Maybe Never (11 page)

“Hey,” she returned.

Brendan leaned in and pressed his lips briefly to hers, and Tracy answered his kiss by leaning in momentarily and kissing him back. As she did, Brendan lowered a hand and placed it on her stomach. For a few seconds they were both motionless and then Brendan finally let his hand fall away.

“I thought I felt her move last night,” Tracy said unexpectedly, almost as though it was news she couldn’t contain in spite of herself.

“
Her
?” Brendan said, a smile in his voice. “So you’ve decided we’re having a girl?”

“It just feels like a girl,” Tracy said, blushing.

“Yeah? And what it did feel like, when she moved I mean?”

“Like a wave, little ripples inside me.”

“You should have called me.”

Tracy shrugged but she looked away from him so Brendan knew she’d considered and rejected it. “It was just a few moments. Nothing to get all excited about probably.”

“But you were,” he said. “Excited. So you should have called me.”

Tracy shrugged again, and seemed uncomfortable. The wave of protectiveness he generally felt about her enveloped him again in an instant.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go sit down.”

In the living room, when he sat on the sofa, she chose the armchair opposite instead of sitting next to him. Brendan sat with his hands clasped between his knees, struggling for words to begin.

“I want to tell you about Janice,” he said.

Across from him, Tracy swallowed.

“We used to date,” he said. “A really long time ago. And I ran into her again recently when I was downtown.”

Tracy was listening, and her expression was neutral but Brendan could see her throat working as she swallowed.

“The day I first ran into her was the morning after you told me . . . about the baby. And I went with her back to her apartment,” he continued. “And while we were there, we started talking about old times, she took me back to show me some pictures she’d kept of back when we were dating.

“We were sitting on her bed, and there was a moment. But nothing happened,” he finished hastily. “I wound up talking to her though, telling her things about us that I had no business sharing. I talked about you and about us, and  . . .”

At that Tracy stood and pursed her lips, and Brendan could see her agitation increase. “What did you tell her about me?”

“That our relationship is complicated, that sometimes I’m not . . . But I didn’t sleep with her, Tracy. I barely even touched her . . .”

“I
know
you didn’t sleep with her,” Tracy said almost impatiently.

Brendan paused, surprised. “You know I . . .”

“That’s not the kind of thing you would do,” Tracy said, but her voice was bitter. “You’re not the liar, the cheat, the asshole that women fear. You’re a different kind altogether.”

He waited, puzzled by her tone, confused by her words.

“You’re Mr. Perfection. The one who slowly, and probably even unintentionally, chips away at a woman’s self-esteem by convincing her that if anything is wrong with the relationship, it’s
her
fault.”

Brendan blinked. “Wait a second . . .”

“You wouldn’t sleep with Janice. Not because you didn’t want to . . .”

“I
didn’t
want to, as a matter of fact,” Brendan said, his voice rising.

“So why was she with you today? After that near-miss in her apartment, why were you still seeing her?”

At that, he was caught. He didn’t know why. Nostalgia, boredom . . .

“You were still seeing her because you’re shopping around. Even now, you’re shopping around,” Tracy said. And for the first time, she looked hurt.

“What’re you . . ?”

“I’m getting tired of waiting, Brendan . . .”

“What’re you talking ab . . ?”

“. . . for you to decide that it’s
okay
for you to be in love with me. That I’m good enough . . .”

“Hold up, that’s
your
fucking issue, not mine.”

“. . . or kind enough, or sweet enough or
friendly
enough to be the woman you fell in love with. I might be  . . . cute, but I don’t live up to some ideal in your head, do I? Maybe if I was more like Riley . . .”

“Oh here we go . . .”

“Yes! Here we go! I’m not even sure you
like
me sometimes. Since we’re talking God’s honest truths,
that’s
the God’s honest truth. You like how I look. You like fucking me. But me? As a person? Maybe not so much.”

“Because I insist you act like a decent human being when you come into contact with
other
human beings?”

“It’s more than that. I feel like I’ve been interviewing for this role of Brendan Cole’s Woman for two years. And every time I do or say something that’s not perfectly sweet, not in keeping with your image as the guy everybody just loves, I feel like I’m one day further away from being given the job on a permanent basis.”

“That’s
your
internal bullshit, Tracy. Being interviewed to be my woman? What the fuck have you been these last two years?”

“That’s what I want to know . . .”

“So what? You got pregnant to force the issue?”

“
Yes! Maybe I did!
” Tracy screamed at him.

That response seemed to surprise them both and for a moment there was a stunned silence.

“So you wanted to trap me,” Brendan said.

“Trap you?” Tracy said, her voice suddenly quiet. “No, Brendan, not trap you. Haven’t you noticed? Babies don’t make men stay, they make them
leave
.”

He narrowed his eyes in confusion.

“I didn’t plan this pregnancy if that’s what you’re asking,” Tracy said, her voice tired. “I just . . . I don’t know. All I know is it started not being as important if I did get pregnant. It didn’t make any difference. At least not to me. If I got pregnant and we got married, if I got pregnant and you left me, it wouldn’t make any difference.”

What do you mean it wouldn’t make any difference?” Brendan asked, still lost.

“It wouldn’t make any difference, Brendan,” Tracy said firmly, looking him right in the eye, “because no matter what you did—whether you stayed or you left—I knew I would still love you for the rest of my life. And if I had a baby, if I
ever
were to have a baby, I wanted it to be yours.”

Those words, and the matter-of-fact way she said them were like an anvil to the chest. Riley’s words came back to him:
you’re it for her . . . she’s yours now.

“Tracy . . .”

“No,” she held up a hand. “I know you don’t feel the same way. I’ve known that since forever, Brendan. Why do you think I get so . . . desperate? Not because I think you’d cheat on me. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t, not physically.”

“What do you mean, not physically?”

“Like I said, you’re not that kind of guy. You’re the guy who’ll generally do the right thing. But it wouldn’t stop you from maybe meeting and falling for some quiet, easy-to-be-with, sweet-tempered woman. Someone you’re not always managing, someone you don’t have to apologize for.”

“Trace . . .” Brendan came around the sofa and put his hands on her shoulders. “That would never . . .”

“I think you’ve been holding out for that,” Tracy said, and she couldn’t look out for him. “And I’m just here until it happens.”

“How can you say that? We’re getting married . . .”

“Well, are we?” Tracy asked. Her voice was trembling. “So far it feels like some kind of fantasy that I’ve been living out on my own. Like an imaginary wedding where the groom may or may not materialize.”

He still couldn’t think of a single thing to say to her that was coherent because he knew that from where she sat, it had look exactly as she described. He hadn’t been there. And he’d even told her that he didn’t give a shit about the wedding . . .

“But this baby is real, and I’m so . . . ecstatic about her. More than I even thought I would be. I love her already . . . and I’m sorry if you feel trapped. But you’re not, Brendan. I just . . . I want you to know that.”

“I don’t feel like I’m . . .”

“You used that word, not me. And I’m always chasing after you, aren’t I?” Tracy said. “Like right on your heels, trying to make you love me the way I love you. And I know how that must feel. How stifling . . .”

“No! It doesn’t . . .”

Tracy sighed and shook her head. “All those little things I kept trying to force you to do, picking flowers when I knew you didn’t care, like writing your own vows . . .” she broke off and laughed, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I was forcing it . . .”

“I asked you to marry me, Tracy. This was my idea . . .”

She shook her head. “No. You
didn’t
ask me to marry you, Brendan. And no, I don’t think it was your idea. Not really.”

And then she did the one thing he would never have imagined she would do. Tracy slid the engagement ring off her finger and put in the palm of her right hand, extending it to him.

“
No
,” he shook his head and backed away from her, almost as though she was coming at him with a weapon. “I’m not taking that. We’re getting married in three weeks . . .”

“Why? Because you feel you have to? Because it would look terrible and people would talk?” Tracy looked at the floor. “I don’t blame
you
for this, Brendan. Do you understand? None of this is your fault . . .”

“I don’t care about fault!”

“Well I do. I have to take responsibility for the part I played in all this. I mean, for the last couple years, I got to wake up and know that the man I was looking at is the love of my life. And I felt lucky for that.

“But now, with the baby coming and everything . . . I had to finally face that if I was waiting for you to look at me the same way, that might happen . . . I don’t know, maybe
never
?”

When he still wouldn’t take the ring, Tracy placed it on the coffee table.

“I do love you, Brendan.
So
much. And more than anything in the world, I would love to be your wife. But I need you to understand, you’re free. You’re free to go.”

________

Reckoning

“So she hasn’t called to cancel?”

“No, Mr. Cole, we haven’t heard from Ms. Emerson. As far as we know, you’re still booked. And, I’m afraid that having missed the grace period, even if you were to cancel today, your deposit . . .”

“No, no worries about the deposit,” Brendan said quickly. “That’s fine. You have good day.”

“Mr. Cole,” the woman on the other end said. “So I’m not exactly clear. Will the wedding be taking place next week, or . . ?”

“You know as much as I do,” Brendan admitted. “I’ll be in touch, soon. Thank you.”

He hung up and leaned back in his chair. The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach still hadn’t gone away. Nor would it; he was pretty sure of that now. Not until he knew where she was. He’d called  her job and been told she was out on leave for her wedding forgetting that Tracy had told him that, that she would take a couple weeks before and after the wedding. So he called the townhouse, then had gone over there to look for her, and had even called her mother’s house on the off-chance she’d flown to Atlanta. But Tracy wasn’t in any of those places.

And then every evening when he got back to the apartment, he walked through each room as though she might be in one of them, sitting there, maybe with those damned wedding magazines that had so gotten on his nerves the last few weeks. But of course, the apartment was the last place Tracy would be. For her to say he was Mr. Perfection was laughable. He was far from perfect. He’d fucked up with her and kept fucking up. He let her walk away—time and time again, he let her walk away . . .

How she could even use words like ‘desperate’ and ‘needy’ to describe herself he would never understand. Tracy was neither of those things. She was strong. The strongest woman he knew. Strong enough to be scared but still lay herself bare and admit to him that if she had a weakness he was it.

She just looked him dead in the eye and said it:
you are the love of my life
.
Even if you don’t feel the same way, you are the love of my life
.

Could he have been as brave, if the tables were turned, if she’d been the one acting out and running around with an ex-boyfriend?

Brendan already knew the answer to that.

The last time he was faced with someone else being in Tracy’s life, he ran. He took his heart in his hands and held it close and ran like hell, not wanting to contemplate what it would feel like if she trampled it beneath her feet. He’d chosen the pre-emptive strike then and took off, and she was the one who came back to him to open up, to explain, to try to build a bridge that got them to the other side . . .

And even then he’d been scared. Their whole relationship he’d been scared. Tracy was right. She wasn’t what he’d had in mind for himself. He
did
think he wanted to be with some quiet, sweet-tempered woman; someone like his mother, who was like a gentle breeze in comparison to his father’s tempestuous, emotional and expressive nature. His parents’ relationship had always been what he considered ideal and balanced, and he was looking to replicate it in his own life. But then came Tracy Emerson, who rocked his belief in all that. She rocked
him
.

When she walked into a room, he was immediately aware of her. She commanded and kept the attention of every molecule in his body. There was a certain feverishness, a sense of being wired and over-stimulated when she was around—there were nothing casual about his feelings for her.

Brendan reached over and pressed the buzzer that summoned his administrative assistant into his office, leaning back and waiting for her to enter. Brett walked in, smiling—Tracy was right; she was always smiling at him, even when there was nothing to smile about—and carrying a notepad at the ready, prepared for whatever his instructions might be.

“Brett,” he said. “Take a seat.”