All of Me (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

“How ya doing, Mama?”

Charlie hugged her best friend Mary and felt suddenly lighter. They’d obviously seen each other since Stella’s birth, but it was the first time they’d been able to schedule some girl time.

“Happy to see you and even happier to have a margarita.”

After Charlie’s meltdown a few days ago, Grant had made it his mission to show just how useful he could be in her life. He’d taken time off from work and was constantly at her house, helping with Stella and running errands. She knew what he was doing, especially when he’d gather her close at night and talk. Just talk. Okay, maybe some kissing. All right, possibly a lot of kissing but that was where it stopped. In his infinite wisdom, Grant had determined she wouldn’t take his declaration of love seriously if they were having sex. It had seemed rational a few days ago. Now the spirit was willing but her flesh was weak…very weak.

“You’ve got a glow. Did Grant knock you up again?”

Charlie coughed as she choked on her drink. She felt her face flush and averted her eyes.

“Wow, I was joking but now I need the details.”

“Mary…”

“Don’t ‘Mary’ me, ho! You’ve been sleeping with your baby daddy and not telling me.”

“You really need to stop watching reality TV,” Charlie replied dryly.

“Don’t try and dissuade me by talking trash about my guilty pleasure.”

Charlie sighed and took another sip of liquid courage. In the past she would have told Mary immediately when she’d hooked up with a guy, but this time, she’d kept silent and was starting to feel guilty.

“It’s not like that.” She blushed and gave her friend a shy smile.

“It’s not like what? It’s not like you’ve had your vaginal walls massaged?”

Charlie hissed for her friend to lower her voice and looked around the restaurant anxiously. “I am not above hitting you.”

Her threat didn’t garner the response she wanted. Instead, Mary laughed manically.

“Hello, you guys have been playing house for months. It’s about time you started
playing
house.” Mary waggled her eyebrows and smirked.

Charlie put her head in her hands and sighed with frustration. This was probably why her subconscious had blocked her from confiding in her best friend. She was having an emotional crisis, and Mary was going to make bad sexual puns until she caved in with the details. In the past, Charlie would do her part and drag out the conversation with mock denials until they were both rolling with laughter. Now, though, it was serious, and she couldn’t begin to form the words to explain how conflicted she was.

“Mary, I don’t know what to do,” she confessed, feeling tears pricking her eyes.

“Are you crying?”

“Yes! All I do now is cry and flop around like some angst-ridden teenager,” she stated with disgust as she dabbed tears from her eyes.

“Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”

“I got knocked up and fell in love with my baby daddy.”

The other woman stared at her, not blinking, before she burst into tinkling laughter.

“Please…don’t…just don’t ever say ‘baby daddy’ again,” Mary wheezed.

“Mary, this is serious.”

“I know, but when you say that, you sound like one of the nuns from my high school when she wanted to be hip.”

Charlie scowled at her friend but couldn’t help a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Mary, I’m having a crisis. Can you please get it together?”

“I’m sorry. Okay…whew…okay. Let’s talk about why you are so neurotic.”

“I’m not being neurotic.” She winced at the wining sound of her statement.

“What are you being, then? Because from where I stand, you’ve got a good life worked out.”

Mary held up her hand and began ticking points off on her fingers.

“You have a beautiful child with an intelligently hot and successful man. You are financially solvent and don’t need to worry if said intelligently hot and successful man is not as intelligent as we think him to be. Lastly, you and said hotness are both madly in love with each other.”

Charlie pursed her lips and gave her friend a hard stare. “What makes you think he’s madly in love with me?”

“Did you push out your ability to think critically when you pushed out your baby? Hello, he’s changed his entire life for you.” Mary snorted in disgust.

“He changed his life for his child,” she retorted.

“If you want to believe that, then I got nothing.”

“Mary.”

“Charlie.” Mary mimicked her friend’s pleading tone.

“Can’t you at least pretend to be irrational with me?”

“Not going to happen. I’m your best friend for a reason.” Mary sipped her margarita and arched a single eyebrow.

Charlie huffed and slouched down in her chair.

“Speak the truth and shame the devil.”

She snorted at her friend using one of her grandmother’s favorite terms. This was, of course, why they were best friends. Mary didn’t hold back and could always get to the heart of what Charlie was hesitant to even admit to herself.

“I want him to love me for me. Not because I’m the mother of his child.” She sighed and looked down at her hands in her lap.

“Why do you think he wouldn’t?”

“We had an affair. It was great. Okay, it was beyond great, but it was just something I did on vacation.”

“But he looked you up. It doesn’t sound like it was just a
something
to him.”

Charlie shrugged and continued to look at her hands. She’d wondered why Grant had looked her up, but in the hustle and bustle of adjusting to Stella in their lives she hadn’t asked him why.

“I don’t want to marry him and one day, maybe even twenty years from now, he realizes that my being the mother of his child was enough. That he loved how I gave him Stella but could never love me for just being me.”

Once she spoke the fear she’d been carrying, in the secret part of her soul where she kept the things that scared her most, Charlie shuddered with relief. It was the thing that gnawed away at her ability to trust Grant’s actions, his words. She could let him have access to her body, revel in the feel of him inside of her, but to let him have her love seemed too hard.

“Hon, I can’t promise you that won’t happen. He could love you and fall out of love with you. He could be with you until you’re both old and gray, or a bus could hit him tomorrow and he’ll die. All of these things could happen, but what I can say is, if you don’t do this, if you don’t take this leap, you’ll only have ‘what ifs’ for the rest of your life.”

Mary reached her hand across the table, and Charlie hesitated briefly before linking hers with her friend’s. Mary wasn’t saying anything Charlie hadn’t thought about over and over, particularly in the last few days when Grant made his feelings clearer each hour of the day. She felt as if she was the wild child finally grown up, and it was scary. There wouldn’t be the freedom to pick up and go as she’d done in the past. She went to sleep every night and woke up every morning thinking about the life she’d created, and it was overwhelming and exciting all at the same time. She looked at the man whom she’d created life with and found it hard to breathe, because he was far better than any partner she could have chosen. She had a life she’d never dreamed of, and she wanted it to be a forever type of dream.

“I’m going to have to do this, huh?”

“Yep,” Mary replied, squeezing her hand.

“This is so hard,” she said, choking on a sob.

“Nothing worth having is ever easy.”

Charlie squeezed her friend’s hand back and smiled. She needed this more than her friend could ever know.

“Well, except for you, but Grant still lucked out in the end.”

“I will hit you.”

***

“So, when are you going to make my sister an honest woman?”

Grant froze in mid-sip as he stared at Charlie’s twin Micah.

“Look at his face,” Edward chortled.

Grant blushed as Charlie’s three brothers laughed and gave each other high-fives.

“Maybe the question should be when is she going to make me an honest man?”

The three men oohed, clapping their hands and snapping their fingers. He grinned at their antics as he sipped his beer. Since he had been an only child, his parents made sure he socialized with children his own age, but he’d never known what it was like to have siblings. Charlie’s brothers were making the effort to give him that experience, teasing included.

“Just buy her a huge rock. She can’t say no in the face of a ginormous diamond,” Thomas stated before munching on his nachos.

They’d met at a sports bar in Pasadena, close to Thomas’ condo. Grant’s mother was in town, and she and Charlie’s mother Claire had declared they would be keeping Stella for the weekend. It was an unexpected surprise, but he hadn’t realized how much he needed to go out until he sat down in the booth at the bar.

“She isn’t that shallow,” Micah defended his twin.

“Have you told her you love her?” Edward asked.

“I tried, but she said she doesn’t know if she can trust if I really love her.”

The three men stared back at him blankly. Grant tore at the wrapper on his bottle and tried to quell his nervousness.

“You listened to her?” Thomas asked with a confused expression.

“Yes.”

“Micah, help him out. You’re her twin,” Edward said.

“Just because I’m her twin doesn’t mean I understand her crazy.”

“She is pretty crazy.” Thomas chuckled.

“She’s not crazy,” Grant interrupted, feeling defensive.

“Dude, you must really love her if you don’t think she’s crazy.” Micah laughed and slapped him on the back.

“Totally loves her, look at his face. I think he’s pissed.” Thomas smirked.

“I’m not pissed.”

“You’re totally pissed, but it’s cool. We like that you want to defend our sister’s honor,” Edward stated.

“Now we need to just help you get her to the altar before you knock her up again and our mom really loses her shit.” Micah snorted.

Grant felt his face heat up as he drank from his beer.

“Dude! You did not get her pregnant again, did you?” Thomas asked incredulously.

He stared at the three men and tried to find the words to explain the complicated situation he was in. They’d become like brothers to him, but he wasn’t comfortable sharing details about his sex life, especially since it was with their sister. Weird didn’t begin to describe what that would be like.

“This is really awkward,” he confessed, finishing off his beer.

“Our mom is going to bring out the fucking shotgun. Jesus, she doesn’t want you to say you love her, but she’s going to keep having your babies.”

Grant bristled at Edward’s tone. He understood they were her brothers, and they’d had a lifetime of knowing her and making her life miserable as only older brothers could, but he wouldn’t tolerate them disrespecting her.

“Edward, cool it,” Micah said to his older brother.

“What? You know you were thinking it!”

“What Charlie and I do or don’t do is our business,” Grant stated flatly.

“He didn’t mean it like that,” Thomas replied with an apologetic tone.

“I can speak for myself, and I did mean it like that,” Edward cut in. “I like you, Grant, I think you’re great for my sister, but come on, man the fuck up.”

“What should he do, hit her over the fucking head with his club? Don’t be a dick, Edward,” Micah added.

“I get she’s your twin, Micah, but take the fucking blinders off.”

“You take your fucking blinders off.”

Grant stared in shock as the two men yelled back at each other. Thomas watched them as he munched on nachos and drank his beer. Grant hadn’t expected the guys’ night out to turn into a brawl, and from the way Micah and Edward were going at it, he was sure someone was going to get punched soon.

“Hey, you guys are freaking Grant out. Knock it off,” Thomas shouted, separating the two men, who were shoving each other in the booth.

“Ignore them. They’re always looking for an excuse to beat each other up.” Thomas shrugged and took a sip of beer.

“Shut up, Thomas,” Micah growled.

“You shut up.”

Grant stared as all three men started shoving each other, and he couldn’t help it—he laughed. It started as an incredulous chuckle that blossomed into a full-body experience with tears streaming down his face that he couldn’t seem to stop.

“I think it’s shock,” Micah whispered.

The statement only caused him to howl louder with laughter and clutch at his sides. It seemed his amusement was infectious, because Thomas started chuckling.

“Why are you laughing?” Edward asked.

“Because this whole thing is kind of ridiculous.”

Micah snorted, and Grant got his second wind and giggled.