by Angel Payne
Talia snapped her phone cover closed and looked around our little group.
“I’m always hungry!” Claire was the first to answer, though it was in a stage whisper. Since we were at the spa, we had to make a conscious effort for quiet in the common areas—not always successfully achieved with our bunch.
Luckily, it was a weekday, making it easy to find four lounge chairs in a row next to the outdoor pool. The weather was perfect, though the calendar had registered winter. These were the days Southern California real estate prices seemed completely logical.
“Add me to the starving list,” Margaux added as we settled in. “I had no idea breastfeeding a child would burn so many calories. I haven’t even been working out, and I swear I’m eating like a cow. I’m seriously fucked when Iris stops nursing.”
“Language!” Claire’s chastisement was as on-cue as Margaux’s transgression.
“Christ, will you stop? My kid’s not even in the same town right now. Caroline has her today. And are you seriously telling me my bossy pants brother doesn’t let an F-bomb drop every now and then around Regan? Really?”
Talia and I joined in a grin as Margaux and Claire bantered over our reclined torsos about child-rearing practices. It was almost a word-for-word repeat of the conversation they’d had in the ladies’ room at Talia’s wedding, meaning they’d be at it for at least a few minutes longer—leaving me a perfect opportunity to turn to the still-glowing bride, lowering my sunglasses by half an inch.
“Soooo…inquiring minds want to know. How is married life treating you, Mrs. Ford-Newland?”
Talia smiled, her happiness all but gushing out of every pore, mixing with the tan I’d always been hideously jealous of. “It’s still Perizkova,” she explained. “And will probably stay that way, regrettably. The guys and I had a long talk and figured it’d just be easier. Avoid any questions from outsiders as well as hurt feelings from insiders, you know?”
I nodded. “Makes perfect sense. It’s a great solution.” We joined in a chuckle as Margaux and Claire moved on to debating diaper brands, giving me one more pause to consider my next question. “Can I ask you something personal, T?”
Talia scooted her own sunglasses lower, regarding me with open shock. “Oh my God, are you asking permission now, Taylor Mathews?” She finished with an elbow nudge, ensuring me she was teasing, though her astonishment was justified. Normally, I was the girl who barreled ahead of everyone, figuring forgiveness was easier to ask for than permission, bull-in-a-china-shop style.
“You can ask me anything, chica. You know that. We don’t have secrets here, do we?” Her smile was so genuine I knew she meant every word she said.
“Are you guys going to have kids?”
There. I’d gone ahead and let the hog run wild in the yard—though she hardly seemed surprised, which was no shocker to me.
“I hope so,” she answered at once. “We’ve certainly been practicing.” She grinned and then added, “A lot.” Then burst into a full giggle, her perfect tan even more resplendent.
“But…”
“But what?”
“Do you think Drake and Fletch will care who the real father is?”
It was my true curiosity anyway, so I pushed on with it. Once more, Talia responded as if she’d been asked the question a thousand times.
“No. I don’t think they will. As a matter of fact, I know it.” Her gaze stretched across the sparkling azure of the pool. “It’s hard to explain how things are between the three of us. It’s…” She still stared off, as if wanting to find the perfect words for expressing herself. Finally, after a sigh of exasperation, she said, “It’s just special. I know that sounds lame, but it’s true. Never, in my whole life, would I have believed a marriage like this could be possible, let alone for someone like me. If someone had tried explaining it to me, I’m sure I would have been as judgmental as the rest of the world—then would’ve arrived at the same conclusions about imbalance and jealousy in a triad relationship.
“But honestly, there’s none of that with us. Maybe less than none. We support one another so much and build one another up, but not in a patronizing way. And I think because there are three of us, we always have a nifty checks-and-balance system.”
“Nifty?” I interjected. “And did you really just compare your marriage to online banking?”
She giggled. “I guess I did—but who the hell doesn’t think online banking’s the best thing since streaming TV? We use the balance every single day. We can each look at one another and with one look we’re saying, ‘is he bullshitting me right now?’ And the other one usually says, ‘no way, it’s totally true, you look amazing.’ And you feel ten feet tall. God, does that sound crazy?”
“That sounds amazing.” My reply was just as adamant. “Not crazy.”
Her shoulders visibly slackened, as if she’d expected me to protest. “Well, to get back to your original question, I don’t think it will matter who the baby’s father is at all. He or she is simply going to be so loved, it won’t even matter.”
“That’s a good thing,” I remarked. “Because you know once you drop that critter, the world will know, one way or the other, whose swimmer paddled the farthest upstream.”
Margaux, in the middle of telling Claire about an article she’d read on homemade baby food versus jarred food, interrupted herself midsentence. “What did you just say, Miss Mathews?”
Talia, already in the middle of joining me for a hard giggle, answered to all of us. “All three of us are aware that once the baby’s here, the paternity will be obvious. The boys do look so different…”
“Whoa,” Margaux blurted. “Are you already knocked up, Tolly Pie?”
“No. No,” Talia protested, laughing again. “But once I am, and things move along, none of us see it as an issue. Our hearts are full right now, and they’ll be even fuller once our family expands.”
“So you guys are trying?” The question came from Claire, who looked amazing in a black bikini with a patterned sarong to match.
“Well, let’s just say we aren’t trying to stop it from happening anymore. I stopped taking the pill after the wedding, and that was the only birth control we’d been using for some time, so we’ll see, I guess.” She shrugged, giving me the impression aliens could’ve done a water landing in the pool and not ruined her sunny mood. “What about you two?” she asked, looking between Margaux to Claire.
“Whoa, missy.” Margaux stretched both arms out in time to her drawn-out words. “Just slow your roll right there. I have all I can handle with my little hellraiser already. Iris still gets up in the middle of the night and still only wants Mama to hold her, unless Grammy Caroline is around. And my mom is happy to help out, but poor Michael feels so helpless. I’m not sure why Iris is so obsessed with me, but I wish she’d warm up to him a little bit. He feels like he’s doing something wrong, and I don’t know how to make it better. I’ve tried finding books and support online because I really don’t know what to do about it.”
I grimaced for a second. “Yikes.”
“Right? And the more he worries about it, the more she doesn’t want to be around him. Diana said he was the same way when he was a baby, but that doesn’t make him feel any better. And when I’m exhausted and she’s fussy and he can’t help, it just sucks.”
We gave Margaux a round of sympathetic nods, but no one had a suggestion to offer. Before we could brainstorm any suggestions, Claire inserted one sad comment.
“Well…Regan loves Kil.” She seemed to blink rapidly behind her shades, and her voice wobbled while adding, “Sometimes a little too much.”
“What do you mean, sweetie?” I asked.
She sucked in a weighted sigh. “I mean that I get jealous,” she snapped, her lips a thin line. “And I hate myself, but I can’t help it. The minute he enters the room, she wants nothing to do with me. It’s all Daddy, all the time.”
“Claire Bear.” Margaux got up, pushed onto her sister’s chaise, and then scoope
d up Claire’s hand with forceful comfort. “My brother has that effect on most of the females he meets, remember? Why should Regan be any different?”
Talia and I nodded with vigor. Margaux spoke the truth, however painful it could be for Claire.
“You have a point,” Claire mumbled. “But it still sucks. All I’m good for is boobie juice and diaper changes.”
“Wait until she gets a little older,” Talia inserted. “I remember my sister always complaining that her husband was the playmate and she was the drill instructor. But I think that’s how it usually goes. Someone has to rule the roost, and it’s usually the momma.”
My hearty snicker came out louder than I expected, though that didn’t dilute its obnoxious “yeah right” subtext. As soon I finished it up, the three others riveted their stares on me, obviously expecting an explanation.
Damn it.
“Well,” I said without a note of apology, “it wasn’t that way when I was growing up. Not even close.”
“Your mom was the pushover?”
Talia’s query was innocent enough. Unfortunately, there was no matching answer—but if I’d learned anything from the sexual game-changer who’d been Mac Stone, it was that honesty sometimes didn’t have to be painful. The truth, given to friends who cared in small and controllable doses, really could set someone free. At least a little.
“My mom was the over-doser, sugar.” I smiled as openly as I could about it. I wasn’t walking around morose because of this shit, and I didn’t want them to, either. “Or the over-drinker. Or the over-sleeper, so she would lose whatever dead-end job she’d been holding down at the moment.”
“Honey.” Claire kept up with the musical chaises, stepping over to pat my hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Obeying pure instinct, I yanked away from her. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t mean that as shitty as it looked.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Margaux chastised. “We don’t get to pick out parents, Tay. Look at the piece of shit adoptive maternal unit I got stuck with for my formative years. Now she’s a fucking criminal. And look at Claire. She had a great one, but she died when Claire was just a girl. We all got the fuck stick, just different ends. But now all we can try to do is break the cycle, you know? We have babies of our own, we can do our best to be better at it than they were.” She followed Claire over, bringing me a glass of iced tea from a tray the waiter had brought. I accepted it with a watery smile. Damn. I had the best girlfriends in the world.
“I don’t want to be the downer on our day.” The regret in my voice was sincere. “It’s gorgeous out here, and wasting it in wallowing is pointless. My mom is a piece of work. She always has been and still is. She’s an addict, and she basically has been my whole life. And I’ve spent more money bailing her out and plumping my therapist’s kids’ college funds than I care to think about.”
I drank from my tea, wishing it were something stronger to dull the ache at the middle of my chest—though wouldn’t that make me just like Mom? Sucking down a cocktail at noon just to make the demons go away?
“Okay, she’s right.” Margaux clapped her hands like a freaking basketball coach. “I hereby declare babies, boobs, and booze as off-limits subjects. What else is going on in our lives? There has to be something, right?” She pivoted toward me with gusto. “Tag. You’re it. What’s new? Seen any good movies? Getting any hot cock?”
“Margaux!”
Thank God for Claire, the captain of the Profanity Police. Her outburst was perfectly timed to my choke on the tea—not that Margaux let it slip by for more than two seconds.
“The girls are practically in another fucking county,” Margaux snapped at her sister. Then, with her gaze glittering back in my direction: “Besides, Tay has promising news.” She sat forward, rubbing her hands together. “Very promising, if that blush in full sun is any indication—and we’ll take it as one.”
“Stop.” I held my hands up, laughing. “Just stop, girl, before you even get started.”
But the woman was like a dog with a bone. “Hmmm. Well. Keep your secrets, then. I’m a little bummed to even have a hint of a new guy, actually…because Killian told Claire and me last night that his cousin Mac is back in town.”
A fucking sneaky dog.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my jaw from plummeting. That didn’t stop the blood from draining from my face. Sweat broke out on my forehead, despite the shade in which we were lying.
Bastard.
The sneaky, smug, God-I’ve-missed-you-FaceTime-sex-me bastard.
He’d never said one word about coming back to San Diego.
Not. One. Single. Word.
I bolted off my chaise, needing to know I wouldn’t be numb forever—also needing to remind myself this wasn’t the damned Apocalypse. And in all fairness, I’d left him hanging—pretty literally—the last we’d spoken. And since then, I’d ignored every attempt he’d made at contact.
Attempts most normal guys wouldn’t have even bothered with.
But Maclain Stone wasn’t normal. In any realistic sense of the word.
“Well, that got someone’s attention.” There was an ear-to-ear grin in Margaux’s voice.
“Whose?” I bit it back quickly. Too quickly.
“Ohhh, ba ha ha.” Margaux repeated her hand smacks, this time in applause. “Nice try, Tay baby. Now you’ve got to spill it, sister.”
“I thought we’d established the whole abolishment of the sister thing,” I retorted. “At the wedding, remember? Where you sold me out to the devil himself?”
She just laughed, much like she did on that day as well. “You mean the devil who now has you pacing this pool deck like a virgin on prom night?”
“You’re terrible.” Claire playfully smacked Margaux’s arm. “Stop.” She looked back up at me. “So for argument’s sake, Miss Mathews, let’s just say you were a little interested in the good doctor…” She paused, waiting for any sign from me to go on. I twitched slightly, apparently giving enough of a green light for her comfort. “Kil said Mac took a job at Scripps Green in La Jolla. He’s moving here permanently. I guess he’s looking for a place to live and called to ask if Kil had any recommendations. Of course, I insisted he stay in our gatehouse until he finds a place of his own. My husband wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but I can be, how do you say? Very persuasive.” She grinned just before digging in to the newly delivered salad. “God, this is divine. Did you get the same thing?” She pointed at Talia’s dish with her fork.
“So spill it, girl.” Margaux took over on the interrogation—not that she’d ever really walked away. “What made you go ghost white—well, more than your usual Casper—when Bear said Mac was in town?”
I folded my arms.
Margaux folded hers.
I wrinkled my nose.
She did the same.
Damn it.
We were both two moves shy of sticking out our tongues at each other, and I reflected on how much she really had become like a sister to me. Because of that, I went pure crass on her, hoping it might shock them all into silence.
“I fucked him.”
Claire and Talia dropped their heavy forks in unison, metal clattering against the fine china their salads were on. A few of the spa goers stopped their conversations because of the din, but life continued as normal for them, while my three friends gaped as if the world had halted on our side of the pool.
“What?” I bounced my stare between all three of them. “You can’t really be surprised. I mean, look at him.”
Claire recovered first. “Do I want to hear this? I mean, he is family.”
“Barely. I don’t think he and Kil spoke between their childhood and Fletcher’s accident.”
“Did he say why? Killian still won’t open up about that fully.” Claire looked hopeful.
“Sorry, Bear. Wasn’t the first thing on my mind. I was too busy coming. Repeatedly.”
Margaux jumped up and bounced on her toes. “Repeatedly, huh
?” How the wench loved the dirty minutiae.
I nodded my head and rolled my eyes for extra affect. “Ridiculous.”
“Details. I need details.”
“What?” I bantered. “Why? Why do you need details?”
“Oh, my God,” Talia giggled out.
“Do they have popcorn on this health freak menu?” Claire muttered. “Because this is getting goooood.”
“You’ve got your own sexy freak at home,” I reminded Margaux. “Right? Or have things settled down now that you’re an old married couple with a baby? Ohhhh, shit. You don’t let that poop bomb sleep in your bed between you and Michael every night, do you? Talk about a sex-life killer.”
Margaux laughed so hard, she snorted. “No, we don’t. And don’t call my precious angel a poop bomb, though at times it’s very fitting.” She thought for a second and laughed again. “That’s funny, actually. I may reuse that. But no. That child sleeps in her own damn bed. I’m just a nosy bitch, you know that. I want to know everything.”
“Me too!” Claire and Talia chimed together.
“So when did this epic come fest happen?” Margaux inquired.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Of course I knew. The date would be etched on my memory for a good long time to come—along with that horrific pun—but the girls didn’t need to know that, just like they didn’t need to know about the filthy Mac dreams I’d had before and that too. “A few days after the wedding,” I finally offered, managing to convince them of my nonchalance. “So, what was that? First week in September? I went to give blood like I always do, and he fucking showed up in front of the Blood Mobile. But now that I think back on it, I think he said something about a job interview. It didn’t sink in because he had me all flustered and then lightheaded—”
“You were flustered?” Talia gasped.
“And lightheaded?” Claire sighed.
“Because I’d just let them drain a pint of my blood?” I rebutted.
“Uh-huh.” Clearly, Margaux was buying a truth somewhere between the girls’ swoons and my acerbity, likely the wisest choice.