She almost blurted out the pregnancy news, but he had his shoes on and was back to looking like she was a barely-contained beast. “You going to be okay?”
“Can we talk later?”
“Of course. Sorry. You wanted to tell me something complex.” His tone was wry. “Guess I beat you to the punch there.”
She met him at the door. It seemed like a small enough step to take, given the everythingness of this whole convoluted mess. Even if he retained a tinge of condescension in the way he looked at her. “It will keep. But I need us to talk, when you’re up for it.”
“I can call tonight after Andres goes to sleep.”
She bit at her lip. “In person, Theo. Sometime before Hannah gets back to me would be best. Just give me a little notice. I can take some time off work. Meet you here or something.”
His eyes.
She did not reach for him.
“Rachel?”
“It’s okay.” She wasn’t sure if she was lying or not. “Complex, is all. We need some privacy, and time.”
“Oh gods.”
She didn’t quite mean to smile, but it did seem to dial him down a notch.
“And to think yesterday I was building sandcastles.”
When she laughed, he flashed a grin. It drew her in. “Text me later, okay? Let me know if your day gets any better.”
Tentative, he stroked a curl along her neck. “Can I give you a kiss? That’ll help.”
“Oh, hell yes. Please.” And she wrapped herself to him, and he was a solid pillar supporting her, and yeah. The kiss was tender, his warmth filling the cold spaces within her. She aimed to return the favor. It wasn’t a hardship, this attempt to comfort him after a shock of a day. To bolster him against fraught times to come. And her deep wish to share a moment of connection with Theo told her more than she wanted to contemplate about feelings she wasn’t prepared to let loose just yet.
Chapter Thirty-One
Before the Saturday lunch rush started, he called Sergei in to the office.
“What’s up, re?”
Nothing like owning a restaurant to inure a guy to personnel problems, but he’d gone and unearthed a hellish new twist to the process. “Sit down, will you? Shut the door.”
Sergei complied, and damn if Theo could tell if his calm reaction was a facade or genuine.
“Take a look at these reports.”
He peered for a cursory moment. “Spreadsheets aren’t my thing. This is the monthly income?”
“Right.”
“Is it down or something? Up?” Serg passed them back, looking like someone who’d never considered a balance sheet in his life. Theo added number sense to the qualities he’d search for in his next manager.
“The raw numbers are fine. But these days, where I highlighted, the cash never made it to our account.”
Sergei leaned back. As if proximity to the spreadsheet itself was the problem. “Hang on. Hang on.”
He did. He waited, like a fool trying to imitate some movie detective, letting his perp break the tension of silence.
Sergei fished out his phone and tapped between gesticulations. “I don’t know if you’re trying to ambush me on your own or if you and Ron cooked this up together. Trying to force me out so I don’t get in the way of you banging my wife. I mean, my mother’s been telling me to protect myself, and I told her, no. I said to her, come on, Theo’s more interested in Elixir running well than he is in Rachel, for god’s sake. So I shouldn’t be paranoid. But I guess it’s good I was trying to appease her, because here we are.”
Theo’s calves hurt. Of all the places to notice he was holding himself back, the calves were a strange choice, but there it was. The effort to not surge to his feet had them straining. His hand was clenched on his pen, and his jaw ground up into his molars, but it was the calves that he tried to relax first. “I’m not ambushing you, and Ron didn’t cook up anything. I’m showing you facts. The cash is missing. I’m asking if you know anything about it.”
“Of course I do.”
He shifted his jaw again. “What does that mean?”
Sergei shoved his precious cell phone his way, like it contained five thousand dollars and a reasonable explanation. “Because those are the nights you had Ron take the deposit.”
Ten days since hugging her girl goodbye. Sergei had bothered to return her texts twice, so she didn’t have any overwhelming worries about Hannah’s health or safety. Just everything else. What was she eating, was she getting all the bedtime stories she wanted, had they lost Effie and not bothered to look for her? Was she happy? What did they do when she fussed or cried?
Her neighbor joked about enjoying all her free time, when she saw Rachel standing at the mailboxes with no Hannah in tow. Said it must be nice to sleep in. And okay, yes. She was as well rested as possible for someone wrestling with her conscience. Oh, and whose body was busy diverting resources to the cell-dividing factory within. She’d been through every shelf and drawer in Hannah’s room, organizing toys to their proper bins and matching up socks and folding away outgrown clothes for storage. Also deep-cleaned the bathroom, restocked the medicine cabinet, flipped her mattress, filed all her paperwork, took herself out to a movie, and planned a five-dish meal for her friends.
The chicken was marinating, the onion was pickling, the potatoes and cauliflower were chopped and ready. The lentils in the crockpot smelled great. But if Theo called at any point, she would walk away from dinner and the gals. He only had texted her things were fine. “Complex,” he wrote, and she didn’t know how to take that. She was deciphering everything about her life from the qualities of the silences.
Serena, Natalie, and Gillian brought noise, bless them. Laughter, and chatter, and the pop of a cork from a bottle of rosé.
“None for me,” she said.
Gillian slowly set the bottle down on the table, never taking her eyes from Rachel’s face. Which was ridiculous. It’s not like she even drank that much. She’d stuck to water plenty of other times. Sure, usually those nights were the ones when she had Hannah with her, but that didn’t justify Gill’s air of suspicion.
“I haven’t even had a chance to tell him yet,” she blurted out.
So of course everyone stared at her then. More silence surrounding her, not that it was hard to decipher.
“Rachel Elizabeth Groff, are you pregnant?”
She grimaced at Gill. It was enough of an answer. After that, silence was banished. She gave them the basics, ending with, “And I was going to tell him Friday, but something weird happened at Elixir and he had to go.”
“We haven’t even met this man. How can you be pregnant when we don’t even know what he looks like?” Natalie asked.
“Right, where’s a pic?” Serena took Rachel’s phone and navigated to the photo album. “All of these are of Hannah.”
Gillian appropriated the phone. “Why didn’t you send me this one of her in the pool? What is wrong with you?”
“Focus. We need to see this Thad person.”
“Theo,” Rachel corrected.
“Until I meet him, I’m calling him Thad,” Serena said. “Just in case.”
“In case what?” asked Nat.
“In case.” Serena followed her ominous statement with a hefty sip of wine.
“Wait. Important question.” Natalie held her hand in the air like they were in grade school. “When you rolled the dice for Thad on the game board, what did he get for sexytimes?”
“Thunder bolt,” Gillian said. Quick as can be. Not even pretending to think about it first.
Nat lowered her arm enough to high-five Gill. “Awesome recall. Thanks. And?”
Rachel glared at them both, though they knew she didn’t mean it. “And what?”
“Are we talking floodwaters? Hurricane? Gully washer?”
Serena laughed. “What even is a gully washer?”
“You know.” Natalie threw up her hands and did the same motion as ‘down came the rain’ from the Itsy Bitsy Spide
r song. “Quick cloudburst, lots of noise but gone before you even have time to go out and get wet.”
They all cracked up.
“I have mango and coconut sorbets for dessert and I don’t have to share,” Rachel warned.
“Wow. That’ll teach you to talk about weather patterns,” Gillian told Nat.
“Can I blame my fiancé? He’s a very bad influence.”
“Only if you tell us one of his dirty limericks.” Serena’s smile glinted.
“Hmm. I’ll think about it,” Natalie said. “Meanwhile, look at how Rachel is sitting there hoping we’ll stop asking about Thad.”
“Theo.”
“Nope. We’re all calling him Thad now. I decided. Only way to get us to stop is to tell us all about his lightning rod.”
“You people are childish.”
“Answer the question, Rachel.”
She shook her head. “I think you’re the bad influence on Evan, not the other way round. And if you must know.... Okay, those summer storms, the ones that move in right when it gets dark outside? And suddenly everything is quiet and still, but then the skies open up and the water’s everywhere, thunder and lightning hitting right on top of each other? And it’s pouring all night long, so you may as well give up hope of sleeping, and let nature have its way with you? Like that.”
All three of them reached for their wine glasses and drained them. She kinda wished she had one of her own, to be honest. That night they’d spent together before Andres came to town felt way longer than three weeks ago, with so much else happening since then. And probably it was all over with her and Theo, as soon as he found out about the baby.
“Okay, we really need that picture now. And why are you looking wistful?” Gillian asked. “We’re the ones jealous of your nightly thundershowers.”
“Speak for yourself,” Serena said, and she and Natalie clinked their glasses together. Smug almost-marrieds.
Rachel passed over the wine bottle so they could refill anyway. “It’s weird to think about dry spells now, is all.”
“Why dry spells? Your doctor didn’t give you anything to worry about, did she?”
She squeezed Gill’s hand. “No, nothing like that. But I don’t see how we can go about at dating if we’re co-parenting.”
“What is this, the last season of Friends? Of course you can date the hot man who fathers your baby.”
“Jesus, Gill.”
“I hope he looks more like Joey than Ross.”
“Seconded,” Serena said. “Text him to send us a selfie so we can check.”
“Y’all should fuck right off.”
“Aw, you know you love us.” Serena’s self-assurance was well founded. And that was good. Having three such friends in her life was good. They’d never yelled at her about how much she’d screwed up by letting Sergei abuse her, and staunchly seen her through the dismal, messy end of her marriage, and stuck by her when her world revolved around things like whether Hannah was ready for solid food and if her sleep schedule would ever smooth out. And here they were, ready to go through all of it with her again. Loving her, no matter what.
“Hey.” Gill rubbed her shoulder. “Did we even say congratulations?”
The overfull water balloon of tension in her chest popped, and tears spilled all down her face. Arms reached her from all sides, hugging and tugging her up until the three of them surrounded her, held her together.
Who needed thunder clouds, when she had the steady strength of sheltering arms like these?
Chapter Thirty-Two
He signed Andres in for science museum day camp and headed straight to Rachel’s. She’d taken a half-day off work, which was ominous.
Or encouraging?
Hard to know. Things were fraught enough at work, and it irked him beyond what he’d have believed possible, how impossible it was to get a read on Rachel. Which, okay, had more to do with his own issues than her. The painful awareness that half his summer with Andres was over, the suckiness that he couldn’t chuck in all his responsibilities to spend that time hanging out with his son, the way those responsibilities chose this precise moment to ramp into high gear.
The evening before, after a video chat with Annalisa, Andres said, “I miss Mom a million times but when I’m home I miss you a million times.” And then they cried a little. And then they jumped in the pool because their faces were already wet, so it made sense. Or so Andres said, and Theo couldn’t think of any reason to disagree.
Later, he phoned his mom to check on arrangements for their visit. But mostly because—like father, like son—being emotional made him want to talk to her. Which she figured out, of course. And when he talked through the Ron and Sergei situation, she asked what he thought of selling out and moving to live closer to his son. It wasn’t the worst solution to the whole mess.
Which slammed him full force back into his uncertainty about Rachel. Here he was taking her into consideration while making major decisions, without knowing if they were on or not. Or on, but in such a casual place, to her mind, that she’d think him weird for making plans around their relationship. He was full of concepts like commitment and love and the future. As far as he knew, she wasn’t.
He was used to being low priority in his relationships. Everyone had someone else to think of first. He looked after his own self. He was a grown-ass man, so he was plenty capable. He and Annalisa never even pretended to prioritize the other once they had Andres. And of course their son would forever get top billing. Even happy as Annalisa was with Jamie, who she’d practically programmed up from a Perfect Husband Wish List, she put Andres first. Maybe when he was grown that would shift; his own parents didn’t seem to have any trouble filling their empty nest with each other. His sisters were the same with their spouses. Or Phoebe and Max were. Since Helen and Tracy’s twins were younger than Hannah, they were at the stage when taking care of each other meant letting the other take the occasional nap.
So Rachel would never sideline Hannah’s best interests. He’d be dismayed if she did. What he needed to figure out were the chances he could make it to second place with her.
Maybe it was some latent Greek son selfishness, the kind his dad and uncles worked against while Sergei dove headlong into stereotypes. Maybe it wasn’t his most shining quality. However petty, he harbored the dream of ascending the ranks with someone. Even his own son lumped Jamie up there with him. Because Jamie was around. Jamie was teaching him tennis. He and Jamie did puzzles. They had a secret handshake. It wouldn’t shock him to learn Andres also gave Jamie a ‘#1 Dad’ mug for Father’s Day.
What a fucking tangle. The looming countdown until Andres returned to Fort Worth. Ron and the future of Elixir. And whatever it was that Rachel labeled complex.
“You’re all wet.” She stood back to let him in.
“It’s raining.”
Hard to kiss him hello and suppress a chuckle at the same time. “Summer storms. Come in. You need a towel?”
He ran a palm down his face then wiped it dry on his t-shirt. Because it wasn’t already doing a fine job of clinging to his muscled torso. “No, I’m fine.”
No argument from her. Note to self: check pregnancy site for info about horniness in the first trimester. Also, send an irritated text to her friends about how they had no right to stir up all her lustful feelings towards Theo. He could well be three minutes from walking right out of her apartment and only communicating through lawyers in the future.
“Sit. Can I get you anything?”
“No. I ... you’re making me nervous.”
She moved from the side chair to the coffee table in front of him. Their knees knocked together and she put a hand on his wrist. “Sorry. I’ve got some nerves, too. And it’s really good to see you. I’ve—” she cut herself off. No confession of emotions. He might read it as manipulative after the fact. It might even be the truth. More than a few of the long lonely hours she’d spent processing the reality of her pregnancy featured rosy-tinted fantasies of a big happy
blended family. So no matter how much she missed him—missed the sex, yes, but also his company, and the way his eyes were always steady and clear, and his thoughtful questions, and how he was a shelter in the storms of life—it was not fair to jump him. Or to bare her trepidatious heart.
“Nerves because of the complex thing?”
“Oh, so much so.” She wiped a presumptuous raindrop trying to sneak its way along the sharp line of his beard. “How are things with your complex situation?”
He shook his head. “Not good.”
“Shit. Sorry. Do you want to keep it to yourself? Or talk about it?” Was she putting off the inevitable? Was it wrong to offer herself up as a confidant in case he needed to put some distance between them?
He didn’t give her a chance to navigate the quandary. “It wasn’t Sergei who embezzled. It was Ron.”
“Jesus, are you serious?” Oh he looked wrecked. “You are serious. I’m so sorry. What happened? If you want to say.”
His hands wrapped around hers. “He—Ron—set Sergei up. Told him I wanted Ron to take the deposits, that I was experimenting with changing the system. He figured Sergei would be paranoid it was because of, well, you. That I was treating him as suspicious because I’d learned something about him from you. Which I think means there’s something more Ron knows about Serg that I didn’t try to find out, but....”
“Wow. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know why Sergei wouldn’t be good at his job. He’s for sure full enough of himself to be confident about it, which seems like half the challenge when you’re managing people.”
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