CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I did what I always did when I was too weak to stand. I went home.
Bev welcomed me with her warm heart and her open arms, as she always had.
I poured my heart out to her and told her everything I’d avoided telling since Tristan and I had started seeing each other again.
She took it well, didn’t judge, only soothed and listened and soothed some more.
I hadn’t even been there for five hours when Frankie showed up, and I wasn’t at all surprised. It seemed to be her MO.
She was like our combat nurse, always showing up after a battle to help each side nurse its wounds. I must have been the one she’d decided was more badly injured, if she’d found me this fast.
Bev let her in and poured her a glass of red wine.
“Why do I always take life so seriously?” I asked them both.
Neither had an answer except to give me sympathetic looks.
“You know, I’ve never smoked crack,” I told mostly Frankie, but of course, Bev had the stronger reaction.
“What the hell are you talking about?” She sounded appalled.
“We used to have this homeless guy that would creep into the gallery, like a couple of times a week.”
“Dirty Jim,” Frankie guessed.
I nodded.
“He sounds charming,” Bev said, sounding appalled.
“Not so much.”
“He had Hep C,” Frankie added her two cents. “Liked to talk about it. In fact, he had a rap about it. Shit, I can’t remember what it was, but he actually found a word that rhymed with hepatitis.”
“We’d always have him escorted out,” I continued, ignoring her. “Since he tended to shout obscenities at the other patrons. But whenever security would start to drag him out, his last line was always, ‘You haven’t lived until you’ve smoked crack.’ Hell, for all I know, he had a point.”
They both stared at me like I was crazy, and that’s when I realized that I was drunk. I started laughing.
“Now I remember! It was meningitis.
That’s the word he used to rhyme with hepatitis in his rap. Not as clever of a rhyme as it seemed like at the time, but oh well.
God, he was a crazy
motherf*cker. I shit you not, he asked me to tattoo some balls on his chin, like, a dozen times.”
I shook my head at her, laughing harder.
“He offered to pay for it by donating his sperm to the parlor. He was a dick, always trying to get on the TV show, but he never said anything that could get past the censors, the weirdo. The producers even tried to coach him, because they thought he’d be a funny touch for the show, but he couldn’t go two words with dropping the F-bomb.”
I lost it.
“I thought you both worked in a nice casino,” Bev gasped as if in outrage, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh.
“You’ve been cooped up in your office too much,” Frankie told her. “This is Vegas. It’s like the weirdo capital of the universe. Just drive down Boulder Highway sometime, if you don’t believe me. There will be at least one crazy motherf*cker wandering around in his boxers, looking like he just walked off the set of The Hangover. Guaranteed.”
“Well, what does it say about all of us that we live here?” Bev asked.
“We like spontaneity?” Frankie tried.
“I hate spontaneity,” I pointed out.
“God, I hate surprises. How did I get so screwed up?”
I started bawling. Neither of them could seem to get to me fast enough, but it was Bev that got there first, pulling me into her, patting my back, and making soothing noises while I cried it out.
I’d calmed considerably when she spoke.
“I’ve never smoked crack, but I swear snorting coke helped me get through law school,” Bev revealed.
We couldn’t stop laughing after that, and I hadn’t a clue if she was joking or not. I knew she’d been through some serious partying days, once upon a time, so it was anybody’s guess.
“But I digress,” she continued, voice gone from wry to soft. “You don’t need to follow every impulse in life; you don’t need to take on every gamble. But some, even ones that have burned you before, well, some of them you do.
Some of the sweetest moments in life come from second chances.” I knew this was Bev giving me her blessing, and I gave her a teary smile for that.
Who knew better than Bev that second chances could work?
He was dressed nicely in a plain navy suit. It was simple and severe, and he looked just gorgeous in it. His face was pretty neutral as I opened my front door.
It was a surprise visit, and I was certainly surprised.
Without even
thinking, I opened the door to let him in.
I’d missed him and had half expected never to see him again.
“What’s going on?” I asked him, instantly suspicious by his smile. It was a sweet, bland smile, which made me think he was up to something.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you again,” I told him.
“Oh Danika.” His soft voice was full of reproach. It was almost…comforting, as though nothing had changed since our last meeting.
He was carrying a briefcase, something I’d never seen him do before. I was instantly suspicious.
“What’s in the case?” I asked him. I automatically thought it must be for some kind of magic trick. That was, after all, what he did. “Don’t tell me. Magic, right?”
The sweet smile got bigger, lost the bland, and became mischievous. “You could say that, I suppose.”
What the hell did that mean?
He moved immediately into my living room, making himself at home on my sofa. He set the briefcase on my coffee table, popping it open. He took out a small laptop that looked ridiculous as he opened it and started typing with those huge hands of his.
I moved in front of him, one hand on my hip, the other pointing to the small black velvet bag in his case. It reeked of a magic trick.
He just smiled, shaking his head. “It’s a surprise. Let me pull something up on here, and then I’ll show you.”
I moved around him to look over his shoulder, trying to make out what he was looking at on his screen.
“Step one: Pick an adoption agency. I already found one. I hope you don’t mind me just deciding. I’ve been doing nothing but researching it for the past week, so trust me when I say I’m making an informed decision.”
My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest, but I managed to keep my voice calm. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Step two: Choose the country of adoption. I’ve thought this over a lot, and I was thinking, and tell me if I’m wrong, that it doesn’t really matter. But I heard that the process goes faster if you choose a country yourself, so I went to the liberty of putting them all in a hat.” He bent forward, plucking the black velvet pouch out of the briefcase and pulling it open until there was just enough room for my hand to fit in. “I think you should do the honors.” I put my hand in, mostly because it was so surreal that I couldn’t quite believe what was going on. I pulled out a small piece of paper that only said China.
“China. Perfect. Now that that’s out of the way, Step three: Do a shit-ton of paperwork. I’ve heard that part is a headache, but it’ll be well worth it.”
“Tristan—”
“Oh,
wait,
I
forgot
something
important. Reach into the bag again.” I don’t know why, but I just did it, though I knew we needed to talk more than he needed to continue with this.
Whereas before my hands had skimmed over several small pieces of paper, now it held only one thing, at the very bottom. He hadn’t so much as twitched, that I could tell, since the last time I’d reached in.
I yanked my hand back like it had been burned the second I felt what was inside. I knew what it was instantly.
I started shaking my head as Tristan started nodding that yes, it was just what I thought it was.
He got down on one knee in front of me.
I covered my face with my hands.
He started laughing. “I learned my lesson the first time. Notice my clever location is very much private.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice muffled by my own hands.
“You know,” his deep voice was affectionately amused.
He moved my arm a bit, but not to take my hands from my face, as I originally thought.
Instead, he covered the spot on my chest just over my heart. He kept it there for a few beats, and then he was shifting, standing, then pulling me against him, pushing my face down on his chest with one hand, the other moving to cover my chest again.
“Do you hear that?” he uttered quietly.
“Hear what?” I whispered back.
“It never stopped, did it?” he asked softly. “All this time. Years. And my heart is still beating in time with yours, still working, above all else, to keep that even pace. Fight it all you want, but even our bodies betray our feelings.” As though in direct contradiction, my heart tried to pound its way out of my chest at his words.
I clenched my eyes shut tight, clenched everything as I spoke. “I can’t have children.”
“Oh, sweetheart. You haven’t been paying attention. Did you think the way I felt about you would change because of that? I am not that guy. I am the guy who has been in love with you for over six f*cking years. I am the guy that has thought about you every day. I miss you every day. What happened—what we lost together—breaks my heart, but it doesn’t change anything. I still want to marry you, and I still want you to be the mother of my children.”
“Tristan, I can’t—”
“It is a technicality.
We can’t
conceive, so we will adopt.”
I started sobbing.
“You know, if you get hysterical every time I propose to you, it’s going to start to hurt my feelings.”
I laughed, then sobbed harder.
“Give me my family back. Marry me.
Be my wife again.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, taking the ring out of the bag and putting it on my finger.
“Yes,” I finally told him, holding on for dear life.
He stroked my hair, his eyes closing, a look of utter peace overtaking his face.
“I missed you so much,” I sobbed, then burrowed into his chest.
“Never again.”
I waited until I was calm. “I love you,” I said quietly and vehemently.
I heard the smile in his voice. “Love you more.”