Shotgun Wedding (Sidelined #4)

by Ainslie Paton

  Bewildered joy and self-deprecating fear. “Wedding dress prep,” Cara said.

  “Crisis of the female heart,” said Sarina. “The can you have it all argument.”

  “The do you even want it all, whatever that means,” said Cara.

  Zarley yawned. “Same same but different. This is about the having kids thing.” She came into the room and climbed on the cutting table to sit cross legged. “You’re right about this table. Not solid enough for—”

  “Shut up, don’t tell me you tried it.”

  “Mischief.” Zarley yawned again. “I was going to say mischief. And no, we totally respect your space.”

  Cara cast her eyes around suspiciously for anything out of place. Nothing jumped out at her. But still. “We’re talking Reid here so that statement lacks cred.”

  “And so does you doing this poor me, I’m not good enough for my man routine.”

  “I’m not saying poor me. I’m saying Owen wants kids and I don’t know if I do and I’m wondering if I’m being selfish to hold onto him if ten years down the track I still feel the same way, and he feels like he’s missed out.” Oh, that was depressing to hear that out loud. How would they even last ten years together without staggering from a wound like that?

  “Ah.” Zarley frowned. “Okay, I get that.”

  “Part of Owen’s depression when he lost his sexual function was that having kids naturally wasn’t going to be possible. It wasn’t certain he could be a father. Now that’s no longer a problem.” She looked up at the beams in the ceiling before refocusing on Zarley and Sarina “I’m the problem.”

  “It’s a big call.” Zarley tipped her head to the side and stretched her neck. “Lucky’s is my baby for now. I don’t know about the future. Last thing I wanted when I got pregnant was to be a teen mom but when I lost the baby, it was . . .” She rolled her head forward, not so much part of the stretch but so they couldn’t see her face. “I never want to feel that bad again.” She straightened up, her expression grim. Cara knew all this, but it was likely an update for Sarina. “Blamed myself for being stupid enough to get pregnant and thrown off the team, then blamed myself for losing the baby.”

  Losing her baby, her career as a gymnast and her relationship, had sent Zarley looking for trouble, spelled sex, drugs, and alcohol until she’d pulled herself out of the downward spiral, started dancing at Lucky’s nights, and going to college during the day. Cara had looked out for her when she was being scarily irresponsible and marveled at her determination to rebuild her life. For some people, failure was like being bronzed. It gave them armor.

  “Reid mentioned it when he was helping me decide on a sperm donor, but he told me it was your story to tell,” said Sarina. “I don’t know what to say, you were so young.”

  Zarley resumed her stretching, but with a nonchalance Cara knew she didn’t feel. “Nothing to say. Miscarriages happen to so many women. We don’t talk about it, like it’s not a real thing, like it’s better never to mention it. It’s as if we haven’t invented the right words. People would whisper to me about how lucky I was to lose the baby, because who wants to be a teen mom, but Dalton and I would’ve loved that baby and there was nothing lucky about what happened to us.”

  Don’t have a kid you were called selfish, shallow, self-absorbed, but if you miscarried, you were ignored, expected to suck it up and get on with it. Why did being a woman have to be such a no-win zone?

  “I’m glad being a young mom is going to be different for Ana,” Zarley said.

  “Dev’s dad is still not totally onboard,” said Sarina. “He’s trying, but it’s all a bit hard on him.”

  Zarley unfolded her legs and moved behind Cara’s desk to look at the quick sketches she’d done earlier. “If my father comes on Sunday, it will be the first time we’ve seen each other in years. He thinks I’m a slut and that I’m about to open a brothel.” Zarley shook her head. “Sorry, you didn’t need to know that.” She picked up a sketch. “I like this.”

  Sarina went to Zarley’s side. “So long as you don’t think you’re a slut and I’m not getting married in a brothel.”

  Zarley laughed and handed Cara the sketch of a full-length fitted dress, with a V-neck and back, bell-shaped sleeves. Simple, 60s influence. It would need beautiful lace to be special. Sarina could wear flowers in her hair.

  “I like it too,” Sarina said. “It’s elegant, kind of timeless.”

  “It needs the right fabric.” Cara elbowed Zarley aside so she could get to her laptop and her key supplier’s website. This she could manage. Order the lace, make a pattern to Sarina’s measurements, create the dress and the fantasy that went with it and then move on to the next project. Even if she didn’t love it, she could be professional about it. That’s not the way it worked with kids. You had no choice but love them and they were a project that never ended.

  Over breakfast that morning, Owen had said that if it was losing time away from building her business to have kids she was worried about, he’d be the one to take time out. He’d do the bulk of the child-rearing. She’d stared at him, a spoonful of yoghurt in her mouth, struck speechless because he was trying so hard and because time out wasn’t the issue. It was the responsibility of being a mother at all that was freaking her out.

  “What kind of dad is Dev going to be?” Zarley asked Sarina.

  “Awesome,” she said. “We haven’t exactly talked it all out, but he’ll be the father who wears one of those baby harness things and totes the kid around.”

  “So cute,” Zarley said. “I can see him doing that.”

  “He’ll probably be the fun parent while I’m the stick in the mud.” Sarina laughed.

  Owen would make a great dad too. He was calm and patient and practical. If you could order up a side of fatherhood, Owen had the attributes with extra topping.

  “Owen didn’t see much of his mother or father growing up, and I know that’s not how he’d want to raise kids, and I want to put off thinking about this, but I know that’s not fair to him. Why is this so hard? Other people seem to fall into it,” Cara said, aware her voice had drifted hard into whining territory.

  “I’m not falling into it.” Zarley moved towards the door to leave. “I don’t know what kind of dad Reid would make. He never had one and he’s not the most tolerant person.” Cara scrunched her face. Reid and tolerance were like ice cream and heat, not the best combination without pie in between. Which made Zarley the pie in that example.

  “We might end up being one of those couples people speculate about. Wonder when, wonder why not. I don’t know.” Zarley leaned on the doorjamb. “Consider me on the fence about it, and put Reid down as cautiously terrified.”

  “If you ask me, not enough people think about having kids before they do. You should have to get a license for starting a family,” Sarina said. “We do it for cars, but we can’t do it for kids. Having kids isn’t a one size fits all decision or else we wouldn’t have so many broken families. We wouldn’t think men are doing fine when they have multiple marriages and kids with different partners and women are gold-digging scam artists if they do the same.”

  Zarley made a whooping sound, but she made it like her battery was running down and her whoop was worn out. “The double standard rides again. We’re either mothers, bitches or whores.”

  Crotch snaps, that was depressing like couture that was ugly.

  “Yeah, but you know what,” Sarina said, “the three of us are doing okay. Careers of our choosing, men who love and support us, time to decide what comes next.”

  “A wedding without a dress if I don’t get to work,” Cara said.

  Zarley took off to check on the electrical contractor while Sarina got confused about different types of lace, but an hour later they’d placed an order for a gorgeous creamy cut lace, Sarina had gone back to work, and Cara had started making the pattern.

  She was cutting out the pieces for the silk dress that went under the lace, bopping it out to the soundtrack from the p
ole dance class going on next door, Rihanna’s “Work,” when Owen said, “I’ve been thinking about you all day, nothing is better than seeing you.”

  “What are you doing here?” His hands were at her waist before she fully turned to him, still holding the scissors. “Is something wrong?” It’s not like he dropped in often.

  He buried his face in her neck and ran a hand up her back, along her outstretched arm, and took the blades out of her hand, placing them on the table behind her. “Got it all wrong this morning and didn’t want to wait to put it right.”

  Why was that terrifying? “Ever heard of the telephone?” His lips were at work and she had to concentrate to remember the rest of the sentence. “It’s this amazing device that lets you talk to another person when they’re not in the same room.” That earned her a chuckle and an ass grab. “I don’t have time to hang out today.” And really, the last thing she wanted to do was revisit the discussion they’d had over breakfast.

  “I know, Starburst. I only need five minutes.” He picked her up and put her on the table so she sat next to a pile of pattern paper and a roll of silk, her legs dangling. They were eye to eye and once he’d maneuvered between her thighs and cupped her face to stop her looking down at the pincushion on her wrist, she was in big trouble. Mother. Bitch. Whore. She didn’t see herself in that arrangement. If she didn’t want to be a mother and give Owen a family, she was automatically a bitch, which left whore as the other alternative, a word for which there was no male equivalent, and that just made her angry. He sensed it.

  “Five minutes and I’m out of your way, please. I don’t blame you for being mad with me.”

  “I’m not.” It wasn’t his fault there was this pressure, this weight of expectation from a competition that was stacked against her by gender and history and hardwired social norms. It wasn’t Owen’s fault none of these things were a consideration for a man; that her brother Gavin was known to talk about babysitting his own kids, as if it was a temporary occupation.

  “Here’s the thing.” He kissed her lightly and released her face. “I figured you were cautious about having a family and that was a reasonable response. Kids, you know, it’s not like there’s a patented rule book. And I get that me being ready and you being ready are two different things and you needed time. We have time.”

  “Owen.” She wasn’t mad with him, but he was making her nervous.

  “I’m getting there. Four minutes. Then it was pointed out to me how unfair the whole having kids thing is on women, how it would be on you, the twenty-four-seven expectations. I’d never thought about it that way, so that’s why I told you I’d be the one who took time out. I’d be the parent on the ground, while you did your thing. It’s only fair, I’ve had my turn to build a career. But I got it wrong. That’s not what you’re worried about, not what made you choke on your passionfruit yoghurt, and me being on the midnight feed or school pick-up isn’t the issue is it?”

  She didn’t feel nervous. She felt like a primed time bomb.

  He went on. “It’s bigger. It’s the difference between being Cara, who can decide how her life happens, and being a mom who has responsibilities, even shared ones, that are all about someone else’s safety and health and development.”

  Tick, tick, tick, they’d arrived at selfish. “There are a lot of children without good homes.”

  “We could adopt. You’re the one who showed me there were more ways to be a dad than getting you pregnant. I was so focused on me not being able to, I didn’t stop to think about how I’d feel if you couldn’t have kids. And there’s the concern about what being pregnant might do to your back. Pregnancy isn’t always kind to a woman’s body, but I don’t think that’s your issue either.”

  Tick, tick, tick, now they were at shallow. She wasn’t worried about fertility or pain, wrecking her body, or bringing kids into an uncertain world. “There’s no time off in being a parent. You can’t do it one day and then not the next. You can’t lose interest, or do a bad job, and I don’t know, I don’t know. These things sound so superficial, but I don’t have that maternal thing. I like kids. I love my nephews, but I don’t know if that’s enough.”

  “I don’t know either, Starburst. I always wanted my own family, never occurred to me not to want kids, but you’re right, wanting isn’t the same as doing. I don’t know if all guys feel the same though. Dev sure does. Mention fatherhood to Reid in the abstract and he’s got plenty to say, but ask him about being a father himself and suddenly he’s made of hesitancy and Rice Krispies.” Owen grinned. “Only topic I’ve ever seen him rattled by.” He rubbed his knuckles lightly over her cheekbone. “That’s how you feel isn’t it?”

  Tick, tick, self-absorbed. And the first time ever she’d agreed with Reid, and it had to be over something as personal as parenthood.

  “You feel like it would make you a whole different person called mom.”

  He got it. Her handsome, too good to be true, loving man understood. She leaned her face into his open hand. She didn’t know how he’d gotten to where she was struggling to get to herself. But that was it. There was Cara and there was Cara who was a mom first and herself second and she didn’t know if she wanted to be that other person.

  He kissed her temple. “Now, that’s how you feel now.”

  Tick, tick. “I don’t know what would make me feel differently.” She put her fingertip to his lips to stop him protesting. Tick, tick. “My mom was only a year older than me when she died. She had three kids and she probably wanted to do other things with her life. She never got the chance.”

  Owen tried to wrap her in a hug, but she held him off both hands pressed to his chest, her elbows locked. “We want different things. It’s not fair to you.”

  “We’ll work it out.” He went for his pocket and she knew he wanted his phone.

  “Owen, don’t.” She knew what he was going to say, what he was going to do.

  “I love you. You come first.”

  Tick, tick. What if there wasn’t a second place? He would call her father. He would get down on his knee and ask her to marry him, and she couldn’t bear to hear it. It was no longer about not yet, how could it be?

  “No.”

  Tick. Boom.

  EIGHT

  Dev

  Smack. Ah. Pillow to the face. Dev copped a mouthful of stiff cotton and then stumbled through the door, only to have Ana hit him again before he could voice a complaint.

  Whack. “Where have you been?” Whack. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Stop, Ana. Let me—”

  She hit him again, but he managed to drop the groceries and grab the pillow to stop her reloading. “Quit hitting me and I’ll tell you.”

  She tried to tug the pillow out of his hands. “You can’t take off like that and not give me any more than see you in a few days as a reason.”

  “Last time I looked, I was an adult and you—mere child with child—were living in my apartment. I don’t report to you.”

  She wrenched the pillow away. “Yes. You. Do. I was worried.”

  He bent to collect the groceries and spotted Connor across the room, watching them with amusement. Dude could’ve done a solid and stepped in. But then again, last time Connor tried to intervene on Ana’s behalf he got a black eye for his trouble, so good decision. “No, you weren’t.”

  “Look, I don’t know how you lived before I moved in, but since I got pregnant you’ve kept me in touch with what you’re up to. You freaking disappeared, Dev. What am I supposed to think?”

  He eye-rolled. “That I’m at work or with Sarina.”

  “I knew where you were. I want to know what you were doing?”

  Didn’t everyone. “When did Mom die and make you her successor?” Not that Mom had ever been up in his business, but it got Ana to back off on the violence. She was as lethal with a pillow as she was with the willow of a cricket bat.

  Ana flung the pillow onto the couch and lead the way into the kitchen. “Tell me before they all
get here.”

  It was an hour at least before the rest of the family got there. Connor took the groceries from him and unpacked them onto the bench and Dev faced off with Ana. Here goes. “Sarina is pregnant.”

  Ana’s hands went to her mouth, but she still verbalized an, “Oh wow.”

  Wait for it. “The baby is mine.”

  “What?” It came out like a bark, because she didn’t get her hands out of the way quickly enough.

  Best for last. “We’re getting married Sunday.”

  The silence of deep space. Ana stared at him with eyes the size of Saturn and Connor froze in the act of docking the crème fraîche in the refrigerator. And they were the pre-test audience. The beta team would be blown away.

  “Well?”

  Connor recovered first, patting him on the back. “That’s wild. That’s like . . . fast.”

  It really wasn’t. It’d been coming for a very long time, but that’s how everyone else would see it.

  “Ana?” Oh brilliant, she was crying. “Ana?”

  Connor went to her, but she shoved him away and blubbered something that sounded like, “I’m so happy for you,” before scooting around the island bench and barreling into him.

  That’s when Rani walked in, no early warning, because they’d left the front door open. “What did you do to Ana, Dev?”

  “Me?”

  Rani looked at Connor. “He wouldn’t upset her like that.”

  “Nothing. I didn’t do anything to Ana. She’s fine.” But Ana was doing an impression of my whole family got killed in a plane crash, so Rani slammed the front door and advanced on them.

  “You did something. Is she sick? Ana, are you sick?”

  Connor relieved him of Ana. “She’s fine,” he said.

  “Then it’s you,” Rani pointed at him. “Are you sick, Dev? Is Plus bust? Is that why we’ve all been invited to dinner all of a sudden? It has to be something bad.”

  “He’s pregnant,” Ana sobbed out.

  Dev flapped his arms while Rani looked from him to Ana, with her mouth open. “Sarina is pregnant, so I’m pregnant too.”