Open & Honest (Sometimes) (A High Tea & Flip-Flops Novel Book 3)

by Linda Cassidy Lewis

  “Still.”

  “Yeah.” I gulp the rest of my tea, wondering how many other plans are being kept secret from me.

  CHAPTER 9

  We’re in promotion mode now that my new book is out. Well, I am. Now that Jeremy is no longer part of Penny James, it falls to me to do things like book club chats and Facebook events and blog interviews by myself, but he advises and helps with scheduling.

  Today, I’m just finishing a Skype session with our favorite book club, Bay Book Babes, when the women chorus, “Can we say hi to Jeremy?”

  This group is the first one we connected with after I became the face of Penny James. Word had gotten around the romance reader world that “Penny” had introduced her gorgeous fiancé Jeremy at an RWA meeting, and the Babes wanted to meet him too. (Jeremy and I weren’t really engaged—we’d officially been a couple for only two weeks—and I think my subconscious slip of the tongue nearly shocked him to death on the spot.)

  Anyway.

  The Babes, who’ve become our biggest fans, still think of Jeremy as co-author. And though they were excited to be the first to discuss my new book with me today, a glimpse of my sexy husband would be the cherry on top.

  Because Jeremy always sits beside me, off camera, to listen in, I just angle my laptop toward him.

  “Hello, ladies,” he says with a smile and a wave. “You’re looking lovely today.”

  He’s greeted with titters and squeals—my rock star husband.

  “We wanted to tell you we’re going to read your book as soon as it comes out,” one of them says.

  “How kind of you. Thank you, Caroline. Thank you all. I hope you enjoy it. And before we sign off, Chelsea and I have a surprise for you.” He motions for me to stand, turns me sideways, and then angles the laptop to reveal my baby bump.

  The women break out in cheers and excited babble. I sit back down in front of the camera and answer their questions about the due date and the baby’s sex and that we haven’t decided on a name yet. I end the session knowing the news that Chelsea and Jeremy, a.k.a. Penny James, is expecting will spread quickly through the romance reader community. It’s all good for sales—women love hunks and babies.

  Jeremy turns my chair toward his. “Do you know how proud of you I am? Those women adore your books.”

  “They adore you.”

  He shakes his head. “What about all the thousands of women who don’t know or care a whit about who you’re married to, but still give your books glowing reviews?” He rolls his chair closer, straddling mine, and kisses me deeply. After a few seconds, I push him back.

  “Is this a prelude to something?”

  He grins and wriggles his brows. “I’m hoping.”

  “Okay, but—he needs your support, Chels—first I need to talk to you about something.”

  “All right.” He sits back, caution pinching his gaze.

  “You were a corporate lawyer?” He nods. “What’s that like?”

  As he thinks, his thumb and forefinger trace his carefully groomed mustache. “It’s challenging. Rewarding.”

  “So it’s all good, huh?”

  His eyes say, you got me. “No. There were times it was too challenging and not rewarding enough.”

  “Jeremy …”

  He leans forward and clasps my hand. “Look, I know I led you to believe practicing law was torture, but it wasn’t. I didn’t precisely lie to you, though. The problem was that no matter the praise I received from others, my work seemed never to be good enough for my father, so I couldn’t believe I was successful. That my work was good. Can you imagine how badly you want to escape when you feel you’re a failure at your career?”

  “But you didn’t choose that career.”

  “That’s true. Being that law was the family business, it was expected of me to follow suit, and I was groomed for it, but I resisted because I didn’t want to be a clone of my father.”

  “Like your brother.”

  He nods. “Like Richard.”

  “But Uncle was a lawyer too.”

  “I know.” He sighs deeply. “And if I’d believed I could follow his carefree example and ignore my father’s criticism, I would have done.”

  “So changing your mind is not only about money?”

  “I assure you it’s not.”

  “Okay.” With my free hand, I grab hold of his shirt and pull him toward me. “Back to the kissing.”

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  Everything’s going wrong at once. Last week, the dishwasher died, and two days later, the pool pump quit working. Luckily, we have a home warranty plan, so we only had to pay a set fee for the replacements—but paying that fee twice in one week took a chunk out of our monthly budget. Even worse, I just opened the washer and found it still full of water. It stopped running midway through the cycle. Trying to restart it does nothing.

  “Jeremy!” I pull out a pair of his shorts, wring them, and put them in the laundry basket. I’m doing the same with a tee when he appears in the door of the laundry room.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “I have to take them to Mom’s.”

  “Why— Oh, shit. The washer broke too?”

  “Yeah, and we can’t afford another service fee right now, so we’ll just use her washer and dryer for a while. She won’t mind.”

  “Good idea.” Relief is obvious in his voice. “A bit inconvenient, though.”

  “It’s a two-minute drive.”

  “We’ll take turns.”

  No kidding, dude. “Here; finish wringing these out while I sort another load from the hamper so I can take both to her house.”

  He helps me load the laundry in the car and then goes back to work. Mom’s house is cold because the heat’s been turned down, and there’s nothing to munch on while I watch TV, so after washing both loads and drying the first, I decide to take the second load home to dry. I’ve driven only a block before I feel my car clunk and then lurch. The same thing happened two days ago. Growing up with two brothers and my dad, I know a little bit about cars. That’s the transmission slipping. Another expense. Just what we need.

  When I get home, Jeremy takes the baskets from me and puts the wet clothes in the dryer and the dry ones away while I make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner—that’s how deeply we’ve had to cut into our grocery money this month. Jeremy’s already on edge about that. How am I going to tell him about the car? I can’t keep driving it, ignoring the transmission, which means I can’t hide the problem from him. And even if it’s not the worst-case scenario, he’s going to flip out at just the expense of having a mechanic diagnose it. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him. I could take it in when he’s busy, and Mom will pay for it.

  Oh yeah, Chelsea? What about that open and honest thing? What if Jeremy finds out you asked your mom for money?

  He’d freak. Sigh. We have to make it on our own.

  “What are you sighing about, wife?”

  “Just … nothing really. Do you want potato or corn chips with your sandwich?”

  He looks through the chip basket on top of the refrigerator. “What do you say to hot Cheetos?”

  “Sure.”

  A soccer game played by a team Jeremy follows is on TV, so we eat our sandwiches while sitting on the sofa. We don’t talk much, so I have time to think about how to give him more bad news. After I carry our plates to the kitchen, I bring him another beer and bite the bullet.

  “It’s a good thing we bought that warranty.”

  He nods. “It’s been well worth it so far. If you weren’t so good at stretching every dollar, we’d be in even worse shape.”

  “Well, I’ve had a lot of experience. But my mom helped me out a lot.” It doesn’t hurt to put that idea in his head, right?

  “I’ve got to get this next book done.”

  “And after you get your California license to practice law, our financial situation will improve a lot, right?”

  “That would depend on where I’m employed.”

  �
�But, no matter what, we’d have more income than we have now.”

  He nods. “Certainly a more steady one.”

  “So when do you think you’ll be ready to take the test?”

  He studies me. “What’s this about?”

  “Hmm?” I brush crumbs off my shirt.

  “Obviously, you have another expense on your mind. What is it?”

  I shake my head. “Oh … I was just speaking in general.”

  He shoots that right eyebrow high.

  I look for more crumbs in vain. “I think my transmission is going out.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “It’s slipping?”

  “Slipping?”

  “Yeah, that means—”

  “I know what it means. You can’t drive it until it’s fixed. And how the hell we’re going to afford that, I have no idea. Fuck.”

  He leans forward, forearms resting on his knees. His eyes are on the TV again, but I don’t think he’s really watching the game. I sit very still.

  “Fuck,” he says again.

  “We could use the credit card for a while and pay it off later. The interest isn’t too high on—”

  “Have you forgotten the outrageous balance you had on credit when we met? And that was with your mother subsidizing.”

  I jump to my feet. “Well, if you’re so freaked out about our income, maybe you should work harder on getting that license.”

  He stands too and glares at me, his jaw working. After a minute, he steps over the coffee table and stalks out to the patio.

  I feel like crap for making him feel like crap. After giving him a couple of minutes to chill, I join him. “I’m sorry for being a jerk. I know you’re working as hard as you can. And really, there’s no need to repair my car … or the washer. We can do the laundry at Mom’s for as long as we need to. And we don’t really need two cars. We use your car most of the time anyway, and if we ever do need two cars at the same time, I’ll use Mom’s. We’re going to be okay.”

  He sighs.

  I take his hand. “Are we friends?”

  He hugs me tight … well, as tight as he can now that we have a baby bump in between us.

  Jeremy asked me to teach him to cook a few simple things so he can help more with meals after the baby’s born. Tonight, I’m teaching him how to make sausage and peppers with pasta. He’s iffy with the knife work, but at least he hasn’t drawn blood. And he hasn’t burned himself either.

  When he finishes, the kitchen is a mess, but dinner is tasty. (You wouldn’t believe how cute he is, being proud of himself.) So, all in all, tonight’s a win.

  After we clear the table and load the dishwasher, we start doing the hand wash stuff. Jeremy stands by with the dishtowel as I plunge my hands into the hot, sudsy water. “We need to compare name lists,” I say.

  “Lists?”

  I rinse the whisk and hand it to him. “You haven’t been making one?”

  “Well …”

  “Choosing the right name for our child is very important, Jeremy. I can’t believe you haven’t given it any thought.”

  He dries the bamboo spatula. “I never said I hadn’t given it any thought. I know I don’t want to name him after me or my father or … anyone I know.”

  “Okay. Well, that leaves only about a billion names to choose from.” I add the colander and cutting board to the water, and motion for Jeremy to hand me the skillet.

  “Which name tops your list?”

  “Trevor. I think. No, maybe I moved Lincoln to the top.”

  He takes the board from me. “No and no.”

  “Oh, that’s so helpful.”

  “Just being honest.”

  “Okay,”—I rinse the colander—“so you suggest a name.”

  “Dustin. We can call him Dusty.”

  I elbow him. “Be serious.”

  He dries the colander and puts it and the cutting board away. “Thomas. That’s a serious name.”

  “Nah. I don’t want him called Tommy. Bad association. Give me another one.”

  “Ah, so we have to consider the nickname.” He slips the knives in their proper slots in the block. “Wait. What’s the nickname for Trevor?”

  “Oh … yeah. Well, that’s off the list anyway.” I concentrate on scrubbing the skillet for a moment.

  “I suppose your mum’s always called you ‘sweetie’. What did your dad—”

  “Laura calls you Jemmy; is that the nickname your parents gave you?” He doesn’t answer. I can tell he’s staring at me because I changed the subject, but I ignore him.

  “Chelsea? Did I say something—”

  “Why did your parents nickname you Jemmy?”

  “I … uh … they didn’t. I don’t believe I had a nickname until Laura gave me that one, which was as close as she came to pronouncing Jeremy when she started talking. My mum picked it up from her, but mostly, now, she calls me by my name. The closest to an endearment my father ever used was ‘son’. He doesn’t even have one for my mum, as far as I know.”

  I pull the sink plug, rinse the pan, and hand it to him to dry. “Yeah, I noticed your parents aren’t big on ‘endearments’. Is that why you only call me Chelsea or wife?”

  He sets the pan on the stove and hangs up the dishtowel. “You don’t like when I call you wife?” He steps behind me and holds me by the waist as he nuzzles my neck.

  I gasp at my body’s instant response and lean back into him. “I love when you call me wife.”

  “Well, then, wife, what say we move to our bed and try out this new pregnancy-safe position I read about?”

  Thank God for readers.

  When we look back at this pregnancy, I think Jeremy will cite the nursery as the topic that divided us most. Well, not divided us as much as made me want to strangle him in his sleep. Okay, I’ll admit that he patiently looked through the first few nursery catalogs with me—though, actually, I consider anything less than fifty pages a mere brochure, and since one of them was only seven pages, it hardly counts as anything. But, to me, his mostly non-committal responses amounted to out-right disinterest. And I told him so. Many times. Loudly. With tears.

  One day, I merely pointed out that he was criminally unconcerned that the nursery will be our baby’s first introduction to our home, his first haven. Jeremy countered that since I’d already hinted (he added air quotes) to my mom that I wanted a co-sleeper, which she promptly bought, our baby would spend his first ninety nights or so in our room, so maybe I should also convert that to a whimsical yet sophisticated newborn-approved haven. He can be a real smartass.

  So I threw away the catalogs, ignored the websites, and made him actually go shopping with me. I took him first to Le Bébé, a gorgeous upscale boutique, which means it was a total waste of time on our budget. So today, we’re going to Babyland—Your one-stop shop for all your baby needs!

  We’re overwhelmed the minute we walk through the doors. We wander around for several minutes before Jeremy says, “I was unprepared for such an enormous selection of infant paraphernalia.”

  “If you’d looked at the catalogs …”

  “Yes. Well, surely you have our nursery requirements listed in your plan. Or was that fulfilled at conception?”

  Stupid me. I never should have told him about my Perfect Life Plan. “Smartass.”

  He smirks. “Didn’t you say the cot will be our biggest expense?”

  “Yes, but it’s called a crib, not a cot. So let’s concentrate on those.”

  We look at all of them on display, which is at least a hundred if you look at all the brochures showing the different finishes and options—and we do.

  “Wow,” he says when we finish the last row.

  “Yeah.”

  “We need to narrow our options. Do we want one of those that eventually convert to a full-size bed?”

  “I don’t know. Gabi didn’t buy one … but that’s because she said they’d be using the crib for their next baby.”

  “Hmm.”


  Yeah, neither of us are ready to commit to another baby yet. “But I don’t really like the way the convertibles look anyway.”

  “So that eliminates … half of them?”

  “A lot, yeah.” We stand there looking back over the crib section of the store.

  “So. I noticed some of them are part of a collection. Is that what we’re looking for?”

  “I don’t … I haven’t decided. Maybe.”

  “Hmm.”

  We end up buying two things: adorable tiny booties that look like Chuck Taylors and the softest stuffed bunny you ever saw.

  Turns out it was no big deal that we didn’t buy a crib that day because UPS delivered one two days later—a gift from Jeremy’s parents—complete with a luxury organic mattress. It came from a shop in London, so I looked it up on their website, of course, and it’s a good thing I love the “infant cot” because it cost so much that even Jeremy did a double take when I showed him the page. Then he asked me not to look up the price of any more gifts. Yeah, what he doesn’t know won’t reveal my lack of class.

  We’ve almost completed the nursery now. It’s so pretty and peaceful that sometimes, like right now, I sit in here for a few minutes, rubbing my belly and talking to the baby. The crib, changing table, and shelving are white. We painted the walls pale sea green and the ceiling pale aqua. The upholstered glider chair and ottoman, and roman shades are warm sandy colors. Yep, it’s beachy. And because I mentioned that was the theme I was going for, Mom and Albert sent a gorgeous driftwood lamp with a sea-glass shade, and Amanda and Gordon sent a calming seas sound machine and a plush area rug in a paler sandy shade.

  I’m still looking for wall decor and the perfect crib mobile. And then we have to buy the practical newborn clothes our mothers probably won’t think of and more diapers and all the other little things on my list.

  As I sit there rocking, a ray of sunlight breaks through the clouds and lights up the room making it glow like some magical place, some holy place. My vision blurs. Here is where my child and I will bond. Here is where he’ll take nourishment from my body, and I’ll read to him and tell him all my hopes for his life. Suddenly, my heart clenches. I’m too unprepared to be someone’s mother. I sit upright as my inexperience in a thousand things flits through my head like a video on fast forward. And then it stops on a frame of Jeremy. He’ll make up for my shortcomings. He’s my rock, and he’ll be our son’s too. Everything will be all right. I relax back in the chair.