Chapter 14
I’d seen Taylor look focused on work, sick from a hangover, and intent as she listened to problems, but I’d never seen her like this—like she was about to cry. “Are you ok?” I asked her.
“Tay, what’s wrong? Oh my God,” Kiya said, and she started nodding. “I knew this would happen. You finally realized that you’re in love—”
“No, this has nothing to do with me! Christ, Kiya!” She angrily huffed and appeared more like her usual self, and not so scared and serious.
“Then, what?” Kiya reached over and grabbed her hand. Maybe she was annoying about Taylor’s love life, but they were like sisters.
The three of us had gone out to eat today, leaving the stadium to sit in a little coffee shop nearby because Taylor had told us that she wanted to discuss something without being overheard.
People did sometimes eavesdrop at in the lunchroom…
I had eavesdropped in the lunchroom. But none of us had touched the sandwiches we’d ordered, because something was wrong.
Then Taylor told us what it was: “Victoria is pregnant.”
“Oh my God,” Kiya breathed. “Oh my God. She’s been so weird lately, tired and stuff. And sick instead of eating!”
I thought of Morgan Hurley telling me about nausea and about napping. “It makes sense,” I said. “Judas Priest.”
“It’s a bigger problem than you know,” Tay continued.
“Bigger than a baby?” I wondered.
“The dad is someone close to you,” she answered. She looked at me in a way that made my heart stutter.
“Who is the father?” I demanded. “Who?” The last word had been very loud. Victoria couldn’t have been with—she and Ronan—
“It’s Mr. Gowan.”
We stared at her. “My boss?”
“You guys know how she thought he was cute,” Taylor said, and we nodded woodenly. “Her department is right across the hall from the Office of Special Projects. She told me that she would wait and watch for him and then she would, you know, bump into him by mistake.”
“A classic move,” Kiya murmured.
“But I never knew it to work before now,” Taylor answered. “It really did this time. He brought some stuff from home, like a blanket and pillows, and they made a love nest in his office. He got curtains so that no one would be able to see in, since they were on the first floor.”
“I facilitated this,” I stated. I had gone with him to get the pillows and blanket from his house, and I had dealt with Annie Whitaker-Gassman about the drapes.
I also thought back to my terrible flight to Utah and how Mr. Gowan’s friends had asked him about his divorce and his “new girl.” It was a little hard to remember anything other than my terror but I had heard him mentioning that she was convenient.
It certainly would have been convenient to meet up with Victoria, since she worked just across the hall.
Taylor said that she’d known something was going on, and Kiya said she’d spotted it too, of course.
I was the only idiot who’d missed the obvious signs.
“I followed her out of the lunchroom right after Cate got back from the wedding,” Tay reminded us.
“She was throwing up in the bathroom and she admitted everything to me, but she made me swear not to tell anyone else.”
“Mr. Gowan is married,” I said. “He and his wife are still fighting and nothing is finalized.”
“Oh my God,” Kiya moaned again. “What about the baby?”
“She’s not that far along,” Taylor said. “She told him and he had a fit. She doesn’t know what to do.”
“Oh my God!”
“He’s trying to get alimony from his wife,” she explained.
“Why does he need alimony? Isn’t he rich?” Kiya glanced at me. “You’re always talking about him going here, there, and everywhere.” I nodded, because he was.
“I guess he does need the money and this would make him look really bad in court,” Taylor said, “so he doesn’t want to talk about it with her.”
“No, he doesn’t want to talk about it because he’s an idiot,” I interjected. “Since he can’t handle anything, he ignores it.”
“He’s doing all the stuff for the Junior Woodsmen,” Kiya reminded me.
“Yes. Well, about that…” I swallowed, but they had moved on.
“How is Vic’s family going to take this?” Kiya wondered. “Her brother is struggling so much right now.”
“He is?” I asked. “I didn’t know that.”
They both looked guilty. “He’s in treatment for drinking,” Taylor said. “She didn’t want too many people to know.”
I nodded. They had known but it had been a secret from me.
Obviously, my feelings weren’t important right now, and they continued to discuss Victoria, Mr. Gowan, and their baby.
Then we all had to go back to the football complex, and I had to go back to work with the guy.
He was in his office with the door closed, but I still heard him yell “come!” like I was his dog.
I was not and I did not. I ignored him, and when he got up to open the door and speak to me, I told him that I was too busy to figure out his streaming passwords (again).
He didn’t say anything as he retreated into his office, the one with the drapes he’d obtained in order to hide his love nest, and he shut the door.
I knew exactly how it would be for a baby that no one had planned or desired.
I was that baby, the one foisted on my dad when my mom had run off to Brazil or wherever she’d gone.
I wanted to talk to Victoria about this but Taylor had said that we couldn’t.
“She wanted me to tell you guys but she doesn’t want to discuss anything until she figures it out for herself,” she’d explained.
I went to the gym after work and then went directly home.
I thought about making dinner but decided that I didn’t care enough.
Instead, I grabbed a few crackers and sat on the couch, then I took all the stupid pillows and threw them into the bedroom where I wouldn’t have to see them.
This had been a terrible, terrible week.
Now there was all this happening with Victoria and my stupid boss but besides that, there was the situation with Ronan.
I had texted him on Sunday, the day after the game, to say hello.
He’d answered hi, he was pretty busy. He’d had a meeting at the stadium and then he was going to get some PT for his back, and afterwards he wanted to rest.
“Sounds good,” I had said. I should have continued with, “I could come over and make dinner.” I should have said, “We need to talk, face to face, because I can tell that something is wrong and I don’t like it.”
I hadn’t written any of that, or anything else either.
Another day had passed as I’d tried to figure out what to do and I hadn’t resolved anything in my mind.
Then today, he’d texted good morning and that he’d found out he was having a nephew.
I’d answered by saying that was great, and then?
Nothing. So, our friendship was basically ruined.
I thought back through my accomplishments and tried to find a parallel for this situation.
In ninth grade, I had resurrected the defunct Investment Club and become the president, before I’d left to go to the next school.
I had experience in bringing things back from extinction.
Maybe I could resurrect my relationship with Ronan, just like that scary cat in the movie he kept talking about.
He was so much on my mind that when I got a text, it felt like I’d conjured it. But it wasn’t from the person I wanted to hear from, anyway. This was…Cado?
“Hi Cate. This is Channing, Ronan’s friend.”
And my first thought was that something was wrong. “What happened? Is Ronan ok?” I typed frantically, and in a very annoying way, he didn’t answer for a moment.
“Yeah, I asked him for your number because I didn’t want him to be the intermediary,” he finally responded.
What Channing wanted was for me to be the intermediary instead, to set up a Cado-Kiya lifeline. “I want to apologize but she blocked me everywhere,” he explained. “I don’t want to show up at her condo and scare her. I’m not crazy.”
“Why do you want to apologize?” I wrote. Again, he didn’t immediately answer, so I offered a few possibilities. “Do you believe that you were in the wrong? Do you want her to stop thinking that you’re an AH? Do you want to get back together?”
He called me, maybe to stop leaving written evidence but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that his answers were too much to argue via text. “Hi,” he said.
“Yes, hi.”
“I was wrong that I didn’t talk to her about stuff, ok? That was a huge mistake.”
He sounded angry and that made me angry back. “Channing, I don’t care,” I told him. “Neither does Kiya.” Ok, it was true that I didn’t care, but I wasn’t actually sure about her feelings. “She’s seeing someone else.”
“I know. Ronan told me that this wouldn’t work and to leave her alone.
He said that when a woman is telling you how she feels, you have to believe it.
” Now he sounded totally glum and despite myself, I felt a little sorry for him.
“I miss her a lot. Sometimes you don’t know how great someone is until she’s gone. ”
I had known that someone was great, but I did feel it even more now that I’d lost him. “I get that.”
“She wanted me to drive downstate, stay with her parents, and meet her entire family. I knew what that meant and so did she. I should have told her that I was…”
“Scared and not ready,” I supplied. “Maybe you’ll never be ready. But you had a pouty fit like a baby instead of using words, when words are better.”
I could hear him breathe in and out, and it sounded very rage-filled. “Yeah, words are better.”
“Do you want me to believe that now you’re excited to meet her family because you’ve changed somehow?” I asked. “That’s not possible.”
“Like fuck it’s not!” Channing exploded. “Why the fuck can’t I change? Why can’t I be a guy who uses fucking words?”
“You do use the word ‘fuck’ a lot.”