42. Addie
Chapter forty-two
Addie
“I cannot believe it’s finally time,” I muse, staring into my long mirror, gazing at my rotund stomach, and securing the earrings that perfectly match my burgundy dress.
Hayden’s arms come from around my enlarged waist. “You look absolutely beautiful, Addie.”
“Really?” I turn to face him when I’m finished. “You’re sure it isn’t too much?”
He bends down and kisses me. “Not at all. Besides, you should be the focal point of the night, right?”
“I guess.”
He then focuses on getting himself ready, and I admire as I watch him, in his V-neck T-shirt and basketball pants, walk over to his wardrobe. He sold his house a while back, having made one too many bad memories in it, and he moved in with us. I was apprehensive about cohabitating, but after I became pregnant for a second time, the joining of our lives seemed even more inevitable. Plus, it’s been a wonderful surprise having him here.
“Jesus! It’s like you two just think the word ‘pregnant,’ and you get knocked up,” Sam joked after I told her about the newest bundle of joy over FaceTime one night.
Although, in all fairness, she wasn’t exactly wrong. We weren’t planning for another, but we weren’t being particularly careful about preventing it from happening either.
“Here,” Hayden says in real time, holding a matching tie up to my outfit. “This works, right?”
“Yeah, I like it.” To complete the look, he goes with a black suit and white undershirt. As for his pocket square, he lets Luna pick it out.
“This one!” she announces after he holds her up and lets her sift through all of her choices.
“Perfect!” he gives her slobbery kisses before taking it into his hands, folding it just right, and then placing it in his front pocket. It’s a dark gray, which just so happens to be the color of her dress for the evening.
Her hair is a crazy mess, but when she re-emerges about half an hour later, while I’m resting with my feet up, it’s back in a gorgeous little updo.
“Well?” Sam, my bestie, comes in and asks.
“You did a great job. Thank you.”
She takes Luna’s hand and spins her. “No problem. Looney is always my favorite little model.”
After that, she and Hayden help me back up, and we all make our way downstairs to wait for the limo.
As we’re standing in the foyer, I’m trying to distract myself from my own thoughts by fiddling with my fingers. A few moments later, Hayden grabs them in his hands.
“You look beautiful, Addie. Truly.”
I blow raspberries in the air. “I feel like a whale.”
“You’re pregnant, my love.”
Although I still feel fat, hearing him call me his love helps a little.
“Please, just try to cram down any thoughts of self-doubt and insecurity and instead, focus on the fact that Ivory Shores is opening tonight!”
He’s right. I know he’s right.
Out of nowhere, my phone rings. Across the screen is my aunt’s name.
“Auntie Melissa? Everything okay?” I hired her to be the event planner.
“Everything is fine.” In the background, I can hear the Reggae beats of Carlos Montalban, one of the hottest artists out of Nicaragua right now. “Just wanted to let you know that Carlos is at the venue and ready to rehearse. The only thing is—”
Oh, God. “What?” My heart drops into my stomach. He had quite the lengthy “rider,” but I triple-checked that I had everything he wanted—green M&M’s, chocolate chip Teddy Grahams with their heads chopped off, Fruit by the Foot, strawberry and grape Gatorade, cinnamon Pop-Tarts, and such. For a famous Nicaraguan, he sure loves American snacks.
“He says you forgot his peanut butter and honey Uncrustables.”
“Shit.”
“Mommy!” Luna scolds.
“I’m sorry, baby. I meant ‘shoot.’ Shoot.”
She grins and nods. “But you still need to put a dollar in the swear jar.” With Hayden living with us and having to adjust to her being around, we’ve had to implement certain things—like the swear jar—to help him. “Shit” and “damn” are one dollar, “bitch” is five, “fuck” is ten, and anything worse than that is twenty.
I want to be a good example for Luna and Hayden both, so I take the dollar out of my purse and put it in the jar before I forget.
“Good,” Luna comments.
“Anyway, I’ll get them on the way over.”
“You sure?” Aunt Melissa asks.
“Yes, yes. I’ll work it out. I promise.”
When I hang up, Hayden is straightening his tie, and he looks up at me and says, “Now what?”
“We need to stop at the store on the way to the party.”
He rolls those gorgeous eyes of his. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“That’s ten dollars in the swear jar, Hayden!”
He grunts.
“Fair is fair,” I mutter.
He goes over and slides money into the small glass. “Happy now?”
“Yep,” Luna and I say in unison.
Then, he puts his finger in my face. “But we are not stopping at no store. You’ve bent over backward for this party. If that Carlos is going to throw a hissy fit over one little snack—well, then, I’m sorry. Maybe he isn’t all you’ve cracked him up to be.”
Luna and I both act highly offended.
“How dare you!” she says to me with her hand clenched to her chest.
“Yes, how dare you!” While my abuelo may not have known about him, I know he would’ve appreciated the awareness he was bringing to the culture.
Hayden holds his hands up in the air. “I’m sorry. But this is just ridiculous.”
Suddenly, something hits me. “Hey, Loones?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“Will you go to the freezer and get your Uncrustables?”
She throws her arms down at her sides and stomps at the ground. “What? No!”
“I’ll buy you more, I promise.”
She hesitates, but after I hold my ground, she finally does as I ask.
“Good enough,” I mumble before popping them into my bag. They’re peanut butter and jelly, but I’m hoping to God that they’ll suffice.
***
When we arrive, the place looks absolutely amazing. There are spotlights in all the right places, and Carlos’ music is already booming from the outdoor speakers.
Once inside, I see that Sam beat us there, and she is ogling over the famous musician.
“He’s so good!” she screams over his guitar riff after giving me a hug.
“I know, right?”
“Do you know if he’s single?” She continues to watch him while twirling her long, black hair on her finger.
“I don’t—I mean, I don’t know!” That’s the least of my concerns right now.
Then, she flicks her wrist. “Never mind. Sorry. What can I do to help?”
I remember the bulky box in my purse, and I throw it over at her. “Here. You’ll enjoy this. Give these to him when he’s finished warming up.”
“Oh, my gosh. You’re the best.” Her knees buckle, and she smiles like a goon.
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
I turn to walk away from her, but she stops me by grabbing my arm. “I’m so sorry. But there is something I wanted to tell you before more people start coming in and everything gets too hectic.”
“Is everything okay?” I’m not used to her being so serious, so I glue in and cross my arms.
“Oh, yeah. More than okay. Um. I just wanted to let you know that I’m actually going to move to L.A.”
“What? Are you kidding me?” I give her another big hug.
“Yeah! I’ve been thinking about it, and there’s just nothing for me back in Phoenix. Especially not without my girl.”
As if on cue, Luna then comes running up with a cake pop in her hand.
“Should we tell her?” Sam asks with a wink.
“Go ahead.”
By Luna’s squeals, I can tell that she is just as excited as I am about the news. And as much as I’d love to stick around and celebrate with them, I have an event to put on. Hayden told me that I shouldn’t put all of this pressure on myself, especially in my condition. But how can I not? This is my first venture in my new position with my grandfather’s subsidiary. Plus, it’s our freshman project together, and I genuinely care if this night is a success or not—it’s honoring Abuelo’s legacy, after all.
Oh, God. The stress is really getting to my head. However, like the knight in shining armor he’s been proving himself to be as of late, Hayden soon appears in front of me with an all-natural beef stick in his hand.
“Hungry, baby?”
I take it and start devouring it. “Starving. Thank you.”
Soon, Randall, Claire, and Teddy, the project manager Hayden and Abuelo worked with early on, approach us. And I try my best to conceal the fact that my mouth is full of jerky.
“Congratulations, Mama,” Claire says while rubbing my stomach.
“Thank you, thank you.” I’m so envious of the glasses of champagne in their hands. Claire’s youngest, Azariah, just stopped breastfeeding, so her body is her own again. I remember how liberating of a feeling that is.
“This event is wonderful,” Randall, her husband, remarks while looking around.
“Thank you,” I respond, after choking down the meat and sipping on a glass of refreshing, boring water in my hand.
Hayden squeezes me to the side. “Yeah, she knocked it out of the park.”
“Just like I knew she—and you two, together—would.”
“To be fair, my aunt was a huge help too.”
No one in our immediate circle seemed to hear me or acknowledge what I said before moseying over to admire the ice sculptures. Now those are all on my aunt. I thought having such immaculate pieces that could melt in the California heat was absolutely absurd. But she disagreed.
“Well?” she asks, bumping her shoulder against mine.
“They’re very nice.” I have to admit it, and she’s just lucky the air conditioning has remained on so far.
***
As the venue starts to fill up, I feel like I’m swimming through a pool of people. Although, it helps that each and everyone has only kind words to say about my abuelo and the new hotel.
For a while, it seems as though Hayden is distracted by the extensive wine menu he’d curated from his grandfather’s vineyard. But then I’m caught off guard after Carlos’s music suddenly stops, and I see the man I love up on the stage, holding a microphone.
“Is this thing on?” he jokes before laughing charmingly.
I can actually hear other women in the crowd swoon as he flashes his subtle dimples and green eyes.
“Anyway, I just wanted to thank all of you, from the bottom of my heart, for coming tonight. As you know, this has been somewhat of a passion project for me and my business partner a.k.a. love of my life, Addie Flores. Let’s give it up for her!”
Everyone erupts in applause, and I nervously wave around with my cheeks on fire.
As the sounds die down, he coughs to clear his throat before continuing, “Um, but that’s not the only purpose for tonight. Addie, sweetheart, would please join me up here?”
Yikes. I’m not so natural in front of people, and my heart is pounding like crazy as I start the trek up there. However, it also doesn’t help that I can feel lasers coming out of jealous women’s eyes on my back. But I should be used to all that by now. People were always fawning all over him and then acting like I thought my shit didn’t stink after realizing I was with him.
“Hi, baby.” Once I get up there, he takes my hand and kisses it.
“Hi.” I look at the ground and push my hair behind my ear.
“Come on, folks. One more round of applause for this gorgeous, successful, and intelligent woman. Oh, and did I mention she’s growing my baby inside of there.”
Oh, my God. I appreciate his words, but he’s also kind of mortifying me.
“Okay, okay. Thank you, everyone.”
“Hayden—” I have no idea what to say, and I anticipate him handing me the mic at any second.
But when he doesn’t and instead steps back a few inches, I’m incredibly confused.
I watch as he takes a deep breath before saying, “Adriana Flores. I know you hate your full name, but it feels necessary in this context.”
What in the world?
I then look out into the crowd and see Aunt Melissa and Sam holding hands in excitement. But excitement for what—
When I turn my focus back onto Hayden, I get my answer after he starts to descend on one knee.
“Oh, my God.” My hand covers my open mouth.
He sniffs and says, “Addie, I know we’ve done a lot of things backwards in this life, and I’ve made a lot, a lot, of mistakes, but none of that changes the fact that I love you, Luna, and our unborn child more than anything else on this planet. You three are my world, and I can’t believe I’m the lucky man who gets to call you mine.”
Tears start welling in my eyes, and I can’t believe how lucky I am.
With his left hand, he pulls out a small black box from his pocket and opens it, revealing the biggest diamond ring I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
“Addie Flores. Will you marry me?”
Call me the Grinch because my heart feels like it’s growing four or five times its original size.
“Well?” he asks sheepishly.
“Oh, my gosh!” I didn’t realize I hadn’t given him my answer yet. “Yes. Yes, of course!”
He smiles widely, gets to his feet, and engulfs me in his arms.
“She said yes, ya’ll!” he announces to the crowd, and they all cheer.
When he releases me, I grab my stomach. “And if we hurry, we might be able to have the ceremony during this little one’s birth.”
He grins mischievously. “That would be very on point for us. Lord knows, we can’t do anything too traditionally.”
After that, I start to make another joke, but he stops me by pulling me in close and silencing me with a deep kiss.
***
THE END