My Best Friend's Baby

by Lisa Plumley

  From across the room, Nick’s voice drifted toward her. “That’s right,” he was telling Red’s husband, Jerry. “A growth accelerator. I’ve been working on it night and day.”

  Then again, she might be wrong.

  Beside her, Nick’s mother patted Chloe’s hand. “Poor dear,” she said. “You still look a little pale. But I guess a day like you had would make anyone feel a bit peaked, wouldn’t it?” Heads nodded all around their little BarcoLounger ladies’ group. “Are you feeling better now?”

  Chloe gazed fondly at Mama Steadman. Except for wanting to leap into your warm, hugging arms and never let go? Sure! She’d never envied Nick his close-knit family as much as she did at this moment, when they were all around her.

  Just as though she were part of a real family.

  “I’m fine,” she managed to say. And your son is going to be a daddy. No, she couldn’t say that.

  “Nick told us about your showdown with Griggs,” Red said, speaking around her faux-cigarette carrot stick. It was her latest concession to a smoke-free, baby-ready environment. “Congratulations, hon. I was starting to wonder how many of those developers I’d have to trot in front of you before you got the hint.”

  “You knew?”

  “‘Course. But I also knew you wouldn’t accept my help if I offered it, so I decided to give you a nudge in the right direction instead.”

  The five Steadman “N” women murmured to each other, heads together. Nancy leaned over the coffee table to cut the Italian Cream Cake she’d made, and Naomi handed out thick slabs of it.

  “Nicky says Chloe’s stubborn as a mule,” she told Red as she handed over a tottering, white-iced slice. “That’s why we had to surprise her with the party. He said she’d never agree to it otherwise.”

  “As if Nick doesn’t have a monopoly on stubbornness himself,” Nora said with a snort. She ducked beneath a towering rubber tree plant and sat on the sofa opposite Chloe, then waved her arm toward the rest of the plants cluttering the living room. “Just look at this place! All these plants around—it’s like a greenhouse in here.”

  “This latest invention is the worst,” agreed Nancy. The Steadman women nodded, looking concerned. “He acts as though he’ll actually make money from this one!”

  “With that investor appointment of his in California,” Nadine put in. She forked up some cake and gave her brother a pitying glance. “Can you imagine, embarrassing yourself in front of an entire board of directors? This hobby of his has gone too far.”

  “He’s going to get hurt,” Naomi murmured. “Danny says he blows things up pretty regularly.”

  Nancy put down the beribboned silver cake server and shook her head toward Nick. “Someone really ought to speak to him.”

  Nadine nodded. “I don’t see why he can’t just find a nice girl, settle down, and—” She paused to wipe her toddler son Nigel’s nose with a tissue. “—have kids, like the rest of us. What’s so wrong with that? That’s what I want to know!”

  “He’s got a perfectly good job at BrylCorp, too,” Mrs. Steadman said with a sigh. “Exactly the type of thing to support a growing family, like his father and grandfather did. I do wish he’d stick with that and stop all this inventing nonsense.”

  Chloe couldn’t stand it any longer. “It’s his dream!” she cried. “How can he give that up? He’s worked so hard, for so long, and—”

  “—and maybe that ought to tell him something,” Nadine interrupted gently. “Like maybe he’s not cut out to be an inventor. Like maybe life’s passing him by while he chases some impossible dream.”

  Chloe stared at her. No wonder Nick works so hard, she thought. He’s trying to make them all believe in him. And suddenly she was glad she hadn’t added one more expectation, one more obligation, to the ones he already shouldered. Suddenly she was glad she hadn’t confessed out on the porch, and given him another reason to give up.

  “How can you say that?” she asked. “Don’t any of you have dreams?”

  “Shhh.” Nancy cast a furtive glance toward Nick. “He’ll hear you!”

  “Maybe he should hear me!” Chloe cried. “Nick’s brilliant. And creative. And if working night and day will let him share all that with the world, I think he ought to do it.”

  The room had gone silent, she realized. Even the CD player had stopped between discs. Nick’s head turned toward the ladies, and the troubled expression on his face was one Chloe had never hoped to see. Had he heard what they’d said?

  “What’s all the fuss about?” he asked.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” Nadine moaned beneath her breath. “We never meant to hurt him, and now he’s on to us.”

  “He was already on to you,” Chloe told her.

  She waved cheerily at Nick, just in case he didn’t know what they’d been talking about. It was possible, between the music and the crowd—and the sound-muffling qualities of his Amazonian plants—that he hadn’t heard all of it. Then she plastered on a big, bright smile.

  “We’re just fighting over the last piece of cake,” she called. “You know us women. Calorie depraved.”

  “Uh, deprived,” Nora corrected, tittering.

  “Right,” Chloe agreed.

  Thank God, he bought it. United in their common, be-nice-to-Nick cause, the women clustered together and, in mutual, unspoken solidarity, started discussing something else.

  “Oh, look!” Nadine cried. “Nick’s brought out the baby shower gifts we dropped off earlier.”

  He had. Nick emerged from the hallway with an armload of them, then, with Jerry’s help, piled them into a ratty bachelor chair beside the TV and started going through them.

  “Uh-oh,” Naomi murmured.

  “What?”

  “That. Watch.”

  Chloe watched in amazement as Nick picked up one of the oddly-shaped, gaily-wrapped gifts and bashed himself in the forehead with it. Grinning, he nodded and put it in a separate pile.

  “Didn’t have time to check all these earlier,” he told Jerry.

  “He’s been doing that with every one of them,” Nora whispered. “He said nobody got into the party with a … a

  … shoot, what did he call it, Nadine?”

  “A baby basher.”

  Nora snapped her fingers. “Yup, that was it.”

  “He wouldn’t let us put anything in boxes before wrapping it, either,” added Nadine.

  Chloe flashed on the monogrammed silver rattle from her father, and had to smile. This time, Steady Steadman was taking no chances.

  “No boxes, huh? I guess that might have interfered with his bash-detection device,” she said, trying hard not to giggle as Nick picked up anther gift and, looking intensely serious, bonked himself on the side of the head with it.

  “My husband Rikk got kind of crazy like that, too, right before our youngest was born,” confided Nadine. “I thought it was kind of cute.”

  All four sisters smiled fondly.

  Behind them, Nick frowned at a purple-wrapped package and walloped it over his head for a second time. Must be a tough case, Chloe thought.

  Nancy, the eldest sister, plunked her chin in her hand and rolled her eyes. “He’s so protective of you and the baby,” she said. “You’d almost think Nick was the father, wouldn’t you?”

  For the second time, silence descended. Dammit, did the CD player have a Social Mortification detector, or what?

  “A—almost. Ha, ha,” Chloe choked out, strangling on a bite of Nancy’s Italian cream cake. She managed to get her napkin to her mouth seconds before causing a marscarpone cheese disaster.

  “So!” cried Naomi, slapping Chloe’s knee cheerfully. “Why don’t you tell us all about your guy?”

  “My guy?” she wheezed.

  “Yes, tell us!” urged Nora. “We’d love to know all about your mystery marine, uhh … B-something … shoot, what was it again, Nadine?”

  Chloe devoutly hoped memory loss wasn’t an inescapable consequence of motherhood. Poor Nora only
had three children, but she couldn’t remember her way out of a paper bag.

  “Bruno,” supplied Nadine. She smiled at Chloe. “Yes, do tell us all about him.”

  “Arrgh!” In the kitchen, Nick slammed his forehead into the refrigerator, gripping both sides hard enough to wobble the appliance. “I can’t take it anymore, Red. It’s ‘Bruno this,’ and ‘Bruno that.’ ‘Bruno’s sooo wonderful.’”

  “I heard,” Red murmured, grabbing another carrot stick. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “What am I going to do about it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Pound a new head-shaped dent in my Frigidaire.

  Nah, that wouldn’t help. Pound a new dent in Bruno.

  “The Nick Steadman I know wouldn’t just stand by and let some other guy steal his girl,” Red went on, blithely propping her hands on her bony hips as she rolled her carrot around her mouth. “The Nick Steadman I know would fight for her.”

  Nick cast her a miserable glance. “How can I?” he asked. He thought of the conversation he’d heard earlier, thought of his sisters listening openmouthed and teary-eyed as Chloe described her mysterious, romantic Bruno, and knew he couldn’t destroy her chance at happiness. Not if that was what she wanted.

  Even if the bastard still hadn’t managed to get in touch with her yet. For some reason, she obviously wanted him anyway.

  “If you could only see her eyes when she talks about him,” he told Red. “It’s like—like—”

  “Like she’s in love with him.”

  He nodded. “And the crazy thing is, I have this feeling

  …”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve been remembering things …” He rammed his hands into his hair, realized what he was doing, and straightened his glasses instead. “Things … awww, hell. They can’t be true, Red. Otherwise—”

  “Otherwise?” She edged closer, and the carrot stick disappeared between her lips.

  “Otherwise Chloe’s been—”

  A movement in the kitchen doorway stopped his words. Nick clamped his mouth shut as Chloe stepped inside.

  “Been what?” she asked, her gaze darting from Nick to Red and back again. “Besides surprised, revived, and treated like royalty?” Grinning, she lifted the full coffee pot and assessed its contents, then flipped open the cupboard above it. “This guest of honor stuff is great,” she went on in a muffled voice as she rooted around inside. “Thanks so much for the party, Nick. It was really sweet of you.”

  Consider it my send-off, Nick thought, watching her hot-pink-clad backside sway as she searched. Straight into Bruno’s arms.

  “You’re welcome,” he said aloud. “I think even Larry, Moe, Shep and Curly had a good time.”

  “Thanks to your sports drinks. That was a brilliant idea. Did you see them lap up that stuff, Red?”

  “Sure did. Looks like you’re fixing to help us lap up some of your special coffee, too,” Red remarked.

  “Nick’s sisters asked me to.” Bright-faced and happy, Chloe plunked a half-full bottle of Kahlúa onto the countertop and started arranging cups beside it. She glanced over her shoulder at Nick. “Your mother said she’ll drink an extra cup for me.”

  “That’s my mom. Generous to a fault.”

  “I know.” Chloe sighed and lifted the bottle. “Hey, I’ll make some for you, too, if you want. Interested in Kahlúa and coffee?”

  And sympathy? his brain added, half on auto-pilot.

  He looked at her standing there, swinging the Kahlúa bottle between her fingertips and waiting expectantly for his answer, and suddenly answers for all the half-formed questions he’d had for months clicked into place. Kahlúa and coffee and sympathy. Chloe’s never-fail remedy for disastrous job interviews, bad hair days … and Nick’s months-old heartbreak over what’shername.

  The night they’d spent together crystallized in his mind, clear for the first time in months and heartrendingly remembered too late. An image of Chloe’s comfy sleigh bed—and waking up in it—the morning after. Her sheer orange bra, those sexy purple-dotted silk boxers she’d had on … the way she’d called him darling and smiled at him sleepily from beneath the sheets. He’d held her in his arms and in his heart that night, and wakened denying everything.

  What was that he’d said? Tell me this isn’t what it looks like, Chloe. Tell me I didn’t take advantage of you last night.

  So she had. Nothing happened here last night except too much Kahlúa, too much talking, and way too much sympathy. Damn, damn, damn.

  But Chloe was wrong. Everything had happened between them that night, including love.

  Including a baby.

  How could he have been so blind? So ready to believe her, despite all evidence to the contrary?

  The same way he’d been blind to missing Danny’s birthday party, the family Easter egg hunt, the monthly Sunday brunch with his sisters and their husbands and his nieces and nephews. The same way he’d turned into an invention-obsessed workaholic without realizing it.

  The whole truth hit him like a whap on the head.

  Chloe’s baby was his baby, too.

  He was going to be a father.

  Nick’s knees buckled. He slammed his hand onto the tabletop just as Red jabbed her elbow into his ribs. Luckily, the motion helped keep him upright.

  “Well, sonny?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  He was going to have a baby.

  “Are you having some of this or not?” Chloe elaborated, swirling the liquor around inside the bottle. “I think there’s just enough for everyone to try a little.”

  Nick, Jr., maybe.

  “Nick?”

  Holy cow!

  “Should I fix you some Kahlúa and coffee, or not?”

  He looked up at her. “Are you dishing out the truth along with that Kahlúa? Because that’s what I’m really interested in.”

  She went white, down to her fingertips wrapped around the bottle. It wobbled in her hand as Chloe stared at him.

  He stepped forward and grabbed it. The cool, dark glass slipped from her hand as easily as the lies had come from her mouth, month after month after month. “We can start with Bruno,” he said.

  “B—Bruno?”

  “Yes.”

  She licked her lips and gave him a wary look. “What do you want to know?”

  Sticking with her alibi, all the way down the line. Nick’s heart twisted.

  “I want to know why you didn’t trust me with the truth.”

  Chloe backed into the counter behind her, twisting her hair like a hairdresser on fast-forward as she went. Nick followed.

  “I want to know why you didn’t tell me I’m Bruno,” he said, his voice rising. “I want to know why you hid my baby from me and—”

  “You’re Bruno?” Red shrieked, staring, dumbfounded, at them both.

  He kept his focus on Chloe. “—and I want to know why the hell you didn’t come to me first and let me help you!”

  “Maybe because I thought you’d react just like this,” Chloe yelled back, rising on tiptoes to face him better. “Just like a … a … a man!”

  Nick planted both hands on the countertop, fencing her in. “I am a man,” he said quietly. “And, as it turns out, I’m going to be a father, too.”

  “You’re Bruno?” Red asked again. She shook her head and tapped out a cigarette from the case in her hand. “My, my, my—”

  “I had a right to know!” he shouted.

  “Why? So you could abandon your dreams, just like every other steady Steadman has for generations?” Chloe asked. Twist, twist, went her hair. “So you could ‘do the right thing?’ So you could jump in and take over and—”

  “Yes, dammit! We could’ve already been married by now, had all this settled—not be doing …”

  “Doing something that’s totally wrong for us?” she asked, shoving at the arms caging her in. “You don’t have any obligation to me, Nick.”

  “… doing this, a week before your
due date,” he finished. “And I damn well do have an obligation to you. I—”

  “Four days,” Red put in, puffing on the cigarette she’d lit. “Her due date’s in four days, not a week.”

  Gritting his teeth, Nick looked over his shoulder at her and squinted through the haze of cigarette smoke. “Could you do that someplace else?”

  She looked at her Lucky Strike as though it had sprouted, fully lit and smoking, from her fingertips. “Sorry, I crumble under pressure.”

  “Let me go!” Chloe demanded with another shove—this one, at his chest. “I’ve got a party to finish.”

  “A party?” Was she in denial? Or just too stubborn to realize how she’d shut him out … how she was still shutting him out? “You want to get back to your party, in the middle of all this?”

  “Uncle Nick?” Danny stuck his head around the corner leading to the kitchen. “My mom wants to know if you’re coming to my soccer game this weekend. It’s the finals.”

  “Never mind. Looks like the party’s come to us,” Red said. Puff, puff.

  “She said you’ll need these directions, ‘cause you’ve never been to the field before,” Danny went on, holding out a folded piece of paper. The hopeful expression on his little face was like a knife to Nick’s heart. How many games had he missed, trying to make his mark as an inventor?

  How many chances to watch his baby grow had he missed, thanks to Chloe’s deception?

  Hell.

  Nick took the paper from Danny’s hand just Naomi’s head appeared above her son’s. “Honey, I told you to ask Uncle Nick another time,” she whispered quickly. “He’s, umm, busy right now.”

  “You mean fighting with Chloe?” Danny squinted at the adults, then shook his head. “Nah, she’s his best friend,” he said with supreme seven-year-old confidence. “Best friends always make up.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Nick muttered, glaring at Chloe.

  “I tried to tell you!” she cried, waving her arm. “Out on the porch, remember?” She stepped closer to the kitchen doorway, moving farther and farther away from Nick. “You wouldn’t listen. You—you—you—”

  Were thinking about getting her into the surprise baby shower before somebody gave it away.