Stealing the Show (PolyAm Fam #3)

Chapter 24

twenty-four

two weeks later

raine

Pain gripped me, making me double over as it stole my breath. It radiated from my lower abdomen around my sides to my back, where it blared like a sledgehammer pounding against my spine. Then it crept back around front, pulsing with a deep ache that brought tears to my eyes.

I crawled out of bed, where I’d been spending most of my time in the last week, and staggered to the bathroom. I emptied my bladder, then grabbed some toilet paper. Pulling it away from my body, I glanced down to see a bright red streak across the white fiber.

Fuck .

I closed my eyes as the pain gripped me so tightly, I couldn’t move. I should have anticipated this. I’d been on the Pill for years, and it had prevented the horrible menstrual cramps I always got for the first few days of my period. This was my second cycle since I’d stopped taking it, and the cramps had returned with a vengeance.

Grabbing a tampon from the little basket on the sink, I blinked back tears as I realized I definitely wasn’t pregnant. I had taken a test a few days ago, when it was ten days past my ovulation. It was negative, but I still knew there was a tiny chance it was too early.

Did I feel relief or sadness?

The jury was out.

Bonnie knocked on the bathroom door, jolting me out of my little pity party. “You about done in there? I need to take a shower.”

“Hold on,” I grumbled as I finished up and washed my hands.

I opened the door to find her standing there with her hands on her hips. “Are you coming with me to see Dani? I know she’d really like to see you.”

I let out the longest sigh ever. Like probably world record qualifying.

“Raine, you haven’t been to see her once since she was discharged from the hospital. She thinks you’re mad at her or something. I tried to tell her you’ve just been busy finishing your thesis, but you turned that shit in three days ago, didn’t you?”

I nodded, fingering a piece of hair that had fallen into my face. I’d twisted it so many times, I was surprised it didn’t just snap off. “I’m sorry, Bonnie. I’m an awful friend.”

“You’re not an awful friend,” she fired back.

“An awful friend, an awful girlfriend, an awful daughter, an awful surrogate mother…the list goes on.” I marched out of the bathroom, down the hall to return to my room.

I expected Bonnie to huff and ignore me. I expected to hear the shower start. But what I heard instead were heavy footfalls down the hall until she appeared in my doorway with a look of fury on her face.

“Would you snap the fuck out of it?” It was not a question. More of a demand. “You’re being completely intolerable. Summer is almost over, and you’ve just finished your master’s degree. You should be celebrating right now, for fuck’s sake!”

“I don’t feel like celebrating,” I snapped back.

“Is this because Danielle is pregnant, and you’re not?” Bonnie was there when I got the negative test a few days ago. She was the only person I told.

“No,” I answered that with no hesitation.

I wasn’t jealous that Danielle was pregnant. I was happy for her—truly, I was.

“Then what the hell is going on with you?” Bonnie’s voice softened as she reached out to touch my arm. “Please come with me today. It would mean a lot to Dani. She’s been so bored, even though there are always fresh faces over at Cynda and Jason’s. And Noah and Aris have been gone a lot, working and looking at houses, and Dani can’t even go with them. She’s on super-strict bed rest. She can only be out of bed for like an hour total all day.”

Ugh. That sucks.

Now on top of all the other terrible feelings I had, not to mention worrying that my uterus was staging a coup and wanted to completely incapacitate me, I had guilt stabbing its ugly sword into me. “When are you leaving?”

“I’m flexible,” Bonnie said. “I know we’d both have to shower and get ready.”

“Blurgh.” I needed ibuprofen and a heating pad before I did anything. “Give me an hour.”

Her face lit up like I’d just told her she won the lottery. This girl must be desperate for friends , I told myself.

I had been selfish the past two weeks. I was trying to take care of myself, which meant applying for jobs, finishing my thesis project, and coming to terms with the fact that this chapter of my life was over. My time in Bloomington, the summer job at Brown County theater, my master’s classes, and my relationship with Leo and Maggie.

Getting my period today just confirmed it.

It was time to take all that I’d done and learned here, pack up my stuff, and move on to the next chapter.

leo

Maggie and I had barely seen each other in the last two weeks. The last night I remembered sleeping together was the night after we last saw Raine. I’d been on night shift for work, then called out two nights in a row when I went back to day shift.

I felt like I’d been averaging about three hours of sleep a day, and Maggie wasn’t doing much better. She was going to court for a malpractice case, and she’d been practically living out of her office as she prepared.

But tonight…we would actually have tonight. I was making lasagna—my mother’s recipe, which meant it was damn good—and I had already chilled some wine. The garlic and cheese aroma was already beginning to permeate the entire house when the garage door opened and Blue notified the entire neighborhood that Mommy was home.

I stood in the doorway between the mudroom and the kitchen with Blue in my arms, trying to get him to settle down instead of jumping all over Maggie as she made her way inside. I expected her to look tired, haggard from all the overtime she’d been working, but when her face appeared in the glass panes of the door, she was wearing a bright smile.

Her hair was pulled back into a slick, professional-looking bun, and she looked sharp in her navy-blue suit and crisp white blouse. She wore a chunky gold necklace and matching earrings that swung as she walked toward me. “Hey, I vaguely remember you from somewhere?” she joked.

Blue wiggled right out of my arms and onto the floor, where he greeted her with exuberant affection. “Hey, dog, it’s my turn, okay? Back off!” I tugged him away and swept in to greet my wife, taking her into my arms and dipping her backwards as my lips captured hers.

“Well, damn, to what do I owe that greeting?” she asked as I gently raised her back to standing. There was a sparkle in her eyes that I hadn’t seen since before she left for her conference in Denver.

That was weeks ago now.

That was…the last time I saw Raine.

“I have some good news,” she said, beaming.

“Oh, me too! You first.”

“No, I’ll share mine with you over dinner. It smells amazing in here. Is that lasagna?” She appeared to sniff the air just like Blue did any time we were cooking meat.

“That’s a great schnoz you have there, love.” I took her purse and briefcase and put them up on the built-in storage rack next to the door. “Come on. I’ll pour you a glass of wine.”

“Who could resist that offer?” She followed me into the kitchen, where I got to work uncorking the wine and pouring some for both of us.

“Mmm, this is a good vintage.” I smacked my lips and smiled. It was nice to be like this, together, the whole evening stretched between us. It had been a while.

Still, I’d been thinking about Raine a lot, and… I couldn’t help but think it would be even better if she were here too. I hated the way things ended between us. And all of our attempts to contact her had gone unanswered. She clearly didn’t want to have anything to do with us.

And we’d never heard if any of our efforts from a couple of weeks ago paid off.

The oven dinged to let me know the lasagna was ready before I could go down the rabbit hole that was my feelings about Raine. I pulled the pan out, letting its steamy goodness tease my wife’s palate as she slowly sipped her wine. “I’m gonna pop this garlic bread in, and then we should be ready to go in about ten minutes.”

She nodded and casually scrolled her phone while I finished up in the kitchen. In no time, we were both seated at the table, ready to dig into the Italian feast I’d prepared.

“This looks and smells absolutely divine,” she sighed as she placed her napkin in her lap. “I feel like I haven’t had a decent meal in ages. I went from eating nasty conference food to bland takeout. I might never want to eat Chinese again after this week. Ugh.”

“Well, we’re going to be eating this lasagna for a few days—it’s a huge pan,” I warned her.

“You seem to be underestimating how much of this I plan to put away tonight.” She rubbed her hands together with glee as I served up the first piece and set it gently on her plate.

I served myself, and then she lifted her wine glass. “I’d like to propose a toast.”

“Go for it.” I lifted mine too.

“To us—to our never-ending love and our never-ending ability to roll with the punches, rise to the occasion, and believe in our happily ever after.”

“That’s sweet, honey. I’ll drink to that!” We clinked glasses, and I drained the rest of my wine. I refilled both of our glasses as she took her first bite of lasagna.

“Holy Mother of God, this is amazing!” she exclaimed as she chewed a bite.

“That’s a high compliment.” I dove into my first bite too, and I had to agree, it was pretty fucking delicious.

“Okay,” she set down her fork and swallowed, “I want to share my good news.”

“Can’t wait to hear.”

“First share yours. We didn’t quite get to it there in the mudroom when I got completely distracted by the tantalizing aroma of lasagna.”

I laughed. “No, actually, the fact that I cooked this meal was my good news.”

“Oh!” She joined me in laughing. “Okay, well, that was very good news. But I think I can top it.”

“Well, don’t hold me in suspense.”

“The surrogate agency called today,” she said. “They had a cancellation. They can get us in Wednesday for our first consultation!”

I nearly choked on my next bite of lasagna. I expected her to say she settled her case and wasn’t going to trial, and that she and her client got everything they wanted. I wasn’t expecting her to bring up surrogacy at all. We’d barely talked about it since everything fell apart with Raine, but then again, we’d barely seen each other either.

“Well?” She held her fork suspended in the air with the tines embedded in layers of cheese, meat, tomato sauce and pasta.

“Well, that is good news,” I choked out.

She didn’t eat the bite. She only lowered it to the plate. “You’re not happy? It means we don’t have to wait three more months.”

“Of course I’m happy. I just wasn’t expecting to have the appointment moved up, that’s all.”

She sucked in a breath, her chest visibly rising. “Is this about Raine?”

Now I set my fork down too. Here we had this beautiful lasagna just waiting to be eaten, and neither of us seemed interested now. What had been a happy, light atmosphere had suddenly turned strained and tense.

I bit my lip, searching for the words to convey what had been spinning around in my head for days now. For weeks. I couldn’t find them, so I simply asked, “How do we know Raine isn’t pregnant?”

Maggie scoffed.

She fucking scoffed. What the fuck?

“Well, if she is, I’m the father of that baby,” I said. “And I deserve to know.”

She closed her eyes, and I knew what was coming. Sure enough, her eyes fluttered open, and a tear dripped down her cheek. She pushed her chair away from the table.

“Where are you going? Please eat your dinner…please?”

She dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Her words landed like tiny bombs right on my heart. My lungs squeezed in my chest as all the words, all the feelings I had been trying to suppress converged into one overwhelming sentiment that refused to be denied any longer. I’d pushed. I’d rationalized. I’d distracted myself.

But the truth was staring me in the face.

I reached out and took my wife’s hand. “I am. I’m in love with Raine, and I wanted her to have our baby.”

I thought she’d burst into tears. I thought she’d run away, trying to escape the truth I’d just detonated right here, right now.

But she didn’t. She just gave a small twist of a heartbroken smile and said, “Me too.”