It’s one thing to be shut out of a couples vacation when you’re not part of a couple, but being shut out of being a couple just hurts.
If that’s what this is.
She texted that she’ll be helping Chase and Aimee set up for the party tomorrow morning, so I call Aimee before she goes to bed.
“Keaton?”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Um, what is this regarding?”
“Why won’t she talk to me?”
“Oh…” I can hear her exhale for five terrible seconds before continuing. “She’s fine. You’re fine. I wish I could say something to calm you down, but I can’t be the one who explains it to you. I’m sorry.”
“There’s an ‘it’?”
“Things. I can’t be the one who explains things to you. You’re coming to the party, right? Everyone’s gonna be here. After naptime. Two-ish?”
“I’ll be there after my nap. Will she?”
“Of course she will. Just hang in there. You guys just need to talk in person. I gotta go, but it’ll be fine.”
Maybe I really am overreacting.
I dig up my old notebook from college, the one with all the untranslatable words in it, and flip through looking for something that describes all these new anxious feelings I’m having.
Nope.
Shitty will have to suffice.
Confused.
Lovesick.
I just refuse to add another thing to that list: dumped.
I get into bed, punch the pillow, and settle in for a long, sleepless night. No use even trying to stay awake if I can’t see or talk to Roxy. I’m not even in the mood to angrily jerk off to memories of Bikini Roxy or Shower Roxy—that’s how bad it is. I just miss my Roxy. I miss Ute.
After about ten minutes of lying here, stewing, I feel another new thing.
The weight of a dog jumping up onto the bed.
I might be imagining it, but I don’t want to move to look and risk startling him. I can hear Jackpot sniffing around, exploring the side of the bed that I’m not on. I can tell from the jingling of his collar tags that he’s circling in on the area by the pillow that Roxy usually sleeps on. Finally, he plops down with a little groan.
After he’s still for a few minutes, I slowly turn to get a look. Jackpot’s chin is resting on the pillow, and his back is to me, and I know this is all about him missing Roxy, but I count this as a win. Always one to push my luck, I reach over to stroke the fur on the back of his neck. He lets me. It’s the best thing that’s happened to me in the past few days. Closing a deal with a hot startup in Toronto was nothing compared to this.
I’m the king of the fucking world again, and tomorrow I’ll be bringing my queen back home for both of us.
26
Roxy
I’m looking around at twelve adorable, happy, hyper kids, and I’m exhausted, even though I’ll only have to be around them for a couple of hours.
This party is a monster bash. I’ve been here since this morning, helping Aimee decorate and hide cute little monster dolls around the living room area for a treasure hunt while Chase kept Finn busy at an early matinee. Now Finn has had his nap, and he’s done moping about his best friend’s absence. Matt and Bernadette and Vince and Nina are here with Harriet and Joni. Tiny party guests have been dropped off for the past fifteen minutes. The photo booth has been delivered and set up, the face painter lady is here, the balloon guy has arrived, but Keaton fucking Bridges is not in the building.
Figures.
It’s the first time I’ve ever wanted to see him at one of these gatherings, and he doesn’t show up when he’s expected to.
I have been so impatiently waiting to talk to him in person and completely unable to risk chatting with him in any other way because I need this to come out just right.
I run to the kitchen to get a roll of paper towels when I spot a little girl who spilled her cup of fruit punch on the floor after a boy knocked her arm while pushing past her. She is looking around, not knowing what to do and trying so hard not to cry when I get to her. I kneel down on the floor and wipe up the little fuchsia-pink puddle.
“Hey, sweetie. I got this. Don’t worry.”
“I’m sorry. It was an accident.”
“I know. I saw what happened. It definitely wasn’t your fault.”
“Ethan should be the one who cleans it up.”
“You’re right. When you grow up, just remember that if a boy makes a mess and tries to clean it up himself, then he’s a boy worth hanging on to.”
She wrinkles her little nose. “I don’t want to hang on to a boy.”
“Or a girl. Or no one. You don’t have to hang on to anyone. Nobody does! But I tell you what—it’s not a sign of weakness if you do. Remember that.”
She looks at me like I’m weird, and I guess I am, and I don’t blame her for walking off.
When I stand up to throw the paper towels away, I see that Keaton has arrived and he’s placing a huge, professionally wrapped gift on the gift table while chatting with Chase and Matt and Vince.
He looks tired, and it makes him even more boyishly handsome than usual. Irresistible. To me, anyway. Like the grown-up version of the little boy who missed his nanny Reyna. The hesitant expression that settles on his face when we lock eyes rips my heart in two.
I can’t even move. I just stand here, watching him walk toward me. “Hi,” he says, putting his hand on my arm and leading me away from the living room area. “Can I talk to you alone for a second?”
“Yes.”
This place is a loft, so the only rooms that have doors are the bathrooms and bedrooms. He pulls me into the guest bedroom/office and shuts the door. I expect him to grab me and kiss me, but instead he crosses his arms in front of his chest and says, “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but whatever it is—it ends now. In case it is what I’m afraid it is, I will tell you this—Tamara was texting and asking to see me last week, but I kept putting it off because I didn’t want to see her and I wanted to spend all of my available time with you. That day before I left town, I met with her for like ten minutes by my office, in which time I learned that she wanted to pick my brain about business matters and I immediately told her that it would be better for her to talk to Chase about that stuff because I have a girlfriend. That was it. That was the last time I’ll ever see or talk to her, as far as I’m concerned.” His warm brown eyes scan my face for a reaction.
I’m still processing what he’s telling me, but it seems to me that if that’s true, then he dealt with it perfectly. And that is so annoying. “Okay… That’s interesting. I’m not sure what to say.”
“Well, I would personally love it if you’d tell me how you feel about what I just told you. Let’s start with that.”
“All right.” I cross my arms, mimicking him. Like we’re having some sort of negotiation. This is not how I had planned for our talk to go. “I suppose I’m a little surprised that I didn’t know you saw Tamara. But I also don’t need to know your whereabouts at all times, and I appreciate that you told her about me.”
He sighs, closes his eyes, and pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I was going to tell you about it when I saw you that night. So what you’re saying is, you didn’t see us together?”
“Why would I have seen you? Were you worried that I had seen you? Was there a reason you wouldn’t have wanted me to see you with her? Hang on. Are you telling me everything?”
He scrubs his face with the palm of his hand. He does this a lot when he’s with me. “I will always tell you everything you want to know and then some—I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on, Roxy. So that’s not what you’re being weird about?”
“No.”
Look at this boy, trying to clean up a little mess that he thought he made. I need to hang on to him.
“It would be fantastic if you could tell me exactly why you stopped taking and returning my calls all of a sudden, because you’re ruining my life
.”
“I told you I would talk to you here. Today.”
“Well, here we are—today! Talk to me. I need to know what the problem is so I can fix it.”
“I have a whole thing planned—geez.”
“Do you have a Power Point presentation to set up? Just start talking.”
“Not. Here.” This man is infuriating, and my clitoris is about to detonate.
He’s standing in front of the door, bigger than ever and belligerent. When I try to nudge him out of the way, that’s when he finally grabs my shoulders, presses me up against the door, and kisses me. Thank God. This is all I’ve wanted since the second I saw him. I inhale the delicious scent of him. I have been craving it for days. My hands are immediately on his face, and his hands slide down to my waist, but my mouth and tongue and teeth are basically having an argument with his mouth and tongue and teeth, and it’s everything that I need right now but also not nearly enough.
“You’re driving me crazy,” he mutters.
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“You’re a fucking pain in my ass, you know that?”
“Don’t swear around the kids.”
He kisses me on that spot, that spot on my neck, and my knees go weak. “If they can hear us in here, we’re already in trouble.”
“I’ve missed you so much,” I whimper. I’ve lost the ability to hold my head up.
“You should have called me.”
“I couldn’t say the things I have to say to you on the phone.”
“Just tell me now. Tell me everything, you wretched woman.” He kisses along my jaw and then my mouth.
I mean…would it be the worst thing in the world if we had a quickie in here while a bunch of young children and our closest friends get their faces painted down the hall?
I turn my head to the side and duck out of the way, and it’s painful to move away from those lips and those hands, but I have to do this. We need to get out of here before I try to engulf him with my vulva. “Come with me,” I say as I drag my fingers through my hair and straighten out my sweater. I glance down at his semi. “Put that thing away.”
“Great fucking idea waiting until a child’s birthday party to see me for the first time in days,” he grumbles while readjusting himself.
“Excuse me for thinking you could keep your hands to yourself.”
He shakes his head and reaches for the doorknob. “Piece of work.” He slaps me on the behind and opens the door. “Get out.”
We remind me of my parents all of a sudden. I love our dynamic, but I know we still aren’t out of the woods yet. I still need to have an actual grown-up relationship talk with him, and it could still ruin everything.
“Wait for me here,” I say to him.
He rolls his eyes and stands in the living room, watching the kids get their faces painted like Monsters, Inc characters while the Trolls soundtrack plays at a respectable volume from the house speakers. I go to the kitchen to grab two bottles of the Blue Moon beer that I brought this morning. When I come out again, I nod for him to follow me. There is just enough controlled chaos in here that we can slip out for a while unnoticed.
“Come outside with me.” I hold both bottles by their necks in one hand and lead him to the back patio with the other. We’re both wearing sweaters and it is not quite cold enough to have to put on a coat. It’s not exactly warm out, but it is sunny, and the snow has melted.
“Where are we going?” he grumbles.
“Here. Look, dummy,” I say, tilting my chin up at the sky. “It’s the first sunny day after a long winter.” I hand him an open bottle and sit down on one of the patio chairs, gesturing for him to take a seat in the other. “It’s not warm, but we’re going to have a beer outside.”
He sits down, grinning. “Utepils.” He’s getting it now. He scoots his chair closer to mine so we’re knee to knee.
I look right at him, taking a deep breath before launching into it. “I’ve been trying so hard to find some perfect, dazzling thing to say to you. I don’t know how you suddenly managed to start saying the exact right thing to me at the right time a few weeks ago, but you make it seem easy. And it isn’t. It’s really hard. I didn’t find a word. I don’t have the words. I don’t know how to say what you mean to me. In any language.” I shrug and clink my beer bottle with his. “I love you. So much. I’m so in love with you. I’m sorry I haven’t said it before, but I promise I’ll never stop saying it if you stick with me.”
He inhales and opens his mouth, but I cover it with my hand.
“Let me get all of this out first.” I wait for him to nod in agreement before moving my hand away, sighing.
“I thought I was pregnant. For like, a day. Long story short—I’m on the pill, as you know—but I didn’t get a period. And I also didn’t get a plus sign on the pee stick. But for the first time ever, I wasn’t afraid of a plus sign. I went to the gynecologist and they did an ultrasound, just to be safe once we knew I wasn’t pregnant, but the doctor said sometimes you just don’t get a period after being on the pill for a while and that’s totally normal. I’m sorry, is that TMI?”
He looks so confused right now and maybe even angry. Shit. What have I done?
“That’s why you haven’t returned my calls?”
“I didn’t want to talk to you until I knew what to tell you. Until I could tell you everything, and I wanted to do it in person.”
“Fudging hell, Ute. There is no TMI when it comes to you and me. Why don’t you get that? What do I have to say or do to be the first person you call, no matter what?”
I place the palm of my hand over his heart, and we both lean forward so I can rest my forehead against his. “Is there no untranslatable word for this?”
“There’s I love you. I fudging love you, and you aren’t allowed to not call me just because you don’t know what to say. How’s that?”
“Adequate.”
He pulls his head back so he can look at my face. “Are you saying you were hoping to be pregnant? With my kid?”
“I’m saying it wouldn’t have been terrible if I were. But I’m not.”
“Goddammit, Roxy Carter. I would put such an immature entitled ass of a baby in you if you let me.”
“But you want a bunch of kids, and I don’t know if I can have that many at this point. Is this… Oh God, I guess I have to ask—is this a deal breaker for you?”
He doesn’t even hesitate to answer. “Woman. I would have no problem adopting a kid who wasn’t born with my amazing genetic characteristics, but I think the world deserves at least one person with your charming personality and my looks, don’t you?”
I nod and take a swig of my beer.
“Are you crying?” he asks.
“I’m processing some emotions in a totally cool and masculine way.”
He wipes away the tear and takes my free hand in his. “We deal with everything that we need to deal with together from now on. Get it?”
I nod again. “I get it.”
We both turn to look back inside the apartment from the patio. All those happy kids and parents inside. I flash back to the night of the wedding, the two of us out there on the deck while everyone else was inside and how it felt like we were so separate from all that joyful togetherness that was going on without us. But it’s not like that anymore.
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m your plus one, Roxy Carter. I’m your emergency contact. I’m your everything. And one of these days, I’m going to be your husband and the father of your child or children. So get used to it. And you know what—fuck it—now that we’re on the subject…” He pulls a small velvet box from the pocket of his blazer. “Get used to wearing this.”
He flips open the box and presents me with a stunning platinum ring with a light-blue jewel in the center. It matches the color of my irises almost exactly, glinting in the sunlight spectacularly.
“What is that—aquamarine?”
“It’s a blue diamond, dummy. They’re very rare
.”
I can’t even speak. That thing must be three carats. I don’t even want to know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars it’s worth.
“It was my grandmother’s engagement ring. When she passed, my grandfather gave it directly to me because he didn’t trust my mother to ever part with it when the time came. I’ve been keeping it in a safe at a bank for a few years. I went to get it this morning.”
I gulp and carefully place my bottle on the ground, so I don’t spill beer on that thing.
“How perfect is it for you? Ice blue. My new favorite color.”
“Keaton. Are you asking me to marry you?”
“No. I’m telling you to marry me.”
“Are you out of your motherflorking mind? We haven’t even been dating for a month!”
“Really? Because it feels like it’s been a motherflorking century.”
“Holy Schmidt, Keaton. This is insane. That is the most beautiful ring I have ever seen.”
“Then take the damn thing out of my hand, put it on, and marry me.”
I cover my mouth with both hands and shake my head before finally reaching for the little box. “Okay, fine. It’ll be fine.”
“Damn right it will.” He gulps down about half his bottle of beer.
“I know that.”
“Good.”
I grab his stupid handsome face and kiss him. “I love you.”
“You ducking better.”
“I really do. I’m going to marry you. But I’m not going to wear the ring until after the party’s over. So we don’t take the attention away from Finn.”
He grins at me. “You’ve got a good heart, Roxy Carter.” He holds his hand out for me to return the box to him. I snap it shut, close to his fingers, like Richard Gere does to Julia Roberts with the necklace box in Pretty Woman. He gets the reference and fakes a big toothy laugh, and then he returns the box to his jacket pocket like it’s a pack of gum or something. “I cannot wait to knock you up.”
The Brooklyn Book Boyfriends Page 80