“I lobe her,” Cheyanne continued.
“I love you too, sweetie,” I told her as I ran my hands over top of her hair.
“You’ve been holding back on us,” Lizzie said with tears in her eyes. They knew how badly I wanted a family some day, and I knew they’d both be happy for me.
“Not on purpose. I wanted to tell you in person.”
We finished eating and all chipped in on cleaning the kitchen. Cheyanne shocked Lizzie and Madeline when she helped wipe down the table and counters for us. She was such a big helper at home, and she didn’t hesitate to do so here.
I dried the last dish and placed it in the cabinet and hung the tile on the rack.
“You ready to go get your nails polished?”
“Yay!” she said as she jumped up and down and followed Lizzie and Madeline into the living room.
They had set out all the different colors of polish on the table, along with files and cotton balls.
Cheyanne looked over each color before she decided on a shade of orange.
“It’s Nemo,” she said as she sat in my lap and handed me the bottle.
That girl sure did love her Nemo.
She sat very still and watched each stroke of the brush as I polished her fingernails then her toes.
She even blew on them very careful not to mess up the polish by touching something.
“What do you think?” I asked as I showed her how to sit with her legs out so her toenails would dry.
“Pretty,” she said as she turned back to look at me. “Thank you, Mommy,” she said with a smile.
“You’re very welcome, sweetie.”
“Now I want one,” Lizzie said with tears in her eyes yet again.
“Pardon me?” I said, almost choking on the spit in my mouth.
“I want someone to call me that. Hearing that was the sweetest thing ever.”
And it was. I was still getting used to hearing the word come from her cute little voice. Every time she said it, my heart would pause.
“Well, you and Grant could start trying. You know I’d love to be an aunt,” I joked.
“You’re already an aunt.”
“I know I am, but I meant I want to be an aunt to your kids. We aren’t getting any younger.”
“We aren’t old. We have time,” Lizzie said as she sipped on her wine.
“We do?” I asked as I turned my head to the side.
“I shouldn’t have said a word. Now leave me alone,” she joked as she pulled a pillow from the couch and tossed it at me.
A pillow fight ensued. The four of us each picking up a pillow and tossing it around. Cheyanne was full of laughter as we fought back and forth with Madeline and Lizzie.
A knock sounded at the door that I barely heard over our laughter. I stood and ran over to answer it. Just as I opened the door, a pillow hit me in the back of the head. Gage stood on the other side holding back a laugh.
“Hey there,” I said as I reached behind me on the floor and picked up the pillow, tossing it in the direction of the girls.
“You four seem to be having fun,” he said as he leaned in and kissed me on the lips.
“We are,” I laughed as I moved aside to let him enter the apartment.
“Daddy,” Cheyanne screamed, dropping her pillow and running over to him. She held out her nails to show him the color she picked.
“Nemo,” he said, knowing her reason for picking out that color.
He picked her up and tickled her stomach before he settled her on his hip.
Lizzie and Madeline didn’t say a word. They just watched Gage interacting with Cheyanne.
“You ready to go, kiddo? We’ve got to get a bath and then get in the bed.”
“I wanna stay wif Mommy.” Cheyanne pouted.
“Mommy has to talk in private with Lizzie and Madeline. You’ll see her in the morning,” Gage told her.
“Promise?” she asked, looking over at me.
“I promise. And we can make Daddy breakfast together,” I told her as I leaned in and gave her a hug and a kiss.
“Otay.”
“Good night, sweetie,” I said as I waved goodbye.
“Night,” she and Gage both replied as he carried her out the door.
I fell back on the loveseat, completely in love with that man.
“Damn. I thought he was hot at the club, but holy shit. That man with a child is so much sexier,” Madeline said as she fanned herself.
“I sure do enjoy the view,” I admitted as I got up and poured me a glass of wine.
When I came back into the room, Lizzie and Madeline both stopped talking and stared at me.
“What?” I asked as I sat down and took a big gulp of wine.
“Love looks good on you,” Lizzie spoke.
“Who says I love him?”
“We do. It’s all over your face.” They both spoke at once.
“He doesn’t know I love him yet. I haven’t said it,” I told them.
“You don’t have to. You let his little girl call you Mommy. You accepted that ring on your finger. Words don’t matter in this equation. Your actions told him everything he needed to know.”
All I could do was take another gulp of wine. They knew me too well to argue with them and tell them otherwise.
“So, tell us all about your honeymoon,” I said quickly, trying to change the subject.
Gage would be the first person I admitted to that I loved him. Not the girls.
“I never knew Grant could be like that. He showed me things, did things to my body, he’d never done in all the time we’ve been together. All I can say is making love to him as my husband was totally different than making love to him as my boyfriend.”
I knew the feeling. Knowing that Gage and I were married, even if the first time I thought it was fake, was different. For me, it was just different reasons than Lizzie’s.
“How’s he in bed, Avery?”
I almost choked on my wine at Madeline’s question.
“Can you warn a woman when you’re going to spew things like that out of your mouth?”
“No. It’s more fun this way.”
“He’s amazing,” I admitted with no shame in my game.
“That’a girl. I didn’t know you had it in you, but now that I do, sexed up Avery looks hot as hell, even in her yoga pants,” Madeline joked.
Fucking Madeline and her jokes.
“How’s Brad?”
“Brad who?”
“Meaning?” Lizzie asked.
“I’m done with him. I told him so and then blocked him on everything. Buh bye, Brad,” Madeline said, looking completely free as she held up her wine glass to cheer to her decision.
“About damn time. Now we need to find you a man,” Lizzie said.
“Hell no. I’ll find my own man, thank you very much,” Madeline insisted.
“You want more wine?” Lizzie asked as she stood up from her spot on the floor.
I shook my head. One glass was enough for me. I had to drive home.
“You’re not drinking anymore?” Madeline questioned.
“I have to drive home,” I told her, seeing if she’d catch on.
“You are home,” Lizzie said as she came back into the room.
“Technically, but I’m not living here anymore. I moved in with Gage, remember?”
“What are you going to do with your apartment?” Madeline asked.
“I’ll put in my notice. I only have two more months on my current lease anyways.”
“I’ll take it,” Madeline said.
“I thought you liked your place,” I questioned.
“I do, but I love yours more. The location is right where I want to be,” Madeline said.
“I’ll get with my landlord and see if you can take over my lease when you’re ready. It shouldn’t be a problem unless there’s a wait list.”
“It looks like our lives are finally coming fully together, girls,” Madeline announced.
“That they are.
I’ll cheers to that,” I said as I held up my glass and drank the last bit of wine that it held.
Chapter 19
Six weeks had passed since girls’ night. We’d gotten into a routine, and I couldn’t imagine my life without the two of them in it. Madeline got her wish and was able to move into my place last weekend. We donated almost all the furniture that Madeline didn’t wish to keep and packed up the rest of what I did want and moved it to our place. Everything finally felt settled. Cheyanne and I grew closer and closer every day. She seemed to have shifted toward me and I worried that Gage wouldn’t like it, but every time I caught him looking at us, I saw in his eyes that he loved what he had witnessed.
Our bubble finally burst one Saturday morning when my phone rang and my mother’s number appeared on the screen. I walked over to the windows in the living room and answered the call.
“Hello, Mom,” I answered.
“You don’t have to sound so enthused to be talking to me. It’s been months since we’ve heard from you.”
And this was why I rarely took her calls.
Her tone was enough to handle. The words that came along with the sound were another thing entirely.
“I’ve been busy.”
“I’m sure you have. Look, we’re all having dinner tonight at six,” she informed.
“Okay,” I replied, wondering what that had to do with anything.
“We’ll see you then,” she replied before she abruptly ended the call.
That woman knew how to irk me. There was no way I’d subject Cheyanne to that atmosphere. It was bad enough that I had to be there. If I didn’t show, I’d never hear the end of it. I wasn’t letting her ruin my good mood. Tonight, she was going to be in for a rude awakening and I couldn’t wait.
I tossed the phone on the kitchen island and walked to Cheyanne’s room, where Gage was laying Cheyanne down for a nap.
Peeking inside, he was sitting the book down on her nightstand as he stood. She was sound asleep. She’d played hard this morning as she put on a fashion show for us wearing different pairs of my shoes. It was the cutest thing ever watching her try to walk in them, but she managed and even popped her little hip like the models did on television. Gage and I were in for trouble when she was older.
I motioned for Gage to join me in the living room when he looked my way.
He followed behind me after he shut Cheyanne’s door.
I sat down on the couch and patted the cushion beside me.
He looked at me with an odd expression as he waited for me to explain.
“Rain is about to come down on our parade,” I told him, sure I wasn’t making any sense.
“What’s the matter?”
“My mother.”
I left it with two words. We hadn’t discussed much about my parents or siblings. Just the basics. The topic hadn’t arose since, and I didn’t do anything to bring it to the forefront of any of our conversations.
“What about her?”
“We’ve been summonsed.”
“For?”
“Dinner. Tonight.”
“Okay. It doesn’t seem like a big deal to me, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me it is.”
“I am. Can your mom keep Cheyanne? I don’t want her around them.”
He looked taken aback as I said those words. Everything was coming out wrong.
“I didn’t mean it like that. My mother has a condition I like to call word vomit. She has odd views on life. I don’t go out of my way to speak to her, and she does the same thing in return because she doesn’t agree with my choices. Cheyanne is too sweet to be anywhere near her. She’ll judge us and I can handle that, but I won’t tolerate her hurting Cheyanne.”
“Momma bear looks good on you,” he joked as he finally understood what I meant.
“It feels great too. I just want to protect her. I’m sure tonight we’ll be the talk at the table, especially since they don’t know you’re coming. They know nothing about you at all. And that’s the way I wanted it.”
“Why?”
“Because they wouldn’t agree. My siblings did what she wanted of them. I didn’t. I forged my own path. They didn’t like it. You’ll hear things tonight, and you won’t like them. But I’m going because I’m not hiding you or us any longer. I don’t care what they think, and it’s time they know it.”
“I’ll call my mom. And just know, no one is going to get away with mistreating you.”
I knew he was serious. His look, his tone, the way he tensed as he spoke were all indicators.
Gage’s mom agreed to come over and sit with Cheyanne while we went to dinner. For the rest of the afternoon, all I wanted to do was open a bottle of wine and drink its contents in entirety to help calm my nerves. Never in my twenty-five years had I ever stood up to my parents verbally. While I hadn’t gone down the path they wanted, I never spoke out of turn. And my siblings enjoyed tormenting me knowing that my mother especially didn’t approve.
They each had children of their own. Families already started. While, even though I was the baby of the three of us, they expected me to do the same. My mother had this crazy view that women should be stay-at-home mothers and depend on their husbands. My father had spoiled her from the beginning, and she thought children were raised better if the mother was home. I disagreed wholeheartedly. I felt that women and men were equals in a relationship and if the woman wanted to work and have her own independence, then she should.
Gage and I said our goodbyes to Cheyanne and his mom, and I thanked her profusely for doing this on such short notice. Gage wore the same outfit as the day I met him, and he looked just as sexy. I wore a pair of straight leg jeans and an off-the-shoulder champagne colored top with tan flats. I needed to be comfortable in order to deal with them. I took the time to curl my hair and pin it back off my face. If I was going head to head with my mother, I’d at least look amazing doing it.
I fidgeted the whole half hour drive to my parents’ home. The home I grew up in. The place I didn’t enjoy coming back to.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” Gage assured me as he pulled up and parked in front of the brick rancher.
“I sure hope so. Let’s get this over with,” I grumbled as I opened the door of the car and started to walk up the cement path.
“Hey,” Gage said as he caught up with me. He gripped my hand and turned me around to face him. My face met the center of his chest and I inhaled deeply, letting the scent of his cologne calm me.
“We’re in this together. No matter what happens today, we leave here and go back home to our home, to our little girl.”
Our little girl.
She was the reason I was standing up to them today. I wanted her to know that she’s worthy of creating her own destiny and doesn’t need any man to make sure her dreams are a success.
He’s the second reason.
I’m fighting their high and mighty standards to show them that my life is just that. Mine.
We walked the rest of the way up the path.
The second we reached the wooden door, it opened, revealing my mother on the other side.
“How good of you to join us, dear. And with a guest,” she said in a condescending tone, causing me to suck in a long breath through my nose and hold it there momentarily before letting it back out.
“Good to see you too, Mom. This is Gage. Gage, this is my mother Chelle.”
“It’s good to meet you, Mrs. Hamilton,” Gage greeted my mother with his right hand held out. She quickly shook his hand and rushed us into the house.
“Dinner was just put on the table. I’ll set an extra place.”
This was going to be one long dinner.
We sat down at our places at the table. My brother and sister had weird expressions on their faces when Gage pulled my seat out for me, and the looks remained as we sat there staring at each other.
“I’d like you all to meet Gage. Gage, this is my father, Lewis, my brother, Andy, and my sister, Lisa,” I introd
uced. Their other halves weren’t at the table just yet. They were serving the children in the other room before they sat down to enjoy dinner. That was one of my mother’s other rules. Children didn’t sit at the table with adults at gatherings. I hated that rule growing up.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Gage responded with a nod.
My mother carried the tray of lasagna into the dining room. My sister-in-law, Carla, followed behind her with the bowl of garlic bread. My brother-in-law, Simon, came in a minute later with a glass and plate for Gage.
Quickly, I introduced the two of them before my mother told us to bow our heads for the grace.
She blessed the food and told us all to dig in.
Everyone seemed very focused on the man sitting beside me as the food was passed around the table.
Gage rubbed his hand on my thigh trying to soothe my anxiety. It worked until he lifted his hand and reached out for the bowl of bread that my sister passed to him from across the table.
Gage reached for the metal dish with his left hand. The sister I knew so well who noticed everything gasped when she saw the black band on Gage’s finger.
“He’s married, Avery. Really?”
And so, it began.
“What are you talking about, Lisa?” asked my mother.
“He has a wedding band on his finger,” Lisa reiterated.
“Avery Nicole Hamilton, how dare you,” my mother screamed from across the table.
“How dare I what, Mother?”
I wouldn’t back down from her berating. She had no clue what she was talking about.
“Bring home a married man.”
“I know he’s married. Why’s that an issue?”
“You’re going to hell. You’re going to sit there and act like what you’re doing isn’t wrong. And you,” my mother started as she pointed her finger at Gage.
And that was my cue to end the charade.
“What I’m doing isn’t wrong. Yes, Gage is married. He’s married to me,” I revealed as I held my left hand to show them my rings.
“You all were quick to think so little of me. How dare any of you.”
The Right Mistake Page 14
