruby, as if digesting this. “Right. Jensen, would you help me get everything for the cake?”

  “Sure.”

  I followed my sister into the kitchen and moved to the cabinet, reaching for a stack of plates.

  “Do you remember what you told me at that party all those years ago?” she asked.

  I wondered if playing dumb would work.

  “Vaguely,” I lied.

  “Well let me clarify for you.” She opened a box and pulled out a handful of plastic forks. “We were looking at a bunch of hideous paintings, and you decided to lecture me about balance.”

  “I didn’t lecture you,” I said with a sigh. Her only response was a sharp laugh. “I didn’t. I only wanted you to get out more, live more. You were twenty-four and barely saw the outside of your lab.”

  “And you’re thirty-four and barely see the outside of your office and/or house.”

  “It’s entirely different, Ziggs. You were just starting life. I didn’t want you to let it pass you by while you had your nose stuck in a test tube.”

  “Okay, first, I never actually had my nose in a test tube—”

  “Come on.”

  “Second,” she said, staring me down, “I might have just been starting life, but you’re the one letting everything pass you by. You’re thirty-four, Jens, not eighty. I go over to your house and keep waiting to find an AARP membership on your coffee table or those sock suspender things in your laundry.”

  I blinked at her. “Be serious.”

  “I am serious. You never go out—”

  “I go out every week.”

  “With who? The partners? Your softball friend?”

  “Ziggs,” I chastised, “you know her name is Emily.” />
  “Emily doesn’t count,” she said.

  “What’s your deal with Emily, for fuck’s sake?” I asked, frustrated. Emily and I were friends . . . with benefits. The sex was good—really good, actually—but it was never more, for either of us. Three years into it, and it had never gone beyond that.

  “Because she’s not a step forward for you, she’s a step to the side. Or maybe even backward, because as long as you have accessible sex, you won’t ever bother looking for something more fulfilling.”

  “You think I’m pretty deep, then?”

  Ignoring this, she continued, “You were in London for a week and didn’t do anything but work. Last time you spent a weekend in Vegas and didn’t even see the Strip. You’re wearing a cashmere sweater, Jensen, when you should be in a tight T-shirt showing off your muscles.”

  I stared at her blankly. I couldn’t decide which of these was worse: that my sister was saying this, or that she was saying it at a three-year-old’s birthday party.

  “Okay, gross, you’re right.” She shivered dramatically. “Let’s strike what I just said from the record.”

  “Make your point, Ziggs. This is getting tedious.”

  She sighed. “You’re not an old man. Why do you insist on acting like one?”

  “I . . .” My thoughts hit the brakes.

  “Just do something fun with us. Let loose, get drunk, maybe find a nice girl and get your freak on—”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Okay, strike that last part,” she said. “Again.”

  “I’m not crashing their anniversary trip and being the third . . .” I did the math. “Fifth wheel. That’s not going to add any sort of boost to my social life.”

  “You wouldn’t be any wheel. You heard them, they have another friend coming along,” she said. “Come on, Jens. It’s a group of good people. It could be so much fun.”

  I laughed. Fun. I hated to admit it, but my sister had a point. I’d come straight home from a solid, nonstop workweek in London—with many, many consecutive nonstop workweeks before that—with every intention of heading back into work on Monday. I hadn’t planned for any downtime.

  A couple of weeks off wouldn’t hurt, would they? I’d left the London office in good shape for the upcoming trial, and my colleague Natalie could handle everything else for a little while. I had more than six weeks of accrued vacation, and the only reason it wasn’t more than that was because I’d cashed out on ten weeks four months ago, knowing I’d never use them.