Chapter 6 #2
“Do you want to talk about it?” she whispered low enough for only me to hear. “This is a lot. You don’t have to do it. It’ll be okay.”
“Secrets, secrets are no fun,” Stevie sing-songed as she went into the studio. “What are you two whispering about?”
“How much she’ll miss me,” Emmy said as she followed Stevie inside. “She didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“We’re not friends.” It must have been the hundredth time I’d said it since I’d met these women last fall.
Stevie nodded. “Keep telling yourself that. Now get back here before I eat all the queso.”
“Up!” Stevie’s daughter Harper said from near my feet, her arms stretched into the air for me. “Up! Up! Up!”
I reached down and picked her up, planting a kiss on her chubby cheek. “We’re friends, aren’t we, Harper?”
My most favorite two-year-old squeezed my cheeks between her hands. “Nannon.”
“She really brought queso,” Daisy said as she came up beside me with a tote bag full of juice and cups.
I glanced at the folding table set up in the corner. There was a tray of breakfast tacos on a green-and-black plate I recognized as Tate’s and what looked like a French toast casserole from Emmy. The only outlier was a wholesale-sized bag of tortilla chips and a slow cooker sitting in the center.
“Since when is queso a breakfast food?”
Stevie dipped a chip into the bowl, then shoved it in her mouth. “It felt wrong to have a Moms of Mayhem meeting without queso at this point. It’s tradition.”
“I’ve stopped asking questions,” Tate said, sitting down on the reformer closest to her.
Daisy chuckled, unbuckling her toddler and handing him over to Emmy. “Probably for the best.”
Harper laughed with her, the sound so innocent it made my heart hurt. I hugged her, not willing to admit how much I’d miss these girls.
The longer she hugged me back, the more I couldn’t help but think Leena deserved this, too.
Not people who loved her father, but people who would love her.
Women who’d argue over queso before ten in the morning.
The kind of village that made sure no little girl ever wondered if she mattered.
Every kid deserved that.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat.
“Are you all packed? Ready to go? Scared about how much you’ll miss us when you’re alone in a tiny apartment with no toddlers to hug, thinking fondly of breakfast queso and the friends you left behind?”
Emmy choked on nothing. Tears streamed down her face as Daisy and Stevie got up to help, and Emmy waved them off.
“You good?” Tate asked when Emmy finally settled.
“Inhaled wrong,” she said, looking anywhere but at me. She swayed back and forth with the baby in her arms, fanning her face. How she’d managed to sneak around with her fiancée for so long was a mystery—she was the most obvious person I’d ever met.
“Mikko told the team we’re married,” I said before she inevitably gave me away, setting Harper on the floor.
That sentence sucked all the air out of the room.
All four of the women turned to look at me, unphased by the sound of toys crashing to the ground as Harper did her best impression of Godzilla.
“She’s fine,” Stevie said, not even looking at her daughter. “You, however…”
Daisy blinked. “The Viking guy, right? Beckett’s teammate?”
“Technically, he’s Finnish, so not a Viking. But yep, that guy.” Tate popped the P dramatically, raising a brow. “Is that why the Yeti announced he’s on leave?”
I rolled my eyes, only now realizing that Emmy stood there wide-eyed. “Part of it. Honestly, I’m shocked Emmy hasn’t told you everything she knows yet.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Emmy said quickly. “Besides, I don’t know anything. It’s your story.”
Tate did that slow blink move of hers that spoke volumes.
Emmy wilted. “… okay, fine. I know parts of your story.”
“How many parts?”
“Not much.”
I squinted at her, and Tate followed suit. “Wow. That was zero percent convincing.”
“Well, I know nothing, and I hate it,” Stevie said. “So somebody better start talking.”
Emmy’s hazel eyes went wide, looking between me and Stevie who now sat on a reformer with the bag of tortilla chips between her legs, chewing slowly like this was her favorite pastime. At this point, maybe it was.
Daisy pulled her grip socks on, then sat down on a reformer beside Tate. “Are we doing Pilates today?”
“No,” we all answered in unison.
She shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
“I’m going to need a lot more details,” Stevie said around a mouthful of chips. “My life is boring. No one bangs me in the back of a pickup truck, plies me with cheeseburgers at two in the morning, and I’ve never accidentally acquired a husband.”
The moment she said it out loud, tears gathered in her eyes.
“Oh, my god.” She clutched the chip bag to her chest. “He introduced you as his wife.”
Tate pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please don’t cry over someone else’s fake marriage.”
“I’m not crying,” Stevie sniffed. “I’m appreciating the romance.”
“Calm down,” I sighed. “It’s not even about me. It’s for his daughter.”
“I need far more information than you’re providing,” Tate said.
I recapped everything that had happened yesterday, except the part where I cried when he told me about Leena’s mom. In fact, I left Leena’s mom out of it altogether, keeping that information private. Mikko hadn’t asked me not to tell anyone, but trust was fragile, and it wasn’t my story to tell.
“So, what are you going to do?” Tate asked, now laying back on the reformer for some basic stretches. “Your clinical fellowship starts next week, right?”
“You’ve worked so hard for that,” Stevie added. “I think Emmy and I can both attest to the fact that children make everything harder. Wonderful, yes, but toddlerhood isn’t for the faint of heart.”
“They’re right,” Daisy said, looking at the toddler currently tugging on Emmy’s hair. “Ty and I are thrilled to have Kai with us for as long as he’s ours, but that little guy is a handful.”