The Only Shark In The Sea (The Date Shark Series Book 3) (25 page)

Chapter 27

The Dress

It had been an interesting week. One that wasn’t quite over, but one that revealed and tested both Vance and Natalie. They had yet to spend a night apart, bouncing back and forth between apartments as Vance attempted to reacclimatize himself to his vastly changed life. He planned to return to work the following week, but he was still conflicted about staying in his apartment. The more time he spent with Natalie, especially in her apartment, the more he considered starting over in a new place, possibly with her at some point.

He couldn’t remember when his current lease ran out, and he wasn’t even thinking about making his stays at Natalie’s apartment a permanent thing—at least not unless she brought it up on her own—but he was beginning to realize the pain that seemed to follow him around his apartment wasn’t healthy. He needed to move, but he wanted to get through the rest of the week before making a final decision.

Step one of that plan was making sure Natalie survived poker night. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Vance asked her as they approached Eli and Leila’s apartment door.

“No,” she said honestly, “but I’m doing it anyway.”

Vance smiled even though she looked like she wanted to run. “You’re amazing. You know that, right?” Natalie just grimaced, making Vance chuckle. He had faith that she’d be okay as long as they stayed close, which was something he didn’t mind doing at all.

Lifting his hand, he knocked on the door and was greeted by someone shouting for him to come in. Judging by the noise filtering through the door, they were the last to arrive and the festivities had already begun. He pushed the door open and laughed at the chaos. Poker night had once been a guys only type of thing. An impromptu visit from Leila one night added her to the group, then newlywed syndrome hit Guy, and Charlotte and Warren joined the fray.

Now Amelie stole all the attention with her happy gurgling as they passed her around the table. Leo was there as well, though he still maintained his solo status. Vance had once been the same since Steph had never cared for poker, but anxiety had Natalie reaching for his hand no matter how much she worried about the others judging her. “There are a lot of people here,” she whimpered.

“Yes, but they’re all friends and will welcome you wholeheartedly.”

Natalie’s face twisted, not convinced at all. She was still working up the courage to step out of the entryway when Warren raced across the room and skidded to a stop right in front of her. “I’m Warren and my
papa
said you’re Uncle Vance’s new girlfriend and I should be nice to you ’cause new people scare you a lot.”

Vance covered his mouth to hide a laugh at Warren’s bold introduction. Natalie had a startlingly different response. Her hand slipped from his and she squatted down to be at Warren’s eye level. “Thank you for being so nice. New people do scare me, but not handsome young men like you.”

Warren’s head whipped around to where Guy was watching him while bouncing Amelie in his arms. “See,
Papa
, I told you she wouldn’t be scared of me!” Warren shouted.

Guy lifted one hand in concession. “I must admit that you were correct and I was not. Very intelligent of you.”

Warren beamed at the praise and grabbed Natalie’s hand, dragging her back up to her feet and across the room to Guy and Amelie. “This is my new cousin. She’s a baby and her name is Amelie. Do you want to hold her? She’s really soft and she smells good.”

Despite having been dragged right up next to Guy, Natalie seemed very at ease in Warren’s care. Vance was still a few steps behind, staring at them, deeply affected by the whole interaction. He expected Natalie to shy away from Warren’s impetuous offer, but when Guy asked her if she would indeed like to hold the baby, Natalie surprised him by nodding eagerly.

A confusing yet profound pain hit him squarely in the chest as he watched Natalie take the baby and cradle her against her chest. She was terrified of so many things, but children apparently weren’t a concern for her. She looked happier and more at ease with Amelie and Warren than he had ever seen her before. Pressing his hand against his mouth, he found himself on the verge of tears.

Gripping his shoulder tightly, though Vance hadn’t even seen him approach, Guy gestured for him to follow. They didn’t go far, just around a corner and into a hallway away from prying eyes. Vance leaned against the wall feeling weak as Guy looked on in concern.

“What is troubling you, my friend?” Guy asked.

Vance shook his head, gesturing back at where they had left Natalie. “That…it was supposed to be Stephanie. She was supposed to be the one standing in there babbling to a baby and making me feel like all those things I’ve wanted my entire life were possible. It wasn’t supposed to be Natalie. It was supposed to be Stephanie and she took that all away from me.”

He didn’t know why everything hit right then. He thought he had come to accept what had happened, even if he was still trying to understand it emotionally and forgive both himself and Stephanie. The conflict surrounding her death and the betrayal of the lives she stole from them slammed into him in that moment and he couldn’t even keep his feet under him.

Guy lunged forward to stop him from falling and injuring himself, but Vance barely noticed him grabbing him and calling for help as the tidal wave of pain and anger swept his strength away. Somehow he ended up on a couch, worried faces all crowded in around him as he sobbed. “This isn’t how it was supposed to be,” he mumbled as he poured out the pain he had been holding back with nothing more than refusal to feel it.

“How was it supposed to be different?” Guy asked calmly.

Vance had held in the truth, trying to protect Stephanie’s memory, but he just couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t be surrounded by his friends and their families and not feel the knife twisting every time Warren blurted something out or Amelie smiled up at someone. Even seeing his friends with their spouses felt like this crushing weight grinding down on him, telling him that wasn’t something he was ever meant to have. But it wasn’t fate or edict that had forced him to accept that. It was Stephanie. All the repressed anger at what she had kept from him and stolen from their lives broke loose.

“This is what I wanted,” Vance said as he looked up at Natalie and his heart broke. Amelie clutched one of her fingers, completely unaware of the tension spilling into the room like a torrent. “This is what we should have had and she took that all away.” His voice broke as he looked as Warren and imagined him playing with the child Vance should have had.

“Who took that away?” Eli asked. He glanced over at Natalie in confusion, and Vance reacted instantly.

“Stephanie,” he snapped.

Everyone in the room looked to each other for something that made sense, but everyone came up empty, and that only made Vance angrier. “She wouldn’t marry me, and I told her that was okay, even though it was important to me and I wanted it. That I could live with.”

His hands balled into fists as he struggled to contain his anger and speak. It was all just too much, seeing what he could have had and had lost. Amelie started sucking on Natalie’s finger, and that simple, beautiful action from such an innocent little life broke down what was left of his barriers.

“Our child would have been two years old by now,” Vance said through his tears. “Two years. I should have been a father and she took that away from me, even though she knew how badly I wanted children. A piece of her, of us, could have still been here, but she couldn’t do it and she took that from me and lied about it. How could she do that? How could she do that to me?”

His head fell into his hands and he couldn’t face his friends any longer. They let him cry, too stunned to do anything else. Natalie took on the weight of telling them what he couldn’t. He heard her voice as she explained about both pregnancies, the abortion and the lies. He heard it all, but he couldn’t respond or comment. Too lost in his own pain, he rocked back and forth as every thought and emotion he had avoided for weeks shoved its way in and demanded to be dealt with.

Vance had no idea how long he sat there wallowing in his own misery. Nothing affected him until a weight settling on the cushion next to him was punctuated by a soft, warbling noise. His eyes red and wet, he pulled his hands away from his face and was greeted by Amelie’s happy face. Her pudgy little hand was smashed against her face as she tried and failed to find a finger good enough to stick in her mouth and settled for sucking on the side of her hand. Slobber dripped down her fist, landing in sticky puddles on Natalie’s skirt.

Amelie’s head, supported by Natalie, wobbled a bit as she reached out with the hand not in her mouth and batted at Vance. He wasn’t sure he could or should hold the little girl with all the toxic emotions swimming around inside of him, but Natalie lifted the baby and smoothly transferred her into his arms. The moment he took hold of her, she flopped her head against his chest and closed her eyes. Seconds later she was asleep.

“It’s okay that you’re angry,” Natalie said softly, “and I can’t imagine what you must be feeling trying to deal with the loss of those two little lives. It’s not something that can be replaced and forgotten, but you will be a father one day, and you’ll be a wonderful dad. I have no doubt about that.” She reached over and gently trailed her fingers against Amelie’s cheek.

“Why aren’t you afraid to touch kids?” Vance asked, not quite ready to address what she’d said.

Natalie smiled. “Because they’re too pure and sweet to hurt others. They’re beautiful little lights in an otherwise dark and frightening world. They’ve never scared me. Babysitting and being around children when I was young was the one thing that brought me happiness and that hasn’t changed.”

“Do you want children?” Vance asked.

A sly, teasing look blossomed on her face, so novel it caught Vance by surprise. “With you?” she asked, “or in general?”

Red flushed his cheeks as embarrassment overrode his pain for a moment. “I meant, uh, you know, in general. Not specifically…with me.”

Natalie laughed at his response, a beautiful and happy sound. “Yes, I’ve always wanted children. I just never thought it was something that would happen for me.”

“Why not?” Vance asked, though he thought he already knew the answer.

“Well, given that I can barely touch a man, sex seemed like a bit of a stretch, and even though I was sheltered growing up, I am familiar with the process of procreation, believe it or not.”

She said it all with a teasing smile, taking down Vance’s turmoil and pain with every word. The way she spoke to him was different than usual. He recognized that, but what exactly made it different he couldn’t immediately figure out. Not until her quivering fingers left her lap where they had been pressed against her thighs and one hand slipped onto his leg. He could feel her trembling through his jeans. She had laughed and teased like she wouldn’t usually do, and he realized she was doing something else she wouldn’t usually do. Opening herself up in a way that could truly damage her, but she did it willingly.

“You can touch
me
,” Vance said as he freed one hand from holding Amelie and covered hers. Their fingers linked together and for once, it seemed to calm Natalie rather than induce even more anxiety. “You touch me more comfortably every time, you let me hold you when we sleep, and you want children, but…”

“But I’ve never trusted someone enough to let them get this close to me without running away.”

Vance swallowed hard and squeezed her hand. “You trust me that much?”

She nodded and took a deep breath. “Vance, we both have things in our pasts we’re trying to overcome. It’s terrifying to face all the emotions and pain that brings up…for both of us. Moving forward won’t be easy, either, but I want to do it with you.”

“So do I,” Vance said. “Spending time with you has already helped me so much, but tonight made me realize I need to stop thinking I can do it all on my own. I need to start seeing my therapist again to deal with all this anger and guilt, but that doesn’t mean I need or want you in my life any less. You’ve been an amazing friend through all of this.”

“I learned from the best,” she said with a soft smile.

Getting over the pain of losing both Stephanie and their two unborn children would take longer than Vance could really understand. Starting over with Natalie didn’t erase that pain, but knowing he had a future with her and a chance to find those joys he felt had been stripped from him did help dull the edge. He and Natalie still had miles to go before a touch didn’t require so much courage and sex and children were a legitimate possibility, but it was something to work toward rather than feeling like he was banging his head against the wall hoping for something that would never happen.

Vance wasn’t sure where everyone had gone after his breakdown, but he didn’t mind just sitting on the couch with Natalie and Amelie for a few more minutes. It was closer to half an hour before the others returned from wherever they had been—a nearby park judging by the grass stains on Warren’s knees—but by the time they all piled back into the apartment Vance was composed and ready to face them.