Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
We arrived on Shar’s front step holding bags, with Chase still unloading from the back of the truck.
The door swung open, and Shar’s eyes went wide. “What—?”
“Merry Christmas! For your immaculate conception!” Maddie teased, her breath fogging around her face.
“I did have something to do with this!” Rob called from somewhere in the back of the house.
Shar laughed. “Get in here!” She tried to move out of the way, but I had to hold the door for either of us to get past her belly.
Rob emerged from the kitchen, and when he saw us hauling bags, he dropped the dish towel he was holding and walked to the front to get his shoes. He joined Chase in full pack-mule mode. Chase entered with six bags strapped to his forearms, and Rob followed with what had to be eight.
“Not competitive at all.” Shar smirked, her hands resting on her stomach shelf.
Rob grunted, slipping off his shoes and following Chase to the kitchen.
Shar grabbed a bowl of clementines from the table and offered us one, then plunked into a chair while the guys unloaded. “This is really kind of you.”
Maddie and I sat on the couch beside her, peeling our oranges.
“We hope it helps,” Maddie said.
My pulse sped, my body anticipating what I had to say next. I worked on my orange and ate a slice, the sweet tang bursting in my mouth. It gave me the courage I needed. “It wasn’t just us at the store.”
“Oh?” Shar cocked her head to the side.
“Yeah, Logan paid for a big chunk of it.” I spit the words out like I hoped she wouldn’t catch his name. He’d paid for more than fifty percent, considering the diapers accounted for more than half our bill. I really hoped, for Rob and Shar’s sake, that his predicted usage numbers were off.
Sharla opened her mouth, then closed it. After a moment, she said, “You saw Logan?”
I nodded. “He heard you were expecting. I actually saw him outside Ranchman’s the night of your shower.” Now she and Maddie were both staring at me. “He didn’t want to go in, but asked if I could tell him when you were close to your due date so he could get something.”
I didn’t tell her how he still remembered her favourite foods or what he said about their relationship. I couldn’t see how any of that would be helpful, but it made my heart twinge. Shar, Maddie, and I told each other everything. Didn’t we?
Shar breathed for a second, then adjusted in the chair. “Wow, that’s—I’m not sure what to say.”
“You talking about Logan?” Rob re-entered the living room.
Shar tipped her head. “You knew about this?”
Rob shook his head. “Not that he was doing something, but I talked with him after he got back in town. He seems good.”
Shar pursed her lips, her brows pinching. “That’s good. It’s great, actually. I don’t know why I’m being weird.”
Rob took up residence behind her chair and leaned over, rubbing her shoulders. I watched the show like it was on Canadian Public Broadcasting. And this is a modern couple. The male attempts to bring comfort to his mate while she incubates his young.
That’s how out of reach a relationship like this felt to my subconscious, apparently. I needed to create a documentary to understand it.
“Want me to kick his ass?” Rob asked.
Sharla laughed, wrapping her hands over his. “I’m not still mad—”
“It’d be fun. For old time’s sake.”
I’d heard about Rob and Logan’s “conversation” in the Outlaw’s locker room before Logan showed up and apologized to Shar. Less words, definitely more bruises.
“No, I better not. What if we want Logan to get us tickets to a game this season,” Rob teased.
Maddie laughed. “The whole team?”
“Why the hell not? We do it for friends of the Hitmen.” Chase squeezed in on the couch next to Maddie. And there I was again. Hugging the arm of the couch in the presence of two very in-love couples.
I pushed up. “Well, I should probably go. I’ve got a project to finish.” Lies. But I couldn’t exactly say, “I’ve become acutely aware of how unloved I am, and it’s making me sad.” Sometimes, white lies were necessary for all parties involved.
“You’re not walking, we’ll drive you home,” Maddie said, rising. She turned to Shar as I rounded the coffee table. “Have you landed on a baby name yet?”
Shar’s entire face lit. “We have a front-runner.”
Maddie leaned in. “Oh?”
“Carter.” Shar beamed up at Rob.
I rolled the word in my mouth like candy. “He’ll definitely be hot.”
Sharla chortled. “My only goal in life.”
Chase shook his head. “You want him to be ugly. So he has to try harder.”
Maddie laughed. “Because you’re such a slacker.”
“Ooh!” Sharla’s hands shot out. “He’s kicking. Come here!” She motioned at both of us. I dropped my shoe and ran back to the chair, falling to my knees. Shar grabbed my wrist, then Maddie’s, and placed both our hands next to each other on the side of her stomach.
For a heartbeat, there was just warmth. Then, like a fish turning quickly under water, something shifted beneath my palms. I gasped. I’d felt this before, but somehow it never got less magical.
The kick pulsed again, and I laughed. “He’s feisty.”
“Wonder where he gets it.” Maddie’s eyes grew glassy.
Shar grinned. “You’re stuck with him. Aunties for life.”
I felt for another kick, then rose from the floor. “More like you’re stuck with us. I’m going to spoil the hell out of him.” Small caveat: if I got a job and wasn’t still paying off student debt. Then all the toys and adorable baby clothes would be purchased.
I thought back to Logan’s mention of Norman Marcus in the grocery store, and my stomach did a little flip.
How well did Logan’s mom know him? Would Logan actually follow through?
I could already tell that waiting the next few days was going to be torturous.
And what if he never called? I’d just have to live with that unknown for the rest of my life?
“Just trying to run out of here, eh?” Maddie stood beside me. When had she walked over?
“Just tired I guess.” I flashed a smile and put on my shoes. She followed suit, and Chase joined us by the door.
“Thank you so much, you guys.” Shar got up to see us out.
Rob kept his arm looped protectively over her shoulders, and I got a flash of an image.
A painting, or sculpture? A modern pregnant woman in cute maternity clothes, looking down at her belly with a caveman or Greek warrior or something curled around her, his club or sword drawn.
Huh. I’d write that down in my notebook. Not sure I had the skills to pull it off, but it had potential.
We said our goodbyes, and then we were back in the cold.
“I’m not ready for winter,” Maddie groaned.
Chase pulled her close. “Vancouver’s looking really good right about now.” Maddie smacked him, rolling her eyes.
“What are you up to this Friday? Want to do trivia?” I asked, mostly talking to Maddie. Chase sometimes had games on the weekend, depending on the schedule.
Maddie winced. “I’m actually going to the Outlaws tournament. We leave Friday afternoon.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were still helping with that.
” Something twinged beneath my ribs. Maddie had been integral to the team last season, but since she started the Elite League, I assumed that was done.
It was tangible proof of how little we’d talked over the past few weeks.
“No worries, we can do it another time.”
“I’d really love to.” Maddie pulled away from Chase to give me a hug, then shoved her hands in her coat pockets and made a beeline for his truck.
I ran after her, and the truck door’s metal bit in my palm, the seat’s vinyl frigid as I slid in. I warmed my hands between my thighs as Chase started the engine. Yeah, I wouldn’t have survived walking. They would’ve found me in ten minutes, standing stock still on the sidewalk. A frozen popsicle.
When I did get a car next spring, I was going to need a wheel cover. Or driving gloves, but that felt a bit pretentious. There had to be a way to improve car heating. A seat warmer? Wheel warmer? Maybe it already existed, and my family just couldn’t afford it.
We pulled away from the curb, and Maddie hit the front defrost so the windshield wouldn’t fog. It was only a four-minute drive, and the heat never fully kicked in, but I would never in a hundred years complain.
I hugged Maddie and thanked them both, then jogged up the walk. Warm light filtered out of the front two windows of our fourplex. Jenna’s Christmas cactus on the sill was starting to show little pink buds.
I pushed through the door, slamming it behind me so no hot air would get out.
“Hey!” Jenna called from the couch, where the latest episode of Survivor was playing. We’d all gotten really into it last season, but this time, I needed to wait until at least half the people were cut before I got invested.
The living room smelled faintly of nail polish remover and popcorn. Lindsey hunched at the table, textbooks open, highlighter caps scattered like candy.
We were friends, the three of us. Good ones.
We shared rent, rides, grocery and cooking duties.
They were great. But our friendship didn’t feel the same as when I was with Maddie and Shar.
Here I could joke around, laugh, and problem-solve.
But with them I let out my doubts, my fears.
I cried with Maddie and Shar. Said the things I’d never admit to anyone else.
I fit in with my roommates, but with Maddie and Shar, I belonged.
Or used to.
My mood soured a little as I dropped my things in my room. It wasn’t that I couldn’t say the things I used to, but it didn’t feel the same. They didn’t care as much about the campus or team drama, and my problems next to Shar’s, bringing a literal human into the world, felt petty.
Oh, your body is growing an entirely new body? Well, I had bad period cramps yesterday. Just didn’t hit the way it used to.
I dropped onto the bed, staring at the wall.
My favourite painting hung next to the bed, the abstract one with the bleeding maroons and mustard-gold planes and a black line that cut through the middle.
It meant one thing when I painted it. Now it looked different every time I stared at it.
Today, the black line felt less like a road, more like a crack.
I shifted, and the mattress springs creaked. The whorls of my fingers were still sticky from the clementine. I rubbed them together and the scent rose again, bright and sweet. The calendar pinned to my corkboard stared at me, the white, empty spaces for this weekend yawning wide open.
My parents would be home, no doubt already curating December.
My mom planning the cookie plates, my dad drawing diagrams of Christmas lights and pulling all the boxes out from the attic.
I could go for the weekend, sit at the kitchen island and chat with my siblings, eat whatever casserole they were having, help with putting up the lights outside even though it was cold as balls.
The thought should’ve been comforting, but instead it pricked. I’d judged my brother for coming home from U of C on weekends. What kind of loser didn’t have anything to do on campus?
“Hey, Crystal? There’s a message for you on the machine!” Jenna called from the living room.
“Who is it?” I was comfy. I wasn’t getting up to listen to some reminder that I had textbook fees due.
“I don’t know, some guy?”
I shot straight up. Had Logan called? Had I checked the messages before I left for the grocery store? I didn’t think there was anything earlier, so the message must have come during or after tonight’s shopping trip.
And if it was Logan, he was quite possibly calling about Norman Marcus.