“No, Gracie, it’s okay. You didn’t know.”
“But you spent the night together?”
“Yes.”
“He must be an idiot.”
“No, not really. There were some things that I needed to tell him. That I’ve kept from him for way too long. And so I came clean and I’m waiting to see what happens next.”
“Okay.” She drug the syllables out as far as she could, clearly fishing for more information. “I’ll pretend I understood everything you just said.”
“It’s complicated. He gave me an ultimatum. I think, anyway.”
She stared at me from behind those giant lenses - or at least I assumed she did. While she did, something burned in my stomach. The need to hash things out with someone else.
“Are you busy?” I found myself asking.
“Nope.”
“Why don’t you follow me over to Matthew’s? We’ll make quick work of unloading this stuff, then we can go over to my place and have breakfast. I’ll stop somewhere on the way and buy.”
“I can be bought for food. But why do I have the feeling that I’m about to find out something that I have no business hearing?”
“So you don’t want me to tell you?”
“I didn’t say that.” She rubbed her hands together, eager to get to the big payoff. “Now, let’s get to work.”
She hopped in her Taurus and I led the way to my brother’s house. With two of us carrying in stuff, the unloading didn’t take very long. We piled their haul on and around the kitchen table, then locked up behind ourselves. I encouraged her to go on ahead to my place, giving her my key so that she could let herself inside and use my shower while she waited for me to stop and get our food.
When I returned to my place after a stop by the nearest fast food drive through, I had calmed down enough to at least be able to piece together some thoughts on how to present my dilemma. The upstairs shower was still running, so I had a little extra time to run through my argument in my head. Gracie was brutally honest; she would tell me exactly what she thought. I was a little bit scared.
I pulled the breakfast sandwiches out of the paper bag and set them on the coffee table in front of my sectional. I’d also indulged in a couple of the designer coffees they’d had for sale, knowing that I’d be too impatient to wait for my own coffee pot to brew. This was a couch kind of discussion, not suitable for the kitchen table or the breakfast bar. Lord knew that I’d hosted quite a few come-to-Blake meetings in this very spot. My subjects had always either been my brother or Lauren - sometimes in tandem. I wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of advice.
My eyes drifted up to the loft as I heard the shower turn off. Within about five minutes, the bathroom door popped open and Gracie emerged clad in shorts and a t-shirt, her hair wrapped up turban-style in a towel. She practically hopped down the stairs and to my side, flopping down onto the cushion beside me.
“That feels so much better!” she exclaimed as she grabbed the sandwich that was positioned in front of her. “I was starting to feel like I’d been eaten by a glitter factory. Or maybe that was just the DJ.” She shrugged and took a giant bite of her food. “Thanks for breakfast, by the way.”
“No problem.”
We ate in silence for a moment. I wasn’t about to offer up any information without prompting, even if I had been the one to invite her over. I was still hesitant about sharing my deepest, darkest secrets. But I supposed it would get easier with time. If I wanted a shot with Chris, I’d have to bear my soul to Matthew. If my brother found out from his best friend instead of me, I wasn’t sure that I’d ever be on his good side again, especially since I knew virtually all of the skeletons in his closet by name.
Gracie eyed me intently, staring at me from over her coffee cup. Her eyes spoke volumes about wanting me to get on with it, but her lips remained silent. I had the feeling that she would sit here all day if she had to, waiting for me to open up.
“It’s probably too early for the good stuff,” she remarked, “which is too bad, because you look like you could really use a drink.”
“Gee, thanks. You do know that alcohol doesn’t solve any problems, right?”
“Of course I do. It just makes them more fun.”
I closed my eyes and mentally ran through my appearance. My clothes were wrinkled and were obviously second day, but everything else shouldn’t have been too bad. When I’d glanced at myself in the mirror at Chris’s while getting dressed, I’d seen that my hair had dried into loose waves that fell down my back. Some people would probably kill to have hair that looked like that, and I’d merely showered, had my ex-boyfriend comb it, and fallen asleep with it still damp. As far as makeup was concerned, I wasn’t wearing any but I was plenty comfortable bare-faced. No, she was definitely talking about my eyes; they probably reflected the complete numbness that I felt.
“So what’s up?” Finally, the suspense had gotten the best of her. “Was Chris being an asshole last night?”
I shook my head. “No, not really. If anyone was being an ass, it was probably me.”
“Do tell.”
I launched into a monologue about the night that Chris and I had had sex in his friend’s bedroom at the party, while Matthew had been busy getting arrested and taken to jail. Even I had to admit the story was disjointed and hard to follow. With a furrowed brow, she listened intently, trying to see why in the world I needed to go that far back in time. Then the guilt hit me.
“Whatever you do,” I interrupted myself, “you can’t tell Lauren. She doesn’t know about any of this.”
Gracie nodded enthusiastically. “I don’t think she’d even want to know. There’s huge missing pieces of the whole Matthew goes to jail thing that she hasn’t been clued in on. She’d rather not think about it. But I’m intrigued.”
“So that night, I ended up getting pregnant,” I finished, figuring the best way to say it was to just come right out with it.
Gracie had just taken a drink of her coffee. I saw her swallow hard as her eyes practically bugged out of her head. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah, I know.”
She looked around, almost like she was searching for where I’d hide a child. Like I could make a ten year old magically appear, or had been keeping him or her locked up in some secret room. It endeared her to me that her first instinct was that I would have kept the baby. I’d really expected her to assume that my next sentence would be about terminating the pregnancy. It burnt a small hole in my stomach that Chris had needed to ask me if I would have kept it, while she just knew that I would.
“So what happened?”
And then the dam broke. Hot tears splashed over my cheeks as I recounted the ultrasound appointment and Chris’s subsequent visit. I wondered if she could even understand my dialogue, but she seemed to follow every word, hanging on them.
“I’m sorry.” I wiped at my nose with the back of my hand. “You’re only the second person I’ve ever told.”
“And Chris was the first?”
I nodded.
“No wonder things between you two were so difficult at the wedding. But why would you both decide not to tell Matthew? I mean, I get the privacy thing and all, but isn’t it odd that you’ve managed to avoid each other for years without ever explaining why? And I’m sorry, but Chris is just a dick for acting like that towards you. It wasn’t like you wanted for that to happen.”
“Gracie.” I shook my head. “You’ve got the timing wrong. I told Chris last night.”
She clasped her hand over her mouth, her brown eyes widening. When she had regained her composure, she said only one word: “No.”
“I know, I know.”
“You carried it around for that long and never told anyone else?”
I shook my head. “No one that didn’t have the title ‘Doctor’ in front of their name.”
“Why?”
“I wish I knew.”
I bit my lip, trying to think of the logic behind a decision made so
long ago. Independence had seemed so important. That and the fact that I had felt utterly and completely alone. In hindsight, I’d been the one to place myself in that position.
“So you’ve walked around for almost ten years with this secret?”
I nodded again.
“Oh, Blake.”
She crossed the distance between us in one lithe movement. Before I could prepare myself, she’d engulfed me in a hug. Not that I minded, but her action surprised me. I wouldn’t exactly place her at the top of my list of friends, but then again barely anyone belonged there. Nonetheless, I cried into her shoulder as she plotted the scene of my breakdown.
“So it’s like a perfect storm,” she began, her voice sounding as though it came straight out of a movie preview. “Two people who love one another, torn apart by the events of a wild, drunken night. Mistakes were made. Secrets developed. The truth hung in the balance for many years until converging events brought everything out into the light. Will the betrayals of the past keep them apart, or can they find their way back into each other’s arms?”
I laughed despite myself. Her synopsis played out like the cover blurb from a novel. Something that I might have actually read, had I not been living it.
“Pretty much,” I confirmed.
“Great. Because I could do this all day.”
“That just about sums it up I think.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t gotten to the part about the pregnant ex-roommate and how you have to swallow down your jealousy because she’s about to have the life you imagined for yourself.”
I blanched, shocked that she would be able to pick up on it.
“I struck a nerve,” she observed, “but don’t worry, it’s not obvious. I just used context clues.”
“I’m such a bitch.”
“Bitch, human, same difference. It’s only natural. Lauren breezes in with her perfect pregnancy, her perfect husband, and reminds you of your failures.”
I resisted the urge to extend my middle finger and instead glared at her. Mainly because she was spot on. It wasn’t her fault.
“So what’s the ultimatum?” she pressed, bringing me back to reality.
“Chris told me that I have to tell Matthew. Or else he will.”
“So tell him.”
“Gracie, it’s not exactly the best time to start reminiscing about my miscarriage.”
“Bullshit. Lauren’s well past that stage. It’s not like you’re going to cause her to lose the baby by discussing what happened to you. The two things aren’t even the same anymore. And note Chris didn’t say you had to tell her, too.”
“So I should just get him alone and tell him?”
“Exactly. Then he can do with it what he wants. If he feels like he needs to tell Lauren, then let him know that he can. If he wants you to tell her, do it. Pure and simple.”
“I don’t know. It just seems mean.”
“Did you stop to think that maybe Chris needs to talk it over with his best friend? And that he’s giving you the opportunity to tell your brother yourself instead of him finding it out secondhand?”
“Well, no.”
“Then wake up. That’s what he’s doing. He’s letting you be the one to reveal this very personal thing because he respects you and he still loves you.”
I closed my eyes, remembering what Chris had said during the car ride back to the hotel. It was uncanny how Gracie seemed to have overheard that discussion about the love he still felt, tainted as it was by lies and omissions.
Quite pleased with herself, she unwrapped the towel from her hair. Rising to dispose of it in the nearest hamper, she turned back to me. “You don’t have to thank me. I know I’m good.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Matthew answered his cell on the second ring. By my calculations, he should have pulled in his driveway roughly two hours prior. Hopefully I wasn’t interrupting anything more scandalous than a bunch of loads of laundry and unpacking.
“Hey, sunshine,” he greeted. His voice was both comforting and unnerving all at once. He sounded so damn happy - which of course he should be - and here I was, about to ruin all that.
“Hey, dork. You two have a good time?”
“Of course. I’ve got some great pictures to show you. Next time you come over for dinner, remind me to pull out my camera and we’ll take a look.”
“You do know that you can develop those, right?” I joked. “When you’re in full on dad mode, you won’t want your memories trapped inside your digital camera.”
“I know. I’m just lazy and there are far more better things to do. So what’s up with you?”
“Are you busy?”
“No, why?”
“Because I want to talk to you about something.”
“Okay. If you want, we can stop by later. But Lauren’s just about to take a nap. It’s a pretty long car ride home, you know.”
“Could you come over now? Alone? I want to talk to you in private. Unless she’d be mad at you for leaving.”
There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. He likely had his hand over his phone; I could hear the muffled sounds of him discussing things with her. A moment later, he came back on. “I’ll be over in like twenty minutes. Okay?”
That settled, we hung up and the waiting game began. I found myself pacing my floor, staring out the window and waiting for him to arrive. Even with the anticipation, I jumped about two feet in the air when I heard the roar of his Mustang. I met him at the door.
“You know, that’s not a typical family car,” I teased, pointing to the yellow and black convertible that graced my driveway.
“Ah, yes, but I’ve got a three car garage. And two other perfectly suitable sedans for hauling around baby.”
“No plans to sell, then?”
“Never.”
We greeted each other with our customary hug, then he followed me to the sectional, plopping down on the shorter end so that he sat with his legs perpendicular to mine, almost touching. I took a moment to gather my bearings and admired him. The ease at which he moved about my house, as if he belonged here, which in essence he did. We were closer than most siblings - almost like the same person born three years apart. But what was most striking about his demeanor was the fact that he had never looked so happy. The whole marriage and impending fatherhood thing worked wonders on him. Or so it appeared.
“So I have a feeling that I know why you didn’t want Lauren to show up for this. I think I know what we’re going to talk about.”
“Really?”
I panicked. Had Chris gone behind my back and beaten me to the punch? I’d thought my idea to wait until after the honeymoon was over was perfectly reasonable. Had Chris called him while he was on the beach? In the car on the ride home? If so, Matthew wasn’t reacting like I’d expected him to.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “You called me over here to boost my confidence. Because I’m secretly scared to death.”
“Of what?”
“Of the next couple of months. Of the next eighteen years. Of becoming a father even worse than the one that we had. What if I’m an awful parent, Blake? What if I don’t know what I’m doing? What if Lauren doesn’t know what she’s doing? It’s not like she had a mom to teach her how to mother.”
His insecurities came at such a rapid fire pace that my head spun. Definitely not what I’d feared. I took a breath and set to work easing all of his concerns. It was therapeutic in a way to address someone else’s problems.
“First off, you will probably be a better parent because you had a glowing example of what not to do. Think about what our father did and do the exact opposite. And Lauren will be a great mother. Anything’s better than the emotionally absent person who carried us for nine months. Besides, Doug is a great role model. He parents circles around how we grew up all by himself without even trying.”
Matthew smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. I chose to continue.
“And Quinn, Regina and Brian’s baby
. She loves that little guy practically like he’s her own. And he loves her right back. She’s a natural.”
“Quinn also loves you, too,” he reminded. “I think he’s going to grow up to be a player.”
“Oh, stop it.”
I kicked him playfully. He returned the gesture, but there was still something detached about it.
“What?” I pried.
“There’s more.”
“Duh. So spill it.”
“Before we get to the whole parenting thing, Lauren has to have the baby. And I’m terrified of that.”
“Why?”
“What if something bad happens? She’s so small. And I’m not. What if the baby’s too big? What if it hurts her and I caused it?”
If the expression on his face hadn’t been so deadly serious, I would have burst out laughing. Instead, I bit my tongue and attempted something resembling support.
“I have it on good authority that childbirth hurts no matter how big you are. Think about it. And if the baby is a little too big to come out on its own - if she has problems - they’ll just do a C-section.”
He practically turned green. “People die during surgery, Blake.”
“You’re being ridiculous. Everything will be just fine. This isn’t the olden days; people don’t die during childbirth much anymore. She’ll be in a hospital where they know how to deal with things like complications. It’s okay to be nervous about it, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Besides, she’s had a textbook pregnancy. Unlike mine.”
My last two words hung in the air as I waited for the upcoming question. I figured it was as good of a segue as any. While the phrase dropped from my mouth like lead, its impact wasn’t felt for an extended period of time.
“What?” Matthew asked finally, as if he’d just comprehended what I’d said.
“You heard me. Lauren has had the perfect pregnancy. I wasn’t so lucky with mine.”
“Wait. I’m clearly missing something. You were never pregnant.”
I looked away, for some reason unable to meet his piercing gaze. To my hands, folded firmly in my lap, I replied, “That’s where you’re wrong.”
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