Spring Romance: NINE Happily Ever Afters

by Tessa Bailey

  My mother sweeps into the kitchen, beaming.

  “Wonderful news!” she trills. “Howard is on his way. He said he couldn’t be without me one day longer.”

  I smile. “That is wonderful news. I’ll make up the other bed.”

  She smiles back. “Oh, no, dear. We’ll need to use your bed. After all, there are two of us and only one of you.”

  Right.

  Although technically, there are now two of me.

  * * *

  Nick

  Congratulations, I type. It doesn’t convey what I feel, but it will have to do. I’m done with ambiguity.

  Screw indecision.

  I know what I want.

  I hit Send. I start to turn off my phone, but the finality is too much. I set it down, face up.

  I stare at the pile of papers on my home office desk. It is noon, and I have a massive proposal due tomorrow, complete with a contract that needs to be pounded out for final negotiations. Legal already went over the portions they need to review. My turn to figure out the rest.

  If I bury myself in work, I can give myself hours of hope. Not hope, exactly, but something more than this grinding ambiguity that turns my gut into a barbed wire fence. At best, Chloe will reply sometime today.

  Or never.

  A black plastic bag with a slim tome in it taunts me. Yesterday, I went to the Harvard Book Store and bought Chloe’s baby the best children’s book ever.

  Walter the Farting Dog.

  Simone hated that book.

  I smile at the memory.

  Movement on my fading phone screen catches my eye. Three dots.

  Three beautiful, sophisticated, exceptionally delicious Chloe-flavored dots.

  Thank you, she texts back. Sorry for not replying sooner.

  The phone is a football in my hands, and I’m fumbling at the goal line. It lands on the carpet. I pounce.

  How is the baby? What’s its name? I reply.

  Her name is Holly. She’s perfect.

  You’re perfect, I almost type back. Sheer force of will stops me.

  I’m sure she is, I answer, smiling as I tap out the words. I remember babymoons. Welcome to the wonderful world of daughters. Start saving now. Justin Bieber obsessions aren’t cheap.

  I hit Send and stare at the screen. A physical ache builds between my ribs. The space inside me where Chloe belongs is empty. I wonder if she has holes inside her shaped like me.

  I’d like to be in that hole.

  I grimace. That’s not what I meant.

  And yet…

  Minutes pass. No reply. Shit.

  Twenty minutes pass and I realize I am no better than my teenagers, breathlessly waiting for the next Snapchat post from a crush.

  With a sigh, I return to work, happy to have some communication with Chloe. At least we “talked.” She knows I’m here. She can find me when she’s ready.

  If she’s ever ready.

  The words on the first contract in front of me blur. I feel my pulse in my eyes. The first delivery date for five designs is egregiously soon. Slash. The terms for failure to deliver are draconian.

  Slash.

  I need to take out my frustration somewhere.

  My red pen’s half empty by the time I make it through the twenty-nine pages of this mess.

  Bzzzz.

  I leap across the desk and read:

  sorry. diaper blow out. typing one fingered with baby on arm

  God, I want to see her. I take the leap.

  I’d love to meet her, I type.

  An eternity passes in the form of one minute. Then two. Five.

  Finally:

  Tn8?

  I’m reasonably fluent in textspeak, but this is a new one.

  Yes, tonight, I reply, assuming.

  k

  Tn8 and k are my new favorite words.

  I’ve got it bad.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nick

  “Utterly inappropriate baby gift?” Charlie asks, as if we are in a countdown.

  “Check.” I humor him.

  “Her ex’s strap-on dildo you bought for her on an online auction site where people assume she’s a porn star?”

  I frown. He’s not wrong, technically.

  “Check,” I say softly, tapping the table next to the box in question for emphasis, jaw tight.

  “Condoms?”

  “Charlie,” I growl.

  “What? I was about to ask if you’d choked the chicken in advance so you don’t jump the gun when you finally do the two-backed nasty, but I thought that was little too personal.”

  “Thank you for your exquisite tact.” I shoot him a sour look. “And all those mixed metaphors.”

  He shrugs. “So?”

  “So what?”

  “Did you?” He makes a hmph sound in the back of his throat, the noise suggestive and inquisitive at the same time.

  A perfect encapsulation of my brother.

  “None of your business.”

  He grins. “Smart man.” He frowns. “Unless being old changes that.”

  “Changes what?”

  He lowers his voice. “Maybe instead of worrying about jumping the gun, you need Viagra?” He gives me a once-over. “You are six and a half years older than me. Plumbing changes.” He frowns, looking down at his own pipe.

  My response makes me realize where Elodie got her eye roll.

  “No.” Hell, no. Hell, no on many levels. “I’m going to meet a newborn, Charlie. Not sleep with her mother.”

  “Babies nap. You could have a little afternoon delight.”

  “Babies also wake up and scream bloody murder. Trust me. I know this. Simone and I should have named Jean-Marc ‘cockblocker.’”

  Charlie’s in the middle of a swig of ginger ale. He begins choking.

  I grin.

  “Wait ’til you have kids.”

  “It’ll be a long wait,” he gasps.

  My front door opens, and in walks a giant black hole whose gravitational pull yanks at my wallet.

  “Speak of the devil,” Charlie says, as my youngest chucks a hockey-sized bag across my threshold, his face buried in a phone screen.

  “Dad?” Jean-Marc doesn’t look up. “Can you help me with that?”

  Charlie grabs the bag, then gets yanked back to the floor. “Jesus, JM! Or should I call you CB?”

  I give Charlie a dirty look.

  He winks back. “What’s in there? Gold?”

  “Close. Textbooks. A bunch of my new friends weren’t patient enough for the buy-back at the university bookstore, so I paid them out. Need to list them online at a profit and make bank next semester.”

  Says the kid who cries poor all the time.

  He finally finishes his business online and approaches me for a hug. Jean-Marc is dark like Simone, but with a Grafton male body, which means tall and lean. He’s a good two inches taller than me now. Did the kid grow in the last two months?

  “How’s school?” I ask, realizing my cheek is brushing something on his chin that approximates a beard. He’s only been at NYU for a handful of weeks. There are no grades.

  He pulls back and laughs, blue eyes like mine practically glowing. “Straight A’s so far.” He shoots me a defiant look. “I didn’t give permission for you to see them, by the way. You know about this law called FERPA?”

  “Yes. You’re eighteen now. I don’t have the legal right to see your grades unless you give permission.”

  “Cool, huh?”

  “Saved my ass when I was an undergrad,” Charlie says.

  “You got into Yale Law, Charlie.” Jean-Marc says with a worshipful tone. Haven’t heard that directed toward me since he was eleven.

  “Yep. Bor-ing. Who wants to spend their days in classes and research, all cooped up in a…” Charlie’s voice fades out as he catches my eye. “I mean, great job with the 4.0.” He winks at my son.

  Jean-Marc laughs, then looks at me. “Who’s the present for?”

  Before I can answer, Ch
arlie says, “Your dad’s girlfriend’s new baby.”

  My son frowns. “Girlfriend? Baby? I go away for a few weeks and everything changes. Do I have a little sister now?”

  I cock one eyebrow, gut clenching. I know he’s joking, but the teasing puts me on edge in a disarming way. “No need to play dumb. Elodie told you.”

  “No. Amelie did.” He laughs. “Elodie chased you down in bed with a chick. Amelie won’t let her live it down.”

  “Woman. Not chick.”

  He shrugs.

  “And she has a brand-new baby?” His look makes it clear he thinks I’ve gone off the deep end.

  He might be right.

  “Adopted. In the last two weeks. The adoption was in the planning stages for a long time before we met. She’s a single mother by choice.”

  “Oh.” The corners of his eyes and mouth drop down in a contemplative look. “Makes sense. Is that the baby gift?” He takes the wrapped book out of my hands, then grins, looking like a little boy for a split second. “It isn’t…?”

  “It is.”

  “Walter the Farting Dog. Spreading the joy of flatulent canines to a new generation.” His eyes meet mine, nostalgia and memory reflecting back like sunlight on a prism.

  And then: “Anyone using the washing machine?”

  The moment has passed.

  “Nope. It’s all yours,” Charlie declares, gesturing like a model on a game show.

  “You gone all night, Dad?” Hope blossoms in my chest. He’s asking to spend time with me.

  “No. I’ll be back after dinner.”

  “Cool. Board game?”

  “Cards Against Humanity?” Charlie asks with an eagerness that makes me groan. “I’ll make nachos.”

  “Sure.” I’ll suffer through my brother’s perverted card combinations if it means time with my son.

  “See you tonight.” His back retreats down the hallway. I hear shuffling sounds, then the water turns on for the laundry.

  “Have fun,” Charlie says, laughing. “Remember when the height of his day was sitting on the sofa, being read to?”

  I look at my kid, whose size-fourteen shoes now litter the shoe rack, longer than mine.

  “Like it was yesterday.”

  Because it was.

  * * *

  The entire drive over to Chloe’s place in Cambridge feels like someone has a radio dial in my head and is hitting the Scan button over and over. So many words. So many thoughts.

  Not enough kissing.

  I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel right now. I miss her. More than I have any right to admit.

  I admire her. The kind of woman who decides what she wants and doesn’t wait for someone else to make it happen is appealing. Simone expected me to make her happy. Demanded that I take charge of her emotional state. Insisted that I was responsible for whether she had a good life or not.

  Years later, I know she’s wrong. Hell, I knew it back then, too.

  Meeting Chloe just confirms it. Sophisticated, genuine, smart, funny, and sensual as hell, she’s the whole package.

  And now she comes with a ten-day-old newborn attached.

  Different package.

  A Masshole with a Second Amendment bumper sticker next to a gay pride rainbow cuts me off at Western Avenue, my laughter at the cognitive dissonance a welcome break.

  Can two wildly disparate ideas truly co-exist?

  Maybe on a car bumper, sure.

  But in real life?

  Lady Luck is with me as I slide into an easy parking spot down the block from Chloe’s place. Maybe it’s a message, as Elodie would say. A sign. A manifestation of deep wishes.

  Or maybe it’s just someone running out for an errand and the timing’s right.

  I grab my gift, leaving the shoebox filled with Chloe’s past with her ex in the backseat, ready to give it to her when the time is right. She’s now less than a block away and I can’t tolerate the distance. Must close it.

  Must smell her. Taste her. Look at her with hungry eyes.

  And meet her new life.

  My old life is back at my house, doing laundry and playing Pokemon Go.

  The road Chloe lives on is neat, with condos galore, most of the building fronts containing gardens and neatly-manicured yards. Bushes trimmed and outlined, mulch and multi-colored blooming plants, and stars that are painted the right colors all feed into the image of a neighborhood for people who live in Cambridge for all the right reasons.

  As I hit the buzzer for Chloe’s front door, I hear the unmistakable sound of rushing footsteps, trying to keep the peace. Chloe opens the door and looks at me with a thousand-watt smile. My heart speeds up, my hands tightening on the gift in my hands, and then she’s in my arms, pressing against my chest, my hands desperate to find more of her in the embrace.

  “You’re here! She’s sleeping,” Chloe whispers, her breath hot on my neck. I kiss her cheek with a gentle hello that feels like everything and nothing.

  As she lets go, we pull back slightly, catching each other’s eyes, her hands on my forearms, brushing against my tight arms, fingertips turning me tense with desire.

  I inhale, catching a sweet citrusy smell. And baby powder.

  Strange combo.

  “I’m so glad you—”

  Without thinking, I kiss her, my palm splayed against the base of her spine, covering her sacrum, my hands hot and grateful for the way she melts into the kiss. Her palms press against my shoulders, then ride up my chest, to the nape of my neck. I breathe hard, her intoxicating presence making me forget all my earlier confusion.

  The compartment in my mind that allows me to be Nicholas Grafton, director of branding for a Fortune 500 company, boss to more than twenty employees, father to three young adults, good citizen and decent brother, feels hollow, woefully empty and false as my kiss with Chloe turns into a series of touches and breaths, tongues searching, lips warm and minty, her cheek burning against my clean-shaven face, my fingers on the fine bones of her spine as she molds against me.

  This isn’t just about sexual attraction, of which there is plenty. A sense of completion consumes me as the fire we ignite burns and burns. Her body is mine as my fingertips press into her ass, anchored by her body. Having her in my arms for the first time in weeks, the box inside me designed to be filled with love feels occupied. Full.

  Love.

  I pause.

  Chloe breaks the kiss, panting, looking up at me through long lashes, her lipstick intact though slightly blurred on her upper lip.

  “You sure do know how to greet a woman,” she says with a saucy smile.

  “You make it very easy,” I say, pulling her close again, taking the plunge. “I missed you.” My breath mingles in her hair, making her shiver, her neck smooth as I press my lips against the hollow beneath her ear. She feels good. Real and raw.

  “Me, too,” she murmurs, hand on my hip, fingers hooking into my belt loop. The gesture is so casual and deceptively simple.

  “Chloe?” A man’s voice, older and filled with an elegant gravel sound, comes from Chloe’s kitchen.

  “That’s my mother’s boyfriend, Howard. Come in and meet everyone.”

  I hook my arm around her waist, not wanting to lose contact.

  “Here we go,” she says under her breath, then puts on a dazzling smile, like she’s ready for the red carpet.

  * * *

  Chloe

  Just as Nick and I enter the kitchen, Charlotte sweeps into the room, a vision in a pink Oscar de la Renta dress and black patent sandals. Her idea of what to wear for a quiet night at home, babysitting.

  “I am exhausted,” she announces. “Just wiped out. What a day.”

  Let’s think about this for a second. Let’s compare days.

  “Well,” she says, inspecting me, “Look at you. Is that lipstick?”

  “Chloe always looks beautiful,” Howard says calmly. “She’s your daughter.”

  Howard missed his true calling. He should have been a high
-level diplomat. An ambassador between warring nations. Instead he became a manufacturer of high-design kitchen tools. Still a service to humanity, IMHO, but he made millions. He arrived an hour ago, and already my stress level has dropped.

  While my mother has failed to acknowledge the man on my arm, Howard’s giving him the once-over, like an old lion sizing up the new alpha, his jowls turning down with an impressive, contemplative frown. I pour two glasses of bourbon, start to drink one, and nearly drink the other before giving it to Nick.

  “It’s a sample from our new private-label cosmetics line,” I tell her. “The shade is called ‘Go CommandO.’ Do you like it?”

  She squints. “Nice. A little on the red side for you. Are there any more samples?”

  “I’ll have Carrie send some over.”

  Howard hands her a frosted martini glass, with a kiss on the cheek and side-eye at Nick that I can’t decipher. Grey Goose, two olives. The olives are Charlotte’s idea of hors d’oeuvres. Ten calories each. And green vegetables, sort of.

  “You’re right. She does always look beautiful,” Nick says quietly. My skin suddenly feels hot.

  “This is Nick,” I say quickly. “Nick, this is my mother, Charlotte.”

  She gives him a hundred-watt smile, and her manicured hand. Her bracelets jingle as they shake hands.

  “And this is Howard.” The two men square off, Nick towering over Howard. The strength of their handshake could bend iron girders, Howard’s protectiveness obvious, his mouth leveling out into a look that says Nick passed his first test.

  Handshake grip acceptable.

  “How lovely to meet you, Nick.” She looks at his glass of bourbon. “I see you have a cocktail. Why are we all in the kitchen? Chloe has become such a casual person. This is not how she was raised.”

  “Having a new baby will do that to you. I don’t think I’ve even turned on the lights in the living room since Holly arrived.”

  “Let’s go turn them on now.” Charlotte’s already headed in that direction, with a bowl of Marcona almonds in one hand and her martini in the other.

  Nick clears his throat. “I think Chloe’s way is perfect. I always feel comfortable here. And welcome. She’s a great hostess.”

  He’s only been here once before, but Charlotte doesn’t know that. I smile at him gratefully.

  “Bless your heart,” she says, “what lovely manners.”