26. Keeley #2
My chest starts to tighten, and I glance across the lawn at Graham, who’s now watching me and frowning. There’s so much to do, and when the hell am I going to have the time?
Jeannie claps her hands together, holding them to her chest. “I want to buy your furniture. I’ll come to LA and we’ll go shop.
Though if you’re thinking about getting a bigger place, we should wait until you move.
You don’t want to have to disassemble the crib—they never go back together right, and God forbid it collapses with the baby inside. ”
Collapses? What the fuck?
I swallow. “We haven’t discussed moving.”
“They can’t move now ,” says Gracie. “Not when they’ve only got a few months to go. The move alone could send her into labor.”
Jesus, they’re discussing this like it’s imminent, and—oh my God— is it ?
My inhale is shaky. Three months ago, I was taking a pregnancy test and it still feels like yesterday.
Three months from now—less than that, actually—I’ll be a mother.
There will be a helpless human depending on me , a person who once let her car run out of gas because she was looking at the wrong gauge.
A person who existed for an entire week of residency on grape soda and Swedish Fish.
“Up,” says Graham.
I blink at him and then stand.
He takes my seat and pulls me into his lap in one swift move, as if it’s something we do all the time. And I immediately feel…better. No matter what lies ahead of us, he’ll make sure it’s okay.
“You’re interrupting our girl talk, Graham,” says Noah.
“I got the very strong feeling that your ‘girl talk’ meant harassing the shit out of my wife.”
My wife . I don’t know why I get this tiny, sweet thrill when he says that.
“We just wanted to know about a theme for the baby’s room. You’re going to find out the gender, right?” his mom asks. “Keeley said you hadn’t, but it’ll make decorating so much easier, and if we throw a shower—”
“Mom, stop,” he commands, pulling me closer, his hand spread over my hip. “No more questions.”
My body settles, the tightness in my chest easing. I smile at him, and he gives me the barest beginnings of a smile in return, one I mostly see in his eyes.
“Okay, but have you thought about names?” his mother persists.
My smile grows. This morning I suggested Khal Drogo for a boy, and he told me our son would have face tattoos and be serving time before he could drink.
“We haven’t figured it out yet,” I tell them. “But Graham likes Esther for a girl.”
Their noses wrinkle. “Graham,” says Gracie, “ no .”
He laughs against my ear. “Well played, but that doesn’t mean we’re naming her Kalamity with a K, either.”
The crowd disperses when dinner’s nearly ready, which is when Ben and Gemma arrive, full of apologies. Their new puppy, Lola, apparently had a cut on her paw and needed to go to the vet. Ben drags Graham off to the grill, and Gemma and I are told to relax while everyone hustles to get dinner out.
I ask her about the puppy while glancing across the lawn at Graham. He grins at me, and when he makes a show of looking at his watch, I laugh.
“Well, that’s interesting,” says Gemma.
“It’s not interesting,” I reply. “It’s horrific. If we leave Graham in charge of the burgers, they’ll be full of healthy shit, and I bet he won’t even put cheese on mine.”
“You know that’s not what I’m referring to. You guys like each other now.”
“We get along . That doesn’t mean we like each other.”
She regards me, her margarita glass against her lips. “Would it be so terrible if you decided you did like each other?”
“It’s just a bad idea. That’s what leads to people throwing new socks in the fire.”
She raises a brow. “That’s…I don’t even know what you mean by that.”
“I mean that if we did anything, it would end and then we’d have to divide up custody, with one of us pissed off and making it all fucking terrible, and we both know it’ll be me who’s left and Graham who’s pissed.”
She squeezes my hand. “Some love stories have a happy ending, you know.”
Yeah, but I already know mine won’t. That’s sort of the problem. No love story is assured a happy ending, but any story involving me has way fewer guarantees than most.
We’re called inside to the table. I sit next to Noah and save the seat beside me for Graham, who’s still outside with Walter.
“He’s got it so bad,” whispers Noah, glancing at Ben and Gemma. “Look at the way he’s watching her.”
My gaze follows hers. Gemma is holding forth on the best way to train Lola, and Ben looks almost dopily infatuated as he listens and mentally prepares a rebuttal.
“That’s the goal,” Noah says. “To be with someone you don’t want to look away from, someone who makes you feel like you’ve been found . Those Tate boys love with their entire hearts.”
Graham will want someone like that one day, will look at someone the way Ben looks at Gemma, and it won’t be me. The idea has me swallowing hard just as he slides into the seat on the other side of me.
“Oh my God, are they still talking about the dog?”
I laugh. “Gemma has a whole lot of theories, you’ll be surprised to learn.”
“Actually,” says Gemma, eyes sparkling with mischief as she looks at me, “I was going to see how you’d feel about housesitting next weekend. Ben and I were talking about going to Santa Barbara.”
I’m not sure why she’s acting like this is something I’d say no to. A puppy? Her bomb-ass house at my disposal for the weekend? “Of course,” I reply. “I love your house.”
“I meant both of you, obviously,” she says. “Believe me, you don’t want to be dealing with Lola on your own.”
Oh.
I turn to glance at Graham. A few weeks ago, I’d have been disappointed to have him along, but I guess I don’t feel that way anymore. He’s kind of fun in his own rarely-smiling, money-focused way.
“Sure,” he says.
Walter stands and raises his glass. “I’d just like to make a quick toast to Graham and Keeley. I’m not sure what’s led to this, but we couldn’t be more pleased. Welcome to the family, Keeley.”
That’s when Colin shouts, “Kiss!”, exactly like I predicted , and the rest of the Tates join in. Even Gemma, my former friend.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
God. Nothing like being asked to kiss someone for the first time in front of his whole goddamn family. First time sober, anyway. I knew this would happen.
I raise a brow at him to say, “I told you so . ”
Graham swallows, his gaze uncertain as he looks down at me. “We don’t have to,” he says under his breath.
I let my hand press to his chest as I lean forward. “I’ve done worse things with my mouth.”
There’s a tiny flare in his eyes, a spark dancing.
“They definitely weren’t worse , as far as I recall.”
It takes me a second to understand what he’s referring to, but there’s no time to react because his hand is on my hip and he’s leaning toward me.
His lips press to mine, full and surprisingly firm and certain, as if he knows exactly what he’s doing here and has done it a thousand times.
As if it’s something he has wanted to be doing.
His mouth is warm and I like the smell of his soap. I let myself lean into him. He’s built like a fucking wall, and I have a sudden flash of déjà vu.
We’ve done this and I wanted it to happen. I asked him to do it. I wanted to climb him like a goddamn tree.
He pulls back, and for a fraction of a second, my lower brain thinks no, wait .
I sit up at last, blinking at him in surprise.
His mouth curves as if he knows exactly the effect he just had: that kissing him was like a drug, one that made my mind slow until it barely functioned.
Maybe that’s what made me want to marry him—he drugged me, sort of.
My mind remains slow for the rest of the night, focused entirely on the wrong things.
People tease Colin about his fiancée never coming to anything and I’m still thinking about that kiss.
When there’s only one burger left, Colin and Simon wrestle for it, which Simon wins by elbowing Colin in the face.
And I watch, thinking about how firm Graham’s mouth was, how assured he was.
That he kisses like a guy who would know exactly what he wanted in bed and wouldn’t be the least bit shy demanding it.
Obviously, this isn’t about him. Pregnancy hormones are infamous for increasing sex drive, and I already had an unreasonable one before I got pregnant. But God, I wish I could remember the weekend in January with him a little better.
When dinner is over, everyone seems to barrel out of the house at once.
Graham’s mother hugs me. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am. He seems so much happier with you than he did with Anna.”
Anna? Who the fuck is Anna?
My gaze darts from her to him. Graham is avoiding my eye and this isn’t the time to ask, but I bet Anna was the source of the Christmas gift his mom turned herself into a nervous wreck over.
And he married me two weeks after Christmas.
Anna…is Anna Tattelbaum, a financial analyst named “one to watch” by Forbes .
And she is the female Graham—tall, lean, intimidating.
There are very few photos of them together online, but enough for me to know she’s that Anna.
Enough for me to hate her—she’s gorgeous, but she also looks like the kind of person who uses words like patriarchy and heteronormative in regular conversation.
And I guarantee if I asked her opinion of Bridgerton, she’d manage to use both.
That probably explains why I hate her so much.
“So this is her,” I say, holding up my phone with a picture of them together at some swanky function.
He takes a quick glance at the photo and rolls his eyes before his gaze returns to the road.
“It’s interesting the way you can’t figure out how to use the stove or washing machine but are able to find complete strangers on the internet with only a first name to go by.
It’s almost like you’re feigning incompetence when you don’t want to do things. ”
“ Obviously I’m feigning incompetence. I wasn’t exactly subtle.” I scowl at the image on my phone. “So this is the mysterious Anna. I bet she’s fun in bed. She probably says, ‘increase intensity seventy percent’ when she wants you to fuck her harder.”
He smirks in a way that makes me want to punch him. “I don’t recall her needing to ask.”
Because he was already doing it. Already pistoning like a man possessed.
A disgusting thought, but my gut tenses in the most delicious way.
“What happened?” I ask. “Why did it end?”
He glances at me, suddenly wary. I’m not sure why he’s acting like this is all some dark secret. I’d happily discuss my former sex life if he asked. “It was always very casual, and it just wasn’t going anywhere.”
He’s being weird because it was recent , I realize. Really recent.
“ When did it end? And who ended it, you or her?”
“A while ago, and what’s with all the questions, Oprah? It’s none of your business.”
I nod, smiling like the little brat I am. “Ah. She ended it.”
He heaves a sigh and pushes a hand through his hair. “No, as it happens, she didn’t. I just knew it wasn’t what I wanted.”
I wonder if he realizes he keeps answering after insisting he won’t. I wonder if he realizes my interest in this is wildly inappropriate for someone who isn’t even attracted to him.
And then a more sobering thought occurs to me: if this tall, elegant girl in the photo who looks like she was made for Graham wasn’t what he wanted, I can’t imagine who would be.
But it’s weirdly disappointing to realize it would never be me.