40. Keeley
KEELEY
W hen I wake, the bed is empty.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find that disappointing, that there wasn’t a part of me hoping maybe we’d pick right back up where we left off, or that maybe he’d even just…stay. I don’t know what any of this means for when he gets home on Wednesday.
I walk to the kitchen, glancing at my clothes strewn around the room and walking past them to his discarded t-shirt, balled on the floor. He’ll never notice it’s gone, and even if he does, he wouldn’t accuse me of taking it. He’d sound crazy.
I bring it to my nose and breathe him in as I slip it over my head. He was so… him last night. So feral and restrained and hungry and unleashed all at the same time. Like a delicious package I only got to partially unwrap.
I’m taking another sniff of his shirt when the door swings open and he enters, carrying two cups and a white paper bag.
He didn’t fly back to New York…He went to get us breakfast. What a ridiculous thing to make my heart swell ten sizes.
And then his gaze lands on me, on the t-shirt I’m wearing, and I feel heat climbing up my neck. Fuck .
He crosses the room to me and pulls a cup from the tray. “It’s decaf,” he says and I hold the mocha latte to my nose, letting the steam rise in a delicious waft of fresh roasted beans and chocolate before I take a sip. He holds the bag aloft. “And I got your disgusting muffin.”
He bought the muffin he doesn’t approve of. For me. Instead of forcing me to eat some gross concoction of protein powder and eggs and peanut butter like he does.
“Thank you,” I reply. “I assume you snuck quinoa into it, but that was sweet of you.”
“It’s quinoa-free.” His eyes lower now to his t-shirt.
Fuck . Again.
“I, uh…” I begin, and my mind suddenly is empty of all plausible excuses for stealing his shirt when I had to step over my own clothes to reach it.
His gaze raises to my face, and there’s a hint of a smile in his eyes. “I like it.” He steps closer and, removing the coffee from my hand, kisses me.
“You can’t kiss me,” I argue, though I’m making no effort to back away from him. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”
“You taste like coffee, which happens to be one of my favorite things.”
His hand lands on my hip and I’m suddenly breathless. “I didn’t know that.”
He pulls me close then, close enough to feel the bulge in his gym shorts—which is pretty much all the foreplay I need.
“Would you like to know some of my other favorites, Keeley?” His lips graze the shell of my ear, and before I’ve even begun to nod, his hand is sliding beneath the t-shirt and over my skin.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“You’re not going to tell me this is a terrible idea?” His hand runs along my rib cage, his wrist brushing the underside of my breast.
“I’m going to think it but keep it to myself.”
He laughs then picks me up like I’m feather-light and carries me back to bed.
There should have been a whole chapter in What to Expect When You’re Expecting on the dangerous combination of pregnancy hormones and Graham Tate.
Because I’m pretty sure that if one of us wasn’t a vaguely responsible adult—hint: it’s not me, but it’s barely him either—we would fuck until we died from lack of sleep or starvation.
We do manage to talk, a little. I tell him about the way Dr. Fox is trying to force me out and how I’m not sure if this is even the kind of dermatology I’m interested in.
He tells me about Prescott, the dick who is leaving to manage a competitive hedge fund, and how he thinks Jody, the new second in command, will rise to the task.
Most of our conversations are slightly less intense, of course. I haven’t changed that much.
“I like the name Blossom for a girl,” I muse.
“She can’t be secretary of state with a name like Blossom,” he argues.
“She’s got half my DNA, Graham. She was never gonna be secretary of state anyway.
” I smooth my hand over my bare stomach.
When I’m lying on my back as I am now, I can’t even see my legs anymore.
“I don’t think I look that pregnant. There was a model in Australia who had a baby when she went to the bathroom and never even knew she was pregnant. All her clothes still fit.”
He chokes on a laugh. “Keeley, when was the last time you could claim that all your clothes still fit? You’ve been bragging about your new breast size pretty much since I got here.”
I cup them. “Aren’t they amazing? I hope that part sticks around.”
I wait…for him to say he hopes it does too. Or to say it doesn’t matter to him. Something to allude to what happens after the baby is born, when he’s in New York with the elegant Anna and I’m here—sleep-deprived, covered in spit-up and quite possibly a B-cup again.
But he just laughs.
Which I guess is okay. Your first weekend as a couple isn’t the time to have a whole “ where is this headed?” conversation under normal circumstances. Then again, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be thirty-four weeks pregnant with his kid either.
On Sunday afternoon, we leave the apartment for the first time all weekend to attend Gemma’s barbeque, which I now regret agreeing to. He’s flying out of LAX tonight, and it’s a flight he will need to make.
“One hour, right?” he asks when we pull onto their street.
I tug him toward me for a kiss. “One hour. I’ll pretend I’m going into labor if I have to.”
“I’m honestly surprised you haven’t already played that card.”
I laugh to myself without mentioning where, exactly, I considered playing it.
The men are gathered near the grill and the women are standing by a long table spread with food, the exact kind of thing I never wanted to be a part of.
Is this who I’m about to become? In a year or five, will I be saying things like, “it’s wine o’clock!
” while spending summer afternoons talking about travel soccer?
Maybe.
The kids run across the yard, barefoot little idiots, yelping and laughing, and I know I’m going to want my daughter to be part of this. I’ve already changed so much about my life for this baby and standing here I realize…those were just the first steps of many.
I find Drew and Tali sitting off in a shaded corner with their slumbering babies.
“Look at you,” says Drew with a laugh. “Who’d have thought you’d wind up here last January? I’m so relieved.”
I assume she’s talking about how I wound up with Graham rather than Six, but I don’t recall her ever suggesting I shouldn’t be with Six last winter.
“Relieved?”
“I heard an earful about that weekend from my husband, believe me,” she says. “But all’s well that ends well, right?”
They start talking about something called “Ferberizing”, which apparently involves letting your baby cry herself to sleep and which I already know I won’t be able to do, and then Tali weighs the benefits of a preschool where they teach Chinese versus one where they hang out in the woods and only play with “toys found in nature”.
A year ago, I would not have been able to imagine a more boring conversation, but a year ago, I couldn’t imagine loving anyone so much more than I love myself.
I look across the lawn to Graham, who’s at the grill doctoring a burger for me. I’m pretty sure I now love two people way more than I love myself. He looks at his watch twice, which makes me laugh, and I cross the yard to him.
“You’ve got to stop checking the time,” I say near his ear.
He hands me a plate. “I have to leave for the airport in four hours, Keeley. And I don’t want to spend those hours talking about draft picks.”
Actually, neither do I. I can think of way better ways to spend it.
The two of us take our plates to the table and eat while we watch the kids running around on the lawn and parents dealing with babies.
I’m starting to realize how demanding even one child can be.
Any time Tali and Hayes’s baby needs something, there’s shuffling and a discussion and one of them rummaging through a diaper bag while the other holds the kid.
Drew’s husband now has their son over his shoulder, because she needed a break.
“It helps,” I say quietly, “having a father around. It’s a lot to do on your own.”
It’s more subtle than saying, “ I think you should stay with me for good, person I’ve only been coupled with for forty-eight hours.”
“That’s part of why I need to be in New York this week. I put my condo on the market a while ago. It goes to settlement on Tuesday.”
My jaw falls open. “A while ago? How long is a while ago?”
He laughs to himself. “From the day of the ultrasound.”
I stare at him. “That was months ago. How could you have kept it a secret that long?”
He holds my eye. “It made you feel safe, for a while, thinking I was leaving. Right?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
He’s right. If he’d told me he planned to stay, I’d have freaked out. I’d have geared up for a daily custody battle. I just can’t believe he sold his condo without anywhere else to go.
“But where would you have gone if all this hadn’t happened?”
He hitches a shoulder. “I’ve been looking for houses,” he says. He nods to the yard. “I know you love your apartment, but I want this for our kid. So, at the risk of freaking you out, I was kind of hoping I might convince you to come with me when I moved.”
I picture our daughter chasing after the ice cream man in bare feet. Biking home from a local pool with popsicle-stained lips. Walking to school every day. I love my apartment, and I love living in the city, but I think I might like this even more.
“I can’t tell if you’re okay or about to catch the first flight to Cabo because I’ve pushed you too far,” he says quietly.
“That depends.” I rest my head on his shoulder. “Are we talking about a house like Ben’s, or some kind of Warren Buffett-style ‘look how frugal I am despite all my money’ thing?”
He laughs. “Yes, Keeley, you’ll get your Mariah Carey closet.”
“You have no idea how horny that just made me.”
He laughs again, and his fingers twine with mine. “I know it’s a lot, but while I’m piling on here, I wish you’d at least consider quitting your job. You could have the baby, take some time to get settled into it, and find something that suits you better.”
“I’d feel like I was being kept by a Saudi prince.”
He smiles. “I thought you wanted to be kept by a Saudi prince.”
“I do. It’s a good thing. We might need to do some roleplay.”
“Saudi prince roleplay and anniversary anal. I like it. Just out of curiosity, are we going with January eighth for our anniversary? Because I want to make sure I mark it on my calendar.”
I place my mouth against his ear. “Graham, once I get this kid out, you aren’t going to have to wait for once a year anything .”
“Jesus,” he says under his breath. “Are you ready to get out of here? I’m tired.”
“How can you be tired? This was the laziest day I’ve ever seen you have.”
He gives me a sidelong look, one that starts at my eyes and lands on my mouth for a long moment. “I’m not actually tired, Keeley.”
Ohhh .
“I hate to eat and run,” I announce to the table, as I rise.
“You just got here,” Gemma argues.
“Don’t push this or she’ll just pretend she’s going into labor, Gemma,” Graham warns.
I’m beginning to think marrying him was the smartest thing I ever did.