The Bloom Girls

by Amy Pine

  Miriam rested her forearms on the table and leaned forward, narrowing her eyes at Ethan. “He’s good-looking, Bloom. I’ll give you that. But what makes him different?” She tapped her index finger against her lips.

  “Mir,” Gabi warned.

  “What?” she asked. “You knew my approval rating would be much harder to come by than Alissa and Matthew’s. They love you, sure. But they don’t know you like I do.”

  “I’m sitting right here.” Ethan fixed his gaze on the pink-haired pixie who was sizing him up, but Gabi knew the comment was directed toward her.

  Gabi winced and placed a hand on his knee under the table. “I know. Miriam’s a little overprotective, but as soon as she gets to know you, she’ll see how perfect we are together. You two have to love each other, by the way, so the quicker we get through this, the better it will be for all of us.”

  “Where did you meet?” Miriam asked Ethan, not bothering to acknowledge Gabi and Ethan’s exchange.

  “You got this, babe,” Gabi whispered.

  Ethan huffed out a laugh, cracked his knuckles, then took up the same position as Miriam, palms pressed firmly on the table in front of him.

  “Galway, Ireland,” he said firmly.

  “How?” Miriam added.

  “She called me an asshole for almost running her off the road, and then I crashed my moped and almost killed myself.”

  Miriam raised her brows. “Impressive meet cute. I’ll accept it. Gabi’s favorite possession?”

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “Her camera. I’m not an amateur.”

  “Fine. Favorite color.”

  “Blue.”

  “Favorite food?” Miriam asked.

  “Stateside or abroad?” Ethan lobbed back at her. “Because here? Lou Malnati’s deep dish if we’re talking savory, red velvet anything if we’re talking sweet. Abroad it was any pasta from any walk-up café in Rome and stracciatella gelato for dessert, also in Rome. On the Spanish Steps.” He crossed his arms, a self-satisfied grin on his face. “What else you got? Because I can do this all day.”

  Miriam gasped, her hand on her chest. “The Spanish Steps, Bloom? Roman Holiday gelato? Is there photographic evidence?”

  “Of course,” Gabi said. “I’m not an amateur either.”

  Miriam turned her attention back to Ethan, and Gabi beamed as she watched the two go head-to-head proving—albeit in a strange, competitive way—how much they both loved her.

  “Does she freckle in the sun?” Miriam asked.

  “Is that a trick question?” Ethan leaned forward with a confident grin. “Because she wears the highest SPF in existence to protect her fair skin along with a straw hat that provides enough shade for anyone standing within a six-foot radius.”

  Miriam laughed. “Touché, fiancé. Thought I could trip you up. Guess I was wrong…for now.”

  “Who had the double-shot cappuccino? The flat white…aaand, the boring old black coffee?”

  The three turned their heads to find Gabi’s aunt Sadie—blond hair pulled into the tight ponytail she always wore at work.

  “Sadie!” Gabi flew out of her chair as her aunt set the tray of beverages down on the table.

  Her aunt, taller than both Gabi and her mother, bent her knees so they were eye-to-eye, then cradled Gabi’s face in her hands. “Oh my God, look at you! I’m sorry I couldn’t make it for your welcome-home dinner. I worked until closing so your mom could prep, and we had a piping bag emergency, which meant I had to make the hour drive to the Wilton store in rush hour and—enough excuses! You’re home!”

  Gabi hugged her aunt.

  “Plus,” Sadie added as the two embraced. “You know my mother would lose her shit if she knew I saw you before she and my father got back from their meditation retreat next week.”

  “Shouldn’t they be super chill after a meditation retreat?” Gabi laughed as they broke away from each other. “Plus, you’re seeing me now.”

  Sadie shrugged. “It’ll be our little secret.”

  They turned their attention to Ethan and Miriam, now both standing.

  “Hi, Miriam,” Sadie said. “And you must be Ethan.” Sadie pivoted toward Gabi’s fiancé. “The one who’s got my brother all tied up in knots over his baby girl getting married.”

  “Guilty, I guess.” Ethan extended a hand.

  “I’m twenty-two,” Gabi grumbled. “Dad needs to stop looking at me like I’m a child.”

  Sadie waved Ethan’s hand away and pulled him into a hug.

  Ethan’s eyes widened as he stared at Gabi over her aunt’s shoulders.

  “We’re a bunch of huggers.” Gabi shrugged. “You better get used to it.”

  Especially on the Bloom side. Gigi and Gramps—her dad’s parents—would be the easiest to win over. In all her twenty-two years, she’d never seen her mellow, hippie grandparents clash with anyone. Well, other than her mom’s parents. And planning a wedding meant they’d all have to interact at some point. Soon. So, yeah, maybe they had a few more hurdles to jump before it was smooth sailing, but it would be smooth. Eventually. Right?

  Sadie released him and crossed her arms. “Once wedding planning gets under way, you’re going to need an ally on the inside.” She winked. “And nothing gives me greater joy than pushing my big brother’s buttons.” She nodded toward the tray of coffees on the table. “I texted Gabi we were busy, so she gave me your coffee orders ahead of time. Alissa’s finishing up with the last couple of customers, and then you can raid the reject bin.”

  “Reject bin?” Ethan asked.

  Gabi nodded. “Anything that comes out misshapen or may be slightly overcooked—though my mother will tell you she never overcooks, that the oven does—gets thrown in a Rubbermaid bin. Mom and Sadie donate it to a local food pantry at the end of every day. It’s everything from cupcakes to rugelach, to poorly frosted black-and-white cookies—”

  “Also not my fault,” Alissa said, sneaking up behind Sadie. “I blame the icing knife.” She produced a small plate with four black-and-whites that had seen better days. One looked more like an unintentional yin-yang than the traditional half-moon design, while the other three just looked sort of sad.

  “Are you feeling okay, Mom?” Gabi laughed. “Because you usually have a much steadier hand.”

  Alissa’s cheeks turned bright pink. “I’m fine,” she scoffed. “We’re not going to get into this again.”

  “Into what?” Sadie brows furrowed.

  “Dad didn’t tell you?” Gabi asked. “You missed the excitement Friday night. I announce my engagement, and my mother responds by fainting—right into Dad’s arms.”

  Sadie shot Alissa a look, and Alissa shot one right back.

  “No one wants a Danish or a Nutella croissant? Not even from the reject bin?” But she didn’t wait for anyone to answer. Alissa grabbed Sadie by the wrist. “Sadie and I will be right back.”

  Without another word, the two women hurried back behind the counter and then into the kitchen beyond, out of sight and earshot from the rest of the bakery.

  “Your family’s strange.” Miriam bit into one of the sadly iced cookies.

  “And this is something you’re just learning now?” Gabi darted behind Ethan and slid back into her chair. “Because I seem to remember when we were in kindergarten, and I invited you over to my house—which was Grandma Ev and Papa Mike’s house at the time—for our first playdate, and your mom was worried about you simply playing at a house where a teen pregnancy had occurred.”

  Miriam and Ethan sat too.

  “Technically,” Miriam said, “you were conceived in the back seat of your dad’s car, which is why I think my mom eventually got over it. So, no. Nothing new. But sometimes it’s just good to remind you, seeing as you’re part of said strange family. Has he met the Blooms yet?”

  “Nope,” Gabi said.

  Miriam shot her a conspiratorial grin. “That is going to be fun.”

  For Gabi, unconventional was simply the norm. But while she’d learned t
o accept it, she’d also learned caution and skepticism, and that falling in love was the easy part. Staying in love—not so much. Still, her parents loved her. Every year, whether her father was in town or not, Gabi received a Hanukkah gift from both of them, the card always signed with the same words: You are our best gift, Gabs. Always remember that. It was like they knew she needed to remind herself that she wasn’t the reason they couldn’t stay in love.

  She glanced at Ethan and promised herself that they would be different. Sure, they’d only just fallen in love. But they would have staying power.

  She took the lid off her to-go cup and inhaled the inviting steam from her cappuccino, the familiar scent putting her at ease, then took a larger-than-normal sip knowing full well she was giving herself an obnoxious foam mustache.

  “So. Miriam. You’re calling me strange?” She kept a straight face as she set her cup down. “Because the last time I checked, I wasn’t the one with pink hair.”

  Miriam rolled her eyes. “Please. Everyone has pink hair now.” Then she took the lid off her own cup, indulging in her flat white while simultaneously painting on her own foam mustache. “And hell yes you’re strange, in an endearing, quirky sort of way that makes pink-haired mainstreamers like myself love and adore you.”

  They stared pointedly at Ethan, who took the lid off his own coffee.

  “Sorry, ladies. Just plain old black coffee for me. But I do enjoy the look you both have going on right now.”

  He grinned and reached for his cup, likely to take his own sip of his very plain, foam-free coffee.

  “This won’t do, Gabi.”

  “No,” Gabi agreed. “It certainly won’t.”

  Ethan crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes first at Miriam, then at Gabi. “I can’t drink my coffee?”

  Both women shook their heads.

  “Not like that,” Gabi said. “Not without proper facial attire.”

  He chuckled. “Seriously? I can’t enjoy some much-needed caffeine without joining the foam-mustache club?”

  Gabi shook her head defiantly. “I’m afraid not.”

  Ethan shrugged, then dipped his finger into Gabi’s foam. She gasped when he painted her upper lip with his finger, giving her double the foam. Then he licked his finger clean, pressed his palms to her cheeks, and kissed her—hard enough that whatever foam was there was now messily shared above not one but two lips, yet sweet enough so as not to be offensive to the other person at the table.

  Gabi’s stomach flipped, and Miriam reacted with a genuine, “Aww. You guys.”

  When Ethan pulled away, he had smudges of foam on the tip of his nose and above the left side of his upper lip. Gabi wasn’t sure what she looked like, but she didn’t care.

  “My family’s a little weird,” she said.

  Ethan nodded.

  “I’m a little weird,” she added.

  “Why do you think I fell for you?” he asked. “I need a little weird in my life.”

  “You see?” Miriam sounded on the verge of tears. “This is why I did it. Why I said screw waiting until marriage and started—well—screwing.” She let out a nervous laugh.

  Gabi and Ethan both stared at Miriam.

  “I knew it!” Gabi cried. “But wait. I’m lost. You lost your virginity because Ethan needs a little weird in his life?”

  Miriam laughed again and shook her head. “Look at me, Bloom. Everything about me, ever since you’ve known me, has been a tiny rebellion, right? From playing with Teen Mom’s daughter—”

  “Heard that!” Alissa called as she peeped out from the kitchen.

  “No offense, Mrs. A!” Miriam called back.

  “None taken!” Alissa said, then disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Miriam turned her attention back to Gabi and Ethan. “From playing with you to cutting off all my hair minutes before heading to synagogue with my parents in eighth grade…”

  Gabi winced. “It was a terrible haircut.”

  “So bad,” Miriam agreed. “But I’d been begging my mom to let me cut it for months.”

  “She wanted to be Victoria Beckham,” Gabi said.

  “It’s true,” Miriam admitted. “Posh Spice was everything to me back then.”

  Ethan laughed. “Weren’t the Spice Girls a little before your time?”

  Miriam gasped. “It’s never too late to love the Spice Girls.”

  “You were waiting until marriage, though,” Gabi said. “You were so adamant about that. I can’t believe you changed your mind and never told me.”

  Miriam’s expression morphed to mirror Gabi’s. “And you were adamant about never getting married yet changed your mind and didn’t tell me either. Guess neither of us are exactly the same people we were a couple of months ago, are we?” She looked down at her coffee. “I talked too long. This is getting cold. I’m going to go make a new one.”

  “You never wanted to get married,” Ethan said. It was a statement, not a question. “Seems like maybe that should have been something we discussed somewhere between me proposing and you saying yes.”

  “And I should have known about your injury and your depression, but I didn’t,” she countered.

  He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, clearing away the remnants of the cappuccino foam, then put his lid on his coffee and stood from the table. “My thing is a little different. Don’t you think? You should go catch up with Miriam. I’m going to take a walk.”

  “Ethan…” she said, and he paused. But she didn’t know what came next. “I’ll text you when I clear things up with Miriam. Then we’ll talk, okay?”

  He nodded once. “Sure. Then we’ll talk.”

  And he walked out the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  So…Sadie knows,” Alissa said.

  The hand that had been so gently stroking her belly—fingers teasing her as they dipped beneath the waistband of her cotton bikini briefs—stopped before doing what she needed them to do. It was her own fault, but she’d been keeping it together all day, and now she had to let it out.

  She rolled over to face Matthew, trying not to roll straight off the couch because—well—they couldn’t even make it to the bedroom. He was propped up on one elbow. She mirrored his pose so they could be eye-to-eye.

  Alissa hadn’t planned on sleeping with him again after the other morning, and technically they hadn’t yet. But when Gabi asked if Alissa would mind if she stayed at Ethan’s a little longer and Matthew happened to text to see how she was feeling and wondering if she needed anything, she’d found herself saying yes.

  And asking could he swing by Walgreens and pick up her prenatal vitamins? And if so, could he also pick up a pint of her favorite flavor Halo Top?

  He’d agreed without hesitation, and she knew that he knew there was an unspoken request along with the small shopping list. Because aside from craving the peanut butter ribbon running through her low-calorie ice cream, Alissa’s libido had not let up. And as she let go of any inhibition, secrets just spilled out of her like a burst pipe.

  “Surprise?” Alissa added with a nervous smile.

  He narrowed his eyes, but he was so close that she had to lean back to get the full effect.

  “You flipped when you thought I’d told her,” he said, accusation in his tone. “And then you went and told my sister anyway? Can you maybe let me in on the rule book that you’re following so I can get on board?”

  Her eyes widened. “No. Matt. I swear. It wasn’t like that. We were with Gabi and Ethan and Miriam, and Gabi was telling Sadie about all she missed Friday night, and as soon as she mentioned me fainting—”

  “Sadie knew,” he said, finishing Alissa’s sentence. “How is it that everyone under the sun knows that fainting is your pregnancy tell except our daughter?”

  Alissa worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “She used to ask about being in my belly—when she was younger.”

  Matthew cleared his throat. “I don’t remember this.”

  She shook her hea
d. “By the time she was old enough to get curious, you were, um, gone a lot. When things didn’t work out between us, I didn’t for one second want Gabi to think that it had anything to do with her. I didn’t want her to think that her coming into our lives was anything but magical, so when she started asking questions, I embellished. I showed her pictures of her in my belly, told her how happy we were when we found out about her.”

  “But all of that’s true.” She could hear the pain in his voice. “We wanted her because she was a part of us. I thought the Hanukkah message was our reassurance that she was so very much wanted.” He swallowed. “I wish I’d been there when she first saw the sonograms.”

  Alissa nodded. “I wish you’d been there too.” She sighed. “I also told her that when she was growing inside me it was the best I’d ever felt, like she was a magical medicine that made me feel good all the time.”

  “Ah,” he said. “So you never told her about the fainting.”

  She shook her head. “And I made sure no one else did either. Only immediate family knew, so it wasn’t that hard to leave any adverse effects of the pregnancy out of the narrative. In fact, the fairy tale caught on. My parents would tell it. My sister and Sadie when they would babysit. Even your parents. They were all in on it.” She shrugged. “It was sweet.”

  Matthew’s jaw tightened. “I missed so much.”

  Alissa blew out a breath. “We were kids, Matt. We did the best we could.” But the truth was that it had been hard without him. So damned hard. She wasn’t sure she’d ever truly gotten over it. Hence the stupid flutter when he showed up in her driveway or at her door. That was why this—whatever was happening between them—had to stop.

  After today. Because flutter or no, the sex was good. So damned good. And Alissa Adler deserved a little so damned good in her life.

  “When are we going to tell Gabi?” he asked after a long silence.

  “Soon,” she said. “We should do it together.” But what were they going to tell her? We screwed up again? Not that Gabi was in any way a screwup, but she was old enough now to understand that being teen parents wasn’t necessarily the preferred road to have traveled. And it wasn’t like they could just say, Surprise! We made another baby! and then leave it at that. There had to be some sort of a plan, an explanation of what Matthew’s role would be this time around. Just because he’d accepted a job in town didn’t really mean he was staying.