Epilogue
Three months later
Dane
Ava pushed her chair back from the kitchen table. “I did it,” she said, putting her fist in the air. “I cooked a lasagna. And it was killer.”
“You did,” Aidan said, smiling across the table at her. “And it was.”
“I agree,” Samantha said, pushing away her empty plate. “I should have worn my yoga pants.”
I stood up, stacking empty plates. It was Sunday night, and we were at the beach house. Ava and I lived here now; I was about to put my Chicago penthouse up for sale. After a lifetime in Chicago, I didn’t need to be there anymore. The beach house was home.
This was the fourth Sunday we’d had dinner with Aidan and Samantha. The dinners were Ava’s idea; Aidan and I claimed we didn’t need regular dinners to complete the process of our making up and becoming friends again, but Ava insisted.
Aidan had come around pretty quickly after our fight. He and Ava had spent a lot of time together talking things through, and when he was convinced that I hadn’t trampled his little sister’s heart—only her virginity, though she never specified that part—he actually apologized to me. The Man in Black, the most terrifying real estate baron in Manhattan, drove all the way out to Nowhere, Long Island to apologize in person. Noah said I should have filmed it.
Of course I forgave him. He’d been mad, and then he stopped being mad, and that was the end of it. That’s the way men work. But Ava wanted regular dinners, so we agreed. And in a way, she was right. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with my best friend in the past eleven years, and I hadn’t spent much time with Samantha at all. Every time we had one of these dinners, it was actually fun. Ava said she was proud of me for—as she called it—“briefly emerging from my cave of grumpiness.”
“What’s the news from Okada?” Aidan asked me as I took his dishes.
“You know I can’t tell you that,” I replied. “Top secret and all that.” I’d spent ten days in Tokyo two months ago, looking over Okada’s cancer treatment project and giving ideas. Kaito and I had regular phone meetings—over a secure connection, of course, so there was no chance of anyone listening in.
“Does he need investors?” Aidan asked. “Tower is still interested, even though Okada tried to steal one of our partners.”
“You never quit,” Samantha said, shaking her head and smiling.
“Neither do you,” Aidan said to his wife. “We didn’t get where we are by quitting.”
“It was me who quit,” I said, putting the dishes in the sink.
Aidan ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t wearing black tonight; that was something he did at work to give him the scary image he swore helped in making real estate deals. Tonight he was wearing jeans and a navy button-down shirt and he didn’t look scary at all. He looked like the guy I’d been friends with at fifteen. “I can’t believe you retired,” he said, looking around. “Part of me thought you wouldn’t go through with it.”
“I’m not even close to retired,” I said as I turned the tap on and started washing. I’d been washing my own dishes for as long as I could remember, and it was as naturally to me as breathing, no matter how much money I had. “I consult with Okada, I’m working on the AI program, and I’m helping Ava launch her business. The difference is that I work when I want, and I take time off when I want.”
“I have no idea what that’s like,” Samantha admitted. “I work all the time. I think I’d go crazy if I had too much time on my hands.”
“Maybe we’d have more sex if we didn’t work so much,” Aidan said to his wife.
Her eyebrows rose. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Oh God, stop,” Ava said. “You’re both being gross.”
“I’m sorry, am I shocking you?” Aidan said to her. He pointed to her stomach, which was subtly and beautifully rounded at three months. “I’m the one who has to pretend that was immaculate conception.”
I grinned down at the soapy dishes I was washing. Though Ava and I both kept busy, it didn’t make a dent in our sex life. I’d read that sex gets rare once there’s a baby in the house, so I used the excuse that we had to stock up for nine months. Ava agreed. We stocked up as often as possible.
“Speaking of work,” Samantha said, “My sister has to travel to L.A. on business. She’s never been before. I suggested she get Noah to show her around the city.”
I froze in my washing and turned, catching Aidan’s eye. We shared a look that only two men who had known Noah as long as we had could interpret.
“What?” Ava said. “What’s the problem?”
“Have you met Noah?” I said.
“Of course I have,” Ava said. “He’s a man-slut. We all know that. But Samantha’s sister isn’t an actress or a model. I think he can behave.”
Samantha frowned. “Do you think he’d actually try to sleep with her?” Emma, Samantha’s sister, was the owner and founder of Executive Ranks, a recruiting company that found high-level executive assistants for the most demanding CEO’s in New York. It was Emma’s company that had hired Samantha as Aidan’s executive assistant, which was how they met. I’d never met Emma, but from what I heard she was smart, successful, and hard to fool, just like Samantha.
“Noah doesn’t try to sleep with anyone,” Aidan said. “It just happens without any effort from him.”
“He’d be a pretty big jerk if he tried to get Samantha’s sister into bed,” Ava said.
“He’s been living in L.A. for years,” I said. “Being a jerk is kind of a requirement.”
Samantha held up her hand. “I’m not worried. You all don’t know my sister like I do. A handsome guy and a few witty lines won’t have an effect on her. My sister makes her Tinder dates cry.”
“So she’d be a challenge, then,” Aidan said, looking at me.
“Noah is lazy,” I said to my friend. “Maybe he won’t bother.”
“He’ll definitely bother,” Aidan said. “Emma is female, and she’s almost as good-looking as my wife. Noah will definitely try to sleep with her. The question is, how hard will he try?”
“Depends how bored he is,” I said. “Bored Noah tends to make trouble.”
“Good point. Maybe I’ll send him something relatively complex to deal with before Emma lands in L.A. Try to distract him from sleeping with the enemy.”
“Hello? Emma is not the enemy,” Samantha said. “And Noah is not going to sleep with her. I’m telling you, she’ll be immune.”
I shrugged and went back to my dishes. Samantha was right; Noah would probably strike out. It would do him good for once after all those years of actresses and models.
After the dishes were finished and Aidan and Samantha had left, I got to go to bed with my wife. As Ava lay on her back I pushed her T-shirt up and gently stroked her belly, feeling the warm, firm roundness of it. Part of the reason I wanted more time for myself was so that we could do all of the pre-baby things: get the spare room ready as the baby’s room, go to doctors’ appointments. So far, Ava’s pregnancy had been textbook, with a few weeks of morning sickness that seemed to have let up and a lot of naps. She was making steady progress on her clothing line, and she was adding maternity clothes to it because she complained that fashionable maternity clothes were hard to find. I’d made her website myself.
“Andrew,” I said, moving my hand over her belly.
“Fiona,” Ava replied.
I shook my head. We were at an impasse on the baby’s name. We were also at an impasse on whether to find out the sex before the baby was born. I wanted to, and she didn’t. So I was convinced we were having a boy, while she was convinced we were having a girl.
“James,” I said.
“Maggie,” Ava said.
“Fine,” I said. “I’m fighting dirty.” I moved my hand lower and slid her panties off.
Ava gave a shivery sigh. “It’s still a girl, you hot nerd,” she said. “I’m not giving in.”
“You will.” I moved on top of her and kissed her, long and deep. When I had her breathless, I pulled away. “Now can we make an appointment and find out the sex of the baby?”
“No.”
“Damn.” I kissed her again. “Now?”
She was shaky, but she held firm. “No. And I love you.”
“You are so fucking beautiful,” I said, and as she smiled and wrapped her legs around me, I knew she believed me.