Surrender to Love

22

“You need to decide what’s more important—him or the car.”

Those were the words of wisdom her mother left her with after dropping by for a visit the previous day. Patti had been in a particularly down mood the past couple of days, and knowing that she would soon have to find it in herself to celebrate the impending birth of Piper and Tate’s first child among a roomful of happy people just made her want to throw up. Naturally, she’d told her mother all of this, and that’s the advice she’d given in return. Not exactly helpful, but it did get her thinking.

Her feelings were amplified when she got a check in the mail from Jon’s insurance agency later that evening as payment for the accident.

It felt like years ago that it had happened.

She already knew she wasn’t going to cash the check. It was a moot point anyway. She’d inflicted more damage on the car than he had, and this time she didn’t plan to fix it up.

It pained her, but after what her mother said, she’d decided to sell the car. There was no question one way or the other. Getting rid of it would serve as a symbol of her love and devotion to their relationship. Jon and their baby were more important to her than a stupid hunk of metal. Sure, she had many good memories wrapped up in that car, but there were bad ones, too. She’d been holding on to it all these years as a way to stay close to her father, to keep him in her thoughts, but the truth was, she didn’t need it to remember him or all the good times they’d shared. She could do that all on her own.

By the time the day of the party arrived, she’d agonized over whether or not to go a hundred times over, unsure of whether Jon would be there or not. She didn’t think she could stand to see him after watching him walking away from her like he had, but she didn’t think she could bear knowing he’d gone and she’d missed the opportunity.

She wanted to tell him that she was selling the car. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him. She wanted to tell him that she was pregnant. But she was terrified of how he would receive her.

He’d made it abundantly clear that she was no good for him. That he wasn’t willing to expend the time and energy it required to be with her because she was too much like his dead girlfriend. But, she reminded herself, that wasn’t the real her. The one who clung to inanimate objects and adopted a dead man’s joy over cars and speed and pointless, dangerous thrills had never been an accurate measurement of who she really was.

The problem was, she’d spent so much of her life developing that persona that she wasn’t even sure who her true self was, but she was trying to figure it out.

The only thing she knew for certain was that she loved Jon and she wanted him in her life. She didn’t care about his past, because everyone had one. She only wanted to be happy, to lead a good life, and she knew, after having him missing from hers, that the only way she’d ever be happy was if he were a part of it.

But would he want to be a part of her life? That was the million-dollar question.

That’s why she was now sitting—more like moping—in a room filled with chattering couples, nibbling on a celery stick while trying her damnedest to remain invisible. Jon hadn’t shown up yet, but rumor had it he’d said he would. Her stomach was fluttering and her palms were clammy and she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off the door.

“Can we tell them yet?” Jules appeared in her line of vision.

Patti pursed her lips. Her friend had nagged her since the moment she found out about her pregnancy to share the news with everyone, but Patti kept refusing. “No. I already told you, Jon should be the first to know.”

“But you already told me and your mom,” she complained. “And don’t forget the doctor and the nurses and the lab techs at the hospital. He’d hardly be the first in line to know about it.”

“Regardless, I’m not telling anyone yet. Besides,” Patti tacked on, “this party is about Piper and Tate. I’m not about to rain on their parade.”

“Who says it would be raining? It’s just more to celebrate.” Jules slung her arm over her shoulder and pulled her into her side, giving her a playful squeeze. “Come on. Just one person?”

Patti wasn’t about to agree to that, but just for curiosity’s sake, she asked, “If I say yes, who would you tell?”

“I don’t know.” Jules cast a thoughtful look around the room. “How about Sheila?”

“Ha!” Patti belted out a laugh. “Nice try, but everyone in this room would know about it in a matter of minutes. Not gonna happen, sister.”

“Then I pick Lynn.”

“No.”

“What about Piper? You know she can keep a secret.”

“No. Not a soul. Now back off before I’m forced to split your lip.” She shook her fist in the air.

“Rawr.” Jules made claw hands at her. She snatched a carrot stick from her plate and chomped the end of it off. “This pregnancy thing has made you snappy, momma.”

“I’ll show you snappy,” Patti rebutted. It felt good to laugh a little, to blow off some steam, and forget, for a moment, that she wasn’t a ball of nervous energy on the verge of explosion.

Jules became uncharacteristically serious. “Have you told your dad yet?”

She was one of the few people in her life who knew that Patti made it a habit to visit her dad’s grave and keep him updated on everything that was happening in her life. Not everyone understood her need to do it, like her mother, but Jules did. That was part of what made her such a great friend. Last year, she even helped her celebrate what would have been his sixty-third birthday with a small graveside party.

Patti picked at the vegetables heaped on her plate, configuring them into flower patterns. “No. I’m not sure I’m ready to tell him what a mess I’ve made of my life yet.”

Jules patted her on the knee. “Honey, you haven’t made a mess out of your life. So you’re single, who cares? At least you get to bring a beautiful new life into the world. I don’t think he would complain about having a grandchild, do you?”

“No.” Patti sulked, realizing that he wouldn’t even get to meet it.

“What’s with all the gloomy faces?” Patti and Jules looked up to find Piper waddling toward them with a big smile on her face. “This is a party you two. I want to see laughing and smiling and, gosh darn it, I want dancing.” She grabbed one of the empty chairs at their table and plopped down on it. “Good lord, if this kid doesn’t come out soon, I swear I’m going to lock Tate in the bedroom and make him orgasm me into labor.”

“That would barely be a hardship,” Tate said, grinning as he walked up behind her and dropped a kiss to his wife’s cheek. His hands found her shoulders and he began massaging them as he looked up. “Ladies.”

“Tate,” Jules and Patti said as one.

“What the hell are you eating vegetables for,” Tate asked, his face scrunched up in disgust, “when we hired ‘The Cook’ to make all those insanely expensive and flamboyantly designed cupcakes and hors d’oeuvres?”

“For the ten-thousandth time, his name is Tom,” Piper said, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

“He put his mouth on my wife, therefore, he will always be ‘The Cook,’” Tate retorted.

“Looking forward to being a father?” Patti asked him, hoping to change the subject before it spiraled out of control. Not that it was likely, since it was rumored that Tate and Tom had actually formed a pretty tight friendship once he was sure that Tom’s relationship with Sheila wasn’t just a sham.

A serene look came over him, but he shrugged it off, affecting a most unaffected look. “Eh, it’s no Cubs game, but it’s still pretty exciting.”

Piper reached back and smacked him on the thigh. “What he means to say is that he’s over the moon about it. Isn’t that right, honey?”

“That’s right, dear.” He chuckled, and then gave her another kiss. “Looks like we have a couple of new guests. I’m going to leave you ladies to it and go say hello.”

All three women turned to look in the direction Tate was headed, and Patti felt her stomach flip wildly when her gaze fell on the man with the dark countenance standing in the doorway.

“Holy shit, look who’s here,” Jules said under her breath. “And he brought a friend, too. Who the hell is that tall drink of water, Piper?”

“Oh, him?” Piper turned back around to face them, acting as though she couldn’t see that Patti’s whole world had come to a complete stop, and every ounce of oxygen had been sucked from the room the moment Jon walked through the door, leaving her gasping for air. “That’s Jon’s friend, Travis. Tate goes golfing sometimes with them. I guess he’s a nice enough guy. Why, you planning on introducing yourself?” She grinned knowingly.

“Nope, but you are. Oh and here they come. Look alive ladies.” Jules tossed back her hair and fluffed her boobs.

“Travis, this is Patti, Jules, and my lovely wife, Piper,” Tate said, pointing each of them out.

“Nice to meet you,” Travis said politely, smiling at each of them.

“And I’d introduce Jon, but I think you’ve already met.”

Patti’s heart pounded. She couldn’t take her eyes off Jon. He was so handsome in his black slacks and soft blue button down. His black tie had been loosened slightly, but he still looked every bit as dashing and professional as she remembered. He must have just come from work. She wanted to ask him how his day was, but realized that it wasn’t her place to do that anymore.

Jon glanced at her once, acknowledging her presence, but as the day wore on, he seemed to be deliberately avoiding her.

He moved around the room, chatting with random groups of men who were almost as boisterous as the women were when they became excited over something they found particularly interesting. It was good to see him in a social setting, watching him laugh and smile as though nothing was bothering him, but Patti thought she could see subtle signs that all was not right in his world. He had shadows under his eyes, like he hadn’t been sleeping well, and although he smiled often and at all the right times, it seemed tight to her, almost forced.

Could it be that he was having a hard time with all of this, too, or was that just her trying to reason out an excuse to talk to him?

By three o’clock, Tate and Piper stood at the front of the room calling everyone’s attention. “It’s time to open the gifts,” he announced. “And you’d better hope yours is good, or else you’ll be seeing it again come Christmas.” Everyone laughed at his little joke.

Patti watched dutifully as her friends began tearing into their gifts. She sipped her water. Tried to ignore her preening friend who was making a damned fool of herself trying to get the attention of Jon’s friend.

“He’s so hot,” she breathed, staring openly at him. “Don’t you think?” She glanced at Patti expectantly.

“Totally.” She nodded.

“You didn’t even look!” Jules hissed. “Look at that man, and then you tell me you don’t think he’s got it going on.”

Patti sighed and forced herself to look, but she wasn’t looking at the man Jules had her libido set on. She only had eyes for one man, and he was looking right at her. Their blue eyes locked, and Patti’s insides seized up. Everything that had been left unsaid was right there in his eyes for her to see, and Patti wasn’t sure how much longer she could wait to talk to him. After the party, she decided. She would catch him then and force him to talk to her. Come hell or high water, they were going to work this out.

“Okay, quit ogling my man,” Jules said, jerking back her attention. “So, what do you think?”

“He’s amazing. Perfect,” she said, but her words were directed toward the only man she had eyes for…

“So you think I should go for it?”

Patti nodded. “Definitely.”

Jules grinned, pleased with her answer. “It’s just too bad he’s friends with that asshole. You really dodged a bullet with that one, but at least you got something good out of it.”

Patti frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Him, Jon, or whatever his name is. The guy you were dating?” Jules sent him an evil glare. Patti glanced up, seeing his brows lift in question. Jules leaned in, whispering conspiratorially in her ear. “A couple of the girls went out for drinks after work the other night and Sheila told me that she saw him having dinner with some bimbo.”

“How does she even know it was him?” Patti inquired, her stomach beginning to knot. “She only met him once, and we weren’t even dating yet.”

“Well, she didn’t call him by name but she said it was that hot guy who followed you to our table a couple of weeks ago. The same one who had two girlfriends.” Her eyebrows rose up and she gave Patti a challenging look. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who she was talking about.”

No it didn’t. Patti didn’t want to believe it, but she trusted her friends, and if they said they saw him with another woman, she was inclined to believe them. “Well,” she said, shifting in her chair. She played idly with the food on her plate, trying to quell the growing sickness brewing in her stomach. “It’s not like we’re dating anymore. He’s free to see whomever he wants.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re taking it so well,” Jules replied stiffly. “Because if I were you, I would be plotting out how long it would take to slash all of his tires before someone realized I was missing from the party.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” Patti said jokingly, but a part of her really wanted her friend to do something heinous just for the satisfaction of seeing his day tainted like hers was now. She must have read too much into his appearance after all. Maybe those shadows under his eyes were from him losing too much sleep because he’d been too busy screwing his way through the female population while she was at home growing arms for his fetus.

“What in the world?” At the front of the room, Piper held up a small, cream-colored box with the word Lelo across the top. She smiled curiously, as she opened the lid and peered inside.

“Well, what is it? Show us!” someone in the group called out.

Piper turned the box to face everyone. Inside were four sets of balls. One pair was powder blue and about the size of a golf ball, and the other pair was baby pink, slightly smaller, and set into white rings that were joined in the middle, resembling baby rattles.

“Sheila?” Piper glanced over at their friend in question.

Sheila, who had her head bent toward her boyfriend, Tom, whispering to one another, feeding each other cupcake icing from their fingertips, lifted her head. A wicked smile split across her face. “Oh, you’re going to love those. Their Kegel balls.” Piper stared at her blankly, and then slowly, her face began to take on a slightly pinker hue. “After the baby comes you just pop those suckers in, and then your vag will be as tight as a virgin again.”

Tate snatched the box from Piper’s fingers and inspected them. “Sweet. Thanks, Sheila. We’ll make sure to put these to good use.”

“Yeah, Sheila,” Piper said tightly. “How can we ever thank you enough?”

“Just keep it tight, sweetie.”

Piper’s face turned a bright shade of red, and she turned her attention to another present. “This one is from Patti,” she announced, tearing into it.

“Come on vibrator,” Tate said eagerly, rubbing his hands together and earning a few laughs from the crowd.

“You wish,” Patti snorted. “But I don’t think Piper could get it far enough into your tight ass for it to be worthwhile.”

Tate pointed a finger at her and winked as though to say she’d won that round. Piper lifted up a small box. “Plaster of Paris foot molding kit.”

Patti smiled softly. “That way when your baby is all grown up you can still hold his or her foot in the palm of your hand.”

Piper’s eyes misted and she fanned her face. “Thank you. I can’t wait to use it.”

Patti smiled, because that was about all that she could manage with the growing lump forming in her throat. The gift was relatively inexpensive and it hadn’t taken her very long to pick out, but the moment she saw it, she knew it would be perfect. In the few days since she’d learned she was going to be a mother, she had begun seeing the world and the future through a mother’s eyes and, as she’d come to realize, some of the best things came in the smallest packages.

As much as she was looking forward to holding her own son or daughter in her arms, she knew that those days would be short-lived, which was why she’d purchased a kit for herself. She wanted to be able to look back one day, when the memories had grown fuzzy, and hold her child’s foot in her hand and recall just how tiny and precious they were.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jules touched her arm. “You’re not about to cry are you?”

Patti smiled tightly and waved away her concern. “Of course not. I have something in my eye.” She pushed out of her chair. “I’m going to go to the restroom.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No,” Patti said over her shoulder, already rushing for the door. She could feel the burn of tears in her nose. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

She burst through the bathroom door and locked herself in the first available stall. It was such a sick twist of fate that she would spend her life dodging love, guarding herself from heartbreak, only to find herself heartbroken and pregnant in the span of a month. The realization that she may have to raise a baby by herself hit her hard, like a sucker punch to the chest, and she broke down, right there in the middle of the women’s bathroom.

“Excuse me, Miss, are you okay?” a woman’s voice called out to her from just outside her stall door.

Patti tore off a piece of toilet paper and wiped her runny nose. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said with a hint of self-loathing. “Baby showers always get me.”

A moment passed where Patti stared at the toes of the woman’s pointy black shoes and wished she would just go away already. “Do you need me to get someone for you?”

A ginger ale and the father of her baby would be great. “No, that’s okay,” she told her instead.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Patti waited until she heard the bathroom door open and close and the clicking of the woman’s heels had completely faded before she ventured out. The moment she did, she instantly regretted it.

“Hey.” Jon stood there, leaning against the row of sinks, his arms folded across his wide chest, just staring at her.

Surprised to see him, Patti almost tripped over her own feet, but managed to recover before making a total idiot of herself. “Hey,” she said shakily, trying her best to sound upbeat and not at all like she had just been crying her eyes out. It wasn’t working. “What are you doing in here? You do know this is the women’s bathroom, right?”

“I followed you,” he admitted.

Patti felt completely awkward standing in front of Jon, feeling like a complete mess. She tried to play it off. Skirting past him, acting as though he didn’t affect her, she approached the sink. The second she caught a look of herself in the mirror, fading yellow bruises and black smudges beneath puffy, red eyes, she grimaced. “Damn, someone needs to start realizing that fluorescent lighting is nobody’s friend.”

“Why were you crying?”

“Me?” Patti made a face and began washing her hands. “I wasn’t crying.”

She could feel Jon’s eyes on the side of her head. Finally, after a solid minute passed, he reached over and shut off the water. “Yes, you were.” He studied her, and the intensity in his eyes was unsettling. “Does me being here upset you?”

“Everything about you upsets me,” Patti blurted. She wanted to take the words back the instant they left her mouth.

“Fair enough,” he said, tipping his head to her. “Would it help if I left?”

Patti didn’t have to think about her answer. “No. I don’t want you to leave.”

“Why not?”

Patti opened her mouth, the words she wanted to say on the tip of her tongue, but just as she was about to say them, the door burst open. “Oh! Sorry.” The petite brunette, that still managed to be a few inches taller than Patti was, took one look at Jon and tilted her head back to look at the plate on the door. Yep, she was in the right bathroom. “Um, am I interrupting?”

“No,” Patti said quickly. She wiped her hands on her pant leg and turned to leave. “We were just talking. We’ll get out of your way.”

The woman stood aside to let them pass. On the way back to the party, Jon grabbed Patti’s elbow and pulled her to a stop. “What were you going to say back there?”

“I—” The words choked in her throat. “I was just going to say that you don’t have to leave because…they’re your friends, too—” Lies, lies, lies, her brain shouted at her, but Patti had chickened out. Jon was seeing other women. What kind of fool would she look like if she poured her heart and soul out to him now? And the baby? Yes, she knew he deserved to know about it, but just then didn’t seem like the proper place and time to tell him.

She didn’t know when or where it would be best, but she knew that if his answer was anything other than elation, she wasn’t capable of dealing with it right then. Her emotions were too raw.

Instead, she blurted, “I’m selling the car.”

Jon blinked several times, too stunned to speak. “Which one, the Toyota or the GTO?”

“The GTO.”

His eyes widened slightly in surprise. “How come?”

Patti looked past him, around him, down at her feet. “I thought about what you said, about me being self-destructive and that I was probably going to get myself killed one day, and I realized you were right. Besides, I’ve poured so many hours into making it what it is and repairing it the last time that I just couldn’t stand the thought of starting all over again.” She shrugged. “It’s time to let someone else do all the work, and get some enjoyment out of it.”

“I don’t think I ever said that you were self-destructive,” Jon said with a teasing smile.

“Well, maybe not in so many words…”

“Patricia, I—”

“There you are!” Jules came dashing into the hall, her smile so broad all of her teeth were showing. She took hold of Patti’s shoulders and turned her around. “Excuse us,” she told Jon absently, then began chattering excitedly. “You won’t believe who I talked to! His name is Travis, he’s a lawyer, and he is totally into me. We’re going out to dinner tomorrow night!”

Patti held on tight as Jules jumped up and down, jostling her. “That’s great,” she said enthusiastically. “Can you hold that thought? I was talking to Jon about something.”

Jules raked her eyes over him. “About what?”

“About stuff,” Patti said meaningfully.

Jon raised his hands in the air. “It’s fine. You two go talk.” To Patti he said, “We’ll catch up later. Can you come by my place? Say seven?”

“Tonight?” Jules asked, sounding distraught. “But I need you tonight. I need help picking out what to wear. I need to figure out what I’m going to do with my hair.”

“Rain check?” Patti asked Jon hopefully.

“Sure, come by tomorrow when you get the time.”

Patti smiled and nodded. She watched him as he walked away, feeling relief from the oppressive weight that had been sitting on her shoulders finally lift. Jon was speaking to her, making time for her, and they were finally going to talk.

This roller coaster of a day had just taken a turn for the better.