Stealing the Show (PolyAm Fam #3)

Chapter 11

eleven

maggie

It had been a day at work. The kind of day that made me wonder if I could actually be a successful lawyer, let alone a devoted mother and half-decent lawyer at the same time. And…I was coming home to an empty house. Leo was on night shift this week.

Blue greeted me in the mud room, eager to see me, but even more eager for dinner. While he was chomping away at his tasty vittles, I had enough time to make myself something for dinner. But my first stop was the bottle of wine I’d opened up over the weekend and put into the fridge for later.

Later was now.

I poured myself a glass and contemplated my dinner options. Then I sent Raine a text:

Me: Hey, sexy lady, how is your week going? Design any good costumes lately?

Maybe I could see her one night this week while Leo was working. It would be nice to have some female company, and I hadn’t been able to get the sounds she made when she was coming out of my head since we all played the other night.

Just as I decided on a lame frozen dinner, Blue started to bark his head off. I heard the garage door opening. What?!

Seconds later, a sexy cop was walking into my kitchen, looking so damn tall and broad-shouldered in his uniform. He had left his hat in the car, so his dark hair with salt-and-pepper highlights at the temples glowed silver under the kitchen lights. He flashed me an arresting smile. Pardon the pun .

“Good evenin’, ma’am, we got a report of a disturbance at this address. Is everything okay?”

He still made me swoon, and we’d been together for fifteen years.

“No disturbance, but I can give you something to investigate if you’d like.” I shot him a wink and stood up, letting him pull me into his arms. He squeezed me to his chest, which was rock-hard with his Kevlar vest. And his badge was a little sharp too.

“Oops, sorry, don’t want to hurt you.” He backed away, leaving me breathless.

“Did you forget something?” I checked as the microwave dinged to let me know my food was ready. Couldn’t wait for this frozen vegetables and chicken concoction. Sigh.

“No, I just wanted to talk to you about something real quick, and I knew it was going to be hard for us to chat while we’re working opposite each other this week.” He leaned against the counter, his right hand resting on the handle of his gun.

“Is there something wrong?” I was a lawyer; I couldn’t help it. My brain was immediately running through a list of potential issues, in order from most disastrous to least.

“No, no, not something wrong, but I wanted to let you know I chatted with Raine today. She came over for a little bit—just to talk, nothing sexual, so please don’t think I violated any agreement.” He held up a hand as though he expected me to protest.

“You can date her by yourself, Leo. You know I’m not territorial like that!” I was a little miffed he thought I would be upset.

“You and I hadn’t discussed specific parameters where she’s concerned, but she and I wanted to talk about something.” He blew out a breath like whatever he said next was important.

“Such as?” I opened the lid to my microwaved meal and let the steam billow out. I stabbed a piece of broccoli with my fork, but it looked rather unappetizing.

“What if…” his dark eyes zeroed in on mine, “…we asked Raine to be our surrogate?”

I dropped my fork with a clatter to the bar top. It was so quiet in the house that the echo seemed to go on forever. I just stared at him, blinking.

“She said she would do it,” he continued, “provided you’re on board.”

“What? You already asked her?” What the fuck is going on here?

I didn’t know whether to feel betrayed…or turned on.

“Wait, is this about the breeding kink you just figured out you have?” I studied him through narrowed eyes.

“No, Maggie, it’s about us having a baby together and not having to wait six months for an appointment, then six months to find the right candidate, and then nine months to have a baby! We could conceivably have a baby like a whole year earlier—see what I did there? Conceivably?” He chuckled.

I stood up. My thighs felt like jelly, and my knees felt like rubber, but I needed to walk for a moment. It was like when I delivered my opening and closing arguments in the courtroom—pacing helped my brain work. It unlocked some sort of logical argument part of my brain that sitting still in a chair couldn’t access.

“And she said yes? She’d do it?” I stopped just long enough to search his face for the truth like I would a defendant on the stand.

“She said she was going off the Pill,” he declared as if that was answer enough.

I swallowed hard. My head was spinning. This was crazy, wasn’t it?

When I saw Raine at The Barn and remembered meeting her at Cynda and Jason’s when we were there for Danielle’s cast-off party, there was no way I was thinking about her as our potential surrogate. I was thinking, wow, she is a very beautiful young woman. She has a lovely, curvy shape. That jet-black hair. Those striking eyes. I mean… I was thinking about kissing her or touching her breasts. No way was I thinking about putting our baby in her uterus.

I made a lap around the kitchen while my analytical brain attempted to make heads or tails out of this situation. “Did you offer her money? What’s she getting out of it? What if she doesn’t want to give up the baby?”

“I told her what the going rate is for surrogacy,” he shared. “And she needs money—she’s a poor grad student, so, yes, that is part of her motivation for agreeing. But, also, she thinks we’d be awesome parents, and she wants to help us achieve our dreams. I don’t know about the other question… I mean we’d have to have some sort of contract, right? You’re the lawyer. I defer to you on that part.”

I closed my eyes and sucked on my lip, just breathing and letting the blood flow to my brain. “Did you talk about going the artificial insemination route? Does she know my eggs are bad too? That she’d be donating her egg as well? Biologically, it would be her child.”

“We didn’t get that far, baby.” He plopped down at the kitchen table and laced his fingers together, suddenly looking remorseful. “I’m sorry to spring all this on you. I just…I was really excited when I first had the idea, but I didn’t want to even bring it up to you unless it was something she could get on board with. I figured, why get your hopes up? We have the appointment with the surrogacy clinic, and that can be our back-up if this falls through but… What if it doesn’t? What if it’s meant to be?”

“You know I don’t believe in shit like that,” I reminded him. I was an atheist through and through. Leo was brought up in a half Jewish, half Catholic family, and his ideas on the spiritual world were…some weird mishmash of the two faiths.

Yeah, we’d have to address how we were going to handle that with our kids...but that discussion was a long way off. We had plenty of ground to cover before we got to that.

I had wanted a baby my entire life. I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t think, oh, yeah, I’m definitely going to be a mom when I grow up . I had baby dolls galore when I was a kid, and unlike a lot of kiddos, I didn’t abandon them or get tired of taking care of them after a few days. I was consistent with that shit. Feeding, burping, diapering, bathing, dressing them in cute outfits and taking them for a stroll down the sidewalk in our cute little cliché suburban neighborhood.

If there had been a category for “most likely to be a mom when she grows up” in our high school yearbook, I would have been the clear favorite.

I was the mom among my peers, the one everyone trusted with their secrets or would come to for a hug or for support or advice. That was true in junior high, high school, college—hell, even in law school, I had to give some tough love to group project members who weren’t pulling their weight.

I had never had a baby, but I was a mom through and through.

I looked up at my husband through the unshed tears glittering in my eyes. “Do you really think this could work out?”

He pulled me down onto his lap and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into that hard-as-fuck vest. “Yes, I think it’s possible. It might not pan out, of course, and we need to prepare ourselves for that, but there’s no harm trying. We have several months before our appointment…”

One tear dripped down, turning his light blue uniform dark blue in one tiny circular spot. “Okay, then. I want to try.”

raine

After a long week contemplating my decision to stop taking the Pill, Leo and Maggie invited me over for dinner. Maggie was the one to text me, saying she discussed the situation with Leo, and they wanted us to talk about it in person. I assumed that meant she was on board. I had done as much reading as I could about surrogacy, so I felt prepared.

Leo made an amazing chicken cordon bleu for dinner, which I’d heard of but never had before, and I definitely ate too much. In some ways that was good because, being overstuffed, I was less afraid of feeling frisky in their presence. They were both so hot and seemed so sophisticated and worldly, I really wanted to drag them back to their bedroom and see what kind of trouble we could get into together. But they were the adults, and they were going to force us to have an adult discussion first.

So, maybe I’d at least get a chance to digest first, right?

“It’s hard to know where to start,” Maggie said from the sofa beside me. They had arranged themselves strategically with Maggie next to me on the sofa, well, one cushion between us. And Leo had taken the loveseat.

I had done a little reading on polyamory and specifically about couples looking for their unicorn. Couple’s privilege showed a basic disrespect for the new partner’s time, energy and feelings. They seemed to be trying to mitigate that, but, in a way, this whole conversation was steeped in couple’s privilege.

“Before we talk about the surrogacy thing,” she continued, “I just want to make sure you’re comfortable. And I want to make sure you know this was not at all on our radar when I first approached you at The Barn a few weeks ago. We had just found out that night that we needed to consider other options besides conceiving and carrying our own child, and, after getting that news, we went out to distract ourselves. I really had put it out of my mind that night. I was so overwhelmed by the emotions that I wasn’t in the headspace to actually think about our options. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re being used. We both genuinely like you and enjoy your company, and we’d want to date you whether this was on the table or not.”

“I appreciate your honesty, both of you. You’ve both been totally honest and transparent with me from the beginning, and I really do appreciate that.” I looked down at my fingers for a second, noticing I had an ugly hangnail on my index finger. Oops. Probably from looking through so many fabric swatches this week.

I continued, “I know I’m in a slightly younger generation than you guys, and I’ll just say that honesty and transparency are certainly not the usual for me when it comes to dating or relationships. And it’s been a real breath of fresh air to see it working differently for us.” I gestured around the room.

Leo smiled and took over. “Great, well, those are two basic tenets of polyamory. If you don’t have honesty and transparency, your relationships are going to fail. I mean, it’s really that simple.”

Maggie picked up from there. “And I don’t want you to feel like we’re interviewing you tonight. I want to ask you a million questions—but it’s not a job interview. As far as I’m concerned, we’re all on board to at least try this and see where it goes. If it doesn’t work out, no problem. We have our appointment with the agency in November. We will go that route. This is just an alternative—a better alternative, I think.”

“Right.” I straightened my spine and smoothed out my sundress over my knees as I crossed my feet at the ankles. Despite their reassuring words, I was still nervous I was going to say the wrong thing or mess this up somehow. I had to remember that, no matter how altruistic I thought I was being by agreeing to help them realize their dream of having a baby, I was also doing it for the money. I really needed to settle up with the school so I could get my degree and find a job after I graduated.

This was just going to buy me some time.

“Well, probably the first question…” Maggie looked at Leo until he nodded, then her gaze returned to me. She looked so beautiful and classy tonight in an elegant strapless black maxi-dress with chunky gold jewelry. “I’m not sure how much Leo told you, but my eggs are…not viable…” I could tell that word was difficult for her, and I certainly wasn’t going to pry into what the exact issue was. “So, a lot of surrogates are impregnated with embryos that were conceived through IVF with the partners’ eggs and sperm. But in our case, we would need donor eggs as well.”

“I see. Well, that’s not an issue for me.” I smiled. “As far as I know, mine are in good working order. Not sure if Leo told you, but I was on the Pill. I stopped taking it last week, but I don’t know how long it takes to get out of your system…”

“We’ll have to check on that,” Maggie answered. “Do you know if you have anything that runs in your family we should be aware of, any medical conditions? Any genetic issues?”

“Well…” I sighed. “This might be a dealbreaker, to be honest.”

They looked at each other, and I could tell Maggie was struggling to keep her face from falling. “What is it, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Well, nothing that I know of is wrong with me. It’s just that, as we discussed before, I was adopted. So I don’t really know much about my biological parents. My birth mom had Japanese heritage. My dad had a much more diverse background. But I don’t know anything about their medical histories.”

“Hmmm…” Maggie flashed Leo a look that I tried to interpret but came up blank. She smiled and gave me a very lawyer-esque answer. “We’ll take that under advisement, but let’s press on as if that’s not an issue.”

“Okay…”

“How old are you?” Leo asked. “If you don’t mind telling us.”

“Well, if we end up doing this, I’m sure you’ll need to ask me a lot more personal questions than that,” I teased him. “I’m twenty-six.”

“And have you ever been pregnant before? Or had a baby?” Leo continued going down what appeared to be a mental checklist.

“Nope and nope.” I sighed. “Had a pregnancy scare in college, but I turned out to just be late. Went on the Pill after that, and I’ve been on it ever since. Haven’t had any issues. All of my gyno appointments have been routine, pap smears, all the tests and stuff. Everything’s always come out fine. I’m up to date on my vaccinations. I don’t have any medical conditions I’m aware of except I did have an irregular cycle—that was another reason I went on the Pill.”

“That could be an issue,” Maggie noted, looking at her husband.

We went over some more details, and then I asked a question of my own. “So, how would this work? I’d have to see a doctor to get knocked up, or we’d do it the old-fashioned way?”

When it became obvious Leo was straining to keep his chuckle inside, we all ended up laughing. “Sorry,” I giggled, “I didn’t know how else to phrase it!”

They looked at each other, and Leo cleared his throat. “Well, I’d love to do it the old-fashioned way, or at least give it the old college try, ya know?”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “My husband is very turned on by the idea of getting someone pregnant. You could say it’s a kink for him. I hope you don’t think that’s weird.”

I shrugged. “Actually, I think it’s kinda hot.”

Maggie was still the most serious of the three of us. “If we went through a doctor, it would certainly cost more time and money, and we’d certainly rather put that money in the pot toward your compensation. Of course, we wouldn’t be asking you to do this for free. All of your medical and living expenses would be covered, as well as your food, gas, clothing. Really, everything. You’d have a monthly allowance.”

“We did have some questions about how this would fit in with your career goals,” Leo added. “We don’t want you to sacrifice any career opportunities. We weren’t sure how long it typically takes to find a job in your field after you finish graduate school.”

I chuckled softly and played with the R pendant that hung on a chain at my throat. “Well, that is the million-dollar question, right? I don’t really know how long it will take, though I suspect most of the jobs will be in bigger theater markets like Chicago or New York. I could delay actually moving until the baby was born, though, if I had a monthly allowance. In a way, this would give me an opportunity to do a thorough and relaxed search, relieve some of the pressure, so I wouldn’t have to take the first offer that came my way.”

Leo and Maggie looked at each other and smiled.

“There’d be a contract of course,” Maggie advised.

“I assumed there would be, considering!”

They both laughed.

The three of us sat there for a moment in silence, just looking around the room. Then Leo said, “And part of that contract would be that we are the legal parents of the baby. Just so there’s no misunderstanding.”

“Of course,” I agreed with a nod, “what is a poor grad student gonna do with a baby?”

Another beat of silence. I drained the rest of my wine from dinner. “Anything else?”

“I can’t think of anything at the moment,” Maggie said, “though I’m sure I’ll have more questions when I draw up the contract.”

“That’s no problem.” I uncrossed my legs and laced my fingers together in my lap.

Leo stood up with a wide grin on his face. “Well, I’ve been saving some champagne for a special moment. And I think this might be it.”

Maggie scooted over and pulled me into her arms. Tears were streaming down her face. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me. I don’t know if it will all work out, but just the fact that you’re willing to try… it means the world to me.”

“I’m glad to help,” I said, though in the back of my mind I was thinking the arrangement helped me as much as it helped them. As Leo had called it that day in the coffee shop, it was truly a win-win for everyone.

Next thing I knew, Leo was popping the cork on the champagne, and he was making a toast to…new beginnings.