Chapter Twenty-Two
One year later
“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a beer. Noah? Gayle?” Austin pointed to them. He had his baby son strapped to his chest which was, Evelyn claimed, the only way the kid made it through the evenings without turning into a screaming hellion.
“Yeah, thanks. IPAs all around,” Noah said, his fingers linked in hers. It had taken her a bit of time to get used to being half of a couple again. And not because of their age difference, which wasn’t as great as the one between her and Ethan but, reversed, had a different cultural dynamic. She’d come to accept all her friends saw Noah as her equal, the way she did, so she could relax in social settings, like this one—the annual Fitzgerald Brewing Labor Day picnic. They always invited the TriCities staff to their massive house every year for it, where the food and beer flowed all afternoon and evening and into the night.
No one drove home from this event. She and Evelyn had arranged for a phalanx of car shares and taxis to be at the ready, and anyone who attempted to get behind the wheel drunk would have their keys snatched by a bunch of sober guys who’d been paid to patrol for that very thing.
She sat by the pool chatting with Ross and Elle Hoffman, the two brewers who’d met while working at Fitzgerald and now ran a trendy, successful restaurant in Detroit. Trent lounged nearby with his wife, Melody. His teenaged daughter from an earlier marriage sat holding her new sibling, giving her parents a break from baby duty. Noah must have gotten waylaid at the bar, likely talking about growing seasons, dirt, water—whatever. She smiled to herself at the thought of him, of them, of their life together, even though she worried almost constantly about being so ecstatic, figuring it would only get snatched away from her, like it had before.
“Here you go.” Noah handed her a clear plastic cup full of Fitzgerald’s finest IPA, interrupting her mild panic attack. He sat next to her, his arm draped over her shoulder, while people kept coming up to him to ask about the landscaping company and its new-found success. He’d hired a marketing and PR person who’d ramped things into high gear using social media and a ‘Flower Man Blog’, something Gayle was pretty proud of herself for initiating. It didn’t hurt that the new owner of the old Stokes Landscaping Company was model-hot and not at all camera-shy. She put a hand on his leg, still shaky from their quickie in the shower before they’d come over. It had been a bit of a make-up encounter, after a long argument the night before.
She was getting obsessed about kids again—but not over wanting one. She knew it was unlikely, given how hard it had been the first time and the difficult labor that had produced her son. Every doctor had said she’d be unlikely to conceive again so after their first, unprotected hook-up they’d had all the tests for all the nasties and had compared healthy results over a hundred-dollar bottle of wine in their earliest, sex-drenched months and had declared themselves condom-free.
No, now her obsession was over the fact that Noah was saddling himself with a woman who simply didn’t want, or more likely couldn’t have, his child, even after he’d made it crystal clear he was sick of hearing about it. He’d never wanted kids. His passel of nieces of nephews had cured him of anything resembling baby lust, especially since some of them were approaching their teenaged years with a vengeance, driving his sisters crazy with their antics.
She sat back on the lounge and propped her feet on Noah’s lap while he chatted and mildly flirted with a few of the bolder women who approached. She didn’t care. Hell, she admired any woman who’d come right up and do her mating dance while he had his hand on her bare calves. She wasn’t jealous in the slightest. He was hers. She was his. They were allowed to talk, even lightly flirt, with other people, as the situation required.
But she had her doubts about his loud protests regarding kids. Sighing, she looked around and motioned for Evelyn to come sit next to her. The place was getting busy, but her friend looked hollow-eyed and exhausted. “Hey, honey, will you get my friend a drink?” She poked Noah’s firm thigh with her toe. “Pretty please?” She batted her eyelashes at him. He winked at her, which came damn close to having the power to make her climax lately.
“Things going well?” Evelyn asked, watching Noah make his way through the crowd.
“Perfectly, thanks.” Gayle kept her gaze on his retreating ass, unable to stop staring at it.
“You guys gonna make it official sometime?”
“I don’t know,” she said, putting her empty cup on the table between them. “Maybe.” She stretched, loving how sated and perfect she felt even as her body yearned for his proximity. She glanced up at Evelyn’s house, wondering where she might corner him for a quickie later.
Evelyn smiled in a way that put Gayle immediately on edge. “What are you hiding from me?” she demanded, smacking her friend’s arm.
“What? Nothing. Oh, thanks, Noah.” Evelyn took her beer and winked at them before heading back into the crowd to play hostess with the most-est.
Gayle sighed and watched her friend go, gnawing on her bottom lip as the newly familiar baby-less worry hit her brain. Noah sat in Evelyn’s abandoned chaise longue and stared at her.
“You’re doing it again,” he said, before downing his beer and pulling her into his lap.
“Doing what?”
He pressed his lips to her bare shoulder, making her shiver with happiness. Ever since she’d told Ethan she was ‘going’, the memories of him and her boy had begun to fade, not in an alarming way but in a completely appropriate one.
“You’re making the Gayle face and that can only mean one thing.”
She pulled away from and stared into his eyes. “Gayle face, huh?” She put her hand alongside his newly grown beard. “This is sexy, did I ever tell you?”
“Yeah, you did about an hour ago. Stop changing the subject.”
“No, I’m serious.” She rubbed her cheek along his, loving the rasp of the facial hair and recalling it between her thighs the night before. “I really like it.”
“Gayle, cut it out.” He thumbed her chin and met her gaze. “I told you a million times already, I don’t want kids. Hell, it’s like we’re a perfectly matched couple that way, you know?”
She nodded.
“Stop it.” He touched her chapped lip that she’d begun to worry with her teeth again. “I like this one too much for you to keep chewing on it.” He kissed her softly, which did its usual number on her nerve endings. When he broke away, the noise of the party seemed to fade. “Stand up, woman. I need to do this the right way.” She rose, her ears ringing. He pulled something from his pocket.
“Oh,” she whispered when he opened a ring box, went down on one knee, and presented her with a lovely, vintage-looking diamond. “It was my great-grandmother’s ring. I would be honored if you would wear it and marry me, Gayle.”
She put a hand over her mouth. The infernal, ever-present tears rolled down her face. When she glanced over Noah’s shoulder, she saw a crowd gathering, fronted by Evelyn, Austin, Melody, Trent, Ross, Elle, her mother and Helen, from the yoga studio. They were all smiling. When she realized she could see Ethan and Liam as clear as day, as if they were also standing in the happy, gathered group, she nodded to them.
“Go on, don’t be a pussy,” she could swear she heard her dead husband’s bossy, profane voice demand. “It’s not like you. My Gayle goes for what she wants. Grab on and don’t let go. Be happy, my darling. I love you.”
She closed her eyes. When she opened them, Ethan and Liam were gone, replaced by more clapping, laughing people who knew her, knew Noah and would support this crazy, fucked up thing she was about to do. “Yes,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “Yes. I will marry you.”
He rose, slipped the ring on her finger and gathered her close. “I adore you, Gayle.”
“I adore you too, Noah,” she whispered. “But, um…” She glanced around as the crowd dissipated, headed back to the party.
“What is it, my love?” Noah asked, his lips hovering over hers again.
“I want to consummate this thing, like, now.” She ran her hand down into his swim trunks and gripped his hardening cock. “You know? Like make it official and all?”
He grinned against her lips then kissed her and didn’t stop until she broke away from him.
“I love you,” she said, so unbelievably happy she honestly thought she might faint from it.
“I know,” he said, taking her by the hand and leading her into the house, up the stairs and into his arms.