Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
B lake marveled at how well I knew the city and his praise at my parallel parking job felt nice. But growing up in this part of the Mitten State, everyone had to know how to park, because the consequences meant hoofing it for blocks . And anyone who ever had to deal with the bone-chilling below zero winters or the 100° city heat in the summers knew all too well why having to walk for blocks to get to your destination sucked not just balls, but a big, sweaty-ass bucket of balls.
As we drove closer to Grosse Pointe Shores where Pen and Ant lived, I felt a little bit of Blake’s unspoken anxiety ease away. I got that. He understood neighborhoods like these. He understood the people who lived here. He’d played their games most of his life, the same as with Pen and Ant, which gave them millions of things in common.
When I made the turn onto their street, my anxiety kicked up just a bit. Not for my husband, I knew my friends would love him. But because this marked the first time for me ever showing up to a Pen or Ant soiree with a plus one. The first time . Sierra found some decent men from time to time, and if she liked one enough, she’d brought him around for us to meet. But me? I think I’d let my insecurities about not being good enough take up too much real-estate in my head for far too long. It kept me from meeting any good men worth introducing to my best friends. I got how bad that sounded, but the truth shall set me free and all that. And today I wasn’t just bringing some ordinary plus one. Today they got to meet my husband. My husband .
Proud didn’t begin to cover it.
I turned into Pen and Ant’s driveway. They lived in this gorgeous Georgian-style home that Gretchen had picked out when she’d still been planning to marry Ant. The home had grown on Pen, mainly because Ant made it a priority to turn it into Pen’s home… and she loved the guy. Waking up every morning next to the love of your life, even if waking up in a home that wasn’t necessarily to your taste, went a long way to making you love a place, too.
Confidence must come with being raised wealthy because Blake hopped out of the car as soon as I cut the engine. He walked around to open my door, and I handed him the box of pastries before climbing out. Then he dropped his hand to my lower back and moved us up the walk to the front door, as if he’d visited my friends a hundred times before. He rang the doorbell and we waited.
Only a few seconds passed before the door opened. Ant smiled big for me. “I was just walking past the door,” he said. “Talk about timing.”
“Ant,” I replied with a big, stupid grin on my face. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Woman, we’ve been missing you like crazy around here.” Then, like a good businessman, but more likely a good friend, he turned to my husband and held his hand out. “I’m Stanton McCain, but my friends call me ‘Ant.’ Welcome to our home.”
Blake shook Ant’s hand. “Blake Parker. Gloria’s husband.” And the smile he gave when he said that—I melted. Internally, of course, but still!
“Come on in,” Ant said, moving out of the way for us to enter, but he swooped me into a big bear hug before I got past him.
“Is that Gloria?” Pen shouted from somewhere in the house.
“Babe, get out here,” Ant called back and I watched my beautiful friend run from the kitchen in a full-on sprint, hurling her body at me, with both Ant and I as casualties as she crashed into us because he still held onto me, hugging the both of us with everything she had in her.
“I’ve missed you so stinking much,” she said and I swore she sounded close to tears.
“Missed you, too, girl,” I said back, “but I’m finding it hard to breathe here.” I broke from the huddle to reach my hand out behind me grabbing Blake’s, and dragging him forward. I wanted to introduce her to my husband.
“Sorry,” she replied. “You’ve been away forever. Friday nights aren’t the same without you.”
“Come on, babe, you promised no guilt trips tonight,” Ant playfully admonished his wife and she crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Fun sucker,” she challenged him.
“Is that a euphemism?” he countered raising an eyebrow and I snorted as he pulled her into his arms to hold her from behind. I couldn’t help it. Reason #5,465 why I loved these two so much.
“Pen, this is the man who loved me enough to marry me. Blake Parker.”
Pen smiled up at my husband with actual tears falling this time. “You don’t know how glad I am to meet you,” she said. “There’s no one in the world like Gloria and since you were not only smart enough to see that, but to put a ring on her and lock her shit down, I already know you have to be pretty damn amazing.”
Blake cocked his head, as if deciding how to respond, then he broke out that dimpled smile saying, “It’s Glory who’s amazing. I’m just the lucky jerk she lets hang around.”
“That was the answer my wife was waiting for,” Ant said. “Welcome to the family. You’re stuck with us now. Beer?”
“Love one. It’s not refined enough for the campaign trail,” Blake said, enunciating refined in his snooty voice, the one he used for his impression of his mother. “I don’t know where that even comes from. I haven’t seen one man at a rally who didn’t look like he drank more Michelob than fish drink water—and that’s not a judgment. Just a reality.”
The four of us made our way out of the foyer and into the kitchen to get those beers. Blake set the box of pastries down on the granite countertop next to an empty platter that if I had to guess had been left there for my homemade baked goods. Oops ! My bad. I pled the sexth —that being a beautiful little amendment in the friendship code that stated that if you were busy getting booty, you in no way had to fulfill your duty. Okay, so maybe I just made that up to make myself feel better. But Blake and sex and withholding orgasms !
Great , now I had to get the image of Blake, sex and orgasms out of my head. Good thing my friends were so hospitable, doing their utmost to make my husband feel welcome. They showed him around their incredible chef’s kitchen because the both of them loved to cook. Though, I think Ant started cooking to spend more time with Penelope way back when he’d still been expected to marry Gretchen. He definitely got the good wife. It was safe to say that I wasn’t the biggest Gretchen fan—but neither was Pen.
“My father keeps after me to run for any seat I can get my hands on,” Ant replied, uncapping the brown bottle for Blake and handing it over before uncapping one for himself. “I’d offer you one, too, Glor, but Pen made a pitcher of her frozen mudslides. They’re in the freezer outside.”
“Beer or frozen mudslide….” I pretend to contemplate them both. “It’s such a hard decision.”
“You’re not going to run, are you?” Blake asked Ant.
He shook his head. “No plans to. But that doesn’t stop my dad from trying.”
We started to move through the kitchen out to the back patio.
“But that’s because you’re an only child, right?” Blake asked. “My dad was at your wedding.”
“Right, he was. The parents decided on the guest list.”
“It was the same way for my brother,” Blake answered. “I’m lucky, being the spare in the family. Brock is the progeny and Jupiter is the only girl. I pretty much get to live my life so long as I keep it on the down low and don’t embarrass the family.”
“Gloria!” Sierra shouted and ran to us, a very welcome interruption to our group and the conversation not because I wasn’t interested, but hugging her took precedence over anything else. Then, she turned her head in slow motion to look at Blake, and gasped, gawking, almost starstruck. “Oh, my god, please don’t take this the wrong way, but you are ridiculously handsome. Like I thought you were handsome on TV, but in person— whoa !”
If you asked me, “ whoa ” was a bit of an understatement, but then again, I’d fallen hopelessly in love with the man, traded vows and got alpha ed on the regular. I was probably a bit biased.
Blake laughed. “How does one take that the wrong way?”
She shrugged. “I mean, I’m not hitting on you or anything. It’s simply a fact.”
“Well, I’d have to respectfully turn you down if you were hitting on me.” He held up his left hand to show his wedding ring. “Gloriously happily married. You must be Sierra.”
“I am.” Then she let me go and hugged the crap out of my husband. “Gloria is the best of all of us. I trust you know that.”
“Do I ever,” he replied, sipping his beer. “Being with Glory made me want to be better just for the chance to deserve her. The fact that I got to marry her still amazes me.”
“Speaking of,” Ant said, “your courthouse wedding wasn’t exactly down low.”
“I know. And before you say anything—if Glory had wanted a huge event wedding, I’d have given it to her.”
“That’s not our Gloria,” Pen said, hugging me from the side. “She doesn’t like to be the center of attention.”
My face heated as they continued to talk about me. She had to realize the irony of her statement at this moment. “Guys, I’m right here.”
“ Girl ,” Sierra said. “We love you. And since we didn’t have the chance to quality check the man before you tied the knot, we have to make sure he knows how much we love you now. You don’t mind, do you, Blake?”
“Not at all. Glory’s the best woman I’ve ever met. We’re still in the honeymoon period,” —he tips his head toward me— “so I’m allowed to gush.”
“He’s right,” Ant agreed. “It’s in the marriage bylaw.” He and Blake laughed. “Let me introduce you to my cousin Cormac.” Ant led Blake over to where Cormac and Wendy sat in patio chairs cushioned in these beaded and embroidered natural cotton cushions. Rich people cushions , I thought, until I remembered that we had something similar back home in Vermont. I walked over with them, keeping that tidbit to myself. None of my friends knew about my hang-ups, well, former hang-ups, because no one ever wanted to be that person, the one who made things weird. Now I felt stupid for ever thinking those thoughts.
“Good to meet you,” Blake said, holding out his hand for Cormac to shake. “I’m Blake Parker. I assume you know my wife, Gloria.”
“I do. It’s good to meet you, too,” he replied. “This”—he gestured to Wendy—“is my wife, Wendy.”
My husband gave her one of those handshake/forearm pats that rich people do when meeting someone’s wife. I’d experienced it myself at the different luncheons and dinners. “Very nice to meet you, Wendy.”
I hugged her instead. “We have way more in common now than we did before,” I whispered in her ear.
“Blake seems nice. Genuine,” she whispered back. “If you love him, don’t let them come between you.”
For a moment, I wondered if relations appeared that strained between the Parkers and me on the news, but duh , her words came from a place of unfortunate commiseration given the McCains desperately tried to erase Wendy’s existence from any and all social circles.
It got as bad as when Cormac stood up at Pen and Ant’s wedding, he’d been seated at the wedding party table. Ant’s dad and uncle even forbade Cormac from bringing Wendy to the wedding or reception. When Ant found out, let’s just say he laid the smack down. If Cormac showed up without his wife, Ant and Pen had been prepared to cut Cormac out of their lives—cold turkey. No turning back, end of a friendship, done. This act of rebellion culminated in a major dis toward Wendy. See, when he and Wendy had showed up together, the family forced her to sit at the table all the way to the back of the venue, separated from family at the front.
Oh, and it got worse because for probably the first time in their lives Mr. and Mrs. von Dutton had been forced to stay silent on this matter because of me. Pen’s BFF and bridesmaid, and there was nothing Evelyn and Philip von Dutton loved more than throwing their classist weight around to get their way.
If Pen had known or had any input into their wedding, she’d have made Wendy a bridesmaid too, just to spite her parents.
While everyone else settled into conversation, I slipped back inside the house to arrange the pastries on the platter. The three men were laughing loudly about something when I made my way back to the group.
Cormac looked over, cocking his head, “What are you carrying?” he asked me pointing at the platter of pastries, and I glanced down stupidly as if I’d suddenly forgotten that I carried anything in my hands.
“ Ko?aczkis ?” I answered, but I didn’t have the chance to say more when both Sierra and Pen shouted, “ What? ” at the exact same time and rushed me. “Don’t crush them,” I admonished, but no worries there—Sierra snaked the plate from my hand.
“What flavor?” she asked, not caring one bit that they might’ve been a little worse for the wear.
“Plum.”
She shoved one in her mouth, bit down, and groaned. “Where have you been these last few months?” she asked the platter. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed them, too,” Pen whined, trying and failing to grab one off the plate because Sierra shifted so she couldn’t reach. “Hey—you’re supposed to share.”
“You stick to your relationship and I’ll stick to mine,” Si stated defiantly.
“Sierra, they’re cookies,” Pen countered.
“Don’t judge me on my lifestyle choices,” she answered back around a mouthful of another cookie.
Everyone but Pen started laughing. That was until we heard, “What’s this about a lifestyle choice?” spoken with an Oklahoma twang. I turned around to see a shock of red hair approaching the group. Pete had arrived.
“Hey, man—glad you got here,” Ant said, giving his best bud a slap on the back. “This is Gloria’s husband, Blake Parker.”
Pete held his hand out to Blake. “Seen that on the news. I choked on my drink when I realized that was Gloria walking out of the courthouse with you.”
“Yes, we had no idea that it would make news,” Blake admitted.
“I called Ant right away. Needed to know if he wanted help whooping your ass or anything.”
I popped out an uncomfortable laugh. Pete looked at me smiled, winking.
“Don’t worry. I was assured that no ass whooping was necessary.” Then he looked back at my husband. “No offense,” he finished.
“None taken. How could I be offended that my new wife has good people looking out for her?”
“I’m Pete, by the way. I live in Oklahoma but come through here on business semi-regularly. It’s more an excuse to get to see friends,” he said and I’d swear in a court of law that he looked directly at Sierra when he said that. And I’d swear even more that his eyes said something completely different than the words his mouth formed.
Sierra and I definitely had a lot to catch up on.
Ant clapped his hands together to get our attention. “Now that everyone’s here, let’s eat.”