Chapter 22
twenty-two
ELAINA
I’m not cut out for normal motherhood.
Clearly.
I hate every décor sample Maya’s brought over from the “New England Baby” store with a deep and fiery passion.
“That one’s…okay,” I say, doing my best to hide my contempt for pastel whales with giant googly eyes.
Why are the eyes so big? Wouldn’t that be terrifying to a child, to have a whale’s massive googly eye staring down at you when you’re freshly born and still adjusting to life outside your cozy fluid sack?
“Oh yeah?” Maya arches a brow. “Then why is your lip curled like that? You look like you’re about to vomit.”
Fixing my face, I assure her, “No, not at all, I just…” I sigh. “Aren’t they awfully googly-eyed? And cutesy?”
“What do you mean?” She cocks her head. “I don’t think so, and I love the mix of green and yellow. Much more fun than the usual pink and white for girls.” She shrugs. “But I know we have different styles.” She pulls another item from the box beside her, holding it up against the wall. “What about this one? A classic choice. And only half pink.”
I eye the pink-and-green flower mobile Maya holds up against the exposed brick with one hand as she pats the sleeping bottom of her own bundle of joy with the other. Mario has been snoozing in his sling for nearly an hour, but when he wakes up, our peaceful contemplation of decor will be over.
Mario is a sweet little bean with a fantastically gummy grin and his daddy’s deep brown eyes.
But he wakes up starved and pissed as hell about it every time.
“I mean, it’s better,” I say, hating that I’m being so fussy, but unable to help myself. I just want everything to be perfect. Or as perfect as I can make it considering I can’t leave the house to do any décor hunting myself. “But flowers are so…meh. These babies are going to be badass little girls. They need something cool. Something counterculture. Something that will inspire them to be whoever they want to be.”
Maya laughs as she tosses the mobile back into the box with the others. “They’re going to spend most of their time in the crib sleeping, honey, and they won’t even be able to see color until they’re almost four months old. It really doesn’t matter that much. You should just choose what you like.”
I wrinkle my nose. “No, I want to pick what a baby would like, not a cranky twenty-six-year-old who’s been pregnant forever. Maybe we should ask Mario.”
“Oh, he would love the whales. Babies love googly eyes.” She glances down at Mario, smiling before she presses a gentle kiss to his sleeping head. “Right, bud?” Lifting her gaze, she assures me, “And your girls will grow up to be badasses, no matter what you choose for the nursery. Just look at their mama.”
I roll my eyes with a sigh. “Yeah, such a badass. That’s why I haven’t left the house in weeks and cry every time a cat food commercial comes on TV.”
Captain Crunchypants meows from beneath my chair, as if agreeing that I am indeed a sad case and probably in need of psychiatric help.
The Captain has been my loyal companion every step of the way, but even loyal companions start to lose patience with you when all you do is watch reality television, take lukewarm baths, and cry because you’re secretly scared to death that your life has gone completely off the rails.
“You’ll be back to badassery in no time,” Maya says. “Give yourself some grace. You’re on bed rest, and I cried all the time right before Mario was born. And right after. Pregnancy hormones are no joke.”
“I guess.” I shift uncomfortably on the chaise lounge that’s become one of my three approved locations, along with the bed and my new recliner with the massage function that Sydney had sent over as a “sorry you’re on bed rest” present.
Well, not “bed rest” exactly. They don’t call it that anymore. My doctor referred to it as “restricted movement.” Which basically means I can’t do anything except piddle around in my apartment, standing for no longer than ten or fifteen minutes at a time until I hit at least thirty-four weeks.
Preferably thirty-five or thirty-six.
Which is why I’m still piddling, even as I grow as big as a house and week thirty-six is just around the corner…
But this is good. As uncomfortable as I am, I want the twins to have as much time to get big and strong inside me as possible.
Twins…
The word is still enough to shake me sometimes, even months after learning I wasn’t having one baby out of wedlock, but two. Two babies. Two cribs, two car seats, two college funds—and just one little old me.
Ever since the doctor spotted those two heartbeats flashing on the ultrasound screen, I’ve been spiraling a little. Being a single mom is a hard gig, no matter what, but being a single mom to two ?
I have begun to fear that I have bitten off more than I can chew, though I refuse to admit that aloud. Even to myself, let alone my sweet friends who keep offering, over and over again, to pay for a nanny for at least the first six months.
But I don’t want to be the charity case my friends feel badly for, and I don’t want their money. My pride is too strong for that…not to mention my sense of personal responsibility.
I got myself into this situation, after all. I’ll be the one to navigate the consequences of my actions, doing my best to make sure my daughters never want for anything along the way.
“Why don’t we put a pin in picking a décor scheme for now,” Maya says, glancing down at her cell. She types a quick response to a text—probably telling Anthony she’s missing him desperately while he’s away for a few days on business—before tucking her phone in her back pocket and collecting a box of secondhand baby clothes from next to the mobiles.
Her sister has been collecting things for me from her mom group, helping me prepare for the twins’ arrival without breaking the bank.
“It’s more urgent that we get as many onesies washed and ready as possible,” she continues. “And the car seat bases set up in your car tomorrow. Time grows short.”
“True,” I murmur with a shaky laugh, rubbing my swollen belly. One of the girls—I think it’s Baby A, the feistier one—gives me a reassuring kick against my palm. “Is it weird that I want to go into labor right now… and I want them to stay inside me forever at the same time?”
“Nope.” Maya perches on the edge of the chaise beside me, resting the box between us. “Everything up ahead is unknown for you, and the unknown is scary. But I promise you, taking care of a newborn is way more fun than being obscenely pregnant. I love this little monkey, but pregnancy sucked ass.”
I snort. “Preach, sister. I love you so much. I’m so glad you’re here to hold my anxious, sweaty little hand.”
“Always.” She grins as she threads her fingers through mine. “ Ew. They really are sweaty.” When we’re done giggling, she scoots the box closer. “See if there’s anything you don’t want in here. If it’s all good, I’ll take the box home and wash all these tonight.”
“Seriously, thank you so much for all you’ve done,” I tell her for at least the hundredth time. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“You probably could have called someone,” she says, arching a pointed brow. “The baby’s father, perhaps?”
I wrinkle my nose as I devote my full attention to the box of onesies and sleeper sets. “I told you. I’m a huge slut and have no idea who the father is.”
She grunts beneath her breath. “Right, and I’m the Queen of Cairo.”
“Your majesty,” I say with a little bow as I continue to rifle through the clothes. “I didn’t realize Cairo had a queen. I thought it was a city. Do cities have queens? They must, I guess, since you’re apparently the royal in charge.”
“I’m serious, Elaina,” she says, something in her tone making me think she isn’t going to let me push past this the way I have before. “He should be helping. You shouldn’t have to bear the full expense of everything alone, while also pushing your poor little body to the brink of collapse carrying two giant babies.”
I exhale. “I told you, I don’t?—”
“Especially when he’s a billionaire,” Maya cuts in, making my eyes go wide. She answers my unspoken question with a nod. “Yeah, I know it’s Hunter. I’ve known for months. Ever since those pictures we took at the lobster boil last summer popped up in my memories, and I saw the way he was looking at you. I did a little digging, following my hunch, and the pieces fell into place pretty quickly.”
I swallow, forcing the acid rising in my throat back the way it came. “What? What pieces? We were so careful. I mean, no one we know even saw us together in New York.”
Maya hesitates a beat too long, the guilt tugging at the edges of her mouth giving her away.
“Oh my God!” I gasp. “You didn’t know! You didn’t know jack shit. You just tricked me into confessing like a total jerk!”
“Hush, not so loud,” she says. “You’ll wake Mario. And then he’ll be screaming too loud for me to tell you that I love you…and that I told the woman who called while you were in the bath all about the pregnancy and the bed rest and everything for your own good.”
“What?!” I screech, causing Mario to shift restlessly in the sling, whimpering as he rubs his face against Maya’s chest.
“It was Hunter’s mom,” Maya says, making my eyes bug even further out of my skull. “She called the land line earlier, asking for you. She figured out that Sweet Pussy Café must be your café by process of elimination and wanted to check in. She was on vacation not far from Sea Breeze and kept thinking about you…and how great you and Hunter were together. She said it felt like a sign, so she called to see how you were doing. And I told her. And she’s on her way here right now. That was her who texted. She just passed the old lighthouse and should be here any minute.”
“Shit,” I curse, my heart slamming against my ribs. “This is bad, Maya, this is so bad, you have no idea?—”
“It’s not bad, it’s good! And necessary,” Maya cuts in before adding in a rush beneath her breath, “but Hunter is also with her and she said she was going to make him come talk to you right away, whether he liked it or not. So, um, sorry about that. I didn’t know he was with her until it was too late, but that’s probably for the best, too, because talking is good.”
I’m pretty sure my eyes fully evacuate my sockets at that point. Whatever’s to blame—fear, stress, migrating body parts—I go blind for a second.
By the time I’m able to focus again, Maya is halfway to the door leading down to the café.
“I’m meeting Margaret out front to give her directions to one of my parents’ empty rental cottages, where she and Hunter are going to stay while they’re here,” she says. “But I told her she could send Hunter right up. I figured he knew how to get in through the back door.”
“Maya, no,” I gasp, my throat so tight, I can barely breathe. “No, you can’t do this. I can’t see him. Not ever. I?—”
“It’s going to be okay,” she says, like the stupidly optimistic person she is. “Just take a deep breath and talk it through. From what Margaret said, it sounds like he’s been as miserable without you as you’ve been without him. I’ll be back to check on you later, after I feed Mario and get him settled with the nanny.”
“I hate you,” I say, all the blood draining from my face as she opens the door.
She shoots me a sympathetic smile. “I know, but you’ll love me when this is over. I’m sure of it. Hang in there, badass. You know I’m always rooting for you.”
Biting my tongue—further debate is clearly useless—I wait until I hear her footsteps descending the stairs to the café before leveraging myself up from the chaise, ignoring the protest in my lower back.
I need to get out of here. Now.
And no, I can’t go far—ten to fifteen minutes of walking doesn’t move the needle much when you’re as pregnant as I am, and I stopped being able to fit behind the wheel of my tiny Fiat weeks ago—but I can probably make it to the pizza parlor. Ken, the owner, loves me. He’ll let me prop my feet up in a booth, have a slice, and hide until the coast is clear.
I pull my sweater on, figuring I can skip the coat and sock cap, since I’m not going far. But before I can locate my old winter boots—the only pair of shoes that aren’t small for my swollen feet—the sound of footsteps on the back stairs sends my heart into overdrive.
They’re heavy footsteps, familiar ones that I would know anywhere.
It’s too late.
He’s here.
Hunter’s here.
A beat later, the door opens, and there he is, the man I love, the one I couldn’t stop loving, no matter how hard I tried, looking even more handsome than I remember. He stands frozen in my doorway for a long moment, his inscrutable gaze locked on my stomach.
As usual, I can’t tell exactly what he’s thinking, but I can tell it isn’t good.
Not good at all.
“Surprise,” I whisper, wondering if it’s too late to lie down on the floor and play dead.