All of Me

by Eckford, Janet

  “It’s the least I can do after you let me sleep in.”

  Grant focused on feeding Stella her bottle because it was far easier than trying to decipher the reserved nature of Charlie’s tone. “You deserve a break,” he replied neutrally.

  She made a noncommittal sound and began making breakfast. The room wasn’t large enough for both of them, so he went out into the dining room and sat at the table. Stella continued to smile at him as she sucked down the contents of her bottle. It was refreshing to know there was one female in his life whose affections he didn’t need to worry about.

  “You are my precious girl.”

  “She’s going to be incorrigible because of all your spoiling.” Charlie chuckled as she brought dishes of food in.

  “I can’t help it we made such a perfect baby,” he teased back.

  Charlie gave him an odd look before she reached for their daughter.

  “Are we not going to talk about what happened?” he asked as he handed Stella over.

  “Grant…I…”

  His heart sank as she stumbled for words. She held their daughter tightly and looked everywhere but at him. It hurt. Most importantly, it picked at the scab of anger he carried from her shutting him out from the very beginning.

  “You what, Charlie?”

  He cursed under his breath when she flinched at his cold tone. This wasn’t how his morning was supposed to be. This wasn’t the conversation they were supposed to have, and he had no one else to blame for breaking the serenity of the moment. Scrubbing his hands through his hair, he sighed with frustration.

  “I don’t want this.”

  He stared at her with shock at her words. She blushed and began shaking her head furiously. “That didn’t come out right. I don’t want us fighting.”

  “I don’t want that, either. Charlie, I…”

  “Don’t, please.”

  He blinked at her interruption to his confession. He was going to tell her that he loved her, that he had started falling in love with her back in Italy, but her expression made him hold his tongue.

  “I want to hear those words. You don’t know how bad I want to hear them, but right now I can’t believe them.” Charlie choked back a sob as she made her statement.

  “Baby.”

  He moved to gather her in his arms, but she held up her hand to stop him. Tears leaked from her eyes as she cradled their daughter to her chest.

  “We didn’t use a condom, Grant.”

  He froze at her words.

  “You didn’t even realize it, did you?”

  “Honestly, no, because it doesn’t matter to me.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Easily. I’d welcome another child.”

  Grant watched emotions flitter across her face at his confession. He needed her to believe that he knew they were a family. That’d they’d been a family since they held their daughter for the first time in the hospital. He also needed her to understand that he’d felt more for her than any other woman since the first time he’d kissed her in Italy. He needed her to know all of that because, if she was carrying his child again, he wasn’t going to wait patiently on the sidelines. She was his, and there wouldn’t be another.

  ***

  Charlie chewed at her lip, finding it hard to maintain eye contact with Grant. Stella finished the last dregs of her bottle and fussed in her mother’s arms. That was something she could focus on, so she placed the bottle on the table before putting Stella in position to be burped. Grant didn’t move or falter in his penetrating stare, and she felt more tears streaming down her face.

  “I can’t deal with this right now,” she told him.

  “When will it be better? As you’re giving birth to our second child?”

  His sharp tone wasn’t helping her emotional state.

  “Can you dial it back a little? I have a right to a meltdown.”

  “Why does there have to be a meltdown? I love you. Period.”

  Charlie blinked as more tears blurred her vision. Rocking a gurgling Stella, she fought to form the right response but couldn’t find the words.

  “Or is the problem that you don’t love me?”

  Charlie cried more at the look of dejection on Grant’s face. She wanted to tell him of course she loved him, but the words wouldn't come. It was completely neurotic, but she didn’t really trust that he loved her, Charlie the individual versus Charlie, the woman who could give him beautiful babies.

  “Is that it, Charlie?”

  His question was a whispered plea, and she wanted to reassure him, but the fear and anxiety she’d developed since her pregnancy paralyzed her.

  “Will you please answer me? Can you at least give me the courtesy of an answer?”

  “How do I know you love me? We don’t even know each other. The only thing that links us is Stella,” she finally confessed, putting her daughter in her high chair. She was starting to shake too much, and she didn’t want to risk Stella’s safety because she was becoming unglued.

  “Is that what you think?”

  She shrugged and pulled at the hem of her shirt.

  “Do you love me, though?”

  Charlie chocked back a sob and nodded her head.

  “Okay, I can work with that.”

  Charlie barked out a laugh at his response. It was such a Grant thing to say, and it calmed some of the anxiety that was threatening to overwhelm her. This time when he moved to gather her in his arms, she didn’t stop him but instead soaked in the warmth of his embrace as she cried.

  “I’m such a mess. Are you sure you love me?”

  “Every day.”

  The conviction in Grant’s voice soothed some of her fear, but doubt still niggled at her resolve to give herself completely to him.

  “I’ll just have to prove it to you, that’s all.”

  She laughed into his chest and hoped he’d be successful.

  Chapter Eleven

  “How ya doing, Mama?”

  Charlie hugged her best friend Mary and felt suddenly lighter. They’d obviously seen each other since Stella’s birth, but it was the first time they’d been able to schedule some girl time.

  “Happy to see you and even happier to have a margarita.”

  After Charlie’s meltdown a few days ago, Grant had made it his mission to show just how useful he could be in her life. He’d taken time off from work and was constantly at her house, helping with Stella and running errands. She knew what he was doing, especially when he’d gather her close at night and talk. Just talk. Okay, maybe some kissing. All right, possibly a lot of kissing but that was where it stopped. In his infinite wisdom, Grant had determined she wouldn’t take his declaration of love seriously if they were having sex. It had seemed rational a few days ago. Now the spirit was willing but her flesh was weak…very weak.

  “You’ve got a glow. Did Grant knock you up again?”

  Charlie coughed as she choked on her drink. She felt her face flush and averted her eyes.

  “Wow, I was joking but now I need the details.”

  “Mary…”

  “Don’t ‘Mary’ me, ho! You’ve been sleeping with your baby daddy and not telling me.”

  “You really need to stop watching reality TV,” Charlie replied dryly.

  “Don’t try and dissuade me by talking trash about my guilty pleasure.”

  Charlie sighed and took another sip of liquid courage. In the past she would have told Mary immediately when she’d hooked up with a guy, but this time, she’d kept silent and was starting to feel guilty.

  “It’s not like that.” She blushed and gave her friend a shy smile.

  “It’s not like what? It’s not like you’ve had your vaginal walls massaged?”

  Charlie hissed for her friend to lower her voice and looked around the restaurant anxiously. “I am not above hitting you.”

  Her threat didn’t garner the response she wanted. Instead, Mary laughed manically.

  “Hello, you guys have been playi
ng house for months. It’s about time you started playing house.” Mary waggled her eyebrows and smirked.

  Charlie put her head in her hands and sighed with frustration. This was probably why her subconscious had blocked her from confiding in her best friend. She was having an emotional crisis, and Mary was going to make bad sexual puns until she caved in with the details. In the past, Charlie would do her part and drag out the conversation with mock denials until they were both rolling with laughter. Now, though, it was serious, and she couldn’t begin to form the words to explain how conflicted she was.

  “Mary, I don’t know what to do,” she confessed, feeling tears pricking her eyes.

  “Are you crying?”

  “Yes! All I do now is cry and flop around like some angst-ridden teenager,” she stated with disgust as she dabbed tears from her eyes.

  “Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”

  “I got knocked up and fell in love with my baby daddy.”

  The other woman stared at her, not blinking, before she burst into tinkling laughter.

  “Please…don’t…just don’t ever say ‘baby daddy’ again,” Mary wheezed.

  “Mary, this is serious.”

  “I know, but when you say that, you sound like one of the nuns from my high school when she wanted to be hip.”

  Charlie scowled at her friend but couldn’t help a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  “Mary, I’m having a crisis. Can you please get it together?”

  “I’m sorry. Okay…whew…okay. Let’s talk about why you are so neurotic.”

  “I’m not being neurotic.” She winced at the wining sound of her statement.

  “What are you being, then? Because from where I stand, you’ve got a good life worked out.”

  Mary held up her hand and began ticking points off on her fingers.

  “You have a beautiful child with an intelligently hot and successful man. You are financially solvent and don’t need to worry if said intelligently hot and successful man is not as intelligent as we think him to be. Lastly, you and said hotness are both madly in love with each other.”

  Charlie pursed her lips and gave her friend a hard stare. “What makes you think he’s madly in love with me?”

  “Did you push out your ability to think critically when you pushed out your baby? Hello, he’s changed his entire life for you.” Mary snorted in disgust.

  “He changed his life for his child,” she retorted.

  “If you want to believe that, then I got nothing.”

  “Mary.”

  “Charlie.” Mary mimicked her friend’s pleading tone.

  “Can’t you at least pretend to be irrational with me?”

  “Not going to happen. I’m your best friend for a reason.” Mary sipped her margarita and arched a single eyebrow.

  Charlie huffed and slouched down in her chair.

  “Speak the truth and shame the devil.”

  She snorted at her friend using one of her grandmother’s favorite terms. This was, of course, why they were best friends. Mary didn’t hold back and could always get to the heart of what Charlie was hesitant to even admit to herself.

  “I want him to love me for me. Not because I’m the mother of his child.” She sighed and looked down at her hands in her lap.

  “Why do you think he wouldn’t?”

  “We had an affair. It was great. Okay, it was beyond great, but it was just something I did on vacation.”

  “But he looked you up. It doesn’t sound like it was just a something to him.”

  Charlie shrugged and continued to look at her hands. She’d wondered why Grant had looked her up, but in the hustle and bustle of adjusting to Stella in their lives she hadn’t asked him why.

  “I don’t want to marry him and one day, maybe even twenty years from now, he realizes that my being the mother of his child was enough. That he loved how I gave him Stella but could never love me for just being me.”

  Once she spoke the fear she’d been carrying, in the secret part of her soul where she kept the things that scared her most, Charlie shuddered with relief. It was the thing that gnawed away at her ability to trust Grant’s actions, his words. She could let him have access to her body, revel in the feel of him inside of her, but to let him have her love seemed too hard.

  “Hon, I can’t promise you that won’t happen. He could love you and fall out of love with you. He could be with you until you’re both old and gray, or a bus could hit him tomorrow and he’ll die. All of these things could happen, but what I can say is, if you don’t do this, if you don’t take this leap, you’ll only have ‘what ifs’ for the rest of your life.”

  Mary reached her hand across the table, and Charlie hesitated briefly before linking hers with her friend’s. Mary wasn’t saying anything Charlie hadn’t thought about over and over, particularly in the last few days when Grant made his feelings clearer each hour of the day. She felt as if she was the wild child finally grown up, and it was scary. There wouldn’t be the freedom to pick up and go as she’d done in the past. She went to sleep every night and woke up every morning thinking about the life she’d created, and it was overwhelming and exciting all at the same time. She looked at the man whom she’d created life with and found it hard to breathe, because he was far better than any partner she could have chosen. She had a life she’d never dreamed of, and she wanted it to be a forever type of dream.

  “I’m going to have to do this, huh?”

  “Yep,” Mary replied, squeezing her hand.

  “This is so hard,” she said, choking on a sob.

  “Nothing worth having is ever easy.”

  Charlie squeezed her friend’s hand back and smiled. She needed this more than her friend could ever know.

  “Well, except for you, but Grant still lucked out in the end.”

  “I will hit you.”

  ***

  “So, when are you going to make my sister an honest woman?”

  Grant froze in mid-sip as he stared at Charlie’s twin Micah.

  “Look at his face,” Edward chortled.

  Grant blushed as Charlie’s three brothers laughed and gave each other high-fives.

  “Maybe the question should be when is she going to make me an honest man?”

  The three men oohed, clapping their hands and snapping their fingers. He grinned at their antics as he sipped his beer. Since he had been an only child, his parents made sure he socialized with children his own age, but he’d never known what it was like to have siblings. Charlie’s brothers were making the effort to give him that experience, teasing included.

  “Just buy her a huge rock. She can’t say no in the face of a ginormous diamond,” Thomas stated before munching on his nachos.

  They’d met at a sports bar in Pasadena, close to Thomas’ condo. Grant’s mother was in town, and she and Charlie’s mother Claire had declared they would be keeping Stella for the weekend. It was an unexpected surprise, but he hadn’t realized how much he needed to go out until he sat down in the booth at the bar.

  “She isn’t that shallow,” Micah defended his twin.

  “Have you told her you love her?” Edward asked.

  “I tried, but she said she doesn’t know if she can trust if I really love her.”

  The three men stared back at him blankly. Grant tore at the wrapper on his bottle and tried to quell his nervousness.

  “You listened to her?” Thomas asked with a confused expression.

  “Yes.”

  “Micah, help him out. You’re her twin,” Edward said.

  “Just because I’m her twin doesn’t mean I understand her crazy.”

  “She is pretty crazy.” Thomas chuckled.

  “She’s not crazy,” Grant interrupted, feeling defensive.

  “Dude, you must really love her if you don’t think she’s crazy.” Micah laughed and slapped him on the back.

  “Totally loves her, look at his face. I think he’s pissed.” Thomas smirked.

 
; “I’m not pissed.”

  “You’re totally pissed, but it’s cool. We like that you want to defend our sister’s honor,” Edward stated.

  “Now we need to just help you get her to the altar before you knock her up again and our mom really loses her shit.” Micah snorted.

  Grant felt his face heat up as he drank from his beer.

  “Dude! You did not get her pregnant again, did you?” Thomas asked incredulously.

  He stared at the three men and tried to find the words to explain the complicated situation he was in. They’d become like brothers to him, but he wasn’t comfortable sharing details about his sex life, especially since it was with their sister. Weird didn’t begin to describe what that would be like.

  “This is really awkward,” he confessed, finishing off his beer.

  “Our mom is going to bring out the fucking shotgun. Jesus, she doesn’t want you to say you love her, but she’s going to keep having your babies.”

  Grant bristled at Edward’s tone. He understood they were her brothers, and they’d had a lifetime of knowing her and making her life miserable as only older brothers could, but he wouldn’t tolerate them disrespecting her.

  “Edward, cool it,” Micah said to his older brother.

  “What? You know you were thinking it!”

  “What Charlie and I do or don’t do is our business,” Grant stated flatly.

  “He didn’t mean it like that,” Thomas replied with an apologetic tone.

  “I can speak for myself, and I did mean it like that,” Edward cut in. “I like you, Grant, I think you’re great for my sister, but come on, man the fuck up.”

  “What should he do, hit her over the fucking head with his club? Don’t be a dick, Edward,” Micah added.

  “I get she’s your twin, Micah, but take the fucking blinders off.”

  “You take your fucking blinders off.”

  Grant stared in shock as the two men yelled back at each other. Thomas watched them as he munched on nachos and drank his beer. Grant hadn’t expected the guys’ night out to turn into a brawl, and from the way Micah and Edward were going at it, he was sure someone was going to get punched soon.

  “Hey, you guys are freaking Grant out. Knock it off,” Thomas shouted, separating the two men, who were shoving each other in the booth.