We’d had Patrick, Hayden, and Noah so far, and I felt better knowing there was no one else to crash our party. I was fresh out of exes—not that Patrick was an ex, although he probably qualified now. Ruthie’s husband was hours into zombies and I couldn’t see him dropping by the Grille.
Ruthie and I had gone out on the floor for a line dance I no more knew how to do than that last chip on my plate did. What I thought was a brilliant strategy of staying in the middle so that Noah wouldn’t see me didn’t really pan out. There weren’t enough of us out there for anyone to hide, and he zeroed in on me like white on rice.
Not as heavily as before. Just with his eyes, on and off, as he chatted with Shayna. Then he’d look away and give her his full attention. Of course, I might not have noticed it so much if I weren’t looking at him.
An old friend of Ruthie’s stopped her on the way back to our table, and I kept going. The relative aloneness at the table was nice—in a way. I could regroup and adjust. I saw a few people I could go say hello to, but I didn’t want to. My mind still reeled from the news about Becca, and the few times I saw Hayden he looked more and more irritated. My guess was that his liquid cure-all wasn’t working. Becca texted me twice with updates, one being a picture of the whole group of them. Two were boys, and I zoomed the photo up, studying them and sending them subliminal warnings. All I could think of was history repeating itself. It was not going to be a pleasant conversation with her, and every angle I thought up ended in a screaming fight.
A slow song came on, and as I glanced around to make sure Hayden wasn’t gunning for me, I got an eyeful of Noah and Shayna on the dance floor instead. Wrapped in each other’s arms, her head tilted back to smile up at him lovingly.
I was hit with a gut kick and a burn that set my whole chest on fire. I looked away and gulped down my third glass of water, refusing to watch that. Look away, idiot. He’s not yours to get possessive over.
“Shit,” I muttered, turning back in spite of myself. They were laughing about something, and he tucked a stray piece of perfect hair behind her ear. “Okay,” I said, bolting to my feet, needing something to do.
I walked to the bar, my skin feeling like it had taken on a life of its own.
“Can I order food here?” I asked.
“Sure,” the lady said. “Do you need a menu?”
I shook my head. “Dessert—what’s the best you have?”
“The blackberry cobbler,” she said.
“That’ll work,” I said, nearly bouncing on my toes. I couldn’t be still. “Two of them, with ice cream.”
I showed her what table and made my way slowly back to it, taking in the view and understanding with a start what Noah’s expression had been about when he saw Hayden and me. Not that it made a bit of sense. We had nothing to be jealous about and no rights to each other—but at that one second I wanted Ruthie to come sit on me before I ended up yanking a pregnant woman out of his arms. I wrapped my arms around my middle as if that would ease the burn, but all that did was make me feel the trembling more. What the hell.
“Stop watching,” Ruthie’s voice said to my right as she perched back on her chair.
I jumped, startled, and twisted around to face her, feeling like an errant child. I grabbed a coaster and fanned myself with it.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, emotional laughter bubbling up that threatened to turn to tears. “What is this? I’m forty-three years old, not fourteen. Why am I reacting like an adolescent?”
“Because that’s where you left off,” she said. “You two never got to see each other as adults. Or with other people.”
I blew out a slow breath. “Well, this sucks.”
“We can go, Jules,” she said, chuckling. “We don’t have to stay here so you torture yourself all night.”
I shook my head. “No. You said not to let him run me away, and I’m not.” I held up my chin and smiled at her. “Besides, she’s pregnant, she’ll want to go home soon.”
Ruthie laughed. “Good point.”
“By the way, we have dessert coming.”
Noah being back in town was going to turn me into a hippopotamus.
An hour later when they were still there, my resolve began to wane. And as I left the ladies’ room for the fourth time after fifty glasses of water and three margaritas, another slam to the midsection hit me. Yes, Noah and Shayna were on the dance floor again, but they already had been. I was getting immune to that.
It was the song that started playing.
“Oh, holy hell.”
• • •
I was never one to go wiggy over a song with an old flame. Hayden and I had a song, and I quietly recognized it every time I heard it and that was that. I even kind of remembered that Noah and I had an actual song we’d danced to at a high school dance once, but that one never really registered with me.
The day our baby was born was crazy. It was drizzling and cold and confusing. We’d just had an argument at the park and when my water broke we lost our minds. The scrambling we did to get to the car in what then became a downpour was insane. To this day I remember thinking the sky was crying for us. For the decision I hadn’t completely made yet.
“Damn it, Linny’s tank is on fumes,” Noah said, pounding the steering wheel. “I meant to get gas before I picked you up.”
“We have time—I think,” I stuttered, trying to remember what I’d read in the book I’d checked out from the library. “No contractions yet.”
Noah’s right hand went to my belly, my rain-soaked T-shirt stretched across it. “I’ll get you there safe, Little Bit,” he said, his affectionate name for it making my eyes burn for the fortieth time that day. “We just need to get some gas first.”
“I need my bag,” I said. “I prepacked everything like the book said. I can’t go to the hospital without my bag.”
“We’ll call your mom when we get there,” he said, trying to see through the rain. “She can bring it.”
“Or we can swing by my house, Noah, it’s right—”
“No,” he said, taking his hand off my belly and gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “Please, Jules, for once can we do something on our own without your mother? Can we do this on our own?” He darted glances at me between watching the road and pulling out of Copper Falls onto the highway. “She’ll take over and push me aside, you know she will.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling unsure of everything. I’d never felt so unprepared and insecure in my life. The only thing I’d done right was pack that damn bag, and now I didn’t even have that.
“Trust me, baby. Please?” Noah said, grabbing my hand and squeezing it. My hands felt like ice against his warm ones, and the warmth spread like honey through me. “Let me take care of you.”
I squeezed back. “I do trust you, Noah. I’m just scared.” I rubbed my free hand over my belly, where the baby shoved a foot against my palm. “This is all happening—like right now.”
He shoved a cassette tape into the deck in the dash. “Listen to this, Jules. Really listen to it.” He pressed a button to advance it a few tracks, and then grabbed the steering wheel to turn the car off the highway as a gas station came into view.
Tonight’s the night we’ll make history . . . honey, you and I . . .
“It’s Styx,” I said, cringing as a tightness grabbed hold of my midsection like giant hands squeezing. “I know this song—shit, Noah, something really is happening.”
Noah’s face was whiter than normal as he looked my way and swallowed hard. “Okay, baby, just—here, hold my hand. I’m stopping up here for gas and then just a few more minutes up the highway.”
There was a line of cars waiting at the station, making us the third one back, and I closed my eyes and squeezed his hand as we sat in silence listening to Styx sing about how even when you think it’s the worst of times, that taking on life together made it the best of times.
Another contraction pulled everything inward, like my body was trying to wring the baby out of me. I shut my eyes tighter and the music filled all my senses as Noah inched the car closer.
“Ow, damn it,” I said, hearing the tears in my voice. I didn’t want to be scared. I thought I was good with everything. I thought I could handle it. But there with it happening, with it actually happening, I wanted to run. “Noah, hurry.”
“I am,” he whispered. I looked his way and he was breathing as hard as I was, probably just as scared. We made it up to the pump and he slammed the car in Park and jumped out. “Hang in there, Jules, I’ll be right back.”
He literally sprinted into the store, and I absorbed the sound of the rain pelting everything around me. I rubbed my belly and took breaths like I’d seen the women do on television. I never took Lamaze, my mom said it was a bunch of bunk, but now I could see where it might at least be distracting.
Hot tears fell down my cheeks as I worked my fingers over the wet fabric and felt feet or hands or elbows or something small pushing my stomach into contorted shapes as whoever was inside rolled over.
“I want to be your momma, baby,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “But I don’t know how. Right now, I just want mine.” Sobs worked their way up. “Do you know how much I love you?”
Noah ran back to the car and crammed the pump into the gas tank as fast as he could, pumping ten dollars in. Then he jumped in and handed me a roll of wintergreen LifeSavers.
“I know they always soothe your stomach when you—” He stopped short as he caught sight of my face. “What’s the matter? Shit, Jules, I’m sorry, I’ll hurry.” He jerked the car out of the parking lot and onto the feeder road on two wheels.
“No—it’s not that,” I sputtered. “I’m just—freaking out a little.”
Noah blew out a giant breath as he got back on the highway. “Baby, I know. I know you’re scared, I am too.” He glanced my way. “But it’s just like that song. You think this is the worst right now, but it’s really the best. I mean, yeah, it’s crazy but we’re—we’re starting our own family here. Right now.” He laughed out loud, sounding so proud. “My God, I’m about to be a dad.” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it, kissing the little engagement ring that adorned my finger. “And you’re gonna be a great mom, Jules. Who cares that we’re starting early? I’ll stand with you and Little Bit till the end of time, baby.”
“I know,” I whispered, feeling the invisible hand squeeze my middle again. “Oh, God, this is so not cool, Noah,” I said in a grimace as I automatically doubled forward.
Five minutes that felt like five hours later, we screeched into the emergency room drive and Noah jumped out of the car and ran around. He opened my door and took my hand, pulling me to my feet. His blue eyes glittered with excited tears.
“This is it, Jules.”
“This is it,” I said back. I wrapped my arms around his neck for dear life. “I love you, Noah.”
“Always, baby,” he said, hugging me back. “I’ll always love you.”
“Don’t let go,” I whispered.
“Never,” he said into my hair. “Holy shit, look!”
I backed up and followed his eyes upward. The rain had turned into snow. Oh, my God, snow was falling. Here.
Noah started laughing and cradled my face in his hands, blinking fast. “It’s snowing, baby, it’s a sign. This is our miracle.”
I blinked upward as Noah knelt and kissed my belly. “Our miracle.”
I shut my eyes against the memory as I found myself on a darkened edge of the room, gripping the back of a chair. It had been years since that song spoke to me. I’d avoided it every time it came on the radio at first, and then when I moved on to darker, angrier music to numb things it wasn’t a consideration.
Over the years it was rarer to hear it, and when I did I usually changed the station and moved on. It wasn’t part of the last-moments-as-a-family montage like the painting and the bench were. It stood for the black moments that made up my mind. And I didn’t need to revisit that to remember them.
A back door exit caught my eye as a couple of women came inside from what I assumed was a smoke break. That’s what I needed. A smoke break. Ruthie had left the table again when I looked, finding other people to talk to as I kept ditching her, so I made a beeline for the door. Pushing through it, cold icy air hit my face, making me gasp with the contrast of it.
I welcomed it—sucked in big gulps of it, hoping it would freeze up everything inside of me. Numb everything. As the door settled back in place, the song and its taunting lyrics were muffled. The dual visual of Noah and Shayna locked up and Noah and I standing in the falling snow fizzled a bit with the icy wind. The cold and the darkness from no lighting wrapped around me as I sat in one of two old plastic chairs set out there against the brick walls. I felt like I could breathe easy for the first time that evening, and I leaned over, elbows on my knees, resting my forehead against my palms.
I considered myself a strong, independent woman. I never saw myself as weak or needy or weepy. I couldn’t stand those types of women. But it was too much. Upside down and sideways. My head spun through zinging thoughts of Becca, Hayden, Noah and that damn song, even Patrick and how I’d insulted him.
Hot tears burned my eyes, and I wiped them away as they turned cold on my cheeks. I had to get it together and quit this. I was better than this.
The sound from inside barreled out to me as the door opened again, and I tried to shrink against the brick in the dark, sniffing and wiping the wetness from my face. The aroma of beer and fried food wafted on the air.
“You okay?”
I wanted to groan at the familiar voice as he walked closer. I quickly wiped the remnants of my tears away and sat up straighter, feeling delirium coming on. I chuckled as I swiped under my eyes one last time.
“Do you have a GPS on me or something?”
Noah knelt directly in front of me, making my pulse jump up a notch. “I’m not that crafty,” he said, his voice low.
“Yeah, right.”
One shoulder shrugged slightly. “Well, maybe.” Even in the dark, I could see the hint of a grin tug at the corners of his lips. “But, no. I just wanted to check on you, I saw you come out here.”
After “The Best of Times” knocked you on your ass is what he didn’t add on to that sentence. I was surprised he’d noticed me at all, all locked up with Shayna like he was. Or that there was the possibility he even connected the two. He might not remember that moment in the car at all.
“Of course you did,” I muttered, running a hand over my face, feeling wrung out. “Is there anywhere that you won’t be? Because I haven’t found that place yet.”
The grin left, and a cold that had nothing to do with the air emanated off him.
“Yeah, here’s one,” he growled, pushing to his feet and regret flooded through me.
“Noah, wait.” I reached out before logic could form a plan and grabbed his arm, making us both suck in a breath as it slipped to his wrist and then his hand. We both stared at the union, and his fingers wrapped around mine. That breath fell right out of me. “I’m sorry,” I said, the words barely making it out of my mouth. “I didn’t mean—”
He slowly lowered back to one knee until we were eye level again, resting an elbow on my knee and not letting go of my hand. His expression was cloudy and troubled, his jaw tight, but all I could think of was the feel of his hand around mine.
“I know,” he said, his voice gruff. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a couple of beats before they opened and burned into me. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”
The proximity of his body, his arm on my knee, his hand shooting heat through mine had me dizzy with the stupids. I needed order, structure, someone to tell me to hold the crazy in, because right at that moment we weren’t grown-up responsible people. We were back in the place where we were us and knew how to be with each other, and I wanted to let everything sensible go.
“It’s been a lot of years,” I said instead, my voice sounding hoarse and scratchy. Trying to find the logic that had to be floating around if I could just snag it. “Everything got put away—doors locked up tight.” I paused and watched his eyes go soft. “But now you fall out of the sky and knock all those doors open. And suddenly I’m not sure where I am half the time.”
It was ballsy to admit that. It put me on very uneven ground. Shaky and vulnerable and wide open for him to scoff and blow me off and leave me looking like a fool. I never put myself in such a precarious position, and I couldn’t imagine why I was being so foolish now.
I felt his thumb move across my hand and warmth shot to all kinds of places it shouldn’t. He looked down at my hand in his with something I could only describe as heaviness.
“I know the feeling,” he said softly.
I was getting light-headed, and I hadn’t had near enough alcohol to justify that. I needed normal back. I needed to not want to wrap myself around him and do things we’d regret.
“Why are you out here with me, Noah?” I asked, knowing the direction I needed to go to get us back thinking right. “You have a pregnant girlfriend—” I stopped and licked my lips, feeling the burn in my chest again and refusing to allow it. “A pregnant fiancée out there,” I corrected. “Sitting alone, not able to drink, while you come track me down. That can’t bode well for your evening.”
He let go of my hand and scrubbed at his eyes, and I immediately missed the contact.
“Probably not,” he said.
Lighten it up. “You know, those pregnant emotions are—”
“I know,” he said. “I remember the emotions, Jules. I’ve had a pregnant fiancée before.”
Everything left me. All the words of wisdom, patience, sadness, chemistry, even anger—it all left me. I had nothing to say back as my lips moved but thoughts were whisked away with the icy cold. I shivered, realizing I hadn’t even felt it since he’d come outside. But the whiplash changing from the earlier tender moment was quite palpable.
“Yes, you did,” I whispered finally. “At least up until the pregnant part was over.”
I saw the flash in his eyes, felt it as he pushed away from me and to his feet.
“Not my doing.”
“Really?” I said, rising to my feet as well. I stepped away from the chair to put some space between us. “Because I’m pretty sure I didn’t leave to go sail the ocean blue—”
He walked slowly into me, backing me to the bricks until I gasped. He braced one hand against the brick wall. “You have no—idea—what I did,” he said, just inches from my face, his voice low and raw.
“No, I don’t,” I whispered, my voice shaking. Under the circumstances, I thought that was pretty remarkable. I held my chin up, refusing to back down even when he was so close I could have licked him. “And whose fault was that? You knew how to find me. I never left.”
“You didn’t have to,” he said. “Your mother did it for you when she convinced you to bail on us—” he said, his voice clipped. “To bail on our son.”
My entire body went hot, my skin prickling with the fire from a million tiny flames. The conversation we’d never had over twenty years earlier was boring into me with what I knew to be hard blue anger, but in the dark just looked black.
I pushed against him, hoping he’d move, but it was like attempting to move a boulder. Blinded through a shimmer of tears, I pushed up so that our noses nearly touched.
“And you bailed on me,” I said through my teeth.
My heart pounding in my ears, I stepped under his raised arm and pushed past him, yanking the door open and letting the warmth and barrage of sound sensations envelope me. I swallowed tears back and made a beeline for my table, wishing for crap to eat. I nearly sang with joy to see a bowl of cashews on our table, and Ruthie walking back to join me.
“You okay?” she asked, mirroring what Noah had asked me earlier.
“I’m fine,” I breathed, knowing I wasn’t. Knowing that she knew I wasn’t, too. I dabbed under my eyes with a napkin and grabbed a handful of nuts, not even caring for once if they’d been freshly opened or if five hundred other patrons had pawed through them.
“Noah just walked back in the same door,” she said warily.
“Yep.”
She nodded and I saw her gaze follow him before returning to mine. “Didn’t go well, I’m guessing?”
I closed my eyes and blew out a slow breath to return my heart rate to normal. The heat radiating off my skin would take a little longer.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, fanning myself with a coaster and forcing a smile. “So tell me about you and Becca’s conversation. What did you say when she told you that?”
Ruthie’s eyes widened in surprise. “O—kay. When did we get back here? I thought you wanted to talk about anything else.”
I pushed another handful of nuts in my mouth and proceeded to talk around them.
“Turns out, it’s the sanest subject of the night.”
• • •
The girl had freakish stamina. When I was pregnant—both times—I had trouble staying up past eight o’clock. She looked just as perky at eleven as she did at seven, whereas I was fading, big-time.
I was ready to go—had been since that little exchange outside—but I refused to let a pregnant woman outlast me. I didn’t care if she was thirteen years younger.
While the people-watching was interesting enough, including a brief wardrobe malfunction from an inebriated couple groping on the dance floor, the crowd began to thin. The only-here-for-dinner crowd was falling out to go catch a movie or have sober sex, while the true partiers were holding out for the drunken variety.
Or in my case, holding out for a Sprite-drinking pregnant woman to leave.
“Um, what’s—” Ruthie began, narrowing her eyes to something across the room. “That can’t be good.”
I followed her gaze through the handful of remaining dancers on the floor and my stomach twisted up. “Oh, shit,” I said, pushing off the stool.
Hayden had approached Noah and Shayna’s table and appeared to be asking them both questions with a grim expression. Shayna visibly backed up a little, looking wide-eyed.
“Hang on,” Ruthie said, patting the table at my side. “They’re men. They have to do the whole dick-swinging thing. Just wait—”
Her words were cut off by our unified gasp as Noah stood up quickly, putting the two men in that unmistakable stance.
“Shit,” I said, my feet already propelling me forward. I could hear Ruthie behind me muttering curse words as we wound our way through the oblivious gropers, reaching their table just in time to hear Noah ask him to leave.