Chapter 17
Cat
He says hello to Ava and gives me a kiss on the cheek. Still no smile. Why is he so serious? Surely he doesn’t know about me going to the doctor. He walks out of the living room without saying anything. Ava and I send each other looks and I shrug.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ava says under her breath.
“I don’t know. Maybe he had a bad day in court.” We go in the kitchen, and he’s sitting at the table with a drink in his hand. I lean against the table beside him.
“Had a bad day?”
He puts the bottle down and folds his hand on the table, still not looking at me. “You know what I hate?”
“What?”
“When a client is not completely honest with me. We both know you’re guilty. By withholding information from me, you’re working against me. You don’t know how that pisses me off.”
I smile and look at Ava, who’s standing against the fridge drinking a bottle of water. She grins back, recapping the water bottle. We’re both thinking about the shower of gold.
When I look at Nick again, I can tell he’s not happy.
This look he’s giving me is making me think it’s not only his client he’s upset with for lying to him.
Do I want to know why he’s looking at me like I did something to him?
Why today, of all days, would he come home upset with me?
He doesn’t talk about his clients with me, only the one time when we were first together and he didn’t want to tell me about that.
“Where were you today, Cat?”
I take a deep breath, straighten up, and look down at my stomach. Oh God, he knows. Not good. I swallow, keeping the butterflies from rising in my stomach. I’m going to keep my answer short, on the off-chance he doesn’t know. “Work.”
“That’s it? The only place you went was work?”
From the corner of my eyes I see he’s watching me intently, staring at my face. I focus on Ava chugging on her water bottle because if I look at him he’s going to see I’m lying. “And hanging out here with Ava.”
“I received a call today from your doctor’s office.”
“Why would they call you?” I think I know, but I’m playing along with the little hope I have he doesn’t know. God, I hate trying to fool myself.
“When you filled out the contact information you accidentally put my number where yours should be, remember that?”
I remember at the time thinking it wasn’t a big deal. Didn’t know it would come back to bite me in the butt.
“Your doctor was running late at the hospital. They wanted to know if you wanted to push your appointment back two hours or reschedule. I don’t remember you telling me you had a doctor’s appointment today.
I have them all written down in my schedule, and Karen reminds me.
I gave them your telephone number since I was clueless. ”
I finally look at him, and I can see he’s not happy.
I need to explain, he looks like a thundercloud.
It’s enough to make me want to shrink back a little.
“Nick, I…” I stop talking and pull my bottom lip in my mouth nervously when he stands up and pushes the chair back, squeaking across the floor.
Ava gives me a weak I-can’t-help-you-girl smile and retreats into the living room.
I know she’s glad it’s not her that’s about to get chewed out.
“I’m going to ask you again, hopefully this time you can get the truth out before I lose my cool; you’re lying to me and I don’t like it. Where were you today besides work and hanging out with Ava?”
I face him with my fingers skimming the table and my other hand on my stomach. “I went to see my doctor today.”
“No shit,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“You don’t have to do that. Don’t be nasty.”
He folds his arms over his chest and stares me down. I know he’s angry, but we don’t need to get into a big argument where we’re both yelling, and it’s going to happen if he keeps using this tone with me.
“I’m fine and the baby’s fine. Something happened and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
“What happened? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you if it wasn’t necessary.”
He drops his hands, squinting at me, takes a step, stops and steps back away from me again.
“If it wasn’t necessary? Worry me?” he says under his breath, more to himself than me, like he didn’t hear me correctly.
“Listen to me, if you find it necessary to go to the doctor, you should tell me. Why were you at the doctor’s without me? ”
I’m trying to keep my voice calm. One of us should remain calm. “Like I said, I’m fine and the baby’s fine.”
“Cat!” he yells, voice booming.
My hands ball up at my sides with my temper. “I was spotting a little, okay? I saw a little blood last night—”
With two steps he’s almost touching me. He’s yelling, but I see more concern than anger in his eyes. “And you’re only telling me now!”
“This is why I didn’t tell you; I didn’t want you to overreact.”
He looks at me incredulously then picks up his drink and slams it back on the table without putting it to his lips.
“I’m showing the appropriate amount of concern at hearing my pregnant girlfriend was bleeding almost twenty-four hours ago.
You were so concerned you had to go see your doctor, and you’re telling me I’m overreacting?
” He takes a long drink, watching me, and puts the bottle down slowly.
“Wait a minute, when exactly did you start bleeding last night?”
Here we go. Let me brace myself for the full blast. “After we had sex.”
“Jesus Christ!”
And there it is, and here I go as loud as him.
“You see, this is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you were going to be angry. I didn’t want to be dragged off to the hospital in the middle of the night.”
“So you would rather risk your life and the life of our child?”
I can’t believe him! “You know I would never do that. If I thought it was serious, I would have told you. I would have called the ambulance myself.”
If his jaw was clenched any tighter his teeth would crack and crumble out of his head.
He abruptly turns and walks to the living room.
I’d forgotten Ava could hear the whole argument.
Though it’s nothing she hasn’t seen or heard before.
If it was someone else listening to the intimate details of our life, I would be mortified.
But our whole relationship has played out in front of her, good and bad.
“Ava, you have to leave, your friend and I need to have a serious talk.”
Ava is already putting on her coat when I walk in the living room. “Ava, stay,” I say, then turn to him. “Don’t be rude, Nick.” I turn my back to him and Ava looks at me.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, and so is the baby.” He grumbles and goes to the front door to wait for Ava. “I went to the doctor, as you heard, and he’s upset because I didn’t tell him about it—”
“Or the circumstances that brought you to see the doctor,” he says from the door.
Ava lowers her voice and leans down to put on her shoes.
“Next time let me know you need a cover story. You’re terrible at it, sweetie.
” She’s right about that. “I’ll call you tomorrow to see how you’re doing.
I’m going out with Chloe and Matt later, I was going to tell you to come but you’re not going anywhere.
You have your hands full taming the beast.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Tell them I said hi.”
She puts her hand on my belly, which she hasn’t done since I told her I was pregnant, and says, “Bye, baby cuz, I’m glad you’re okay. I know your mommy wouldn’t put you in any danger.” She looks at me. “Your daddy is being overprotective because he cares about the both of you so much.”
Ava walks to the door, and I feel guilty for not telling her about today either. I know she’s not mad at me. She always has my back, but this way Nick can’t drag her into this. I guarantee he’d be angrier at Ava than me for going along with the lie.
Nick
I open the door for Ava and watch Cat walk to the bedroom.
“I’m going home, you two need to talk. Take it easy on her. If she says she’s fine, she and the baby are fine. She wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
“No, just withhold the truth.”
She taps me on the shoulder with a neatly manicured fingernail. “People who live in glass houses. Take it easy on her.”
I look out the window over the city in the living room.
I need to calm down before I go talk to her.
Ava’s more right than she even knows; I’m lying to her by not telling her I was sharing a hotel room with my ex-girlfriend.
Paige is nothing to me. The difference is my lie is protecting her from unnecessary hurt because nothing happened.
No one was at risk of getting hurt and no one’s life was in danger.
She needs to understand if she thinks something—anything—might be wrong with her and the baby, she has to let me know.
Even if I’m going to overreact, Let me. When it comes to her and this pregnancy, I’m going to overreact and make sure they’re okay.
That’s what I’m supposed to do—worry so she doesn’t have to.
Leaning up against the wall in the bathroom, my hands in my pockets, I watch her move around, ignoring me while she reties the sash on her robe.
I’m smiling because it reminds me of when she was younger.
When she was really mad at me she would ignore me.
No call, nothing. She drove me crazy with that shit.
I never told her because if she knew she would use it against me, like when she would purposefully cut me off in the middle of a sentence.
Drove me crazy when she did that and she knew it.
She looks the same; nothing’s changed except her age.
Cute and girly, hair up high in a ponytail.
She used to have a similar pink-and-white silk robe when she was in high school.
I saw her in it once and I wanted to touch her in the worst way.
I knew I couldn’t, I had to turn away and leave before she saw me. Now look at us. She’s having my baby.