Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
B eatrix
You know those things you swore you’d never do again?
Spending time with Ren’s mom is one of those things. The woman didn’t like me back in college, and I can’t imagine things have changed much. She always worried I was a distraction for Ren, threatening his career. If I’m a distraction, I can’t imagine what she’ll think about a baby. Guess I’ll find out.
Ren’s mom is visiting for Thanksgiving weekend, so we’re meeting her for lunch in St. Helena. Seems harmless enough. But I’ve directed the long way around Napa, circling through Calistoga and coming down the other side. It’s at least fifteen minutes out of the way.
My excuse is that I want to take some photos of a farmstand produce place in Calistoga, but when we get there, Ren calls my bluff. “This is just a normal fruit stand, like about a hundred other ones. Why’d we need to come here? ”
I mumble a fake answer he won’t hear as I hop out of the car and make a beeline to the persimmon display. They’re the most photogenic thing here, amid onions and blue kale. Still, I keep up appearances and shutterbug my way slowly from one end of the produce stand to the other. When Ren comes up behind me, I pretend to examine a purple onion like it’s a rare amethyst stone inside a giant geode. “So pretty, right?” I ask, unable to look Ren in the eye.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, and Ren spins me around like I’m a hockey puck on slippery ice.
“You’re stalling. I know you don’t need pictures of purple onions.” He looks around at the sagging roof and the fading signage haphazardly placed near the wrong boxes of produce. “This place is a dump. Even I have enough of an aesthetic eye to know that.”
I let out a frustrated exhale. “I was hoping to find a dog treat for Truman. I’ll be sure to tell him you said to stop.”
“Something tells me he’ll be just fine after Fiona spoils him all afternoon.”
“Fine.” I stomp back to the car, and he follows.
Safely ensconced in the passenger seat, I’m tempted to lock the doors so he can’t get in and drive us the rest of the way to lunch. But I don’t, if only because he’s holding the car keys in his hand.
When he gets in the car, he picks up my hand and kisses it. I snatch it away and fold my arms.
“Wow, you are really worked up. Is this something that happens whenever you eat a real lunch, or is it just reserved for my mom?”
That earns him a glare. “You’re hilarious.” I push the window button, but he hasn’t turned on the ignition, so nothing happens. “Can you please let some air in here? It’s hot as hades.”
He obliges, and I roll my window all the way down and stick my head out like a dog on a joyride .
“Why do you think she hates you? Are you just saying that so the reality will be better than what you’re expecting?”
“Oh, you poor, misguided soul. No, I’m saying it because the woman hates me. Were you not there on the phone call I just heard?”
Ren grimaces, unable to deny the truth. He made the mistake of answering a call from his mother on speakerphone in the car just now, and she said some very not nice things about me. “I don’t like seeing you tied down, is all I’m saying.” Those were her parting words to her son. With me sitting right there.
“She says that about any woman she thinks I’m dating. If she opens a People magazine at the market and sees me in the same room as a woman, I get a text and a call and a letter from a carrier pigeon telling me not to get trapped. It’s not about you.”
“Does she really want you to be sad and alone your whole life with only a hockey stick to snuggle with on the bad days?”
“Of course not. But you have to understand—growing up, it was just the two of us. She wants me to succeed and live my dream. Shed worked hard for me to be able to afford everything to pursue hockey. She’s just protective.”
“No, my family is protective. Your mom is a human gargoyle, sitting on the roof, ready to scare off all prospective girlfriends. And I’m the worst of them all because I’ve trapped you for life with this baby. Wait until she hears about that.” I sound breathless, which makes me sound hysterical. The bigger my belly gets, the more the baby pushes on my lungs, and the more out of breath I get doing normal things like walking to the mailbox and now, apparently, talking.
“This is good,” Ren says, unable to prevent a smile from taking over, which makes me unable to stop looking at him.
“Why?”
“Get it all out now. Tell me all the ways you expect this to be horrible and get a good image fixed in your head. That way, when you actually meet my mom again, you’ll be pleasantly surprised because it can’t possibly be as bad as what you’re imagining.”
“It can,” I say in a huff, not liking that he’s making light of my distress.
“It won’t.”
“It will.”
“Impossible. No one could hate the woman I love. I promise.”
All the breath leaves me in a whoosh that sounds like an impending windstorm. I turn fully in my seat to face Ren. “What did you just say?”
I wait for him to realize his misstep and backtrack. I’m giving him a chance to take it back and tell me he just meant that he likes me an awful lot. But he doesn’t. Instead, he levels me with a serious expression, his eyes lock on mine, and he nods. Then, slowly, a smile creeps across his face as though he can’t hold it back any longer. He takes my hand and holds it to his heart.
“I love you, Beatrix Corbett. I want to be very clear, so there’s no way to misinterpret my words. I. Love. You.”
My jaw drops open, but I think I’ve stopped breathing. The air in the car goes utterly still and silent. Except for the pounding thrush of blood in my ears—that won’t go away. He loves me? “You love me?” I say finally, allowing the Tetris blocks to drop into place in my head. Slowly, ever so slowly, so as not to leave gaps or misplace anything.
“I fucking love you.”
“Oh my gosh, Ren. I love you too. So much, but…but…” I smack his shoulder. “Why the heck didn’t you tell me that sooner?”
In classic Ren fashion, he seems baffled by my insistence on details. “Because it’s the most obvious truth there is. So I kinda thought you knew.”
The most obvious truth there is…
I keep quiet for the rest of the ride, digesting this new information. It’s reassuring, familiar, complicated. Because I have an obvious truth, too—I can no longer protect my heart from Dominick Renaldi. I gave it a valiant effort, but now it’s too late. I love him.
For the second time in my life.