29. Graham
GRAHAM
I n the afternoon, there’s a knock at the front door. I open it and a little girl comes rushing into the house. Hayes, Ben’s best friend, stands on the front stoop.
“Sorry,” he says, “Ben said it was okay if we stopped by? My daughter is obsessed with Lola.”
I glance toward the kitchen where Keeley, Lola, and Hayes’s daughter are all on the floor, and two of the three are giggling. I’m pretty sure Keeley has found her peer group.
“Audrey’s grown so much since I saw you guys in January!” Keeley exclaims. “I didn’t even recognize her. How’s the baby? Callum, right?”
“Sleeping in ten-second intervals. He and Tali are finally resting after a very long night and morning, so I thought I’d keep Audrey out for a while.”
He pulls out his phone to show us pictures of the baby, and she coos over them while I fret. What happens if our daughter isn’t a sleeper? I doubt Beverly Hills Skin is going to be okay with Keeley coming in late or stumbling through a day on no sleep if they won’t even let her eat lunch.
“We should get out of your hair,” Hayes says. “Come along, Audrey. It’s time to go to the store.”
“I would like to stay, actually,” says Audrey, so prim that Keeley and I both laugh.
“Can she?” Keeley pleads. “You could go to the store and get her on your way home?”
I fight a smile, watching her. Keeley has no idea what she even brings to the table, but here she is begging for time with a little girl she will cuddle and care for as if her life depends on it. What she brings to the table are the things that matter most.
“You’re in deep , my friend,” Hayes says as I walk him to the door. “It’s written all over your face. I bet she’s got you running out at eleven at night to get her obscure foods.”
I think of the last Froot Loops incident. Yes, I drove to the grocery store at midnight because she wanted Froot Loops. “They’re not that obscure.”
When I walk back inside, the TV is on, and Keeley and Audrey are curled up together on the couch with Lola across their laps.
“So here’s the deal,” Keeley is saying. “The duke doesn’t want to have kids because his father was abusive, but Daphne does, and now they’re married and happy but it’s about to go downhill. If people are happy at the midpoint of anything , whether it’s a movie or book, you know you’re in for it.”
Keeley points the remote at the TV. “Oh, we’re probably going to have to forward through some of this based on the look she’s giving him.
Cover your eyes. Ugh , kissing in the rain.
” She pauses the show. “You can open your eyes because this is important: don’t let a guy do this.
It’s not romantic at all, and seriously…
no mascara is that waterproof. You just wind up cold, and you’ll look like a clown afterward. ”
She picks up the remote again and I finally step in. “Keeley, what are you watching?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “We don’t need your help.”
“Clearly, you do.” I attempt to snatch the remote and she slides it under her thigh. “Audrey, what’s your favorite show?”
“This,” she says. “They all talk like Daddy.”
“Keeley,” I beg.
An unwilling smile slips over her face as she pulls out the remote and changes the channel. “Fiiine. We’ll watch something else. Have you ever seen Charlie and Lola , Audrey? They talk like your dad too.”
I’m relieved to see it’s animated. I would not have been at all surprised to discover Charlie and Lola was a documentary about two British prostitutes.
After Hayes returns for his daughter, we walk to Brentwood for dinner. We bring Lola, in theory to get her some exercise, but Keeley spends most of the walk cradling her like a baby.
For the past two blocks, she’s been telling me about the sexy kidnapping movie because, as it turns out, she wants us to watch the sequel together.
“I don’t understand how there can be a sequel,” I argue.
“She gets kidnapped again,” Keeley says, just as the restaurant comes into view. “So, what happens is—”
She suddenly falls silent at the sight of the guy only feet away from us, the one staring at Keeley like he’s seeing a ghost.
Ethan Kramer.
He’s the founder of a tech start-up and worth millions. He was someone whose public opinions I respected, but it’s clear from the look on his face that he knows Keeley well —which means she dated Ethan Fucking Kramer—and my respect turns to jealousy in a moment’s time.
He walks toward us, frowning as we are introduced. She asks how he’s been and if he’s taken his boat out. His answers are distracted, and his gaze is on her stomach the entire time. “I thought you didn’t want kids,” he finally says.
Her cheeks flush and her long lashes lower as a lock of hair falls across her face. If she wanted to torture this guy with what he’s lost, this was a good day for it: she is glowing, and in tiny shorts and a fitted tee, she makes pregnancy hot .
She shrugs, apologetically. “Accidents happen.”
He glances at me again, eyes narrowed as if I’m at fault. I guess I might be looking at him similarly if our positions were reversed.
Keeley turns toward the restaurant and tells him goodbye, and even after we’ve stepped into the foyer, he’s still standing outside, staring at the door.
“I take it you dated him,” I say. “ Recently .”
She bites her lip. “It ended last summer. It had kind of run its course.”
I glance outside. He’s walking off fast, angry. “He seems like he’s not over it.”
She rolls her eyes and shrugs. “I told him at the start I didn’t want anything serious. Rich guys always think they’ll be the exception.”
“I guess he’s the source of your Birkin bag?”
Her eyes narrow. “If you’re about to accuse me of having an ‘arrangement’ with men again, we are going to have an extremely loud and public fight.”
I wince. I’d forgotten I ever said that. To be fair, however, I had no idea she was dating guys like Kramer. “I’m surprised you let him go. I thought your greatest dream was to be kept by a Saudi prince.”
She rolls her eyes. “Jesus Christ, Graham. Do you not know me better than that? My greatest dream is to make my own money and be alone for the years I’ve got left.” She offers me a forced smile. “I’m a butterfly, remember?”
She thinks she doesn’t want to be grounded or kept by anyone, yet she didn’t want to stay inside alone today for five seconds.
She follows me around the kitchen in her apartment every night like I’ve got her on a leash, and I’ve even seen her following the cleaning lady around to chat.
She doesn’t want to be alone, ever. So why is she telling herself the opposite?
When we return, it’s bedtime. Lola cries when we put her in the crate in Gemma and Ben’s room, and Keeley’s eyes well. “I can’t stand it.”
“Go stay in the guest room,” I tell her. “I’ll sleep in here.”
“Or we could just, you know, not make her sleep in the crate. She could sleep in bed with me.”
“They’re trying to train her, Keeley. You can’t just undo their hard work. Go to the guest room.”
She does so reluctantly, and I settle into bed, ignoring Lola’s pathetic little cries.
This is going to be an issue with me and Keeley once we’re parents: she will give in, and I’ll always be the heavy.
She’ll have our kid eating Lucky Charms and sleeping in her bed and watching Bridgerton , and I’ll have to be the bad guy coming in to ruin everyone’s fun.
But I guess it’s good that she’s bothered by the crying.
Despite all the things that will go wrong, our child will never doubt she’s deeply loved.
Eventually, I fall asleep. I’m vaguely aware of a noise in the middle of the night—Gemma warned us that Lola gets up to pee around four—but it stops before I’ve even opened my eyes. I figure if it’s really an issue, Lola will let us know.
I wake to discover the sun coming through the windows and Lola and Keeley in my bed, Lola between us, Keeley’s hand on Lola’s stomach.
Keeley’s loose waves cover half her face, but I can still tell she’s smiling in her sleep.
God, the sight of her like that burns in my chest. It’s all the things I wish were different and all the things I wish we could have been, wrapped into one.