by Penny Reid
Sandra—who had to work the next day—left just before midnight with promises to return early. Quinn’s parents landed from Boston and met us in the waiting room around 1:00 AM. Elizabeth opened the door to the delivery room shortly thereafter, looking ridiculously chipper and inviting Quinn’s mom to join her, the nurse, and Janie, earning a scowl from Quinn.
I dozed off around two or three o’clock and awoke near four o’clock to find Dan gone again. I snuck out of the room, hoping to catch him on his way back. Again, I was thwarted, this time by a text from Elizabeth.
But when I fell asleep around five, I woke up to find Dan had carried me to a set of chairs with no armrest between them. His arm was around my shoulder and I was leaning heavily on his body, sleeping on his chest.
“Shh. Go back to sleep.” He smoothed my hair away from my face, kissing my forehead.
Bleary eyed, I glanced around the room and found Quinn and his father sitting across from each other, arms folded. It took me a minute to realize Quinn’s father wasn’t an actual mirror image of Quinn; they looked so much alike.
Neither were asleep and they were both still as statues, except Quinn’s knee was bouncing. Mr. Sullivan displayed no outward sign of anxiousness.
“Is Janie okay?” I snuggled closer to Dan, placing my hand on his stomach and enjoying his body beneath my fingers. Clearly, my sleepy brain was an opportunist and it high-fived itself all over the place.
“She’s fine. Her labor slowed down, but everything is fine. If she doesn’t progress, they’re going to give her some drugs to speed things up.”
“Oh.” I nodded, stroking my hand back and forth over his stomach. He felt fantastic.
He caught my fingers mid-stroke and brought them to his heart, whispering tightly, “Go back to sleep.”
“What about you? Don’t you need to sleep?” I yawned, stretching against him.
Dan groaned quietly, threading his fingers into my hair and massaged my scalp. “Please go back to sleep.”
“Feel free to use me, too. You can sleep on me if you want.”
The groan became a deeper sound in the back of his throat. “I will give you a million dollars if you go back to sleep right now.”
I wrinkled my nose, my sleepy brain not understanding why in the world Dan would offer me a million dollars when he knew I had billions.
Closing my eyes again, I inhaled the scent of him. “You smell good.”
Another kiss on my forehead. “I’ll wake you up if anything changes.”
“Thank you,” I said, smelling him again. He really did smell good. So good. Dreamy.
I felt him hesitate, like he was searching for words, but then finally settled on a strained, “You’re welcome,” and his other arm came around me and hugged me close.
As I drifted back to sleep, I wondered how long people in relationships waited until they slept in the same bed together.
I hoped the answer was immediately.
I needed caffeine.
I’d consumed three cups of coffee earlier in the day, but I was still exhausted from the paltry four hours of sleep from the night before. Paltry and magnificent, as they were spent curled up next to and on top of Dan.
Yet, four hours was still four hours. I could’ve gone home and slept, but I was unwilling to leave the hospital. My unwillingness stemmed from a number of factors:
Janie had her baby earlier in the morning, just after Marie finally arrived at the hospital. A healthy baby boy, and they named him Desmond, after Quinn’s father and oldest brother. My hope was to see her and baby Desmond before I left, but I wasn’t holding my breath. She’d labored all night, so sleep took priority.
Presently, most of our group were assembled in Fiona’s room. It was larger than most—one of the two VIP suites—and provided ample space for us to sit and visit. Reluctance to end the impromptu gathering kept me from being the first to depart.
Dan and I hadn’t had a moment to talk. I didn’t want to leave until he was ready to go. Even if all we discussed was making plans to talk later when we weren’t so tired, at least we would have a plan.
I needed caffeine.
“Is anyone thirsty?” Stretching as I stood, I grabbed my empty soda can. “I’m going to go get another drink.”
Dan, who’d been sitting next to me on a little sofa, came to his feet. “I’ll help.”
I was relieved he’d offered to come along and I was about to thank him when Marie said, “No,” drawing both of our gazes to her.
She crossed to me, placed her arm through mine, and tugged me to the exit. “I’ll help.”
I glanced at Marie, lifting an eyebrow at her abrupt intervention, but she said nothing until we’d left the room and the door shut behind us.
Then, she spun on me. “Kat.”
“Yes?” I steadied myself, because Marie was wearing her take-no-prisoners journalist face, her blue eyes sharp and focused.
“Why are you wearing a wedding ring?”
Damn.
I tried to smile, but I knew it looked weird, so I gave up and sighed. “I had to.”
“You had to?” Marie glanced between the ring on my finger and me.
“I had to.”
Now she looked worried. “Did your family make you marry someone?”
“Yes. But it’s not like you think.” I was so tired, I was sure some of my words were slurred.
She gripped me by the shoulders, presumably to keep me from crumpling into a ball and falling immediately asleep on the floor. “What’s it like, then? And why didn’t you come to me for help? Or if not me, then Fiona? Or Sandra and Alex? Or—”
“I went to Dan for help.” I closed my eyes, force of habit making me pick my words carefully. “Dan helped me.”
Dan helped me.
But it had been more than that.
Help was letting someone borrow a ladder or a cup of sugar. What he’d done was save my life.
And now things between us were a mess. But also not a mess. They were wonderful and precarious. My current mental state consisted of being perplexed and elated and fearful. Each emotion was segmented into different yet related emotions, and all this emotion plus exhaustion added up to a Niagara Falls level of uncertainty and hope.
I needed to think. I needed to concentrate. And, for the life of me, I didn’t understand why I was being so circumspect with Marie.
Because your problems aren’t her problems.
“Dan?” She sounded worried and confused. “Helped you how?”
I opened my eyes, stalling any longer was pointless. “He married me.”
She blinked, her mouth falling open. It was several seconds before she managed to speak. “You and Dan are married? You’re married? To Dan?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She dropped her hands from my shoulders and nodded, clearly thinking a million thoughts. “Will you tell me what happened?”
I hesitated.
“Let me rephrase that.” She gave me a hopeful smile, her stare softening, her expression beseeching. “Will you please, please, please allow me to help you?”
Sighing tiredly, I held up my empty soda can. “I will tell you everything on the way to the vending machine. And then you can decide if you want to help me.”
“Deal.” She looped her arm through mine again and we set off at a snail’s pace.
I told her a truncated version of the story, starting with Vegas and my avoidance of Dan and ending with our weird argument last night about gratitude.
Going back over everything with Marie felt cathartic in a way it hadn’t with my therapist. Dr. Kasai’s focus was my mental well-being, that’s why I paid her. She was an expert. I trusted her to give me solid advice.
Whereas Marie was my friend. I trusted her. Unlike Sandra, she was no mental health expert and she didn’t know all the sordid details of my past (she only knew some of the sordid details). She wasn’t looking at me through the lens of my upbringing. She was looking at me and listening to me as
a friend. Unburdening myself without any expectation that actionable advice was forthcoming, just an open heart and support, felt great.
“Caleb Tyson is a bottom feeder,” she spat, making an angry face and glaring off into the distance. “Man, I’d love to take him down.”
Of course Marie knew who Caleb was. As a reporter, she was up-to-date on all the latest domestic, political, and business news. Caleb was always in the news for something, usually having to do with lobbying efforts in Washington, DC, or hiking drug prices, or buying another huge yacht.
“Well, he’s my closest relative and my only family not institutionalized. How do you think I feel?” I huffed a humorless laugh.
Her gaze cut to mine. “That man is not your family.”
“Every time I leave the Boston office, I feel like he’s hiding something from the board, from me. Something isn’t right.”
“What do you mean?”
Again I hesitated, studying her. “I want to tell you, but you’re a reporter.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Oh. Yes. I mean, I wish I could tell you I won’t report or share anything you don’t give me permission to share or report, but I can’t really do that and maintain my ethics as a journalist. If you feel like your cousin is hiding something from the board, maybe talk to Alex?”
“You think so?”
“Yes.” She grinned. “What he lacks in professional ethics he makes up for in morals and loyalty. I want to help—and if you think I can help, please let me know—but obviously you don’t want me to dismantle your grandfather’s company in the process. I mean, I understand your concern for the people who work there. If having a journalist involved will hurt the stability of the company, best to keep me in the dark.”
I nodded, appreciating her honesty, but wishing I could discuss the situation with her. I could’ve used her level head, inquisitive mind, and uncanny abilities to quickly comprehend new concepts and adapt to new situations.
We’d almost made it back to Fiona’s room when Marie stopped me with a hand on my elbow. “What are you going to do about Dan?”
I glanced to the ceiling and exhaled. “I don’t know.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Kiss him.”
She gave me a gleeful grin and folded her hands under her chin. “Yay!”
I laughed and rubbed my forehead. “But, Marie, I’ve spent so long thinking of him as off-limits, not even a possibility. I know him, but I don’t. And he doesn’t know me, but he does.”
“Yes. So what? That’s the nature of friendship. You know a person as a friend, but not intimately, and that’s fine. Your relationship will now be built upon a foundation of years. Years of mutual respect and—as Dan would say—wicked attraction.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited—no, elated—ecstatic. But I’m also concerned for him.”
“About what? Give me some specifics.”
“Other than the obvious Caleb-lurking-in-the-shadows concerns?”
She nodded. “Forget your sinister cousin for a moment. He doesn’t exist. What worries do you have about Dan?”
“His family. I don’t want to cause difficulty between him and his family. We’re married and—”
She waved my words away. “That’s normal stuff. Everyone worries about their significant other’s family and related opinions. I think they’ll love you, but either way it always works out. Or it doesn’t. All you can do is be yourself—which is wonderful—and give them every chance to be equally wonderful.”
“Okay, second fear, what if he loses interest in me? What if things don’t work out between us?”
She blinked once and then laughed. She laughed and laughed, eventually wiping the tears of hilarity from her eyes. “I’m not—I don’t have an answer for you. You’re just going to have to have faith in Dan that he’ll realize how amazing you are and never want to let you go.”
“But what if I don’t have faith in myself?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if there are things about me that make me not amazing?”
“Kat.” Her eyes narrowed and she shook her head. “I’m not going to stand here and try to convince you that you’re—”
I gripped her arm, tugged her forward, and whispered on a rush, “I’ve never been able to relax enough to have sex without alcohol.”
I felt her stiffen. She drew away, but remained close enough to whisper very, very quietly in return. “When is the last time you tried?”
“Over six years ago.” I couldn’t believe I was being so candid.
“Holy cow!” Marie flinched, shook her head, and then winced. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. It’s been a long time and it definitely deserves a sacred bovine exclamation of surprise.”
“Sacred bovine—? What about when you’re alone?”
I shook my head, glancing to the side to make absolutely sure no one could hear us, the heat of mortification slithering up my neck and down my spine. “Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t.”
She covered my hand on her arm, her eyes wide with compassion. “You’re seeing someone, right? A therapist?”
“Yes.”
“What does she say?”
“It’s been a long time since we discussed it. But I spoke to Sandra, and she told me to do research, on my likes and dislikes, come up with a list of things that, you know, turn me on.”
“That makes sense. What did Sandra say about Dan and you?”
“I didn’t confirm or deny Sandra’s suspicions about me and Dan.”
“Well then, what did your therapist say?”
“I haven’t talked to Dr. Kasai since last Friday, and at that time the marriage was supposed to be a fake one. Which, I guess, is fake. But the relationship might be real. Which means the marriage might eventually become real.” What a mess.
“You should talk to her. Maybe,”—her wide blue eyes moved between mine as she considered her next words—“maybe Dan can help?”
I removed my hand from her grip as a surge of guilt made it difficult to speak. “All he does is help me. And what do I do for him? He won’t even let me thank him.”
“He cares for you.”
“And I care for him.”
“Good. Then let him help.”
Spiky, hot sensations prickled in my chest and I rubbed the spot under my breast, over my heart, where the pain was worse. “If he would let me do something for him in return—”
“That’s not how relationships work. And if you would talk to us—not just to me, but to Janie and Fiona, Sandra and Elizabeth, to Ashley—we could all tell you this together.”
“I don’t want to be—”
“I swear, if you say ‘I don’t want to be a burden’ I will do an exposé in the Chicago Tribune and I’ll entitle it, ‘Heiress in Hiding.’”
Her threat worked even though I knew she’d never follow through. This was Marie’s version of tough love. I snapped my mouth shut.
But she wasn’t finished. “Do you think Janie was a burden when she was going through that mess with her sister? When she was planning her wedding? Or was Elizabeth a burden when her dad remarried and Nico showed up and we all danced in our underwear on that stage? How about Sandra? When she asked us to help save Alex and pull together a wedding at the last minute? What about when Ashley’s mother died? Or when we helped her move last year? Or Fiona when she needed our help with Greg in Nigeria? No.” She stared at me, then added firmly, “No. This is what we do.”
I nodded, my eyes stinging for some inexplicable reason.
“You are not a burden.” Her gaze turned softer, once again beseeching. “This is what a family looks like. Not that serpent you call cousin. This is what a family does.”
The impromptu gathering only lasted a short while longer before Greg kicked everyone out, saying, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
Hugs were handed out liberally, but Dan and I—through some unspoken agree
ment—loitered together in the hall until everyone else departed.
As soon as the last of our friends were out of sight, he turned to me. “Hey, I know you gotta be tired. But can we go someplace? Just you and me?”
I was nodding before he finished speaking. “Yes. That would be so great.”
Dan offered me a smile and held out his hand. I took it, loving that holding his hand was quickly becoming the norm. We walked together through the hall and onto the elevator. Since we were surrounded by people, neither of us spoke. Instead, I enjoyed how our fingers tangled, how our shoulders touched, how he glanced at me a few times and gave me an irresistible smile.
We disembarked on the parking garage level and Dan steered us to a waiting black SUV. While I marveled at how the car seemed to magically appear, Dan opened the door for me. I skootched in and buckled my seat belt. He climbed in after, taking the middle spot, and did the same.
“Hey, Stan. Take us to Kat’s place, okay?”
“Okay.” Stan nodded. “Have you seen the baby?”
“Yeah.” Dan glanced at me, then lifted his chin to the privacy window controls.
“Is it cute?” Stan pulled out of the garage and onto the street.
“What do you mean, ‘Is it cute?’ Of course he is cute. He’s a baby.”
I placed my finger on the button to close the window, but waited, not wanting to be rude and interrupt their conversation.
“Not all babies are cute. I’ve seen some ugly babies in my time, let me tell you.” Stan turned onto the highway ramp.
“Will you listen to this guy?” Dan appealed to me, rolling his eyes. “How many babies could you have seen? What? You hanging out in nurseries in your spare time? Judging baby beauty contests on the weekend?”
“I know people with babies.” Stan shrugged.
“What people do you know with babies?”
Without me pressing the button, the window started sliding shut.
“Let me close that for you.” Stan’s gaze met mine briefly in the rearview mirror. “Give you and Mr. I’ve Never Seen An Ugly Baby a little privacy.”
