“Nic …?” Brooke questioned as soon as Avery closed the door. “What the hell? You’re acting like you saw the face of Jesus in the cheese.”
“Cheese,” I whispered again. We stared at each other. The words were on the tip of my tongue to answer, but I couldn’t. Could it be?
Brooke sucked in a breath. “Cheese!”
I nodded, and she slid off the stool. “Holy shit. Cheese!” I nodded again. “When?”
“Right now.”
“You had no idea?”
I shook my head. “Nope, just like last time.”
“Let’s go get a test.”
“No!” I shouted.
“Why not?”
I leaned against the counter. “Because we’re leaving next week for the Bahamas.”
“Nic.” She smiled. “That’s not going to change the fact that you may be pregnant.”
“I know, but I don’t want to say anything to Avery until I know for sure.”
“Then let’s go get a home pregnancy test,” Brooke suggested again.
“No, I’ll do it tomorrow at work.”
“You better tell me as soon as you know.”
I sighed and then smiled, thinking about having a baby. “I will.”
The guys came inside when the burgers were cooked. I had them prepare each one with the spread I made, plus lettuce, tomato, and onion—just like In-N-Out. While we ate our cheeseburgers, I forced myself to eat one because once the guys realized they tasted like their favorite burger, I had to pretend everything was okay. I had to pretend it was the best burger I’d ever had. I had to pretend that I was happy when, in fact, I was freaking out.
What if I lost this baby too?
Nic had been acting weird for the past few days.
When I would ask her what was wrong, she would smile and tell me that she was just stressed at work and getting ready for our week-long vacation. Luckily, she had three weeks of vacation time from work, and Edna’s gift wasn’t going to waste since she’d booked the dates herself.
I had to admit that after everything was said and done with my parents’ estate, I felt better. I was no longer feeling as though the world was going to crash around me. It more or less had, but Nicole and I got through it. But now it was my wife who seemed worried about something.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked as we waited for the ferry on the main island of the Bahamas to take us to the island we were staying on.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Nic …” I sighed.
She smiled and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Nothing’s wrong. We’re in the Bahamas. We’re no longer in the snow, and I’m going to get a tan this week.”
I stared at her, looking into her blue eyes for any sign that she was lying. She was definitely hiding something. “Okay. What do you say that after we check in, we check out that bar Edna told us to have a drink at?” Something was definitely wrong, and if anyone would tell me, it would be drunk Nicole.
Her smile faltered for a split second. “Sounds like a plan.”
We checked into the hotel that Edna booked for us. It was a British Colonial style villa that faced the marina and felt more like a home than a hotel because we had our own kitchen, two floors, and a private balcony—though this private balcony wasn’t secluded. I would have to get creative if I wanted to pleasure my wife on another balcony.
“This is amazing,” Nic stated as she twirled around, looking at where we would call home for the next week.
“Edna did good,” I replied, opening the balcony door and stepping out into the eighty-degree weather. We’d left the mid-forties and were now in what felt like summer in December. Fucking nirvana.
“I can’t wait to lay by the pool, walk on the beach, and do absolutely nothing for a week.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. “Then are you going to tell me what’s wrong so we can have a good time?”
She sighed and sat on the small couch, and I stepped back inside to talk to her. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just scared.”
I balked because I wasn’t prepared for her to say she was afraid of something. “Scared about what?” I sat next to her.
Nic turned, her knee resting against my thigh. “You know I would never keep something from you unless it was for a good reason, right?”
“I’m not in the mood to play one of your mind games, Nic. Just tell me.”
She let out a long breath, paused, and then said, “I’m pregnant.”
My gaze snapped to her eyes, and I sucked in a breath. “What?”
Nicole bit her lip and lifted a shoulder. “I’m pregnant,” she repeated.
“Since when?”
She lowered her gaze as though she were shameful. “I’m not sure how far along, but I’ve known for a week.”
“A week?” I shouted.
“I didn’t keep it from you because I didn’t want you to know—”
I stood. “Then why did you keep it from me at all?”
She stood and reached for my hands, clasping them in her soft ones. “Because we were coming here, and I wanted to have a good time and not really think about it.”
I blinked. “What? Why?”
Nic sighed again. “Because what if I lose this one too?”
My heart cracked a little, and I reached up, cupping her cheek with my palm. “Oh, baby, we can’t think about that each time. We just need to take each one as a gift, and whatever happens, happens.”
“I know, but I don’t think I can get through another miscarriage. It broke me.”
“It broke me too, but if it were to happen again, I know we can get through it—together.”
“I know,” she said again. “I’m just terrified the same thing will happen.”
I wrapped her in my arms. “Everything will be okay. And if it’s just us in our five-bedroom house when we’re old and gray, then we’ll make it a mini Playboy mansion.”
She snorted and pushed at my chest. “In your dreams.”
I grinned at her, knowing that I just needed to make her smile. “Yeah, but we’ll figure it out.”
“Okay.”
I brought her to me again, kissing her forehead before engulfing her in my arms. I held her for a few minutes as the worry I’d had about what she was hiding from me lifted. Finding out she was pregnant again was the best kind of secret.
We walked to Zelly’s, the place where Edna told us to have a drink. It was a hut-style bar on the beach with fire pits in the sand and a view that I wouldn’t mind seeing every day. Halo was my baby, but when it was time to retire, I could see myself opening a bar on the beach and living in paradise with Nicole.
Sitting at the wood bar, we waited for the bartender to finish with a few customers. I looked around, blissful we were in the Bahamas. “See that bush right there.” I pointed to the dark pink flowers. Different colors of the same bush seemed to surround the bar.
“Yeah,” Nic replied. “Aren’t those the same ones that were at the house in Santa Barbara?”
I nodded. “Azaleas. They were my mom’s favorite.” Then the name of the bar clicked. I grinned.
“What?” Nic asked, looking at my smile.
“The bar is called Zelly’s. I get it.”
“We should plant some at our new house and spread your mom’s ashes around them.”
“I’d like that.” We hadn’t done anything with my mother’s ashes yet since we knew we would be moving. I wanted to wait until it was our forever home because once I scattered Mom’s ashes, I wouldn’t be able to take her with me.
One of the bartenders approached. He was older—maybe in late fifties—and it made me picture owning a bar in the sand even more. He had a dark tan, a surfer haircut like I used to have, and blue eyes like myself. If this guy could work at an island bar, so could I in thirty-something years. “What will it be?”
“I’ll take whatever’s on tap,” I replied.
“Water for me, thanks,” Nic answered.
“
Water?” The bartender balked. “You’re in paradise, sweetie. Don’t you want a drink with an umbrella in it?”
Nicole smiled and looked over at me. “I can’t. We’re having a baby.” I wrapped my arm around her. We were having a baby!
“Well, congratulations,” the bartender regarded. “I’ll make you a virgin strawberry margarita to celebrate.”
“Thank you.”
“Where are you kids from?” he asked as he got to work getting our drinks.
“New York,” I responded.
“New York? New York City?” he mocked like that old salsa commercial with the cowboys.
“Well, I’m from Boston, and he’s from California originally,” Nicole clarified.
“Cali? I’m from Cali too.” He set my beer in front of me.
“Oh yeah? Which part?”
“Outskirts of L.A.”
“I grew up in Ventura,” I replied, which was also the outskirts of Los Angeles.
“Oh, then you’ll know where I grew up too. Thousand Oaks.”
“Sure do.” I smiled.
“His father’s from Thousand Oaks.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, his finger on the blend button on the blender, waiting to crush the ice and make a loud noise.
“I didn’t know him,” I stated, not sure why I was telling this man my life story, but then people came to Halo all the time and told me theirs, so I kind of understood.
“That’s too bad.” He pressed the button to turn on the blender and blended Nicole’s drink. When he was done, he placed it in front of her, gave her a pink umbrella, and wiped his hands on a bar towel. He stuck out his hand to me. “Name’s Avery.”
Nic choked on the sip of her drink she’d just taken, and my hand stilled mid-air. “Avery?” I questioned.
He grinned. “Well, there was a time I went by Mike, but that just didn’t work for me.” We shook hands.
“My …” I stammered. “My name’s Avery too.”
“No shit?” And then I watched as his face fell and something occurred to him. He held up a finger. “Hold that thought.” He turned and left the bar, walking toward the street, and leaving me confused as fuck once again.
I looked toward my wife. “What the fuck?”
She shrugged. “That’s one hell of a coincidence.”
I took a long gulp of my beer, so many thoughts going through my mind. What were the odds? Did Edna know and that was why she sent us here? But she had to know that it wasn’t my father because he’d died in a car crash, so why would she tell us to come to a bar that was named after my mother’s favorite flower and where the bartender was named Avery?
When I heard the voice from behind me, I got my answer. “Avery?”
I turned around and saw an angel, her graying-blonde hair blowing in the wind. I blinked. “Mom?”
“Mom?” Nicole whispered as she turned.
My mother smiled and rushed to me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “You came.”
“I … What?”
My mother pulled back, kissed my cheek and then hugged my wife. “And you must be Nicole.”
Nic looked over my mom’s shoulder toward me, her blue eyes the size of silver dollars, and just as speechless as I was. What was happening? Did we die on the way here and this was heaven? My version of the afterlife would be with my wife on a beach but …
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
Mother let go of Nic, a beaming smile spread across her face. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” She turned to Avery, who was standing in the sand a few feet from us. “This is your father—your real father.”
Avery stepped forward and stuck out his hand. “It’s good to finally meet you, son.”
Still speechless, I took his hand and shook it for a second time in five minutes. I looked at Nicole, and she had her mouth open in shock.
“Mom?” I questioned.
“I know,” Mother responded. “You’re confused. There’s so much to tell you.”
“You can start by telling me what the fuck?” I clipped.
Mom turned to Avery—my dad—my real dad—and grabbed his hand. “We live across the street. Let’s go over there and talk. I’m making dinner, and there’s enough for all of us.”
Who was this woman? She looked like my mom, sounded like my mom, but wasn’t acting like my mom. My mother was always quiet, letting Doug speak for her and shit.
“Bring your drinks,” Avery suggested, and he and my mom started to walk away.
I looked toward my silent wife, and she shrugged, clearly puzzled, and grabbed her strawberry drink. I grabbed my pint of beer and followed my parents as though this was normal. As if we were going to their house for dinner like we did every week. However, eating was the furthest thing from my mind.
We walked across the street and into what seemed like a one-bedroom cottage. It was the exact opposite of the house in Santa Barbara. It was quaint with blues, greens, yellows, pinks, reds, and every imaginable color spread across the living room in the furniture, pictures, and décor. It felt like a home, a home surrounded with love and not that hospital feel the Santa Barbara house had.
“Have a seat.” Mom motioned for Nic and me to sit on the blue couch.
We did, and I drained the rest of my beer. Avery Senior handed me a fresh Corona in a bottle. “Thank you.”
He nodded and took a seat on the loveseat next to us. My mother sat beside him. She took a deep breath. “So, we’re alive.”
I snorted. “Or we’re dead.”
Mom smiled. “You’re not dead.”
“How?” Nic asked.
“Well, let me start at the beginning.” Mom looked to Avery and then smiled back at Nic and me. “Avery told me that you know that your biological father is from Thousand Oaks, so I’m assuming you know Doug wasn’t your father?”
“I mean, yeah,” I responded. “You just introduced Avery as my real father,” I reminded her.
“Maybe you should tell me what you know then, and I’ll answer any questions.”
I took a pull of the Corona. Nic was still quiet and probably in shock like I was. “Jimmy and Jane told us the story about college, and Doug going off to Harvard. They said you got pregnant by”—I waved my hand toward Avery—“Avery, and you decided to still get married to Doug and pretended I was his.”
“Yes,” Mother agreed. “But do you know why?”
I stared at her for a beat. “Honestly, I don’t know why.”
“Because I was married,” Avery stated.
My eyes widened, my wife sucked in a breath, and I felt as though I was in the twilight zone again.
“He was married, I was engaged, and we thought it would be best to call things off before Doug or Avery’s wife found out. I didn’t know I was pregnant at the time,” Mom clarified.
“When did you find out that Doug wasn’t Avery’s father?” Nicole finally asked.
“The older Avery got, the more I saw Avery in him and not Doug. Can’t you tell the resemblance?” Mother asked.
I stared at Avery. We had the same blond hair, blue eyes, and nose. “How did Da—Doug find out?” I asked.
Mom sighed and looked off as if thinking about it hurt. “Doug found the letters from Avery. I’m assuming you found them too?” I nodded. “Right. He found them, it caused a huge fight, and I threatened to leave.”
“Why didn’t you?” Nic asked.
“I tried. Words were said—I don’t recall what—and then I was so angry that I told him Avery wasn’t his son. We yelled, he hit, and I told him who Avery’s father really was, thinking it would hurt him. Then he stormed out of the house, and the next thing I knew, he came home and told me the problem was dealt with.”
“The car accident?” I asked.
Mom nodded and looked at my dad. “At first I didn’t know how he found Avery, but I came to learn that he had a cop friend in Beverly Hills. They were able to track Avery down. This was before the internet was as big as it is now.”
“
But you died,” Nic stated to Avery with a wave of her hand.
“Yeah, he tried to kill me,” Avery admitted.
“You’re buried in a cemetery,” I added, still confused. Who the fuck was buried in that grave?
“That was clearly a hoax,” he replied.
“Why?” I asked. “How?”
“Doug found me. When he did, I was divorced and living in turmoil. The one I truly loved was married, had a kid, and was living a life I couldn’t provide for her because I was a bar owner, a lousy one at that—my business was going under. Doug threatened me, we fought, and he left. I didn’t know he would follow me that night when I went to get beer before heading home. He forced me off the road, and I hit a tree. He thought I was dead and called his cop friend for help. When the cop showed up, he told Doug to leave and he’d take care of it. As soon as he did, the cop felt for a pulse and realized I was alive.” Dad took a deep breath. “So, I made a split-second decision and asked him to pretend I was dead. I thought it would be easier that way.”
“Why would the cop go along with that?” I asked.
“Because he was the reason Doug found me in the first place. He was covering his ass too.”
“But we saw your grave,” Nic informed him.
“Favors run deep in the City of Angels, and people will do anything for money, so the cop paid off the medical examiner to falsify a death certificate. Everyone thought I was dead.”
“No one had to identify your body?” I questioned.
“That’s the beauty of fabricating a death certificate. I just died quietly.”
“But your bar. Your ex-wife. Someone had to have cared,” I said, trying to make everything add up.
“I did,” my mom said. “I found out that he’d apparently died, and contacted his family. We had a burial for him and everything.”
“It was better that way to make everyone think I was dead, so Doug wouldn’t know the truth.”
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