Chapter 44 Taylor
“What?”
“How?”
“When?”
“No freaking way!”
“You can’t be serious.”
Pandemonium. Chaos. Bedlam And all the other words that convey all of my friends talking over each other and hurling questions in my direction after Grant drops the bombshell revelation I’ve been keeping a secret for far too long.
“Thanks for that,” I mouth to him. Grant smiles wickedly and shrugs at the absolute mayhem he’s caused, drawing an eye roll from me. So much for feeling it out.
The questions keep coming, but this time I can at least decipher who is saying what.
“Taylor Baker, you better explain right this second,” Ivory demands from behind me. Her voice is a bit harsh with a tinge of hurt. We just agreed no more secrets between us and here I am holding in the biggest of all.
“Like a fake marriage, right? Because my best friend did not get married and not tell me,” Gabby says next.
“Was this an accidental Vegas thing?” This from Preston.
Miller pipes up next. “Arranged marriage?”
“I had a feeling. Is this, like, a new thing?” Chase asks.
“What do you mean you had a feeling?” Gabby looks at her boyfriend.
“There are vibes, Princess. You were suspicious too.” He pulls her into his chest.
Ivory exchanges a worried look with Gabby. “Are you in trouble?”
What trouble could I be in that would require marriage? They’ve been reading too many books.
“Shotgun wedding?” Preston asks hesitantly.
“Oh!” Miller’s eyes get big, and it looks like a lightbulb just went off in his head and he finally connected the dots. “Are you . . .” He leans closer and puts a hand over his mouth to whisper “. . . with child?”
“You can’t ask her that!” Gabby slaps Miller in the back of the head.
“It’s a valid question,” he argues.
“Insensitive.” Grant’s words cut through the noise, always my defender.
“Even I know you don’t ask a woman if she’s pregnant,” Chase adds, smugly.
Ivory glares at Preston and Miller. “I thought you knew better than that. Both of you.”
“I’m just saying what other reason would the boss man have to marry her? No offense.” Miller holds his hands up.
“A lot taken,” I deadpan. “Can we at least sit down for the rest of this interrogation?”
Gabby throws her hands in the air. “She jokes. We find out she’s married and she jokes!”
“Don’t be so dramatic. I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets around here,” I toss back at her. It’s a bit hypocritical considering her recently exposed secrets but my defense mechanism is to fight.
“Low blow.”
“Whatever,” I mutter, walking over to the table.
Ivory and Gabby open their mouths, but Mike cuts them off.
“Sit so we can eat,” he commands and takes his seat at one end of the table. Grant sits beside him and pulls me into the chair on his left. Ivory sits on Mike’s other side and Preston takes the chair beside hers with Miller on his other side then Gabby and Chase.
“Wait, you don’t seem surprised.” Ivory turns to her dad. “Did you know?”
“Yes, Bug. I knew,” Mike confirms.
She gapes at him. “How long have you known?”
I jump in because it’s not fair for Mike to bear the brunt of Ivory’s wrath. “Maybe we should just go inside and talk. Just the three of us.”
I’d always planned to tell Ivory and Gabby privately, and I don’t like the fact we now have an audience for this quarrel.
“Nonsense. We’re all family here,” Miller says from across the table.
“Butt out. Your talking privileges have been revoked after that stupid-ass question.”
“Aw, come on Tay Bake, I didn’t mean it.”
“Zip it,” I shush him.
“You may want to listen to her, son.” Mike takes a swig of his beer and nods at me. I’ve always loved Mike like he was my own father. It’s why his nickname is so fun for me.
“Thanks, Daddy Mike.”
His lips tip up behind the mouth of the bottle. I knew he liked when I called him that.
“Can we please go inside and talk?” I ask again.
“Fine,” Gabby says, standing and going back inside.
“What about lunch?” Miller shouts after her.
“We’ll be fast.” Ivory goes inside next.
Grant presses a kiss to my temple before helping me up. My feet are heavy as I walk through the back door and into the kitchen. Gabby and Ivory are sitting on the couch in the living room, so I squeeze down between them.
“I thought we said no more secrets,” Gabby speaks first.
Taking a deep breath, I reach for each of their hands and hold them tightly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I did want to, but it’s complicated.”
“What’s complicated about it?” Ivory asks curiously.
“It’s a lot to unpack and a lot of history to dig up. For a long time, it hurt too much to think about, and Grant wasn’t in my life anymore, so it wasn’t worth opening old wounds.”
Ivory is quiet for a moment, before responding. “So it’s not recent then?”
“No, it’s not.”
“How long?” This from Gabby.
“Grant and I have known each other since I was 22.”
I take in their surprised expressions as Ivory quickly does the math. “That’s over ten years, Tay. How did we not know about him back then?”
“We met not long after graduation. Josh was in town and we went to the baseball game. His friend was pitching for New York and that friend happened to be Grant. You had just started law school, Gabby, and Ives you were back in Hollywood, and we were all trying to figure out our new normal since we weren’t living together. ”
Gabby sighs, “We had drifted apart a little. I hated that year.”
“Me too,” I agree.
“This hasn’t been going on for all this time, has it?” Ivory questions.
“Gosh no. I wouldn’t have kept it a secret all this time if we were actually a couple.
Our relationship was over almost as quickly as it started.
We met and got married within a few months and didn’t even make it to our first anniversary before it fell apart.
I took the promotion to the LA office, and with the way it ended, it was too painful to get into afterward.
By the time I started my own agency and was working with Ivory, I was trying to pick up the pieces and put it all behind me so we could move on.
I served divorce papers, but Grant never signed them and I didn’t want a divorce enough to force the issue.
We just lived our lives separately. I promise I didn’t keep it a secret because I didn’t trust you with it. It was a means of self-preservation.”
“But why didn’t you tell us when Grant showed up in St. John?” Gabby asks.
“It was Ivory’s wedding. Not the time for a huge reveal. What would I have even said? ‘Oh, hey, I know I didn’t have a plus one, but have you met my husband? You actually invited him yourself.’”
Gabby looks at me like she’s trying to decipher a hidden code. “That’s why you were so distant and frazzled that day. It wasn’t because of the wedding logistics.”
“My feelings with the wedding were complicated. I don’t know how to explain it.
I wasn’t anticipating how it would feel to plan your wedding and then I was blindsided by the resurgence of memories from my own wedding.
We got married on the beach in Long Caye.
Everything about your wedding day reminded me of mine, and then Grant showed up wearing his ring, and I just wasn’t ready to deal with all that. It hurt too much.”
“You love him,” Ivory confidently states.
I nod. “With my whole entire heart, soul, everything. I’ve put him through hell too over the years.”
“I’m sorry, Tay.” Ivory leans her head on my shoulder.
“I was too for a long time, but I’m not anymore.”
“You’re not?” Gabby sounds skeptical.
“Not at all. Everything happened how it was supposed to. We were always meant to find our way back to each other. Grant just helped it along.” I tell them about all of Grant’s moves to bring Preston and Miller to Nashville.
About the condition Mike had for coaching and how Grant used Chase’s situation to get me to stay in the city and work for the team.
“That’s so romantic,” Ivory swoons.
“This makes so much sense now,” Gabby chuckles.
“What does?”
“All the shared glances, the chemistry when you’re both in the room together, how it always seemed like there was more to the story. And why you always deflected when we brought up Grant in any way.” Gabby lists out all her observations over the past few months.
“I came to your house the day after Bark in the Park to talk to you about all of it. Grant and I had just slept together a couple days before that and I was dying to tell you. To talk it out and figure out my feelings about it all,” I tell them.
“And I wasn’t home because it was the same day as my appointment. That’s why you were at my house with lunch when I got back. I’m sorry, Taylor.”
“Don’t be sorry. You’ve been dealing with a lot on your own, G.
It was more important to me to be the shoulder for you to lean on if and when you were ready.
You take too much on yourself. I’m so relieved the biopsy came back negative and that you’re okay.
And so so happy that you have Chase. He’s your soulmate. ”
“I’m lucky, that’s for sure. I am definitely feeling the love and care lately, not just from him, from all of you. My chosen family.”
“It’s pretty great,” I agree. “Grant has been wanting me to tell you guys for a while. I told him we’d feel things out today and decide if it was time, but he couldn’t resist a ‘my wife’ moment.”
“So hot.” Gabby fans herself and giggles.
“Wait, wait, wait. So the house on Long Caye that we stayed at. It’s your house?” Ivory bounces in her seat.
“Well, we agreed to leave it alone in the post-nuptial settlement, but yes that’s the argument I made to get him to let you stay there.” I laugh.
“So what you’re saying is if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be reconnected with your husband?”
“You’ve been hanging out with Miller too much, Ives.”
“He is the third in my relationship. We really need to find him a woman.”
“Do you think he still talks to Chloe?” I ask. Chloe was the photographer at Ivory and Preston’s wedding, who Miller knew from his secret social media page. We’ve never seen Miller so flustered, and he crashed and burned majorly when he finally met his online crush in person.
Gabby answers, “I have no idea. He hasn’t mentioned her, and when I said her name at Bark in the Park, he shut me down quickly.”
“Should we look up his jump roping videos and see if she’s liked anything recently?” Ivory asks.
“I’ve half a mind to leak his account for his comments earlier,” I smart.
Gabby rolls her eyes. “Oh come on, you guys live to taunt each other.”
Our familiar banter has me breathing easier but I’m still keeping one more secret from them, and after all that’s happened with Gabby, I don’t want to hide it.
“There’s something else I need to tell you.
” I wring my hands together in my lap, hesitant to reveal this part of me, despite knowing they’ll accept me regardless.
“Okay . . .” They say at the same time, sharing another glance.
“The pregnancy comment hit a little too close to home. My endometriosis has gotten a lot worse this year. I’ve actually been seeing a specialist in Nashville, but there aren’t very many options.
I could have a clean up surgery, but Grant and I are going to talk to my doctor about a hysterectomy.
” Saying it out loud for the first time is hard but I’m surprised to find how right it feels.
“Oh Taylor, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.” Gabby softens against me, wrapping her arm around my midsection.
Ivory mimics the position and I’m surrounded by my best friends. “This is a lot to take in. I hate that you’ve been dealing with it all these years by yourself. Can we agree now that there won’t be any more secrets?” Ivory begs.
“That’s all, I promise,” I agree.
“You know all of mine now,” Gabby confirms.
“Ivey, Taytie-Tot, Gabberella, I’m starvingggggg. Are you done making up yet?” Miller shouts from outside before poking his head in the kitchen. “If you’re making out though, I want in.”
“It’s like he wants someone to punch him.”
“I heard that Bake a Cake.”
“You were meant to!” I yell back.
Ivory extracts herself from our huddle and stands from the couch to pull us up. “Let’s get out there before all my food is inedible or we actually miss Miller eating a fist for lunch instead.”
By the time we make it back outside, we’re laughing and I feel lighter than I have in a long time.