12. Rae
12
RAE
Now
“ I ’d put barres along this wall and mirrors on the opposite side so the girls can see themselves and make the necessary adjustments to their form.”
With a grand sweep of my arm, I gesture to the wall of exposed brick and large, arched windows, letting in generous beams of natural sunlight I already know will make this space that much more magical when it’s filled with the soft swishes of ballet skirts and little faces pinched with determination as they try to master fifth position. Aaron looks at the wall, too, but it’s clear from his flat expression that he doesn’t see what I see. Still, I continue, hoping that my words will help him see my vision.
“Oh! I forgot to mention that along with the reception area up front, we’ll also sell pointe shoes with prep guides for the parents so they know how to get the shoes ready for the kids to wear, leotards, skirts, and t-shirts, hats, and bags all with the school logo.”
I’m talking a mile a minute, an almost child-like excitement building in my voice with every idea that pops into my mind and flows off my tongue. Still, Aaron’s face remains flat. Finally, when I can’t take anymore, I march across the room to him and pin him with a hard stare.
“What’s wrong?”
I feel like I’ve asked him that question a million times in the weeks since I laid myself bare in his office and gave him every sordid detail of my past with Hunter. Every now and again, I’ll catch him just staring at me with this look on his face I don’t understand and refuse to examine too closely because I’m scared I might not like what I find. When I ask him about it, he always says he’s fine, so I leave it alone, hoping that with enough time and space, he’ll work it out and come back to me.
In the meantime, I’ve been focusing on making my way back to myself because somewhere between the move, running into Hunter, trying not to strangle Marcy, getting Riley settled into her new school, and things falling apart with Aaron, I lost myself. I didn’t really realize it until I picked Riley up from school after a full day of trying to make up with Aaron and warning Hunter away, but listening to her talk about her new best friend, Scarlett, and the robotics club she wants to join, made it clear that everyone has found their path in New Haven except for me.
Hunter’s gym is doing better than ever. A quick Google search told me that in addition to the expansion of his original space, he’s also opened multiple locations across the state.
Aaron’s got his VP title and the corner office he’s always dreamed of.
Marcy is living the high life and annoying the ever-living fuck out of me.
Riley is thriving in an entirely new environment and making new friends every day.
And I’m just…here. Flitting around from one place to the next, solving problems, issuing warnings, soothing egos, and missing the one thing that makes me feel like myself: ballet.
The idea of the school came to me during a conversation with Dee’s sister Jayla, who spent the entirety of Riley’s play date with her daughter, Sonia, plying me with margaritas and town gossip while we FaceTimed with Dee, who was also partaking in Margarita Monday. I was explaining to them how much I miss dance when Jayla told me that she and a few other moms at Sonia’s current ballet school were fed up with the attitudes they were getting from the lead teacher, Lena. Somewhere between Jayla’s frustration and my longing for purpose, the idea of opening my own school was born. When I awoke the next morning, I was hungover but determined to make it become a reality.
It took me forever to find the perfect spot, and now that I’m here, standing in the middle of my dream, I’m a little frustrated that I have to pause to pull Aaron out of his feelings.
“Have you thought about how much this is going to cost?” he asks finally, his hands shoved into the pockets of the designer suit with a price tag that’s the equivalent of a month’s rent for most people.
“I’ve run the numbers, and I have enough in my savings to cover start-up costs and the first six months of operating costs.”
Just enough.
If I don’t spend another dollar out of it.
Aaron raises a brow. “The savings you’re currently paying your half of our monthly expenses out of?”
My jaw clenches as I try to reign in my temper. I hate when he asks me questions we both already know the answer to. “Yes, Aaron, that same savings.”
He nods, but there’s no acceptance or support in the action, only condescension that he aims right at me with his next question. “So which one of our bills are we going to forgo paying to cover this dream of yours, Rae? The mortgage? My car note? Riley’s tuition?”
“Aaron, please, stop being so dramatic.”
“I’m not being dramatic. I’m being realistic” He widens his stance and lifts his shoulders in an exasperated shrug. “Go ahead, pick one.”
The gauntlet he’s just thrown lands at my feet, and my better angels appeal to me to leave it there, to do what’s necessary to restore the peace Aaron has taken so much pleasure in destroying. I want to listen to them, but I can’t, probably because something about Riley’s tuition—which Aaron promised would be taken care of even after my savings ran out—being on that list unhinges me.
I run my tongue across my teeth and huff out an outraged laugh.
“ If I had to choose, I’d probably start with the whole slew of bills we’re paying for your mother. Then, I’d eliminate the membership fees for the country club you only got to impress your co-workers and the gym you’ve never set foot in. And if we still needed to tighten our belts a little more, I’d sell our five-bedroom house and move our family of three into a house that doesn’t have a four hundred dollar HOA fee attached to it.”
Shock takes over his features before they morph into a disappointed glare. “We’re not having this conversation again.”
“Why not? If you can question my choices, I can question yours. Or does it not work both ways?” I cock my head to the side in a gesture that is all sass and outrage, and Aaron shakes his head, clearly disapproving of my indignation.
“I’m asking questions about a decision you’ve yet to make, and you’re bringing up stuff that’s been decided for a long time now. I’m paying my mom’s bills because she is on a fixed income and deserves to be able to do what she wants with what little money she has. We bought a five-bedroom house because we decided that we were going to start a family here in New Haven.”
Everything about his answer pisses me off, but I only have the mental capacity to address the last part.
“ Start a family? We already have a family, Aaron. You, me, and Riley are a family.”
I leave Marcy out of it because…fuck Marcy.
Aaron’s brows dip together. “You know what I mean, Rae.”
“No, I don’t think I do. Please elaborate.”
We both know that we’re walking down a path that spells disaster for the rest of our night, but Aaron can’t turn us around, and I don’t want to.
He licks his lips, racking his brain for the best way to deliver the bullshit on his tongue. “I love Riley, you know that.” I nod even though sometimes I question it. Even though their bond is nothing like I thought it would be after seven years of him being in her life. She doesn’t even call him Dad even though he’s the only father figure that’s ever been in her life, and he doesn’t seem bothered by it, which is weird considering his recent push to have me call Marcy Mom. “But,” he continues, putting his hands on my hips and pulling me in close. “I want my own kid. Someone with my eyes and my last name, who looks like my mom or somehow laughs just like my dad even though they’ve never met him.”
His tone grows softer with every declaration while something inside me fractures because his vision doesn’t account for the fact that any child we made together would still have some of me and Riley in them.
They could come out with my mom’s eyes, Will’s hands, or Riley’s dimpled smile.
They could be more us than Aaron or Marcy, and the fact that he hasn’t even considered that bothers me.
“I’m not ready for another child, Aaron.”
I leave out that I might not ever be ready for another one, that going through pregnancy alone, without my mom, Will, or even Hunter by my side, scarred me in ways that I still haven’t recovered from. Dee would have been there if she could, but she was all the way in Michigan being a psychological rock star, and I never let on how sad and lonely I was because I didn’t want her to drop everything to come to New York and try to fix it, especially since I knew there was no way for her to.
When Aaron lets me go, it’s a clear rebuke. A silent censure he only lends his voice to once he’s paced from one end of the room to the next twice.
“You can’t keep doing this to me, Rae.”
I’m genuinely confused. “What am I doing to you, Aaron?”
“Yanking the rug out from under me with no warning. First, it was the whole Hunter thing. And now you want to take a gamble on entrepreneurship and delay starting—” My eyes narrow, and he pauses, changing the phrasing of his final grievance with me, “— having a baby. It’s like none of the plans we made matter to you anymore.”
“Of course, our plans matter to me, but I matter too. Don’t I?”
My chin wobbles, and tears blur my vision, not because I’m sad but because I’m so angry I want to scream, but I can’t give the realtor waiting outside the building for us cause for concern.
In all the years that we’ve been together, Aaron has never seen me mad to the point of tears, so he mistakes them as a sign of despair. He rushes over and takes me into his arms, and I go reluctantly, which makes a hold that’s supposed to be comforting feel awkward and unnatural.
“Of course, you matter, babe,” he murmurs into my forehead before leaning back and giving me a reassuring smile. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”
Relief flows through my veins, allowing the red to fade from my vision so I can see the man in front of me more clearly. I gaze up at Aaron, reminding myself that one of the reasons I fell in love with him is because he’s a problem solver. If he says we’ll figure out how to balance my dreams and his desires, then I trust that we will.
“Okay.”
With things somewhat settled between us, Aaron drops a kiss on my lips and glances at his watch. “We should get going.”
Truthfully, I’m worn out and not at all in the mood for the level of socializing that will be required to get through the event Aaron is so eager to get to, but I can’t back out because it will just result in another argument.
Aaron grabs my hand, and I let him lead me down the hall and out of the building. Soledad, the realtor kind enough to let us do the walk-through alone, even though she’s not supposed to, is waiting for us on the sidewalk.
“So, did you love it?” Her question is directed at Aaron because I already gushed to her about how perfect the space was for me when we did a showing earlier this week.
“It’s great,” Aaron says as he hands her the keys. The light, positive tone of his voice makes my heart lift. Hope bubbles up in my chest when he shakes Soledad’s hand and says, “We’ll be in touch.”
The first time Aaron told me we had to attend the annual business award dinner hosted by New Haven’s Chamber of Commerce, I wasn’t all that excited about going. I thought it was going to be boring and filled with a bunch of old snobs who looked nothing like me.
Of course, there are some people who fit that description, but I’m too happy with the way our conversation with Soledad ended to let it get me down. It also doesn’t hurt that within five minutes of us being in the room, we have drinks in our hands and have found ourselves in the presence of one of my old sparring partners from Hunter’s gym, Mallory Kent. As soon as we locked eyes, she waved me and Aaron over and introduced us to her husband, Chris, her sister-in-law, Sloane, and her brother, Dominic. Although Mallory and I never hung out outside the gym, and this is my first time meeting her husband and siblings, everyone is extremely welcoming and, once we realize we’re all NHU alums, conversation flows easily between us. The only interruption is the ringing of Chris’ phone.
We all watch him weave through the crowd, concentrating intently on whatever the person on the other end of the line is saying. Mallory’s gaze lingers the longest, and when she looks back at me, there’s pure adoration in her amber eyes.
“Chris is a doctor,” she explains, taking a sip of her champagne. “He’s on call tonight, which means he’ll probably be leaving us at some point because babies don’t care that it’s date night when they’re ready to be born.”
“They don’t care once they’re born either,” Sloane says, smiling ruefully.
Mallory nods her head in agreement. “True.”
“How old are your little ones?” I ask, genuinely curious, even though Aaron is shuffling his feet like he’s uncomfortable with the turn the conversation has taken. I glance at him, apologizing with my eyes because I didn’t mean to make things awkward for him.
Dominic is a quiet giant, but the moment my question reaches his ears, he’s got his phone out with a picture of a chubby little baby girl with his dark eyes and her mama’s curls.
“This is Ariel. She just turned four months old, and these little hellions are Eric and Jasmine. They were born two weeks after our demon child.” He swipes to the right, and the screen changes, displaying a photo of two equally chubby babies with Mallory’s ebony skin and amber eyes. They’re carbon copies of her, which makes me laugh. Dominic laughs, too, reading my thoughts clearly. “I know, right? It’s like Chris wasn’t even in the room when they were conceived.”
“Damn, Nic, leave it to you to whip out pictures of my kids before I can.”
He shrugs, unapologetic. “Don’t be mad at me because you got slow reflexes.”
Mallory gapes at him. “My reflexes aren’t slow. I’m just sleep-deprived.”
Dominic continues showing me photos, sharing stories about each one as he goes while Sloane and Mallory add details he’s forgotten to include.
“Do you two have kids?” Mallory asks once the baby show and tell is done.
I hate the way I pause because I’m not sure how to answer. Before the conversation earlier, it would have been an easy yes, but now I find myself hesitating, hoping that Aaron will heal what his words broke by whipping out his phone and showing everyone pictures of Riley.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he just sips his champagne and looks around the room, probably planning what group of unsuspecting business owners he’s going to infiltrate next, leaving me to answer, to wonder whether he even has any pictures of Riley on his phone to share.
“I have a daughter. Her name’s Riley,” I say, digging my phone out of my clutch and showing them the photo of her on my lock screen. It’s a picture of us taken on our last day in New York. I’m sitting on the sill of the window of her old bedroom, and she’s in my lap, grinning up at the camera.
“She’s beautiful!” Mallory says, and Sloane nods her agreement before saying, “She looks just like you.”
“Thank you.”
I tuck my phone back into my purse and try to hide how embarrassed I am by Aaron’s silence. Just as I pull myself together, he goes and makes it worse by making his first real contribution to the conversation since telling everyone his name an overzealous exclamation about some guy that just walked into the room with an entire entourage behind him.
“I didn’t know Sebastian Adler was going to be here!”
I groan inwardly. Here we go again with the Sebastian Adler talk. These days he gets more excited about a complete stranger than he does me. Granted, the stranger in question is a billionaire and handsome as all get out, but still.
“He’s always at these things even though he always claims he won’t be,” Dominic says, speaking with the kind of authority you only use when you know someone personally. He confirms my suspicion with his next words. “Do you want an introduction?”
Aaron’s eyes turn into saucers. “Seriously?”
Dominic shrugs like it’s no big deal, and judging by Mallory and Sloane’s calm reaction, I get the sense that it’s not, then he lifts his hand and waves the elusive billionaire down. Within seconds, our group has expanded, going from five to nearly a dozen. Sebastian greets Dominic first, dapping him up before turning his attention to Sloane and then Mallory, both of whom he greets by name.
“Seb, this is Rachel Prince and her partner, Aaron Scott,” Dominic says, which then puts me in the crosshairs of the intimidating but surprisingly friendly man. He extends his hand, and I take it, shocked at the warmth and size of it.
“Nice to meet you, Rachel.”
“Rae,” I blurt, nervous for some reason. “You can call me Rae.”
“Rae,” he repeats, smiling like he’s used to people losing their shit in front of him.
Aaron’s hand appears between us, and Sebastian’s brows dip down into a deep frown that Aaron either doesn’t see or has just chosen to ignore. “I’m Aaron Scott, VP of Business Development at Statler and Fawn.”
Sebastian is clearly unimpressed, but he still shakes Aaron’s hand. “Statler and Fawn,” he says thoughtfully. “You’ve been trying to get some time on my calendar for a while now.”
Aaron’s head bobs up and down, his eyes alight with an eagerness befitting a child. “That’s right. You’re a hard man to get a hold of.”
“Yeah, that’s intentional.” Sebastian runs an assessing gaze over Aaron’s face and laughs in a way that says this conversation is over. Then he pulls his hand back and smiles. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see my wife across the room, and she’ll have my head if I keep her waiting any longer.”
And just like that, he’s gone, leaving the group of men he came in with to follow closely behind. I’m not sure who they are, but since Sebastian didn’t feel the need to introduce them to us, I’m going to assume they’re security or maybe low-level employees. Either way, they move quickly, all of their gazes focused on the crowd surrounding us. At the tail end of the group are two men who move at a slower pace, their strides casual as they talk among themselves. Since I’m the only person in our group still paying attention to the processional, I’m the only one who notices when one of those men pauses, even though his partner is still moving.
To his credit, once Hunter realizes I am, in fact, standing in front of him, he tries to honor his vow to keep moving. He pulls his dark gaze from my face, even though I can’t manage to look away from him, and begins to angle his body in the other direction. Unfortunately for both of us, Mallory spots him before he gets the chance to move.
“Hunter Drake, I know you weren’t just going to walk past me without speaking,” she says, and everybody, including Aaron who only recognizes the name because I told him it, turns to look at him, which means they see me looking at him too. And I’m not just looking at him, I’m devouring him visually, taking in every line of his hulking frame and silently cursing myself for being impressed by the way the fabric of his suit clings to it like a lover.
I’ve only ever seen him in a suit twice before. Once at my college graduation, and, later that same year, at my brother’s funeral. Both times, he wore the same one. That suit was nice, and it fit him well, but this one? This one isn’t just nice, and it doesn’t just fit well. It looks like it was made for him, like every stitch was made with the composition of his form in mind.
Although Mallory is the one who called him out, Hunter looks to me before he makes a move to acknowledge her. It takes me one stuttered heartbeat to realize that he’s waiting for me to give him permission to break his promise, and God, my brain must be broken because I give it to him with nothing more than a slight incline of my head.
“Russ, I’ll catch up with you later.” He tosses the words over his shoulder as he moves forward and brings Mallory in for a hug. Then, just like Sebastian, he spreads greetings around the group, saving me and Aaron for last.
“Hey,” he says, standing in front of me with dark eyes that run greedy laps over my features and steal my breath.
I swallow hard, unable to drop his gaze even though I know I should look away. “Hi.”
Aaron clears his throat and reaches for me, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Hunter, I’ve heard so much about you.”
Aaron’s tone is so nasty that I’m left with no choice but to glare at him, silently warning him to pull back. The act robs me of the opportunity to see how Hunter reacts to the fact that I’ve been talking about him but affords me the chance to see Aaron’s smug smile be eaten up by shock when Hunter says, “And you are?”
I’m not feeling particularly charitable towards Aaron, but I still save him the embarrassment of answering the question himself. “This is Aaron Scott, my partner.”
“Partner,” Hunter repeats slowly, the time he takes to do so making the years Aaron and I have been together sound like nothing. He nods and presses his lips into a tight line before stepping back from us.
An awkward bout of silence follows the exchange, but Sloane clears it up by pulling us into an anecdotal story about one of her client’s bizarre design requests. The change of topic allows me to relax just a little, but I grow tense once more when Aaron leans in close and whispers in my ear.
“I’m going to see if I can get us moved to Sebastian’s table,” he says, pressing a kiss to my temple before striding away.
I don’t know whether to be glad he’s gone or angry that he’s on a mission to embarrass himself once again, so I just stand there stunned until Hunter sidles up beside me, the heat of his body turning me to mush.
“Thought you were married,” he whispers, his voice pitched low so only I can hear.
“I never said that.”
“You let me think he’s your family, and he’s not.”
Against my better judgment, I look up at him just to find that he’s already looking at me. “You and I both know that family can look a lot of different ways. It’s not always rings and vows or bloodlines.”
A thousand memories pass between us in a heartbeat, and between our individual streams of consciousness that are playing the same images in a different order, we each find the truth of my words.
We were family once, and now we’re just strangers with a shared history.
Hunter’s breath fans across my lashes. “Rae.”
I shake my head, too aware of the fact that we’re not alone. “Don’t.”
When I turn my attention back to the group, I notice that everyone is trying not to notice us. They’re all intentionally averting their gazes, looking for something or someone in the crowd to distract them from Hunter and me. Lucky for them, that distraction comes in the form of Chris’ return to the group. He’s no longer on the phone, but he is wearing a slightly haggard expression on his face.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Mallory asks, reaching a hand out for him.
Chris steps back into the fold and acknowledges Hunter with a slight lift of his chin before answering his wife. “Nothing, just the babysitter calling with a million and one questions. You’d think it was her first night on the job.”
Mallory laughs. “First of all, stop calling her the babysitter like she’s not your sister. Second, cut her some slack because it’s her first time keeping both twins at once. Of course, she has questions.”
“The Elliots’ daughter didn’t have any questions,” Chris grumbles into his glass.
“The Elliots’ daughter is also fifteen years old. I don’t care how many damn CPR certifications she has, she’s not watching my kids alone.”
Hunter lets out a low whistle. “Fifteen?”
Dominic nods. “Yep, I was shocked too, but apparently, that’s the norm around here.”
“I had my first babysitting job when I was twelve,” I offer. “It’s a great way to make money, especially on the weekends. My friend Deanna and I used to have a whole roster of families we worked for. We’d use the money to pay for our dance gear when our moms couldn’t.”
“Okay, Black babysitter club,” Sloane says, which makes us all laugh.
“Riley loves those books,” I tell them, smiling fondly at the memory of introducing them to her. “She swears when she’s old enough, she’s going to start her own babysitting club.”
“How old is she anyway?” Mallory asks.
“She’s nine. She’ll be ten in August,” I answer immediately, not realizing my mistake until I feel Hunter’s body go stiff beside me. One glance in his direction shows his face scrunched in concentration as he plays my confession back in his head. I watch the wheels turn in his brain, see the mental math he’s doing, and then, the exact moment when it all clicks.
His eyes lock onto mine, and I must be wearing confirmation on my face because he sees it.
The thing he missed in the cemetery that day.
The signs he was too far gone to notice all those years ago.
The truth I can’t stand here and acknowledge.
“I need to find Aaron,” I murmur, backing away from the group of confused faces and turning to leave without so much as a goodbye. I don’t realize I’ve moved toward the exit until I’m out in the hallway alone, save for the sound of Hunter’s approaching footsteps. He’s moving fast, so fast I hardly have time to round the corner that leads to the bathroom before he catches up to me.
It’s been years since he’s touched me, so the moment he catches me by the wrist, my entire body rocks with tremors of shock. I snatch away, holding the affected limb with the fingers of my other hand, and stumble back.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Riley’s going to be ten in August?” he asks, his voice a low, broken tremor.
“Hunter, I need you to walk away. I need you to leave me alone.”
He shakes his head, denying my request without a moment of consideration. “Answer me, Rae. Tell me I heard you correctly when you said your daughter is about to be ten.”
“Yes! Okay?! You heard me right. Are you happy now?”
A humorless laugh echoes off of the walls of the hallway. “If she’s turning ten this year, that means you gave birth in 2014, which means you got pregnant in 2013, which means…”
He trails off, leaving the gap open for me to fill. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I shake my head, silently communicating that to him. Hunter puts his hands on top of his head and stares at me, crucifying me with his eyes, with Riley’s eyes.
“It means—” he swallows roughly before starting again. “It means you were pregnant when you left New Haven. It means you were pregnant when you left me.”
I lie a lot.
It’s a fact that I’m aware of, and not really something I’m trying to fix about myself because every lie I tell is a lie of necessity. I lied to Aaron about not knowing who Riley’s father was because I needed to be able to build a life with him without Hunter casting a shadow over it. I lied to myself about being okay with moving back to New Haven because I wanted the life I had with Aaron and foolishly thought I’d keep it if we were here.
And when Hunter’s features are flooded with a thousand emotions that pull the lines of his handsome face into tight lines fraught with hurt, anger, panic and pain, I lie to myself and say that I only see the panic. I tell myself that I’m staring confirmation of my choice in the face, that ten years after the fact, Hunter is showing me that I did the right thing because not only was he not ready for the responsibility of a child, he didn’t want it.
He didn’t want her.
I repeat the lie so many times, I almost accept it as truth, but then Hunter does that thing he always does. He surprises me. He scrubs a hand over his face, and I watch acceptance wash away every bad feeling and negative thought until the only thing left is hope and a depth of emotion for my daughter I’ve never seen in Aaron’s eyes.
“When can I meet her?”