I was such a baby.
I didn’t talk to him about my concerns about us, even when Sunday night would’ve been the perfect opportunity. But I couldn’t help feeling like I wasn’t grateful enough or I was being selfish for wanting to make this relationship more about me than the baby, and God, even that sounded so messed up.
Maybe this was the reason why I hadn’t fallen in love before now, because as I drove to Nick’s house late Thursday morning, I was convinced that when it came to love I was ridiculously neurotic.
I second-guessed so much. Like everything from calling or texting him to if we weren’t doing enough couple things with other couples. I wanted to smack myself.
I also needed to stop eating everything in sight, because I was sure the extra tightness in the waistband of my jeans had nothing to do with the baby. At almost eleven weeks, my lima bean was the size of a lime, and outside of making me want to belch every five seconds, I doubted it was the cause of the extra ten pounds I’d packed on.
At a stoplight, I glanced at the grocery bags on the passenger seat and smiled. I was going to start watching what I ate after I had my hamburgers and cylinder-shaped potatoes.
Following the directions on my phone, I easily found Nick’s grandfather’s house. It was on the other side of Plymouth, away from the city and on the outskirts. Suburbia. The businesses grew farther and farther apart, the subdivisions had more space than houses, and when the directions indicated that I turn left in the next two hundred feet, I found that I was driving onto a private driveway—to a house, not in a subdivision.
I don’t know what I was expecting when it came to his grandfather’s house as I drove up the driveway. Maybe something old? A farm, perhaps? But as the stand of trees cleared to a neatly manicured front lawn, I was surprised to be staring up at a newish home.
Slowing down, I parked in front of a double bay garage and turned off the engine. The house was a two-story, colonial style, with a massive front porch that appeared to wrap around the other side. It was the perfect porch for lazy summers, I thought, or for a baby to sit and play on.
My tummy twisted pleasantly at that thought.
Grabbing the bags, I stepped out and closed the door behind me. The sun was hidden behind fat gray clouds, and as I walked up the river rock path, there was a chill of snow in the air. When I stepped up on the porch, I noticed a wooden swing and smiled.
Goodness, this really was the perfect porch.
Nick opened the front door before I could knock, and for a moment I was sort of blinded with stupidity. He was standing in the doorway in jeans. That’s all. Jeans that hung low on his hips, revealing that damn vee shape of his lower stomach. His hair was damp, curling against his temple and forehead.
“Hey,” he said, grinning boyishly. “I’m running late. Just stepped out of the shower.”
He sure did. A drop of water caressed the line of his collarbone and then slipped down his chest.
My pulse picked up.
Oh God, I wanted to jump him. Drop the hamburger meat and everything and just jump him, right there in the entryway of his grandfather’s house.
His dark brows rose. “You coming in?”
I needed to get a grip.
“Of course.” I cleared my throat and stepped inside, and because it wouldn’t be appropriate to jump his bones, I stretched up and brushed my lips over his.
Nick snaked an arm around my waist, drawing me up against his damp chest before I had a chance to step back. I almost dropped the groceries as he took that kiss to a whole different level. He tasted of mint and a whole lot of sultry promises I wanted to fulfill. Like right there.
“Every time,” he said against my mouth.
I had to catch my breath. “What?”
“Every time you see me, I want you to do that.” His nose brushed mine as he tilted his head, kissing me once more. “I want the first thing you do is kiss me. I want that kind of hello.”
Oh gosh.
My heart swelled so fast and so powerfully that when he set me back down on my feet and stepped back, I could feel actual tears climbing up the back of my throat. “I can do that,” I said when I really meant, Oh my good God, I will totally do that every freaking single time. Turning around, I gave myself time to recover by taking in my surroundings.
The house embodied an open concept. From where we stood, I could see into a large living room and kitchen to the right, with an eat-in dining room. There was a closed door to what I guessed was a bathroom. To my left was what appeared to be a study and another closed door. The stairs heading up to the second floor were directly in front of us. Hardwood floors as far as the eye could see.
“Everything is so . . . neat,” I said as Nick took the bags from me.
He laughed. “What were you expecting?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know.” I followed him toward the country-style kitchen—white cabinets, gray granite everywhere. “This place is neater than my apartment.”
“That is fucking true.”
Laughing, I smacked his arm as he set the groceries on the counter. “Hey!”
He grinned as grabbed the packets of hamburgers and placed them in the fridge. When he pulled out the tater tots, he shook his head. “You’re such a kid.”
“Shut up.” I leaned against the island as he placed the tots in the freezer. The house was so quiet I felt like I should whisper. “Is your grandfather up?”
“He’s actually asleep right now.”
“Oh.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Sorry. I was so loud.”
“It’s okay.” He stepped around the island and reached down, taking my hand. “When he sleeps, it’s pretty deep. A dump truck could drive through the garage and he’d sleep right through it. And he’s been sleeping a lot today.”
“Is that a good or bad thing? The sleeping a lot?”
“It’s . . . really neither.” He tugged on my hand. “Come on.”
Nick led me back to the foyer and past the study, to the closed door. When he opened it, I felt like a teenager again, sneaking through my boyfriend’s house so we didn’t alert his parents to what we were up to.
“Did you grandfather build this house?” I asked.
“Yep.” He pushed the door open, revealing a large bedroom. “He always planned that at some point more than one generation of the family would be living here, so there’s actually three master bedrooms. This is one of them. It has a walk-in over there. There’s the bathroom.” He gestured to a set of double doors to our right. “Can’t complain. Lots of good space.”
“Whoa.” I looked around, seeing little bits of Nick. A dark shirt on the bed. A pair of boots in front of dark wood dresser. A stack of magazines on one of the nightstands. “This is nice. Where are the other two masters?”
“One is downstairs in the basement. It’s virtually its own apartment—kitchen, living area, and all that.” He reached out, catching a strand of my hair and tucking it back behind my ear. “The other one is upstairs. A more traditional master, I guess. It’s my grandfather’s room.”
I turned to him, smiling as I lifted my chin. “Your grandfather built a very beautiful house.”
Grinning, he backed up. “You haven’t seen the bathroom yet.” Wheeling around, he stopped in front of the double doors and pushed them open.
Nick stepped aside as I peered in. My mouth dropped opened as my eyes widened. “Wow . . .”
The master bath was the size of my bedroom. A Jacuzzi tub was pristine, as if it had never been used before. A slivery chandelier hung over it. The shower was large enough to fit three people, and the tan tile reached the ceilings. There was a rain showerhead.
“I could live in this,” I whispered. “And I sort of hate you.”
Nick chuckled as he walked up behind me, circling his arms around my waist. His hands flattened across my belly. “This house is big.”
“I can tell.”
He kissed my cheek. “Big enough for a family.”
I started to point out that was once again obvious, but as his lips blazed a path down the side of my neck, what he was saying sunk in. Big enough for a family—for him, me, and our baby. Like ninety percent of me wanted to do a crazy happy dance in the middle of the obscenely spacious bathroom, but the remaining ten percent of me was filled with restlessness.
“Or just for a guy and a girl,” I heard myself say.
Nick didn’t respond as his hand moved in a slow circle over my belly. I turned around in his embrace, my gaze meeting his. I wanted to stay something, ask him what he thought about us, but the words wouldn’t form on my tongue.
He lowered his head, kissing the tip of my nose before he pivoted around and went back to the bedroom. I briefly squeezed my eyes shut. When I reopened them, he was tugging a henley thermal on over his head.
What a shame.
I roamed out of the bedroom and into the study, immediately drawn to the books lining the built-in shelves. There were a lot of books, and as I made my way down the shelves, I came across several dusty photo albums.
“Oh Lord.”
Glancing over at the doorway, I saw Nick standing there, arms folded. I grinned as I pulled one of the thick albums out. “What?”
“Of course you’d find the photo albums.”
“It’s my hidden talent.” I walked over to a comfy-looking love seat and plopped down, cracking open the album. Several of the pictures were old black-and-white photos of dark-haired people.
Nick sat beside me, sighing. “My great-grandparents.”
I turned the page carefully, as some of the photos were slipping out from under the film. “They look very happy,” I commented.
“I didn’t know them, but I assume they were.”
Eventually the photos gave way to newer ones. His grandfather as a young man, smiling that half smile at the camera. “Very handsome.”
“I take after him,” he replied, picking up a piece of my hair.
“Have I ever told you how incredibly modest you are?”
He chuckled as he twisted the strand of hair around his finger as I kept turning the pages. “That’s my grandmother,” he explained when I stopped on an old wedding photo. “She passed away when I was only a couple of years old. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
Nick said nothing as he unraveled my hair and then started to curl it again, and he remained silent as I turned the pages, eventually finally a young woman and man who bore a striking resemblance to Nick. “Your parents?”
“Yes.”
My thumb smoothed over the photo of them sitting at a kitchen table. Both had dark hair and olive skin. The woman was very pretty, smiling while she held a long, thin cigarette in her hand. His father was behind her, curling an arm around her slim shoulders. There were more pictures of them. “They . . . they looked really good together.”
“They did.” He reached over after he stopped messing with my hair and flipped a few pages ahead, stopping on a big photo of a baby on its back, with a head full of dark hair. “And there I am. Adorable, huh?”
I grinned. “Yeah, you were adorable.”
“Still am.”
I snorted. “You look like you’re about to scream bloody murder.”
“Probably. Mom said I cried a lot. There’s something for us to look forward to.”
“Oh geez.”
He laughed as I turned the pages, and at the tips of my fingers, Nick grew from a tiny, red-faced baby to the kind of handsome teenager who would’ve gotten me into loads of trouble. Along the way, I watched his parents grow until his father disappeared from the family photos and then his mother. When I reached the end of the photo album, I really didn’t know what to say.
Life and loss categorized in one forgotten dusty tome.
Closing the book, I glanced over at Nick. He wasn’t looking at me, but staring at the closed album. “You haven’t looked at any of these pictures in a while.”
“It’s not . . . particularly easy to see things the way they used to be,” he admitted.
I returned my attention to the black cover of the album. “I didn’t look at pictures of my dad a lot, not for years after he died. It’s like I wanted to . . . erase all evidence of his existence. I know that sounds terrible, but it was easier not seeing reminders all over.”
He was quiet for a moment. “What changed it?”
“I . . . I missed him.”
Nick took the album from me and then stood, placing it back where I found it. “You want to see if he’s awake?”
Pushing up from the love seat, I nodded.
He took a deep breath. “Sometimes he gets more agitated late in the afternoon, so—”
“It’s okay.” Instead of waiting for him to take my hand, I took his and squeezed it gently. He led me upstairs and down the hall, to another set of double doors that were cracked open. With one hand he pushed them open, then walked in.
The room was bright and had a certain antiseptic scent to it. Everything was neat, but I wasn’t really paying attention to anything but the bed at the center. Propped up on pillows was a very frail, older man who barely resembled the man in the pictures.
As Nick guided me to the chairs beside the bed, I started to notice the other things in the room. Lap trays. Clean bedpans. A walker that appeared untouched for quite some time. Medical equipment I didn’t quite understand. My gaze went back to the bedpans, and it struck me then how much Nick was really dealing with.
I wanted to hug him.
“Hey Granddad,” Nick said, speaking like he’d normally talk to anyone. “I brought someone to meet you.”
My heart was pounding a bit. His grandfather was awake, but his rheumy gaze drifted over us as if we weren’t even there.
“This is Stephanie,” Nick said, taking a seat.
I sat down beside him, my hand still in his. “Hi.”
His grandfather didn’t respond as his gaze slowly moved back to Nick. “She is the girl I’ve been telling you about. . . .” Nick paused, shooting me a small grin. “I’ve been telling him good stuff.”
“I hope so.” My stomach toppled over itself.
“Mostly,” he added, and I grinned. Nick drew in a breath. “She’s the girl who’s going to make you a great-grandfather.”
I looked over at him, surprised. Telling his grandfather about me was a surprise, and it was a downright shock that he’d spoken about the pregnancy. I don’t even know why it was such a bombshell. I’d told my mother and she’d most definitely told every living person in the family by now.
“She works in the city and she eats tater tots,” Nick added.
My look of disbelief turned to one of wry humor, and then I turned back to his grandfather. “I’m sure you have nothing against tater tots.” Taking Nick’s lead, I spoke to his grandfather like I would anyone else. “I graduated from Shepherd University last spring, and I’m now working at the Lima Academy in the city. . . .”
We stayed in there for a little while, talking to his grandfather. It didn’t feel like we were having a one-sided conversation even though Job couldn’t respond. The truth was, he might’ve had trouble understanding what we were saying, but he seemed . . . calm. He watched us with milky, unfocused eyes, but sometimes—sometimes those eyes seemed to sharpen, dart back and forth between Nick and me. I wasn’t sure if those were moments of him comprehending us or if they were moments of him not knowing who we were at all.
I didn’t know, and it had to be so hard for Nick to constantly be confronted with that. I ached for him. I ached for his grandfather, but I did not regret being here, sitting with Nick, meeting the man who held it all together for Nick when their world came crumbling down.
It wasn’t fair—fair that a man who did so much would be knocked down by such a disease.
We didn’t visit very long, as his grandfather dozed off no more than an hour into us being up there. We quietly slipped out of the room and went downstairs. The moment we entered the living room, I said, “That went well. And I think he agrees that tater tots are awesome, so—”
Nick caught my arm and spun me around, startling me. He pulled me against his chest and wrapped his arms around me, holding me against him as tightly as I had wanted to hug him upstairs. He dipped his head, pressing his cheek against mine. “Thank you,” he said, his voice gruff.
I squeezed my eyes shut as I held him back. I didn’t have to ask. I knew what he was thanking me for. “There’s nothing to thank me for.”
“Yes. Yes, there is.”
We didn’t say anything after that for several moments. Instead, we stood there in each other’s embraces, and I think that was better than any words we could’ve shared.
Much, much later, when we sat on the couch side by side, our stomachs full, there was no resisting the broad, goofy smile on my face. There was no turkey or stuffing, no green bean casserole or mashed potatoes and gravy. But there were hamburgers and cheeseburgers and delicious, awesome tater tots, and it was one of the best Thanksgivings I could remember in a long time.