Two in Winter

by Vanessa North

* * * *

  The next morning he stalked into the break room, desperate for a cup of coffee. He heard Skip’s voice on the phone and he scowled as he tried not to eavesdrop. Easier said than done once he realized Skip was talking to Stacey.

  “No baby, I mean it. I’m cooking supper tonight. Yeah. I’ll see you then. Yeah, you too.” Skip flipped his phone closed and walked over to the coffee pot.

  “Hey. Listen, Skip, I’m sorry about yesterday.”

  “Just don’t… Look. Getty’s friends don’t know. I really like Stacey, and it’s hard enough dating her and knowing this great big secret about one of her best friends. Please don’t make it more complicated.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I was wrong to put you in that position. I’m sorry. But if you see her…”

  “Dude. You missed your chance. You blew it with this one. I’m sorry.” Skip patted his shoulder awkwardly as he walked around him.

  “Skip, please.” Eric looked at his shoes, then back up at his friend. “Just tell her … I’m not judging her. If she needs someone to talk to about all this, I … I could be that guy.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” Skip nodded.

  Chapter 6

  Getty sat in her office with Anna’s latest sketches in front of her. She jotted down a few notes and remarks about them. Anna would be showing at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York, and Getty would have to sell the collection. From the sketches, she could tell it was going to be a good, solid ready-to-wear collection. But it was missing a certain spark, something that would have people talking about it after the show. This kind of oversight could kill a competent designer. Competent wasn’t enough. She needed to be brilliant. She made a note to let the atelier staff know Anna would be coming by to get started in the next week, and she scribbled a note to Anna.

  A—looks great, but … where’s the hook? Something’s missing. Keep me posted.-G

  With a final glance over her email inbox, Getty switched off the computer. She looked down at her watch, startled to see it was already seven p.m. She’d promised Stacey she’d meet her for dinner tonight. She’d just started her period and would rather just go home and read a book and eat chocolate and in general be sad about the outcome—or lack thereof—of her first artificial insemination. But, a promise was a promise, and Stacey didn’t know anything about her plans for becoming a mom. With a groan of exhaustion, she reached for her phone.

  After letting Stacey know she’d be there soon, she pulled her hair into a ponytail and stepped out into the icy winter air.

  The walk from her office to Stacey’s apartment wasn’t long, so a few moments later, she looked into Skip’s face with surprise as he swung open the door.

  “Hey, Getty, nice to see you again.” He dropped a kiss on her cheek. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Skip.” She gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. “And you?”

  “Oh, you know, young and wild and free.” He amped up the drama in his voice, but his face said something else. A glimmer of empathy.

  “How’s… How’s your friend?” She moved past him into the kitchen, dropping her jacket on the back of a chair. She kissed Stacey’s cheek and reached into the fridge for a bottle of chilled white wine. As she pulled out the cork, Skip fetched the glasses.

  “Eric is fine,” he finally answered.

  “You guys, I’m gonna be, ten, fifteen more minutes at least with supper. Why don’t you two go get comfy and catch up?” Stacey practically pushed them out of the kitchen. “For real, go.” She shooed them out.

  Getty followed Eric into the living room, sitting down on the recliner while he sat on the sofa, elbows on his knees.

  “Getty, I’m sorry, you know, that it didn’t…”

  “It’s okay, I knew the chances going in.” She smiled at Skip.

  “Hey, Eric wanted me to tell you…” Skip paused, grinding the heel of his hand into his forehead. “Look. He knows what a head trip this trying to get pregnant thing can be. His wife, she left him after a few years of treatments. He just wanted me to tell you that if you need someone to talk to, he can be that guy.”

  “Thanks, Skip, but I’m really doing this on my own, you know. And I’m okay with that.” She sighed, sipping her glass of wine. She wished she didn’t know that about Eric’s wife. Wished even more she didn’t know Eric had been married. Wished she didn’t know he existed at all.

  “He’s a good guy, Getty,” Skip insisted. “And he likes you. Why’d you blow him off that night?”

  “You even need to ask? I can’t have a relationship with what’s going on in my life right now. I just can’t. And Eric Freyr is the kind of guy … who makes me want what I can’t have.”

  “Why can’t you? Is this a business thing? Protecting assets? ’Cause I can guarantee, Eric is not the kind to prey upon a woman for money. Besides, he’s got plenty of his own.”

  “No, it’s not a business asset thing. It’s not about that. It’s about what I went to your clinic to do. I don’t have room for a man in my life right now.”

  “That’s fair, I suppose. But Getty…”

  “Skip, just tell him no, okay?”

  Skip sighed, then nodded. “Okay.”

  Chapter 7

  Eric was reading a chart as he walked toward his office when he nearly bumped into a woman coming out of the rest room.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, not looking up. But then the smell of strawberry lip-gloss hit his nostrils and his head shot up. “Getty?”

  “Hi, Dr. Freyr.” Her eyes grew wide. “Excuse me, I have an ultrasound now.”

  “Hey…” He reached for her hand, catching her elbow instead. “I was thinking, I can take myself out of rotation on days you’re here.”

  “Why would you do that?” Her breath caught.

  “Because I want…” He pinched the skin between his eyebrows. “I just want to get to know you, Getty. And this, my job, it makes that impossible. I really like you.”

  “But what about what I want, Eric?” A ghost of a smile tilted up the corners of her mouth. His eyes fell to her lips, and he remembered the sweet taste of her, the noises she’d made and the way her hands had run through his hair. If he’d known that was the only taste he’d ever get, he would have dragged that kiss out for eternity.

  “What do you want?” he forced himself to ask.

  “Not this.” She gestured between them. “I want my life the way I’ve planned it, and I didn’t plan for you.”

  He swallowed. Well, she couldn’t have said it more clearly than that. Her life, him not included. He nodded, willing the sting in his throat to go away. It seemed he was always at the mercy of a woman’s plans—one to have a baby with him … then another to have one without him. Finally, the breath he’d swallowed eased from him in a long sigh.

  He dropped her elbow.

  As she walked down the hallway toward the ultrasound room, he felt himself frowning after her. When she looked up, she gave him another one of those impossibly bittersweet smiles before she disappeared.

  * * * *

  “Have you seen her again?”

  Eric’s eyes moved from his plate up to his sister’s earnest face. He nodded. “Yesterday. She told me in no uncertain terms that there is no room for me in her life.”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe it’s time to move on, Eric. Just chalk it up to a rebound crush and walk away.”

  “I can’t get her out of my head. I have no appetite. I’m living on caffeine and the hope that I’ll see her again. I think Lucky wishes Lesley had taken him with her. E, I’m literally pining away over a woman. I didn’t do this when Lesley left even. This is ridiculous.”

  “Hush.” Erica reached for his hand. “Is Skip still dating her friend?”

  “Yeah. Apparently he and Getty are all buddy-buddy. I tried to ask him to put in a word for me, and he says he did, but I have this feeling something he said may have fucked it up worse.”

  “Fucked.” Nossie’s childish voice repeated. “Fucked worse.�
�

  “Nossie sweetie, please don’t repeat things your Uncle Eric says. Sometimes, he uses words that aren’t appropriate for kids to say.”

  “Appwopwiate.” She tried this one on for size instead. “Approp-wee.” She murmured the word a few more times before she looked up and grinned at Eric.

  “Sorry kiddo.” He apologized for his language, returned to pushing his pasta around on his plate.

  “Ewic,” his niece said solemnly. “If you don’t eat you supper, you don’t have ice cween.”

  “Uh oh.” He grinned at little Nossie. “And then what?”

  “You fucked.”

  “Nossie!” Her mother exclaimed.

  “Well, she’s right. I’ve pretty much blown it with the ice queen. And now … I’m… Yeah.”

  “Eric.” His sister frowned. “I wish you could let this go.”

  “Me too.”

  Chapter 8

  Eric was crowding Getty’s thoughts. He had offered to take himself off rotation just so he could get to know her. The thought that he was that interested was flattering, and she wasn’t the kind of woman who was open to flattery.

  She sighed, looking at the tickets in her hands. Plane tickets to New York for Fashion Week and VIP passes. She’d already hired the new sales manager, so there was really no need for her to go. A part of her considered asking Eric, to show him that part of her life, so he’d understand why, but she squashed that part of herself down ruthlessly.

  If she invited him in that far, it would be that much harder to shut the door. He and Skip were the only ones who knew her secret, and she felt like it made him a co-conspirator. Not that it was a conspiracy. Just a plan. One of many she’d put into place in her life. Why did his knowledge of it make him take up so many of her waking thoughts?

  No. She couldn’t take him to New York.

  * * * *

  “Tickets to fashion week?” Stacey looked at the envelope in her hands, then back up at Getty. “You want me to go to fashion week?”

  “I’ve hired a new sales manager, she’s taking over that part of my job. I thought you might like to go and keep Anna company. I figured you could take Skip, if you wanted.”

  “Take me where?” Skip wandered, shirtless, into the hallway from Stacey’s room. Getty giggled as Stacey rolled her eyes.

  Stacey looped her arms around Skip’s neck. “What do you say? You, me, New York City, my surly designer friend, and lots of thin beautiful creatures on impossibly tall high heels?”

  “Can we have coffee first?” Skip raised one eyebrow.

  “Definitely.” Getty walked into the kitchen to start the coffee. “And I brought donuts.”

  “Mmm. Donuts.” Stacey peered into the box on the counter. “Are these custard or cream filled?”

  “I don’t know. Be brave.”

  “Getty, you’re in a weirdly good mood,” Stacey observed. “Did last quarter’s sales numbers blow you away or something?”

  “No, I’m just … hopeful.” She smiled. Truth was, it had been almost two weeks since her second insemination. She was planning on taking a pregnancy test the following morning. She had maniacally googled every “early pregnancy symptom” and found at least a half dozen that might apply to her. At least she thought her veins looked darker. And her breasts were definitely sensitive. Of course, squeezing them like fruit at the grocery every time she had a moment of privacy might have done that. Tomorrow. She’d find out tomorrow.

  Skip sat across from her at the breakfast table.

  “Eric asks about you,” he said, almost too casually.

  “Did I ask about Eric?” she shot back, one blonde eyebrow raised.

  “Fair point. But Getty, I gotta ask you something. Have you thought about what you’re giving up?”

  “Mmm, a few dates, a few months of groping each other, a few episodes of mediocre sex, and then we break up, I’m suddenly six months older, and wondering what happened to half a year of my life that could have been spent on something productive?”

  Skip’s expression turned exasperated. “Eric is a good guy, Getty. He’s a lot of fun to be around when he’s not brooding. Add to that, you’re the only woman I’ve seen him show an interest in, besides Les of course, since before he met her. And he’s really interested.

  “Let me put it another way for you. What if he could give you everything you’ve ever wanted? What if he’s the one person you’re meant to be with? Your partner in life? And by denying him, you’re denying yourself. You have your company, your friends and family. But without him, it’s bitter and cold and you resent every day that you didn’t take that chance.”

  “Skip…” she cautioned, “…don’t. You can’t scare me into loving him. I don’t believe in all that soul mate crap anyway.”

  He wrote something down on a piece of paper and held it up. “Just imagine that I’m holding your happiness right here. You can choose to live a life full of happiness with a partner by your side, or you can live this bitter half-life, because without someone to share it, life is a lot less sweet. I’m telling you, I know Eric. And now that I’ve gotten to know you, I wish you’d give him a chance. I think you guys will never be happy if you don’t at least explore whatever this thing is between you. Change both of your lives. Better, not bitter.”

  * * * *

  Getty sat on the edge of the toilet seat, waiting for the alarm on her iPhone to beep, letting her know it was time to check the test. When it finally came she took a shuddering deep breath and turned over the small strip of pink and white plastic.

  Her eyes searched the test carefully. Two lines. There should be two. There are supposed to be two.

  One.

  She felt a lump rising in her throat. Her nose stung and her breath caught.

  She held it up to the light, as if that would change anything.

  It wasn’t calm, collected Getty who flung the test across the room, watched in satisfaction as it shattered against the cold travertine wall. It wasn’t logical, rational Getty who climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. And it was certainly not Ice Queen Getty who pulled out the folded-up slip of paper Skip had given her yesterday, folding and unfolding it until the creases had softened and the writing had smudged just a little. It couldn’t have been her, but somehow it was Getty who found herself sitting up in bed in her underwear, dialing a phone number she’d never asked for.

  “’Lo?” His sleepy voice triggered a rush of melting heat. For a moment she just considered what that must have been, that gushy-rushy-gooey sweetness that throbbed below the icy surface. “Hello?” Annoyed now, an edge crept into his voice.

  She remembered then … she’d called him.

  “E-eric?” she stammered into the phone.

  “Who’s this?” She could hear the yawn in his voice, and she smiled, picturing him stretched out in bed.

  “It’s Getty,” she whispered.

  “Getty?” No softness to his voice now … just excitement?

  She nodded, realized he couldn’t see, hugged her knees to her chest, and started over. “Yeah. It didn’t work. Again.” Feeling small, Getty let the sadness creep into her voice. “I’m not pregnant.”

  “Oh, honey.” She heard the empathy there, knew it was up to her. She’d known exactly what she wanted when she decided to have a baby alone. And she could see that all planned out neatly and perfectly. She hadn’t counted on her body not holding up its end of the bargain. She hadn’t planned for disappointment, for grief and for needing a release for it. She hadn’t known how alone she would feel when none of her friends knew the truth and she’d be turning to a virtual stranger…

  “Can I see you?” she whispered into the phone, eyes squeezing shut against the tears. “I really need someone to talk to.”

  Chapter 9

  When Eric knocked on the door, Getty was ready. She flung it open, drinking in the sight of him, his morning’s beard growth dotting his chin. Blue—so blue—eyes looking at her with empathy and banked d
esire. Both big hands clutching coffee cups from Starbucks. Wordlessly, he handed her a cup and arched a brow at her.

  “Please, come in.” She held the door wide and walked back through the entryway to the lush living room with the overpriced couches she never sat on, the large-screen TV she never watched. She sat down, hugging a pillow to her chest as she sipped at the coffee.

  With a trembling smile that told her he was as nervous as she, he sat next to her, putting his coffee on the table. He dragged the pillow out from under her arm, taking her hand in his.

  “Are you okay?”

  Three words that asked everything and nothing, left it up to her to divulge or not. A crack in the ice, dripping.

  “Now that you’re here.” She smiled. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

  “I know.” His thumb stroked the quilted flesh inside her palm, tracing the lines there.

  “I didn’t plan for it not to work.” Another sip—okay, this one more like a gulp—of coffee.

  “I know.” He nodded.

  “You could give me statistics.” She attempted a smile.

  “Did you want a doctor? Or a friend?” He smiled back. God, his smile was gorgeous. She wanted to trace it with a finger until she had it memorized. Her awareness of him was centering in the palm of the hand he still held, caressing, stroking, tracing. Who knew the soft squishy heel of her hand was an erogenous zone?

  He did.

  “A friend,” she said finally, a stiff nod dragging on her chin.

  He let go of her hand. She almost protested, then she realized he was reaching for his coffee.

  “Well, it’s Sunday. I don’t have to go to work. Do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Church?”

  “No.”

  “So, you’re all mine for the day.” He looked vastly pleased with himself. The laugh burst from her. So fast, she thought an avalanche might be on the way. Rivers overflow banks. Flood and disaster.

  “All yours.”

  “What do you want to do?” Blue eyes pierced into her. This was the real question, wasn’t it?