Watermelon iced smoothies and long beach walks had started to define Cici’s life. She hadn’t talked to Hoop since their text exchange yesterday. And she was okay with that. She needed a break. Her mom had come to the cottage to meet her and it had been just the two of them. Her mom had been talking a lot about her pregnancy with Cici and about Cici’s father; something that had really helped Cici to find her center again.
She knew she was running from Hoop and hiding because it hadn’t been just Rich that had upset her. It was the fact that Hoop might think of her in the same light and that would break her heart. Right now, she needed to be pampered and no one did that like her mom. The cottage they owned in the Hamptons had always been a retreat from real life when Cici was growing up and it was no different now. Her brothers were all coming home and maybe it was the baby and the pregnancy hormones but for the first time she realized that she might have been a barrier to her stepfather.
It was hard to admit it to herself after all these years but as she watched Steve talking with her brother, she realized he never really treated her any different than he did the boys. Maybe it had just been her own feelings of inadequacy…which made her think of Hoop, who’d grown up first in the foster system and then in an adoptive family. He was better adjusted than she was. How had he done that?
She missed Hoop.
It was silly to admit that even to herself, since she’d been the one to ask for space but she did miss him. There was no denying it. She’d gotten a few texts from Hayley and one from Iona, both of them checking up on her to make sure nothing was wrong. She’d ducked out on them too.
It was hard being friends with women who were so together. Who seemingly never put a foot wrong. While she knew the reality that they all did make mistakes, right now it felt like Cici was the only one making a huge mess of everything with each move she made.
She looked down at the fried chicken on her plate. It was oozing with calories and the old Cici, pre-preggo-Cici, would have sneered at the amount of fat and carbs on that plate, but now she didn’t. In fact, her mouth watered as she lifted it up and took a huge bite. Delicious…if only everything in life was as easy as fried chicken, she thought.
Her phone pinged and she glanced down and choked on the bite in her mouth. She finished chewing and swallowing, taking a huge sip of her bottled water before she glanced down at the screen again.
It had gone black and she admitted to herself she must have been hallucinating. There was no way that Rich had just texted her. He was in Hollywood with his career blowing up and doing his thing. Why the heck would he be texting her? Especially after he pretty much said I’m not interested in the baby or her.
She wiped her hands and then picked up her phone. As soon as she pushed the unlock button the message popped up again and she almost dropped her phone as the preview of the message sank in.
Twitter DM from Rich: We need to talk about the baby and about the future…
The bit of chicken that she’d just swallowed threatened to come back up and the secrets she’d been holding for too long were ready to come out, she thought. She stared at the screen and realized that running away hadn’t been her smartest idea. She needed her girls. She needed her support system. She wanted…hell, she wanted Hoop. She wanted to talk to him and hear his calm voice telling her that everything would be okay and giving her the sanguine advice that he always did.
But she’d run.
She’d shut him out and she really wasn’t too sure that letting him in was a good idea. It felt a little bit like she wanted him to fix this for her. She wanted someone to fix this for her.
But there wasn’t anyone else who could make this situation livable, save herself. She knew it.
She clicked on his message. He wanted to talk and had left her his agent’s number. She shook her head.
She opened the group chat she had with Iona and Hayley.
Cici: FML I think that I am in trouble. Rich just contacted me and told me to get in touch via a third party.
Hayley: Why isn’t he going through the law firm? And why is he telling you to contact him via someone else.
Iona: That’s a dick move.
Cici: Yes, it was. But I think he’s scared…or at least I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Hayley: Do you want us to come out there right now? Or are you coming back to the city?
Iona: I’m betting no to the city. She’s trying to avoid Hoop.
Cici: All true. I just need to figure out what to say to him. I mean, I want to ignore it but I’m not sure if that’s the best idea.
Hayley: Garrett is working all weekend. I just texted Dad’s driver to come and get me. Iona, are you in?
Iona: Yes. I’m at the shop. Pick me up there?
Hayley: Yes.
Cici: You guys don’t have to come.
Iona: Yes, we do. That’s what friends are for. We’ll be there in a couple of hours.
Cici felt tears burn her eyes. It wasn’t that she didn’t know her friends had her back, it was just that she had been so difficult lately, keeping everyone at arm’s length, that she’d thought maybe they’d taken her up on her demand to be left alone. It was reassuring that they hadn’t.
She tucked her phone into her pocket and then realized that her friends weren’t the only ones who had promised to be there for her. Hoop had as well. She wanted to pretend that she needed his legal advice, which she totally did, but she knew the real reason she wanted to contact him was that she missed him like crazy and he made her feel like the woman she’d always wanted to be. One who was strong enough to face anything that was put in her path.
Hoop woke up on his yacht, The Lazy Sunday, wearing yesterday’s clothes and one shoe. He rolled over and groaned as the sun hit his face; his head started pounding louder than The White Stripes. He folded his arm over his face and tried to breathe through his mouth to calm his stomach.
“Food?”
He groaned again. “Not yet.”
He rolled over, burying his face under the extra pillow on the bed.
“Soon, because you have work and I have a meeting with the captain in two hours.”
“Go away, Garrett.”
His friend laughed and then Hoop heard the very loud sound of Garrett walking away. Why was he walking so loudly? He’d thought they were friends…hell, best friends, but this morning he was finding that hard to believe. He was in pain and for the life of him couldn’t remember what had gone on last night. Drinking, to be sure. A few rounds of poker with the guys and then…did they take the boat out?
He forced himself out of bed because Garrett had a point. He needed to be at work today, he had a lot of paperwork to complete, and then…what?
He loved her.
Sure, he hadn’t told her yet but he knew he did and she’d skulked out of the City like he was someone to be avoided, instead of the man she’d said she wanted to date.
He stumbled to the bathroom and took a very quick shower, which involved him leaning his forehead against the wall while he washed. He wrapped a towel around his waist and then headed to the galley where there was a greasy bacon and egg sandwich on thick toast waiting. Garrett and Xavier, another cop friend of Hoop’s, were both sitting at the table, looking slightly more chipper than Hoop felt and eating in comfortable silence.
Hoop sat down gingerly across from them and started eating.
“What happened after poker?”
“You wanted to show us the yacht,” Xavier said. “But we stopped at the bar at the end of the pier first and drank and played pool. You bet Dev that you couldn’t be beaten and then ended up losing.”
“What did I lose?” Hoop asked, fumbling around in the drawer behind him where he kept his spare sunglasses.
“Your shoe. You bet him one shoe. For some reason this made sense to all of us last night,” Garrett said.
Hoop shook his head. “Where is Dev?”
“After beating you he took a victory lap around the bar and met someone and went home with her,” Xavier said.
“Wow. That was some night,” Hoop said. “Thanks, guys.”
“No problem,” Garrett said. “Hayley went to Long Island and I’m not as big a fan of staying home alone as I used to be.”
“And I’m divorced,” Xavier said. “So, I needed a distraction. The ex and her new boyfriend took my kids to Orlando for the week.”
Hoop reached over and patted Xavier on the shoulder. That could be him if he kept on with this relationship with Cici. She was a runner. He’d hoped he could convince her he was worth the gamble but life had taught him that the harder he held onto someone, the more easily they slipped from his grasp.
He rubbed his head and stopped eating.
When had he fallen back into these old thought patterns?
Cici.
It all came back to her. Time and again she was the one who was making his life…change. He hadn’t gotten this drunk in…well, he couldn’t remember the last time.
“You okay?” Xavier asked.
Hoop nodded. No sense in trying to explain to his friend something he wasn’t sure he understood himself. “Thanks. His phone alarm went off and he pulled it from his pocket and glanced at it. His Pops. He was supposed to be helping him with the lobster pots today.
“Damn. I’ve got to go,” he said getting to his feet. He threw away the last half of his sandwich and washed the plate, leaving it on the drainer. “Just leave your dishes in the sink, I’ll have the cleaning service send someone down later. Could you lock up when you go?”
“No problem,” Garrett said.
“Actually, I have to go now,” Xavier said, as he put his dish in the sink and headed up the gangway to the deck and left.
“Me too. I wanted to ask if you were heading out to Montauk this weekend? Maybe I could catch a ride with you. Hayley has a car to bring us back and driving two is kind of silly,” Garrett said.
“I’m heading there now. I told my Pops I’d be there this morning. I mean, I think that Cici wants some space…”
“You need to be with your family too, Hoop. Go and see your folks,” Garrett said.
“Did I tell you anything last night?”
“Everything,” Garrett said. “About the potential junior partner, how Cici’s paternity waiver is adding complications, how you feel about her.”
“Crap. I didn’t mean…”
“You needed to. I’ve never seen you so…not like yourself. And the last thing I want to do is talk about my feelings or hear about yours, but this is affecting your job and I know how much that means to you.”
“It does,” Hoop said. “Women.”
“Women,” Garrett agreed.
“Why is this so complicated? Did I tell you I’m the one who suggested the paternity waiver for Cici? So, all of this mess is my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. She hadn’t thought through the complications of having a baby without the father involved and it sounds like Rich didn’t either. They both just wanted to pretend it never happened.”
“True. But the real world has intervened.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Garrett said as they walked off the yacht and toward the cab stand. “You always do.”
He wished he had Garrett’s confidence but appreciated his friend’s faith in him.
Cici stretched out on the lounge chair under the umbrella, pretending that laying on her back hadn’t changed in the last few months. But it had. And she felt a little queasy. She rubbed her hand over her stomach.
“Bean, we are going to have to talk. I need vitamin D and laying in the sun has always been my favorite way to get it.”
The nausea didn’t subside, so she shifted around to her side, facing the chair where Iona was laying with her headphones in as she flipped through her magazine. It was one of those glossy, foodie magazines that had inspired the three of them to start the Candied Apple & Cafe.
Well magazines, Pinterest and Instagram, she thought with a grin.
“You okay?” Iona asked as she took off her headphones.
“Yes. Just can’t lay on my back right now.”
“Preggo stuff?”
She shrugged. To be fair, she didn’t know if it was because of her pregnancy hormones or the fact that she was hiding out at her parents’ house instead of facing the world. And the many things that were waiting for her.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Aren’t you sort of an expert by now?” Iona said, swinging her legs to the side of her chair as she sat up. She reached for her cover up and then her drink.
“Expert? Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure that the bean is going to be eighteen and I’m still not going to have figured out pregnancy.”
Iona laughed and Cici smiled at her friend. She thought Iona was lighter somehow now that she’d given in to the pressure of her matchmaking mama. “Why are you so happy?”
“I’m not pregnant,” Iona said with a wink.
Cici gave her a look though narrowed eyes. “I’m not unhappy because I’m pregnant.”
“I didn’t think you were unhappy about the baby at all. Are you?” Iona asked.
Iona was the first person to ask her that. And Cici realized that she honestly didn’t know the answer. When she thought of the baby…well, it felt to her like it was going to be them against the world. She’d have someone by her side that was hers. Not someone she had to share with another person since Rich was out of the picture.
But that had changed. One conference call had been like a bucket of cold water awakening her to the fact that she had never been as alone as she’d thought. There were so many other people who wanted to be a part of this child’s life.
And at this moment, Cici was in charge of making decisions that would have lifelong ramifications.
“I don’t know. I mean, at first, I was scared and whenever I think of actually having my child I am happy and a little anxious but the complications that are coming from getting pregnant by a man I’m not in a relationship with…that is something that is making me crazy.”
“Making you crazy?” Hayley asked as she handed Cici a glass of ice cold lemonade. “I thought you already were.”
She handed a glass to Iona and then sat down next to her.
“Ha ha. I’m being serious here. I thought it would be me and the bean and you guys and maybe my parents and brothers but now there are all these relations I am not sure I want to deal with.”
Hayley tipped her head to the side, studying Cici. “You can say no.”
“I get that. But what about when the bean is old enough to realize that her dad probably had parents and asks about them. And then I have to say I was selfish and told them they couldn’t see her…I don’t know why but I feel like the baby is a girl.”
Hayley got up and came and sat next to her, hugging her close for a long moment and Cici hugged her friend back, resting her head on her shoulder. “I think it’s a girl too. And it’s not selfish to want to keep the baby to yourself. You started this thing alone. As soon as you knew you were pregnant Rich walked away and told you he wanted nothing to do with it. So, you have been setting things up in your head the only way you knew how.”
“She’s right,” Iona said, reaching over to pat Cici’s leg. “You did what you had to. Do you want to know Rich’s parents?”
“No. But this baby might. I mean, I have a good relationship with my Dad’s parents and with Steve’s. Why should I cheat this baby out of the same thing?” Cici asked.
“Why should you? Because Rich isn’t a dead war hero like your dad was and he sounds very selfish and not all that mature. What did you see in him anyway?” Hayley asked.
“He’s cute and I’d had a lot of champagne and the man I really wanted had rejected me,” Cici said. “It wasn’t that hard to fall into his bed.”
“Makes sense. I wasn’t judging by the way, just thinking he’s not your usual type.”
“I know,” Cici admitted. “I think that was part of the appeal. I was so tired of being me. I acted on impulse.”
“Well, I have heard leap and the bridge will appear,” Hayley said. “Like you had to do something to break the pattern.”
“I certainly did that,” Cici said. “But the guy…”
“You got Hoop’s attention,” Iona said. “And the baby is probably your bridge. It is your future. It was unfair of them to try to force you to decide about the other grandparents so quickly. I’m glad you came out here.”
She looked at her friends and knew in her heart that she was blessed to have found these amazing women. “Me too.”
“So, do you know what you are going to do?”
“I think so. But I’m going to let everyone sweat a bit longer.”
Everyone except Hoop. But she didn’t want to just text him and she was afraid that the longer she went without talking to him, he might realize he didn’t need the complications she’d brought to his life. She needed to let him know just how much she needed him.