Chapter Fifteen
Lucas
She texted me two words on Monday: I’m in.
When I read them, I was instantly hard. I’ve been thinking about it all week, how I’m going to make her come. It’s definitely like I’m right back in high school.
My flight landed two hours ago. I’m showered, groomed, and ready for the mission. And let’s face it, I’m downright giddy.
I show up right before seven o’clock, when she usually locks up for the day, and the bells over the door alert her to my arrival. She glances my way without a single reaction as she deals with a customer. I try not to let her blatant indifference bother me and pretend I’m browsing the book section.
When I don’t hear voices, I turn. I’m surprised to see Regan and a customer talking in ASL.
With Blake’s wife and daughter both being deaf, I’ve learned some American Sign Language myself over the past year, but I had no idea Regan knew it. I know enough, and pick up from contextual clues, to figure out the two women are talking about a book.
I watch Regan stealthily from behind a rack of clothing. The fluid motion of her hands. The way her colorful skirt swishes back and forth with every movement. How her lips move, forming words with no sound.
Fuck .
I turn away and pick up a book about Europe to tamp down my growing problem.
A few minutes later, the front doorbells chime again. The customer has left. We’re alone. Regan sits on her stool behind the counter, pulls a pen from over her ear, and writes in a ledger, not even bothering to acknowledge my presence.
Finally, it clicks—it’s all part of the game. Like our accidental meeting in the grocery store.
I smile to myself, go over and turn her sign from OPEN to CLOSED , and lock her door. My pulse quickens with each step as I stride the length of the store to the register, knowing I’m that much closer to doing what I’ve been dreaming up these past weeks.
Without even making eye contact, she puts down her ledger, walks around the counter, follows the same path I just blazed from the front door, and unlocks it again. She holds it open and looks at me. “Sorry, we’re closed.”
She’s really getting into character. I backtrack, join her where she stands, and tug on the open door. She doesn’t allow it to budge. I study her face. There’s no mystery. No amusement like before. Is she… kicking me out?
“Regan?” I take a step closer, putting a hand on her curvy waist.
She shrugs me off. “Not gonna happen.”
“But you said—”
“I changed my mind. Women do that.”
Women do that . She sounds just like Allie does when it’s her time of the month.
I hold up my hands in surrender, disappointed, but with complete acceptance. “I get it. So I’ll come back, say, next Wednesday?”
Five days. That’s enough time, isn’t it?
“No, Lucas. I’ve changed my mind as in forever. This isn’t happening.”
“Aw, come on. Maybe you’ll feel differently in a few days.”
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you my reasons. I just don’t want to do it. Not now, not ever.” She side-steps me, letting the door shut with me still inside. She turns off most of the lights, does a few things behind the register, and heads for the door to the stairs to her apartment. “You can let yourself out. Bye, Lucas.”
That’s it? Bye, Lucas?
I stand here stunned. Without thinking about what a monumentally bad idea it is, especially after being lectured by my mother, Allie, and multiple fiancées on what not to do when a woman is hormonal, I step over to the door she just went through and take the stairs two at a time.
As suspected, her apartment is unlocked. I really need to get her to change her habits.
I open the door like I own the place and march across the floor to the kitchen where she now stands stunned.
“You can’t just storm into my apartment and demand sex, Lucas.”
I step back so as to not seem threatening. “I’m not demanding sex, Regan. I’d never do that. I just thought we could talk about it.”
She laughs. “You mean you wanted to find out why I shut off the gravy train you thought you’d hopped onto. Can you just leave it at I changed my mind? There are all kinds of reasons your proposition had bad idea written all over it. The least of which is that it would have made me look like a doormat. Maybe it just took me a while to realize it.”
“Since when have you cared what people think of you?”
She turns away. Another uncharacteristic movement.
“Does this have something to do with that David guy?”
Spinning around to face me, her lips turn into a sneer. “Of course not. Why would you even ask that?”
I shrug. “Because you look sad. Even when you were signing with that woman, I didn’t see you smile. Not once. I’m not sure I’ve ever gone more than a few minutes without seeing you smile. Something’s changed, and I doubt very much that it has anything to do with it being your time of the month.”
She frowns. “It’s not him. I just don’t want to. Will you leave now? Please, Lucas?”
There’s only so much begging a man can do, even for something as epic as I anticipated this being. But I’m not about to pressure her or do anything more stalkery than following her up to her apartment uninvited.
“Fine. If you ever change your mind, you know how to find me. I hope everything is okay with you.”
Starting for the door, hopes dashed, I see brochures scattered on her kitchen table. I focus on two particular words on the front of one of them: Sperm Bank .
When I go to pick it up, Regan tries to stop me. I swipe it away from her and open it, reading aloud some of the text inside. “Go to our online catalog and select the donor of your choice based upon physical attributes, ethnicity, childhood photos, and other characteristics.” The next page reads, “Donor sperm may be purchased as single vials for IUI or IVF, or in multiple vials.”
When I look at Regan, she’s sitting down, a mask of defeat across her face.
“Wow. I’m sorry. I had no idea you were interested in kids. I always got the opposite impression.”
She laughs sadly. “Tell me about it. I’m more surprised than you are. Believe me.”
“What happened?”
She tells me about her pregnancy scare. Her trip to the gynecologist. Her out-of-the-blue reaction to finding out she wasn’t pregnant.
She’s quiet for a minute when she finishes, then raises her shoulders. “I guess turning thirty-five really messed with my head. Pretty pathetic, huh?”
“It’s not pathetic.” I hand her the brochure. “I think you’ll be a great mom, Regan.”
“You might be the only one.”
“What? No. Come on, you’re super fun. And your kid will be one lucky sonofabitch. I bet he or she will never have a curfew or be told what to wear or how to act. Every kid’s dream mom.”
“Yeah. I guess we’ll see. I’m sorry to have to disappoint you. I know you had a mission.” She touches the front cover of the brochure, the one with the baby on it. “I guess I have my own mission now. I’ve finally figured out what’s missing in my life.” She laughs softly. “The whole time I thought it might have been a man. Now though…”
I pat her hand, resigned to accept my fate. “Well, good for you. I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thanks,” she says, finally smiling.
I thumb to the door. “I’ll let myself out.”
“Lucas?” she calls after me.
I turn.
“You’re a really good guy. Someday, you’ll find the one that sticks. I’m sure of it.”
I nod, even though I don’t agree, and shut the door.
Walking down the stairs and out of the shop, a spike of envy hits me. She’s going after what she wants despite any unintended consequences. I mean, I know business. She’s probably barely breaking even here. Having a baby will put a lot of strain on her finances. She must know that, yet she’s going for it anyway. Because that’s who she is, a woman who knows what she wants and doesn’t give a fuck if what she wants doesn’t conform to social norms.
Back in my car, I wonder what it would take for me to actually get what I want. A wife. A family. What I’ve always wanted despite circumstances to the contrary.
I could move. Go someplace where nobody knows me. But that would mean leaving the family business, something I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to do.
At home, I spend the entire night tossing and turning. I’m thirty goddamn years old. I should be able to figure this shit out. And by this shit , I mean figure out what’s so fucking wrong with me that I can’t commit to anything beyond my nine-to-five job.
By dawn, I’ve convinced myself I’m a lost cause. But then a revelation breaks through the dejection and I bolt up in bed with a renewed sense of excitement I haven’t felt in a long time.
Maybe having a wife was just a means of getting what I really want: a child. A son to play baseball with or a daughter who will have piano recitals. Maybe I can take a page out of Regan’s book and skip the partner, going straight to the one thing that really matters.
And then reality hits and my excitement wanes. It’s not as easy for a man. I can’t just go to a sperm bank, get some jizz, inject it inside me and—poof—nine months later I have a kid.
Surrogate.
The word rolls around in my head.
“It could work,” I say out loud.
I have money. A lot of it. That’s all it really takes.
I hop out of bed, do a little research on the internet, and write down a plan. I jot things down on Post-it notes and arrange them in order of priority. I make a list, then another, of all the things I’d have to do to make this happen. I laugh, wondering if Regan did the same, but I know she didn’t. That woman’s lists consist of chicken scratches on napkins.
Once again, I’m amused at how completely opposite we are.
I glance at the pieces of paper in my hand. The meticulously planned mission I’ve devised. And I rip it to shreds.
Then I dress quickly, get my keys, and race out the door.