by Tia Siren
I laughed. “I think I technically found her, but I’m very happy as well. Are you having a good time?”
She giggled. “You packed this place with so many eligible bachelors, it would be impossible for me not to have a good time,” she said with a wink.
“All for you, Kathy. And Sarah of course. I’m heading off a showdown between the two. If Emily sets Sarah up with one more bum date, I think she might do bodily harm,” I joked.
Kathy was beaming. “Emily wants Sarah to find the same happiness she has. In Sarah’s case, she has to kiss a lot of frogs to find her prince. I know she will one day. He’s out there somewhere.”
Just then, Landon sauntered over. “Who is this gorgeous woman you’re speaking to, Tyler?” he asked in his usual flirtatious way. “If Emily sees this, she is likely to divorce you before you can marry her.”
Kathy rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you the charmer. I’m Kathy. I’m Sarah’s mother.”
“Who is this Sarah, and does she look anything like you?” he said, his eyes dancing as he laid it on thick.
“Sarah is Emily’s best friend,” I explained. “And she is out of your league.”
Landon grinned. “No woman is out of my league.”
Kathy raised an eyebrow and gave Landon a thorough once-over. “I don’t think you could handle a woman like my Sarah.”
I groaned, knowing Landon loved a good challenge. Kathy had just sparked a fire in the man. Landon winked before walking away.
“You know he’s going to hunt her down now, right?” I asked her.
Kathy was grinning. “I do. I would know his type anywhere. Sarah will take him down a peg or two.”
“You’re a bad, bad woman, Kathy. I need to get going and make sure everything is in place. Hopefully, I’ll see you when the champagne is being poured for a congratulatory toast.”
“Good luck!” she called out as I faded into the crowd, shaking hands with acquaintances I had met over the years.
I could feel the nerves in my stomach but did my best to calm them down. From my perch on the stage, hiding behind a curtain, I spotted Emily and Tommy. She was reading the note that had been placed inside the envelope and smiling. I watched her turn to Sarah and knew she was asking her what was happening.
Sarah held up her hands in complete innocence while Tommy led Emily away to find the next clue in the little scavenger hunt we had arranged. From my vantage point, I watched as Emily talked to Gabe and Jack. The look on her face when she saw the two men was priceless. They’d been part of us coming together. It was only fitting they were a part of this night.
Then, it was back to Sarah, who was smiling prettily as Emily walked up to her, a hand on her hip and an accusing look on her face. I watched the exchange before Sarah handed Emily another red envelope.
The scavenger hunt was leading Emily down the path we had traveled to get to the point we were at today. It started with the ball, then a fake key to the room we had shared before leading to a display of baby pictures of Tommy. Then, it was to Jack and Gabe. As much as I hated the show and the exposure into my life, it had all been a necessary evil to get me back to her.
Sarah’s role in our relationship was pivotal. Her accident had been the thing that had pulled us apart and the very thing that brought us together. I wasn’t sure we would have gotten to this point without that horrible accident. It had stripped away Emily’s defenses and allowed me in. Her standing me up had made me realize how much I loved her.
Kathy was the last stop on the scavenger hunt. I took a deep breath and got into position for the moment she would find me.
“She’s coming,” the man I had hired to pull the curtain whispered.
I waited, my heart pounding in my chest. The one knee I was kneeling on was against the hard surface of the stage. I hoped she didn’t get waylaid by a guest as she made her way up to the stage.
“Now!” the man whispered and yanked the cord, pulling open the black velvet curtain I had been hiding behind.
Emily looked shocked as the curtain revealed me on bended knee with a ring in my hand. She clapped her hand over her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. The waterproof makeup was going to be put to the test tonight.
“What are you doing?” she hissed as she glided across the stage.
“I’m asking you to marry me,” I replied.
“You’re crazy,” she said, stopping in front of me.
“Crazy about you.”
Emily turned to look at the rapt audience that had gone completely silent before looking back at me.
“Emily Preston, will you marry me and make me the happiest man in the world?”
She was nodding her head, and before I had the chance to stand up and present the ring to her, she dropped to her knees in front of me. The crowd burst into laughter as she threw her arms around me, knocking me off balance and nearly sending us both tumbling to the floor.
“Yes!” she whispered into my ear before kissing me.
“I think you have to say it loud enough for all of them to hear,” I told her, looking at the crowd.
“Yes!” she screamed, nearly shattering my eardrums in the process.
I kissed her again, letting her know just how happy she had made me. I pulled away and slid the custom-made diamond ring onto her finger.
“Can we get up now?” I quipped.
She giggled and, with my help, managed to get to a standing position despite the heels that made it difficult.
Kathy let go of Tommy’s hand and he bounded up the stairs. I bent down and picked him up, hugging him close. The crowd erupted into cheers, everyone clapping their hands. The waitstaff was making their way through the crowd, handing out glasses of champagne.
“Did you do all this?” Emily leaned over and whispered close to my ear.
“Not all of it. Sarah did a lot. She’s the one who remembered all the details from the ball that night. I would have never been able to pull this off without her.”
We took our champagne and toasted our engagement. Kathy took Tommy, giving Emily and I the opportunity to have our first dance together as an engaged couple.
“I would have never dreamed in a million years any of this would be possible,” she said in a low voice as our bodies pressed together, moving as one.
“I love you,” I told her, looking directly into her eyes.
“I love you,” she whispered, kissing me softly on the lips.
After the first dance, the DJ kicked up the music and we danced the night away, sometimes with Tommy in our arms, sometimes with him alongside us.
“I have a room,” I told her toward the end of the night.
She looked at me. “The room?”
I grinned. “This night wouldn’t be complete without it.”
“What about Tommy?”
“Sarah and Kathy are going to watch him at Sarah’s place.”
“Then why in the hell are we still standing here!” she squealed.
“Let’s tell Tommy good night and get out of here,” I said, suddenly eager to get her alone.
***
END OF THE FIRST STORY
Daddy To Be
My best friend’s little sister wants a baby.
And she wants me to be the daddy.
It comes with being rich.
Women always come on to me.
But never like this.
It’s all so… wrong.
I watched Hanna grow up as the little girl next door.
Now my filthy mind is all over grown-up curves.
Her brother would kill me.
I won’t agree to knocking her up.
But I’ll f*ck her anyway…
Secretly.
In my car.
In my office.
In her room when her parents aren’t home.
No one will ever hear her scream my name.
But sh*t.
Accidents happen.
And there’s nothing secret about a baby bump.
*
Chapter 1<
br />
Hanna
I braced myself for a family onslaught before knocking on the door of my childhood home. Everything looked the same in the dim evening light typical of an overcast Seattle day, but somehow it felt different. Or maybe I felt different. My insides jittered when the door swung open.
“So, have you met any men yet?” My mother didn’t miss a beat. She was forever asking the same damn question. Part of me wanted to laugh because I could have been a random delivery guy standing at her door, but somehow she still recognized my knock although I’d been away at Stanford since last summer break.
“Geez, Mom. I haven’t even made it through the door yet.”
“Oh, now, come on. You can tell me.”
She beamed at me, and I tried to focus on her joy. Instead, the lines on her face, the pained limp as she stood back to welcome me in, and the brittle gray hair shrouding her expression kicked the middle of my chest. Something inside me grew dark at the sight. A familiar urgency nipped at the edges of my thoughts, making my heart race and my hands shake. Time was my enemy.
“There’s my girl.” The deep, booming voice slashed at my growing anxiety, thankfully.
“Hi, Daddy.” I smiled. My father wrapped me in his arms, standing between my mother and me. The understanding smile he gave me was his way of telling me not to listen to Mom.
“Top of your class. I’m so proud of you, honey,” he murmured in my ear.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You know, I had your brother a month before I turned twenty-one,” my mother said.
“Sweetheart,” my father warned.
“Well, she’s not getting any younger, honey.”
Well, thanks, Mom. I wasn’t getting any peace, either, not since she felt free to feed the beastly fears already pushing me to desperate measures.
“She’s also one of the smartest girls in her class.”
“The smartest.” I wanted credit for all my hard work.
“Well, tell her to use those smarts to find herself someone to settle down with,” my mother said.
“Mom, seriously. I can’t even drink yet.”
“I just know how much you want to be a mother, Hanna.” She sighed. “And I want that for you. I want you to fall in love and have a house full of children. I see all the books you try to hide from us. I know you aren’t reading those for school.”
She was right. I wanted a child right now more than anything, but not for the reasons she thought. Yes, I wanted someone to dedicate themselves to me. I wanted the full Norman Rockwell, white-picket-fence lifestyle, a house with a yard and a strong, brassy man who would come inside, sweating and panting, for lemonade before I handed him a glass. But those desires didn’t mean anything. They were just fantasies I let myself indulge in while I read.
I didn’t have time to find and build the right relationship with someone, but that wasn’t going to keep me from starting a family. This was the part my parents wouldn’t understand, not even Mom.
“You know we love you, honey, and we are so proud of you,” my father said.
“Thanks.” I smiled, but it was more of a reflex. The number of times he’d spoken those words was staggering. Most people would kill to hear them from their parents, so it was tough to admit they often felt like a noose tightening around my throat.
My dad was wonderful, and he only wanted the best for me. Stanford was challenging. You really had to stand out if you didn’t already have connections. That was why he had pushed me so hard, always putting something extra in my schedule or making me take a harder class. In the end, it had paid off. Not only had I gotten into Stanford, but I’d developed a work ethic that had gotten me to the top of my class. Next year I’d be awarded my degree with Distinction, the highest honor Stanford bestowed.
Yeah, something to be proud of, but how would his feelings change by the end of my visit? Just wondering made my heart hurt, because I was bound to disappoint him. The whole family, too, because I was taking control of my life this summer, no matter the risk to my familial relationships.
“Honey! Wanna help me set the table?”
“Coming, Dad!”
I wasn’t sure if it was the West Coast culture or just the modern times, but a woman couldn’t pronounce motherhood as her primary goal in life without enormous backlash from all directions. My parents did great with my dad working one job and my mom being a stay-at-home mom, yet Dad rejected even the thought of me following that path. My brother, Marcus, would be even worse if I so much as hinted at it. It was a career or the psych ward in their book, because you had to be crazy to abandon a traditional career or to be a single parent with one.
Mom was a different story, though. I watched her shuffle around the stove putting finishing touches on my favorite, pot roast with garlic mashed potatoes. Despite the marriage pressures, she loved me, and she lit up with it every time I saw her. It would kill her to know how jealous I’d been as a child, how I’d watched videos and seen pictures of Marcus doing so many fun things with Mom and Dad. He’d gotten the best of them. It wasn’t their fault I’d been born so late in their lives, eleven years after Marcus, but I refused to let that happen to my children. I had a plan, and the lack of the right man in my life wouldn’t end it. I just needed a right-now man.
“So, have you called Stacey? She’s called here four times in the past two days lookin’ for ya,” my dad said.
“Not yet. I’ll call her after we set the table.”
“Why don’t I just tell your mother you set it.” He winked.
I threw my arms around him before I ran up the stairs. Stacey was my best friend and everything I wanted to be. She’d married her perfect man two years ago, and right off the bat, they had tried for a baby. Things hadn’t gone the way she’d wanted, though, and staying pregnant had proven difficult. I flew in when they lost their first baby and stayed up night after night letting her cry. She had called me, ecstatic and petrified, when they were pregnant again. I’d told her that this was going be it. She was finally going to be a mom.
Then she knocked on my dorm room two months later with tears in her eyes. She’d lost weight, she wasn’t sleeping, and they had lost their second child.
I used to tell her how much I wanted her life, how much I wanted a husband and the potential for children. Now it was hard. Every time I brought up kids, it hurt her deeply. When I’d been home last, she had mentioned they might start trying again. I’d never heard anything else about it, and I hadn’t pressed.
“Hey, Stace.”
“Hanna, you’re home! Finally, dear Jesus. When can I see you? Can I come over now? We have so much to catch up on.”
“Well, we’re about to have dinner. Then I’m sure Mom wants to berate me more for not being pregnant already, so what about lunch tomorrow?”
She fell silent a second too long. Damn my mouth sometimes.
“Don’t let your mother pressure you into something like that, Hanna,” Stacey said, her voice soft.
“Stace, you know that’s not what she’s doing . . .”
“You still want a baby?”
Her lack of emotion worried me, and, as usual, it was a difficult subject to discuss with her. I shamelessly used avoidance. “So, lunch tomorrow?”
“Hanna. Are you seeing someone?”
“Well . . . not right this second,” I said.
“Then what’s the point of having a child?”
“Are we not doing lunch tomorrow?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Stace, look. Yes, I want a child, and yes, I want to date. But you know as well as I do that having a baby is about so much more for me than just being a mother.”
She sighed, and I wanted so much to go back to making lunch plans. I wanted to look forward to throwing my arms around my best friend and holding her close. I wanted to look forward to all the sex stories we would share with each other after promising to never speak about them again. I wanted to look forward to ordering two desserts instead of just
one.
“You know I love you unconditionally,” Stacey said.
“And that’s why you’re my best friend.” I smiled because she’d basically declared a truce. I could probably expect another round in person, but for now I didn’t have to explain myself or hide my plans for this summer.
“So, yes, lunch tomorrow,” she said. “Any particular place?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“Small Caesar salad with a full-sized chipotle salmon panini—”
“—with two orders of strawberry cheesecake on the patio,” we both said in unison.
“I can’t wait to see you, Stace.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Hanna.”
I hung up just as Mom yelled up the steps. “Hanna! You have guests!”
“Where is our Hanna?” A voice called out through the house.
“Mr. and Mrs. Marx!”
I flew down the stairs and ran straight into their arms. Mr. Marx picked me up and swung me around. Mrs. Marx wanted me to spin so she could get a good look at me before she started doting on everything about me.
“Oh my god, you’ve grown so much! I swear, you change every single time we see you. Are you growing your hair out?”
“Yes, I am.” I smiled.
“Well, it looks beautiful.”
Marcus and I had grown up beside the Marx family. Their son, Kason, and Marcus had been best friends growing up, and they’d kept in touch even after Kason had left town and gotten rich. I’d been the nerdy girl with braces and glasses who’d had a massive crush on my brother’s best friend. It was so cliché that remembering it made me queasy.
“So,” my father said in a booming voice, “do the two of you want to stay for dinner? We have more pot roast and whipped potatoes than we know what to do with.”
Dinner started off relatively predictably. Dad went on about me acing all my classes and being at the top of my class. Mom smiled and told them how well I was doing with swimming and how they wanted me to be the head of the team this year. Mr. Marx was all too happy to share his own swimming experiences from college.
I’d heard the story of how he single-handedly won their state conference when half the team got sick the day before a million times. Still, it never got old. He smiled and laughed every single time. Plus, his smile reminded me of Kason.