27. Noah
27
NOAH
“ I can’t believe you’re here,” James laughed. “It’s midday during a work week, and you’re at a co-ed baby shower with a drink in your hand. You’re almost passing for a normal human being instead of your usual workaholic persona. Aren’t you supposed to be off finding the next superstar?”
I smirked at him. “Yes. In Iowa, to be exact. Scouting preseason baseball. But Maddy insisted, so.” I shrugged.
James laughed harder. “Never thought I’d see the day. Cheers.”
He held his tumbler out to me, and I tapped it reluctantly.
It was all new to me. Sure, I’d been invited to similar celebrations over the years, but it was the first time I’d ever RSVP-ed yes. James was right, this wasn’t my scene at all. The floral arches, cupcake towers, and pastel tablecloths Kaitlyn had set up were definitely not my vibe. And my mind kept drifting to all the work I should be doing instead. But I’d made a promise to Maddy, to be present for the event I knew was important for her. She’d done so much for me, it felt like the least I could do. Even though the whole thing was a bit much for me.
I glanced around the lush pool area and spotted Maddy sitting next to a very pregnant Cassie, along with Nia and Hope. They were laughing, heads tilted close until their foreheads were almost touching, acting more like sisters than friends. I loved seeing her so happy. Maddy looked incredible, as always, in a simple copper-colored tank dress that clung to her curves. She was beaming at Cassie, clearly thrilled to be a part of the celebration. I felt a twinge of guilt for keeping her away from her girlfriends so much since she’d started working for me. She seemed to need this connection to her people. I didn’t understand it, but I knew it was important to her, which meant that it needed to be important to me.
She glanced up and caught my eye, almost as if she felt me watching her. Her smile… it was a jolt of sunshine. I smiled back, helplessly.
“Cohiba?” James asked, pulling two of the yellow and black-banded Cuban cigars from the breast pocket of his blazer.
“Definitely,” I replied, taking it from him. “But we should probably move away from…” I gestured to the crowd, which included two other pregnant women.
I followed James to the expansive yard that led down to the dock. We lit up and puffed contentedly in silence for a few minutes, staring at the water.
“Really nice of you to open your home for this. Looks like you put a lot of effort into it.”
James laughed. “More like a lot of money. But it’s worth it. Kaitlyn wants the best for her sister. And all I want to do is make her happy. I said she could use any of my clubs for the party, but she wasn’t having it.”
“It would’ve made sense,” I said, considering how the event would’ve gone in one of James’s sleek venues. “Plenty of space, staff that knows exactly how you like to run things, and best of all, keeping all of these people out of your damn house.”
James chuckled and shook his head. “You really can be a grump, you know that?”
“What?” I said out of the corner of my mouth as I puffed on the cigar. “You know I’m right. This is your sanctuary.”
He nodded. “Yeah, but having it here made Kaitlyn happy, so there’s that.”
“There’s that,” I agreed.
It was something I was coming to understand, this urge to prioritize someone else’s feelings. I’d never been one to go for more than basic gestures with women, like flowers and dinners. Granted, the flowers were usually massive bouquets of exotic, two-tone roses flown in from Colombia, and the dinners were either seated at the captain’s table or in an empty restaurant I’d bought out, but still. I defaulted to grand gestures because I knew how those worked. Sentiments? Those were harder. But now James’s drive to work hard to keep Kaitlyn happy made sense to me, because I wanted to do the same thing for Maddy.
I always wanted her to smile at me that way.
Twenty minutes later we’d speed-smoked our way through the cigars. We reluctantly headed back to the crowd since there was no excuse not to.
“Are you ready for more fun?” James joked.
My phone buzzed, and even though I’d managed to avoid it since we’d arrived, I thought I could steal a few minutes to check in. “I’ll be there in a few, I just need to see what’s going on in the real world. Duty calls, literally.” I held my phone up.
Thankfully there were no fires to put out, only the usual ups and downs of a busy agency. A few articles forwarded my way, some of my players checking in about the status of branding deals, one brewing PR issue with a flashy snowboarder. I stared out at the ocean while I considered my strategy for the kid, who needed a kick in the ass more than the coddling he’d been getting his whole life.
“Noah,” a voice scolded from behind me.
Damn. Busted.
“Hey Maddy. Having fun with your friends?” I asked, slipping my phone in my back pocket.
She glared at me but didn’t say anything.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
She seemed to recalibrate in an instant and her face relaxed, though her smile seemed less bright than usual. “Yeah, I’m fine. We’re going to play a few games before cake and presents. Come on, you need to be a part of it too.”
“Games?” I asked, barely concealing my displeasure. “What kind of games? Darts, I hope. Or poker.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “No, baby-themed party games. They’re fun, you’ll love them.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” I muttered under my breath as I walked over to her.
I took her soft hand in mine and squeezed, placating myself with the idea that if it made Maddy happy, it might magically do the same for me. Even if I couldn’t see how.
The group was already assembled, seated in a ring of chairs around a large whiteboard that had a flower garland draped over the top of it. I started to sit down in an empty seat toward the back of the crowd, but Maddy pulled me to the first row, next to where Nia and Hope were sitting. Kaitlyn explained the rules of the game.
“We’re starting off with Baby Pictionary!”
The women in the group cheered like we were sitting down at high dollar slot machines.
“All of the clues are baby-themed, and you can either draw it, or act it out.”
There was absolutely no way I was going to act out anything , let alone take a turn at the board drawing.
“We’re playing guys against the girls,” Kaitlyn continued to the groans of the men. “Sorry to break up the couples. Guys on this side, girls on this side,” she said as she pointed. “Remember those little pacifier tags you all got when you arrived, with the numbers on the back? That’s the player order. Everyone get moving to your sides and check your numbers.”
Maddy grinned at me. “You gonna make it?”
“What, is it that obvious?” I muttered as I stood up.
“What’s your number?” she asked, glancing at her pacifier tag. “I’m seven.”
I dug through my pockets to find the thing I’d balled up a second after it was handed to me. I unrolled it. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m number one.”
“Yay,” she cheered. “Of course you are! Go make me proud.”
She seemed to be enjoying my pain. I trudged over to where James was seated next to Scott, the father-to-be.
“You allowed this to happen!” I griped at both of them.
James’s eyes went wide. “Are you kidding me? I’m as shocked as you are. Maybe we can all band together and form a mutiny.”
“Look at those women,” Scott said, pointing to where they were all laughing and getting settled. “We’re absolutely not going to be able to get away with a mutiny. Let’s lose fast so we can start drinking again.”
The women were up first. The first contestant was a pregnant woman who drew a slip of paper from the yellow basket festooned with roses. She gave a triumphant smile and merely pointed at her belly. The girls’ side screamed “ bump !” in unison and the woman threw up her hands in victory.
“One point for the ladies,” Hope cheered.
The men looked at one another in shock.
“What just happened?” Scott asked.
“Gentlemen, who’s number one? You’re up.”
I had no choice but to trudge to the front and pull the clue from the basket. My word was “bib.”
The pressure was on since I was the first guy to take a turn after a ringer who’d set the bar high. I furiously drew what I thought looked like a good representation of a bib, but my teammates kept shouting out things like “deli ticket” and “fishing lure.”
I drew and re-drew the thing, using the marker to point at it so many times that it looked like it was snowing.
“ Bib !”
The voice came from the women’s side and I turned to find Maddy with her hand slapped over her mouth, her eyes wide.
"Maddy, what the hell?” Nia yelled. “Wrong team! This round is disqualified!"
“How could you guys not tell that it was a bib?” she scolded. “It’s so obvious!”
The women groused. “I don’t see it,” I heard someone say. “It does look like a deli ticket,” said another.
I was surprisingly disappointed to have failed, but I did like the fact that Maddy and I were on the same wavelength. If we were on a team together, we’d be unbeatable, which gave me an idea.
“Maybe it would be better if we teamed up differently? Like, as couples?” I smiled at Maddy who beamed right back at me, but Nia immediately put a stop to it.
“No way. Maddy is way too good at this game. She stays with us.”
I smarted a little as I sat down again and the next player took her spot at the whiteboard. As much as I hated to admit it, the game did turn out to be fun. We all got way too invested in winning, but in the end the women swept it, thanks in a huge part to Maddy. After that, the rest of the party mellowed out as we ate cupcakes and watched Cassie open a seemingly endless pile of presents. By the tenth onesie I was ready to leave, but Maddy looked positively enthralled by it all. She wasn’t able to focus on anything but Cassie, so I checked my phone as the guest of honor tore through gift after gift.
When the shower was finally over, I waited as Maddy said her goodbyes to her friends. The bond between them was obvious as they hugged and kissed one another.
I expected her usual chatter during the ride home, but she was quiet, staring out the window.
“That was okay,” I said as a way to break the tension. “Not terrible.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I glanced at her. “What’s wrong? You seem upset.”
It was all the encouragement she needed. “I am upset, Noah! You said you were going to stay off the phone but you were on it for over twenty minutes! You barely saw any of the gifts! You thought you were being sneaky, but I totally caught you.”
I sighed. “Oh, come on. What was I supposed to do, Maddy? How many pacifiers does a baby need? And it wasn’t like I was playing solitaire on my phone. I was working .”
“You’re always working,” she grumbled, hunching down in the seat and staring out the window.
“Exactly. I own a business. It happens.”
“But you made a promise to me.”
It was true that I’d said I’d stay off my phone, but I’d had no idea when I said it how mind-bendingly boring most of the shower was going to be. Besides, taking care of work issues during the boring part of the party freed up my time now so that I could spend it with her—wasn’t that a good thing? In an ideal world, maybe I wouldn’t have to work at all on what was technically supposed to be a day off, but I didn’t live in an ideal world—I lived in this one.
I’d never been good at work-life balance, but I’d also never made a secret of that fact. Maddy had seen the way I lived from that very first morning in the hotel room. And so far she’d been fine with it. Her willingness to let me live my life the way I needed to was part of her appeal. I liked that she didn’t put demands on me. If her pouting about me needing to work was going to become the norm, well… I wasn’t sure what to make of it or what it meant for our future. I gripped the wheel tighter and hit the accelerator.
“Do you still want to stay over at my place?” I asked.
Maddy shrugged.
“I can take you home if you want.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll come to your place.”
I was relieved that she wanted to even though I knew the tension between us wasn’t going to dissipate. I could already envision the night spent with her back to me in bed.
Things were changing between us, and I didn’t like it one bit.