Chapter 40 – Grant
FORTY
GRANT
It was almost like riding a bike, he decided.
Three Months Later
“Hey there, sleepy head,” I greeted my live-in friend, as she liked to call herself, as she made her way into the kitchen.
“Hungry,” she announced grumpily. She was perpetually grumpy in the mornings, which would have been annoying if it wasn’t so adorable.
“Yes, Buttercup,” I said soothingly “Toast, peanut butter, weak tea, and a banana, but only if you’re feeling it.”
I pointed out the breakfast spread I’d already laid out for her on the counter as she pulled up a chair to the island.
Freshly showered, her wet hair pulled back in a ponytail, she wore her standard leggings with a loose top over it. Trying to hide the bump that was no longer unnoticeable.
Over the last few months, we’d developed a nice routine.
She allowed me to cater to her every need and she didn’t gripe about it too much.
I went to bed every night sexually frustrated and I didn’t gripe about that too much.
She was here. In my house. She wasn’t going anywhere and she wasn’t fighting every decision I made. Together, we’d agreed on her new doctor, and today we were going to find out the sex of the baby.
She plopped down on the bar stool with a sigh.
“What?” I asked.
“What?” she said, reaching for the toast.
“That sigh. It had meaning to it. What’s going through your head right now?”
She wrinkled her nose. “What if it’s a girl?”
The wave of sheer unadulterated love that washed over me so quickly nearly made me catch my breath.
What if it was a girl? What if I had a daughter?
I would protect her. I would worship her. I would give her everything I had to give.
I waited for the guilt to kick in. For the sense that I was betraying the unborn child I couldn’t protect, but strangely, it wasn’t there this morning. Maybe because there were so many unknowns about that lost little life, whereas this life, was going to be made even more real today.
“I would adore a little girl,” I said carefully. “Why do you ask?”
“You don’t want a boy?”
Another jolt of love kicked me in the gut.
What if it was a boy? What if I had a son?
I would teach him everything I knew. Help him grow into a good man. Hopefully, be as good a father to him as mine was to me.
I needed to call my parents. I needed to tell my family about the baby. About Flowers.
She had no one to tell. Other than Tom Daniels, who had been displeased about her departure, but understood when I’d spoken with him about my concerns. Thankfully, he’d agreed to keep that conversation between us.
Which meant Flowers had no one else to share in the excitement of the baby except me, and of course I was fucked up in the head about us, so how much excitement could there be?
But if my family knew, they would be so thrilled.
I’d told Flowers I wanted to wait until after twelve weeks before I told them.
Once I’d broke down and told her about Allison and the baby, I told her about all of it. The miscarriages. The stress of it. Why we’d been fighting.
In some ways, it had been cathartic. I couldn’t lie about that. But it hadn’t been a cure. It hadn’t immediately erased all the pain and the guilt so I could be the man I needed to be for Flowers. It felt like she understood that.
She was okay with me not telling my family, but the twelve-week mark passed two weeks ago and I still hadn’t told them.
“I would love a boy, too. Flowers, I’m going to love the baby. No matter the sex. I don’t have a preference.”
“Yes, but a boy could grow up and challenge you for control of your vast empire. And if he does, just so you know, I’m going to take his side.”
“You’ve been watching HBO again,” I told her, as I poured a second cup of coffee for myself. “I’m not worried about my vast empire. He or she will have all the options in the world. The only thing I would encourage, is that they find their passion. What motivates them.”
“Are you going to go to space?” she asked.
“What?”
“Don’t act like I said something stupid.
All the billionaires are doing it. I watched this whole documentary about a billionaire who took these other normal people into space and his wife was like, I’ve got to let him be him, right up until blast off and then she was crying her eyes out.
Because she had these two kids and he was going to freaking space! ”
“You know I don’t like flying very much, I can assure you space exploration is out of the question. What is all this about?”
Because I knew Flowers.
After all these months, but especially after these last three months of living together, I really knew her. Her moods, her ups and downs. Her verbal diarrhea. The way her brain took off on tangents. Her perceptions of everyone around her.
We weren’t strangers having a baby together after a one-night stand.
We were us.
A sometimes complicated and confusing us. But still us.
“I’m worried how you’re going to be when you know if it is a boy or a girl.
I’m worried it might be too real for you and you might decide you can’t handle it.
And then I’ll have to do it all alone, which was always the plan, but now these past three months you’ve made me believe I won’t be alone. But maybe I will.”
I circled the kitchen island and put my hands on either armrest of the stool, boxing her in while I leaned over her. It was another routine we’d established.
Flowers didn’t want to have sex because she thought it would complicate things too much. But that didn’t mean she didn’t need intimacy.
Closeness.
I rested my forehead against hers but said nothing.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh,” I whispered. “I’m reading your mind. Much easier than waiting for you to say what you’re really thinking about.”
“E.G.,” she growled.
“Flowers,” I growled back.
“People sometimes don’t like having girls and they give them away,” she whispered into the space between our mouths. “I saw it on 60 Minutes.”
I closed my eyes and counted a few beats before I spoke. Flowers was a rational creature about ninety-nine percent of the time. Right up until she wasn’t. But once upon a time, she’d been a girl and someone had given her away.
“I would like a girl, I think,” I said quietly, thoughtfully. “If she looks like you and has your brain, I think I would like that very much. And I would never want to give her away. Ever.”
“No,” Flowers objected. “If she looks like you, with the red hair and green eyes, she could be the next Nicole Kidman. There’s no point in letting all your recessive genes go to waste. Look at Rebecca’s hair.”
My sister did have beautiful hair.
“Okay, she can have my hair,” I said. “But in every other way, I want her to be like you.”
“Okay,” she said. “And you would love her as much as you would love a son, right?”
“Yep,” I said confidently. “I will love her as much as I’ve ever loved anyone in my life.”
“Hmm.”
“What?” I asked, lifting my head away from hers, now that I’d pulled out what was really scaring her.
“What if I get jealous?”
I didn’t understand the question. “Jealous of what?”
“My daughter. What if I get jealous of her because you love her, but you don’t love me.
” She pulled her face back then and looked at me, worried for a second, but then it seemed as if she shook it off.
“No. A mother wouldn’t be jealous of her own daughter.
Stupid. I’m just being weird. Or hungry. Let me eat.”
She started attacking the toast and peanut butter like it had been days since she’d last eaten. Her appetite was truly something to behold.
“We need to leave for the doctor in about an hour. Ricky will drive,” I said, in lieu of saying something else. Something that got stuck in my throat.
She nodded even as she crunched on toast covered with peanut butter. “I’ll be ready.”
“When we get back, we should call my parents.”
She stopped chewing and stared at me.
“It’s time,” I said.
She swallowed and nodded. Then she got this mischievous little smile on her face. “You’re going to be in soooo much trouble,” she giggled. “Can’t wait.”
She was right about that. My mother was going to kill me.
Right before she started sobbing with joy.