In the few opportunities I’d taken to get Lucas and Kayla in the same room together before she’d left, Lucas hadn’t thrown himself into winning her over. Kayla would have seen right through that. No, he’d asked Kayla about our shared history and implored her to tell him about our years of friendship in story after story. Every time he positioned himself as the third wheel, and on each occasion, after Kayla and I had relived some obscure memory, a little more of Kayla’s guard came down and our bond reformed.
I thought her move to Portland and the distance from her parents had been precisely what she’d needed. In a way, the change would be good for us both. Matt may have had a point about us holding each other back. I doubted she would have considered the promotion if it hadn’t been for our falling out and I certainly wouldn’t have encouraged her to leave me. I’d missed her terribly the minute she’d left me on the other side of the security line, but we’d fixed what had been broken. Her questions about Lucas and our relationship no longer sounded forced. Her encouragement was cautious but genuine.
The brief ceremony seemed more like Esther than Tracey and Patrick. During the traditional Bible readings and vows, my mind wandered again to Lucas and our wedding. We’d skip the church for something outdoors. A beach? I could see that. Lucas would love something spontaneous like Vegas, too. Anything that didn’t follow a traditional path.
My speculation continued during the time that we posed for pictures and made our way to the venue. Lucas waited for me in the atrium with the other guests. Following the introduction of the wedding party, I escorted Lucas to our table in the front of the ballroom adorned with silk-covered tables and elaborate centerpieces of pink-and-white roses. Lucas appeared angelic in the candlelit hall. We sat with the other members of the wedding party and their dates.
“Sit here, Lucas.” Kayla motioned to the seat to her left. Lucas stole a glance at me and accepted Kayla’s offer. Matt, who had also not brought a date, was to her right. The other place settings were reserved for Simon and his date, a distinguished gentleman named Ron, who we learned was campy after a few drinks.
Ron kept the awkwardness of the table to a simmer with his jokes. “So I hear you’re responsible for the trauma inflicted on my poor Simon. Some skinny white girl he could ignore, but you know that sistas gonna earn every penny of their money. He came back from the bachelor party muttering like that guy in Rain Man. I had to put him in the shower fully clothed and run cold water over him.”
Matt cracked up. “Hey, I’m just the best man. The groom picked the gender and race of the strippers.”
Simon slapped him playfully on the chest, and Ron shrugged. “Oh, stop. I did not.”
“Oh, girl… You know you woke up the next day and asked me to bleach your eyes, talking about how they were going to strip your platinum status. Next time you are hosting mixed company, I hope you’ll at least try to get some big-dicked stud to balance the affair.”
The table erupted in laughter until Matt cast a tentative, indecipherable look at Lucas. We’d skipped the bachelor party since it had been the weekend of Lucas’ awards ceremony, not that we were itching to go to begin with. I placed a hand on Lucas’ knee to reassure him and attempted to diffuse Matt’s attention. It wasn’t until Lucas searched my reaction that I realized Matt was reacting to Ron’s stripper reference and that Matt had sort of a day-dreamy gaze on his face. Oh, for fuck sake.
“Matt,” I snapped.
Matt whipped his head from Lucas to me, and his embarrassed glow was its own sort of apology.
“Sorry,” he mumbled and took a large swig of his drink.
Lucas tossed his head back with glee and smirked. “I don’t really dance, Matt, but let me know next time, and I’ll send you the strap-on kit that goes with your dildo.”
A collective burst of laughter and Kayla’s mouthful of wine had half of us reaching for napkins. “Oh my God, Lucas,” she howled and bumped her shoulder against him. He beamed at her, and I could sense the affection growing between them.
After that, the table loosened up considerably. Throughout the night, I couldn’t have bonded Lucas to Kayla any stronger than if I’d dunked them in Super Glue. Unfortunately, the bonding came at my expense, and Matt was only too thrilled to join in.
“Lucas, have you seen him in project mode?” Kayla asked, sending Matt into fits of laughter.
“You mean ‘the face’?” Matt imitated a constipated turtle, and Kayla nodded. “God, I wanted to set the kitchen on fire when he asked me for help on that backsplash.”
“I’m not that bad. All I asked you to do was hold the level straight.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “You are a perfectionist and you have no patience when people don’t meet your high standards. Admit it.”
“It’s true. In high school, Kyle offered to build the sets for the school play. There were like ten volunteers, and Kyle ran them all off with his perfectionism. He ended up spending hours doing it all by himself,” Kayla said.
“Amateurs—all of them. Don’t listen to them,” I told Lucas.
“Hmmm, maybe I don’t want to help finish the garage? You did kick me out of my own kitchen when I dropped the screw behind the fridge.”
The table again cracked up, but I’d had enough. “All right. I think we’re done ganging up on me. Let’s dance, babe.”
Lucas hedged. “Uh. I wasn’t kidding that I don’t dance. Unless you can convince this band to pay rave music and add about two hundred more shirtless men— I can grind with the best of them.”
“I’ll dance with you,” Matt offered, placed his napkin on the table and started to stand.
“Down boy,” Lucas ordered. He was smiling, but his tone was Tommy if I’d ever heard it. Matt returned to his seat like he’d had a magnet shoved up his ass. “Kyle will teach me.”
I shrugged at Matt. “C’mon, baby.” I grabbed Lucas’ hand and attempted to explain the simple box step. “One. Two. Three,” I counted when he struggled to keep time to the waltz.
Lucas stepped on my foot and cringed. “This isn’t working.”
I pressed my lips to his forehead. “Don’t look at your feet. Relax and let me lead. You keep fighting it. Once you have the steps down, I’ll follow you if you want.”
“Maybe you should dance with Matt.”
“Baby, I’d rather watch you grind half-naked to techno music in a warehouse full of men than dance with Matt.”
Lucas shot up an eyebrow and he swallowed a gulp. “Wow, so that’s a no to dancing with Matt then.”
I chuckled, and the tension left Lucas’ frame. He stopped fighting me and started to get the hang of it.
“Yeah, that’s a no.” I gathered him closer and introduced a turn until we were moving in a natural motion. When the song ended, my mother interrupted and asked me to dance with her.
Lucas returned to the table, grabbed Kayla’s hand and led her to the floor. “Think you can handle underarm turns?” I asked my mother. Her eyes lit up with excitement. I’d learned ballroom from my mother, but she was less steady on her feet than she’d been the last time we’d danced. “Is your hip okay?”
“Oh. It bothers me after a long day. But you know I love to dance.”
I smiled and led her in one turn, but her face winced as she returned to face me. “Better take it easy,” I suggested.
“Lucas seems to be picking it up. He should be leading her though.” My mother nodded to where Lucas and Kayla were still practicing off to the side.
Sure enough, Kayla was leading, and I caught Lucas’ eye line. He gave me my smile, and my heart jumped. “He’s practicing to dance with me,” I explained to my mother.
“Well, I hadn’t thought of that. That’s sweet.”
“It is.”
“You seem quite smitten with Lucas.”
“It’s more than that. I love him, Mom. He’s everything.”
Her eyes widened. “I thought as much, what with including him in Christmas. I can’t remember you and Matt spen
ding the holidays together. Did Lucas’ parents enjoy their trip?”
“Yes, they did.” I updated my mother on Joann and Greg’s trip. They’d returned a few days before New Year’s. Joann had met her birth sister and her family, which included five children. Lucas had asked me to accompany him to pick his parents up from the airport, and the drop in Lucas’ anxiety had been immediate.
The song ended, and my mother wanted to rest. I escorted her back to her seat and said hello to Mitch and my father, who were in the throes of a heated sports discussion.
When I returned to my table, Lucas and Kayla were alone. Simon and Ron were chatting up Tracey’s parents and Matt had disappeared.
“You two still trading notes on what an asshole I am?”
Lucas laughed. “No, Kayla was telling me about David. Hot wax? Have you been holding out on me, baby?”
I gave Kayla a dirty look. “Why did I want you two to get along again?”
“Because you love us,” Lucas and Kayla said simultaneously, and an unholy partnership was born.
Shortly after dinner and cake, the formal dancing ended. The old people, which Lucas and Kayla insisted did not include me, cleared out, and a deejay began playing contemporary songs made for regular dancing. I mouthed along to the Four Seasons, watching as Patrick and Tracey let loose with their friends and family. Lucas danced with Kayla and surprisingly, my mother, who had stayed behind after my father had called it a night. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. After months of worry, Lucas had not only charmed my friends but my parents too.
I didn’t know why I’d worried about our lives fitting together like we were two puzzle pieces that had to connect just so or wouldn’t work. We weren’t fixed, solid objects. Love and life were more fluid than that. I no longer wondered how to fit Lucas into my life or if I would fit into his. We just flowed along together. Oh, what a night, indeed.
The song changed, and Taylor Swift’s Mine blared over the speakers. Lucas searched me out, flashed his brilliant, knowing smile and beckoned me to the dance floor with a crook of his finger. I joined him and tugged him into my arms. I jumped around, danced poorly and sang along loudly in his ear, serenading him. Confident in my declaration that he was absolutely the best thing I would ever call mine.
Lucas pulled back to grin at me. “You’re ridiculous…but I love you.”
I shushed him and dipped him back dramatically. He swayed as I set him upright. I kissed him and laughed. “First thing tomorrow we are finding ourselves a better song.”
He laughed, shook his head and gave me my smile.
Epilogue
Many years later
On the morning of our tenth anniversary, I woke to find Lucas dancing with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel we’d named Norah Joann. She looked exactly like her daddy and was worth every penny, and arguably a million more than we’d paid for the egg donation and surrogacy six years prior. Every time I caught Lucas marveling at her appearance or mannerisms, I fell more in love with them both.
Our home, like our hearts, was busting at the seams. It no longer resembled the showcase I’d once been so proud of. Our framed degrees hung, cock-eyed, above the desk that’d been relocated from the office that now served as Norah’s bedroom. The gorgeous maple hardwood had a prominent grape juice stain in front of the stove. The pantry, which had mysteriously shrunk, was covered in Norah’s pictures. A wall of colorful plastic bins overflowing with toys now ran the length of the half-wall. After the unfortunate meeting of my stone fireplace with Norah’s forehead, we’d wrapped the edges with some Styrofoam contraption that reminded me of the foam, noodle-shaped floats we used in the pool.
Instead of a truck, my finished garage contained four bicycles, one with a ride-along carrier still attached and covered in cobwebs, another with training wheels and ribbons flowing from the pink handles. Two strollers, an ExerSaucer, car seats, a baby swing, booster seats, boxes and boxes of infant-thru-toddler clothes and toys she’d outgrown, and a Barbie Power Wheels’ Jeep had joined the lawn mower, weedwhacker and trash bins. I’d suggested we have a garage sale, but Lucas hadn’t ruled out adopting a second child and wanted to hold on to them.
I opened the extra refrigerator, smiling with the knowledge that it hid a poorly cut drywall section around the outlet. I still fought the urge to fix it just as powerfully as the day Lucas had insisted his measurement error had given the garage ‘character’. I retrieved the apple juice and roll of biscuits with a small laugh at the memory of our first real attempt to do a home improvement project together.
On the way back into the house, I tripped. “Norah,” I hollered, muttering a curse under my breath. I softened my tone. “You can’t leave your skates in front of the door, darling. Someone could get hurt.”
I turned the corner and found Lucas in the middle of the floor, the coffee table pushed to one side. Norah stood on his feet while he led her in a basic box step. “One, two, three. One, two, three,” she counted.
“Lucas,” I cautioned. He’d staked out the role of more permissive parent early, which didn’t bother me, but lately, Norah’s hearing had become selective. Lucas glanced up, his expression more remorseful than I’d expected.
He dipped her over his arm and set her upright, spanking her playfully on the butt. “I’m going to help Daddy with breakfast. Go pick up your mess, toots.”
Lucas pressed a kiss to my cheek and squeezed my ass. “I would have sent her when we were done. Relax, Daddy.”
I rolled my eyes at him. That game had lost much of its appeal once we were daddies, which wasn’t to say we didn’t still engage in some lighthearted nostalgic banter.
“We’re out of yogurt because you didn’t add it to the list,” I said. Lucas chuckled and attempted to kiss the grump out of me. Norah returned, and Lucas dropped his hand to pour my coffee and thrust it into my hands.
“I wanna help,” Norah declared when I shooed her away from the stove. Lucas and Norah looked at me. My smile. Lucas’ still melted me, but when confronted with the power of Norah’s matching expression, resistance was futile.
“Go get the stool from the bathroom,” I said.
Meals prepared straight from a box—too often consumed on the way to swim lessons or ballet—had replaced our naked gourmet cooking and wine experiments. Cooking had become a family affair, and Lucas loved to involve Norah, even if cooking with a six-year-old was a million times the mess of cooking with Lucas when he’d first started learning.
Lucas helped Norah drop raw biscuit dough on a cookie sheet and they’d scrambled eggs while I cooked the sausage. We ate together at the kitchen table, with Norah’s backpack and coloring supplies shoved to one side.
I glowered at the clutter. Our house had become claustrophobic. “We’ve got to start hunting for a bigger place,” I said.
Lucas wiped up Norah’s mouth and excused her from the table. He took a slow sip of his coffee, cocked his head and regurgitated the same answer he’d given me the last ten years, “Why move twice?”
I sighed. My dream house had never matured beyond just that—a dream. Before we had gotten married, I’d worked with an architect to formalize my plans into actual blueprints, and we’d taken a bunch of summer trips to inspect possible lots. But then life happened and, after school loans, Norah’s birth expenses and the loss of Lucas’ income, we hadn’t come close to affording it. I’d been so busy that we were lucky to sneak in our semi-annual trips to visit Kayla in Portland. “I think it’s time to bury that dream.”
Lucas frowned, cleared the plates and washed the dishes. “When is Rocco going to pick up his slack?”
I laughed, and Lucas stopped the water and glared at me. “It’s not an outrageous question.”
“Sorry, but the man hasn’t been seen in the office in nearly two months.”
“You shouldn’t have taken that partnership after his heart attack.”
“That partnership paid for Norah,” I pointed out, and he backed down. He made no secret about
his dislike for my boss-turned-business partner. After his medical issues, Rocco had asked me to run the business for him. I’d agreed in exchange for a more equitable share of the profits. When the housing business took a nose dive, I’d taken a pay cut for over a year. We’d survived the crisis, but there was no doubt the business arrangement hadn’t paid off like I’d hoped.
“I’m sorry. I just hate how Rocco takes advantage of you.”
“I know, and I love you for it.”
* * * *
Around five in the evening, Lucas had Norah packed and ready, so Joann wouldn’t have to get out of the car. Since his stroke, Joann didn’t like leaving Greg longer than was necessary, but any suggestion Norah spend the night elsewhere was met with an adamant refusal. Lucas’ list of acceptable babysitters was limited to our parents and, when she was in town, her Aunt Kayla. Not even Case and Robert had made the list, although I suspected that had a lot to do with their pool and would change as soon as Norah learned to swim.
The house was empty without Norah’s laughter, but I’d been looking forward to our evening of celebration. I made my way to the bathroom in anticipation of events to come. Lucas’ libido had not been tamed over the years, so much as caged. And a kid-free night was the surest way to unleash it.
He rushed me the moment the door shut. “Oh my God. Get naked right now.” He used both hands to shove me to the bed then climbed on top of me.
I chuckled and twisted my head to check the clock, “That’s got to be some kind of record. We’ve been alone for less than a minute.”
He grinned but continued his quest. My fly came down, followed by a rough yank on my waistband, two sizes bigger than I’d worn the day we’d been married. “A little help here,” he motioned. I lifted my hips for him.
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