Chapter16
“Hey, Lizzie--I haven’t heard from you all day, so I wanted to touch base and see if everything was okay,” Luke said as soon as the voice mail system prompted him. “If you’re not feeling well, maybe I could bring you some soup or something? Let me know. Okay, bye.”
He ended the call and sat back in the seat he’d taken in one of the little cafes scattered around Chicago, looking around. He’d spent most of the afternoon just sort of adrift after the doctor’s visit, thinking about the future. There was now a definitive--or close to definitive--time for his contract with Elizabeth to end.
There were plans to be made, both between the two of them and about the child to come, and Luke didn’t want to even talk about them with anyone other than Elizabeth, but he hadn’t heard anything from her about meeting up, not a peep since they’d parted at the doctor’s office.
Luke thought about going to Elizabeth’s apartment, just like he’d done before, but he didn’t even know if she’d be there. He could--he knew--be particularly sneaky and get one of his friends to hack into her phone, find out where she actually was, but that seemed like a nuclear option to deploy, and it would violate her trust.
Luke didn’t want to do that if he didn’t have to. He would wait for another thirty minutes, and then he would see if she’d gone home and maybe taken a nap--and just stayed asleep or something like that. Dr. Marchman had said that she would probably want sleep more than usual, especially in the first trimester and probably in the last as well.
Luke ordered himself another coffee and settled in to wait the thirty minutes he had given himself before taking the next step in trying to track down Elizabeth. He tried not to keep checking his phone, but he was beginning to feel nervous for reasons he couldn’t even put a finger on. Of course, adding caffeine to nerves is a great combo, he thought wryly. But that part wasn’t important--not for the moment, at least.
Luke checked on his investments, made a few tweaks, and checked the time again. It was almost thirty minutes. He’d parted down the street a bit from the cafe, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to drive to the apartment where she lived, and at least check and see if she was there. If she wasn’t, then he would call again and ask her more urgently to call him back. If you don’t hear from her in two hours, then you need to deploy the nuclear option.
Just when he would have grabbed his keys and phone and left the cafe, his phone buzzed. The screen showed Elizabeth’s name, and Luke nearly dropped everything in his hands in his scramble to answer before it rolled over to voicemail. “Hey! Have you been busy or something?”
“Yeah, a little bit. Just a project,” Elizabeth said. “Sorry I didn’t call back sooner.”
“It’s fine, I just thought we were going to meet up,” Luke said, trying to keep his tone as light as possible.
“Why don’t you come over? I’m at the apartment, and I’ve got some great stuff for dinner.”
“That sounds awesome,” Luke said, smiling to himself. “Anything I can grab on my way over?”
“I’m making steak, potatoes, mushrooms...if you want a beer or something, you could grab that,” Elizabeth told him.
“I’ll grab something,” Luke told her. He rose from his seat and finished the call, thinking about what there was between the cafe and Elizabeth’s apartment. There were a few Whole Foods locations, a few specialized ethnic groceries and food markets, bakeries and so on. Luke pondered for a moment longer and came to a decision.
He stopped off at Mariano’s on his way out to Ogden Avenue where hers apartment was and hurried through the market, stopping at the deli counter to pick up some cured meats and cheeses, some olives and other odds and ends--artichoke hearts, sweet peppers, and pickles--to go with what he thought would be a good starter before their dinner.
Luke stopped in the bakery and picked up a few pastries, smiling to himself at the reminder it would provide of their initial tryst together. Last of all, he picked up a flower arrangement and then paid for it all without even paying attention to the price before heading back to his car, intent on getting to Elizabeth as quickly as possible.
Luke checked to make sure that he had everything in the bags as he walked up to Elizabeth’s apartment building. The fact that she’d delayed getting in touch with him for so long was unusual--even slightly suspicious--but he didn’t know what to make of it. It could be something as simple as her falling asleep or getting busy with work and just not realizing how much time had passed, but if she’d been working, then she almost certainly would have noticed his call sooner rather than later.
Whatever the situation was, Luke was relieved that they would be having dinner together. He realized that he had only seen the inside of her apartment briefly, and he was fairly certain she hadn’t finished decorating it. He took the elevator up to her floor and smiled to himself. They’d gotten confirmation on the pregnancy; even though that meant that there was a more definitive date for the contract to end, that also meant that they could just enjoy being together without stressing out about when Elizabeth would get pregnant.
They could--in theory--have sex whenever they wanted, as much as they wanted, without trying to focus on the times when she was ovulating. She couldn’t, after all, get pregnant twice; or at least, it was very unlikely.
He knocked on the door, and a few moments later, she opened it, smiling. She’d changed out of the clothes she’d worn to the doctor’s office, and her hair was down. Overall, Luke thought, she looked comfortable and adorable, all at the same time.
“I brought a few things that I thought would go with dinner,” he said, holding up both the bags from Mariano’s and the flowers he’d gotten her. “Some stuff to eat while you’re cooking, and something sweet for after.”
“That is so thoughtful! Thank you,” Elizabeth said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek as she let him in. Luke kicked off his shoes and came into the apartment, looking around. He had to admit that Elizabeth had done even more with the place than he would have thought possible in such a short time.
The couch he’d gotten her was now decked out with comfortable cushions and a nice-looking throw, and she’d had an entertainment center installed, along with a coffee table and a couple of side tables. He hadn’t been in her bedroom yet, but Luke hoped that was where the night would take them; then, maybe, he could see what her inner sanctum looked like--as well as get a little stress relief for both of them.
“Place looks good,” Luke said, moving to sit at the kitchen table. He began taking things out of the bags, and Elizabeth went into the kitchen proper to take down a platter.
“Thank you,” she said. “I think I’m just about done decorating; I just need to figure out what I’m going to put on the walls, other than the calendar in my office.”
“You use a paper calendar?” Elizabeth nodded and brought the platter over to him, and Luke went to work arranging the different things he’d gotten at the market on it.
“I use the one on my phone too,” she explained. “But there’s something about writing something onto an actual physical calendar that helps me keep it all in focus and makes sure that I stick to deadlines.”
“Are you going to keep working through the pregnancy? I mean--I could increase the monthly stipend if you don’t think five thousand is enough to live the way you want.”
“It’s more that I would be bored out of my mind if I didn’t work,” Elizabeth said. “I know, I have a problem.”
Luke snickered.
“You sound like every other freelancer I’ve met,” he told her.
“But it’s good to have stuff to do,” Elizabeth finished.
“Yeah, I think I’d probably feel the same way, in your position,” Luke said. He finished laying out the bits and bites he’d purchased and pushed the platter closer to Elizabeth.
“In my position?” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. Luke had noticed--in the back of his mind--that she wasn’t acting the same way as usual around him, since his arrival at her apartment. He wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t think of any reason. Maybe she was just feeling hormonal or tired?
“If I was carrying a child for someone and living in a new city for about a year, all that,” he said. “I’d probably keep working too, just to have something to do every day.”
“But do you actually work?” Elizabeth snagged a paper-thin slice of serrano ham off of the platter and popped it into her mouth.
“I do, as a matter of fact,” Luke said. “I mean, I know it mostly looks like luck, but there is work that goes into cryptocurrency investment. Research, things like that.” Elizabeth shrugged and stepped back into the kitchen, her slippers slapping lightly on the wood floor and then on the tiles. She took two healthy-looking steaks out of the fridge and set them out on the counter, lightly covering them with aluminum foil to keep any possible dust or anything else drifting in the room off of the meat.
“How many hours a week do you work at that?” Elizabeth came back to the table and finally sat down. “Oh! I should have asked if you want something to drink.”
“I can get something for myself, if you don’t mind me raiding your fridge,” Luke said. “I work maybe twenty hours a week.”
“So, basically working a part-time job, you’ve become a billionaire,” Elizabeth said, musing. “That’s...wow.”
“I probably could do other stuff with my money,” Luke acknowledged. “Start a charity or something. That would take up more time.”
“Well, once you have this baby, you’ll have plenty of your time consumed,” Elizabeth pointed out. “It’s actually pretty great that you can maintain your billionaire lifestyle with twenty hours of work a week.”
“It’ll be convenient,” Luke agreed.
They switched to other topics for a while, and Luke lost his impression that Elizabeth was behaving weirdly; he told himself while it was still on his mind that he’d just been imagining it and making something out of nothing at all. Elizabeth had started the potatoes in the oven before he’d arrived, and she began sautéing the mushrooms for the steaks while they talked, moving about the kitchen with a kind of comfortable ease that belied the fact that she’d only been using it for a month or so.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” Elizabeth said as she got another pan down and set it on another of the gas burners to pre-heat with some oil in it.
“What’s that?” Luke stepped into the kitchen with a few olives for Elizabeth. She plucked one out of his hand and popped it into her mouth, chewing and swallowing before she replied.
“How long were you single? I mean--how long has it been since your last breakup, and when did you decide you wanted a kid instead of a girlfriend?” Luke shrugged.
“It’s been about a year,” he said.
“How did things end with the last woman you were with?” Luke raised an eyebrow at that question.
“The same way they usually do,” he said, wondering about Elizabeth’s sudden curiosity in the topic of his love life. “I realized that I just didn’t have the feelings for her that I should, for the kind of relationship it was, and that she wanted more than I did, so I broke things off.” Elizabeth nodded.
“How serious did things get with her?” Luke shrugged again.
“Not that serious,” he replied. “I mean, I pretty much ended things around the time they were starting to get to that stage. Why are you so curious all of a sudden?” Elizabeth checked the heat of the pan by holding her hand about half a foot over it.
“It just seems kind of strange to me to jump from being in relationships to hiring a surrogate to have your kid,” she said. “I mean, obviously it turned out for the best in this circumstance.”
“I figured that if it hadn’t happened yet, it wasn’t likely to happen--at least not any time soon,” Luke said. “So, I decided that since I wanted at least some semblance of family, I might as well just buy the main ingredient.”
“A kid is an ingredient?” Elizabeth gave him a slightly sharp look.
“In a family, yeah,” Luke said. “I mean, families are built around kids--a lot of them are, anyway. If I couldn’t find a wife to love, I figured I might as well have the other building block. I don’t want to be like...sixty by the time my kid is graduating high school.
So, I figured I’d have the kid, and that would give me more time to maybe eventually find the woman I would love.” Elizabeth nodded. The pan was finally hot enough, to judge by the way she yanked her hand away from its spot above the shimmering oil.
Luke watched as she laid the steaks into the pan carefully, flicking the end away from her so that the oil wouldn’t splash. She was, he thought, a pretty incredibly good cook: skilled, obviously, and comfortable with everything. She’d seasoned the steaks before she’d set aside the mushrooms, and from what Luke could tell, the whole meal would be done roughly at the same time. It was a better effort than he would have been able to put forth on his own.
“So, I guess it’s extra lucky for you that you’ve got the full package--at least for now,” Elizabeth said.
“I wanted to talk about that, actually,” Luke said. “If you don’t mind?” Elizabeth nodded absently, watching the steaks. She’d taken butter out just before setting the pan on the stove to preheat, and Luke watched her cut off a piece without even looking.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“You told me--before I got stupid and before I realized I’d been being stupid--that you would need emotional support during the pregnancy, and I believe that,” Luke said. “And we’ve more or less agreed to kind of treat this as a real relationship, even if it has kind of an endpoint.”
“An endpoint...yeah, that’s a way to describe it,” Elizabeth said a little wryly.
“Well, the original agreement was that we would part ways when you give birth. But you have this apartment for a whole year,” Luke said. “And we did talk about just sort of seeing how things go between us.”
“Still with you,” Elizabeth said. Luke watched her turn the steaks in quick, deft movements.
“I would like us to basically just...treat this like we’re a boyfriend and a girlfriend who got pregnant,” Luke finished. “Having sex like normal, all that.”
“Oh, you want to make sure you still get laid while I’m knocked up,” Elizabeth joked, giving him a glance. She began to tentatively test the doneness of the steaks, pressing carefully with the tips of her pair of tongs.
“You’ll enjoy it too. Besides, weren’t you the one that pointed out that repeat exposure to semen can prevent complications from your body thinking the baby is foreign?”
“I did,” Elizabeth admitted.
“I just want to be with you,” Luke said. “Really and truly. I don’t want you to just be my surrogate who I have feelings for and sex with.” Elizabeth nodded absently to that to signal that she understood what he meant, though her eyes were still on the steaks. Luke waited patiently for her to finish them with the butter and some cracked garlic, and then she took them off the pan and laid them on separate plates to rest while she finished everything else up.
“I want that too,” Elizabeth finally said, turning to look at him. “For however long it lasts.”