The Truth About Ever After (5 page)

I
knew, in that moment, I was a goner.

Chapter Five

Just
like that, I had babies on the brain.

Eric
always tells me that when I decide I want something, I start obsessing. I think
he exaggerates, but in this case he would probably be right. Ever since the
wedding reception, all I could think about was babies. I wondered what my
babies with Eric would look like. Blond, probably, since we’re both blond.
Would they have his brown eyes, or my blue ones? Would they grow tall, like
Eric and Matt, or would they get my short stature? Would we have boy babies or
girl babies? Oh my God, what if we had twins? The idea was so exciting I could
barely stand it.

Of
course, I had yet to broach this topic with my husband. Eric always said he
wanted kids eventually, but so far I’d been unable to get him to commit to any
kind of timeframe. I knew he wanted to be more settled in his job first, and
I’d been so busy getting the event-planning firm off the ground. And, of
course, we would want to be settled in a real home first, not the condo in Daddy’s
building that we were living in now.

But
all those things were doable, right? I mean, finding a house would be easy in
this market—and probably lots of fun, too. Eric had been at his job for
more than a year now, and my firm was doing better than ever. Why shouldn’t we
start trying for a baby now?

I
debated the best way to bring this up to Eric as he and I settled into loungers
on the beach with Annie and Nate. Jen and Matt had left for a resort at one of
the other islands early that morning to start their honeymoon. Most of the
wedding party was staying on at the resort for the rest of the week. I was
eagerly looking forward to lots of time in the sun and on the beach.

“Where’s
Ginny?” I asked Annie as I started to slather on sunscreen.

“Benefits
of being a momma,” she said, pointing over her shoulder. “Danny asked them to
take him to the pool, so she’s over there with Josh and the baby.”

I
pictured little Maggie splashing around in the pool. Ginny was a girl after my
own heart where clothes were concerned—I was sure she would have picked
out an absolutely adorable little bathing suit for Maggie’s first trip to the
beach. The thought made my heart clench a little bit. Man, I had it bad.

“So,
Kiki, I know you’re dying to plan out activities for the week,” Annie said,
pulling me away from my thoughts of little ruffles and polka dots. “What’s on
the agenda?”

I
struggled to draw my focus to plans for the week ahead—this was usually
my thing. Matt had called me the Activity Director ever since high school. Most
of the time I was only happy if I was coordinating fun for the people around
me.

Annie
was waiting expectantly. “Well,” I said, starting to get excited. “There’s a
lot to do around here. There’s a snorkeling excursion that looks really fun;
they take you out to an uninhabited island and let you swim with stingrays. And
there’s supposed to be really good shopping in Nassau, and there’s always the
pirate museum—oh, and we have to head over to Atlantis! They have this
amazing aquarium and a water park right there in the resort! There’s this one
slide that takes you through a shark tank!”

“That
sounds like something I’d like to try,” Nate said.

“I
guess you’re
gonna
keep us
pretty busy,
Kiks
,” Eric said, smiling at me from his
lounger.

I
relaxed back against my own chair. “You know what?” I said, slipping my
sunglasses on. “There will be plenty of time for all that this week. Let’s just
relax today and enjoy the beach.”

It
was a perfect afternoon. The sky was cloudless, a bright sun reflecting off the
white sand and ocean, the water that impossible shade of turquoise you only find
in the Caribbean. Waiters patrolled the beach, bringing us deceptively
innocent-looking fruity concoctions that had me feeling pleasantly buzzy in
less than an hour.

“I
should go give Gin a break,” Annie sighed, making no move to stand up. “God
knows she could use a bit of lying in the sun-time.”

“I’ll
do it!” I said eagerly, sitting up at once. The beach seemed to sway around me
a little, and I braced myself with two hands on the chair. Definitely time to
ease up on the cocktails. “I’d be happy to watch the kids for a little while.”

“You
want to spend your vacation babysitting?” Annie looked at me over her
sunglasses.

“I
wouldn’t mind,” I said. “Not for a while at least. Those kids are adorable.”

“Suit
yourself,” Annie said, leaning back against her chair. “Adorable is hard to
compete with all this.” She waved her hand around, encompassing the beach and
water.

“I’ll
be back in a bit,” I said to Eric, gathering up my beach bag and pulling a
purple cover-up over my suit.

“
Mmmhmmm
,” Eric murmured, clearly half asleep and wholly
unconcerned with what I did. I smiled and leaned down, kissing his cheek before
heading off to find Ginny and her family.

It
didn’t take much searching. Josh was standing waist-deep in the pool, a hand
under Danny’s stomach as his son paddled around in the water, bright orange
water wings helping to keep him afloat. Ginny was sitting on the top pool step,
Maggie next to her. The baby was splashing in the water, her expression
alternating between curiosity and amazement, like the water was the most
fascinating thing she had ever encountered.

“Hey,
guys,” I said brightly, joining Ginny on the step.

“Hi,
Kiki,” Ginny said pleasantly. I marveled for a moment at how good she looked in
a bikini. How had this woman had two children? She looked amazing. Somewhat
self-consciously, I adjusted the top of my
tankini
. I
generally didn’t worry much about my figure, and I had never considered myself
fat—maybe a little on the rounder side, though I preferred to think of
myself as short and curvy—but it was hard not to feel slightly envious
around someone like Ginny.

“You’re
getting tanned already,” she said, somewhat wistfully. There was a lot more
shade up here by the pool—probably the reason they had chosen the
location for the baby. “Is it nice on the beach?”

“It
is,” I told her. “In fact, I think you should go check it out. I want to cool
off a little; why don’t you let me stay here with Maggie?”

“I
couldn’t do that,” she said. “This is your vacation, Kiki.”

“It’s
yours, too,” I said firmly. “And Annie is down there waiting for you.”

“Kiki,”
she started again, but I held up my hands.

“Ginny,
come on. It’s not a big deal. I’ll keep her for a bit and you can go have fun
with Annie. Or do something with Josh and Danny.”

She
looked out over the water at her two boys. “Danny has been asking to go in the
ocean,” she said. “But we didn’t want Maggie in the sun down there.”

“Go,”
I said, scooping Maggie up off the step and setting her down on my other side
so I was sitting between her and Ginny. “I’ll come find you if she gets fussy.”

“Are
you sure?” Ginny asked.

“Go,”
I said again. “Shoo. Be gone.”

She
thanked me profusely and kissed my cheek before pulling herself out of the
water to go tell Josh. I watched as he handed Danny up to her before climbing
out of the pool himself. Danny wrapped his arms around her, laughing when she
squealed at his soaking wet limbs. Josh put his arm around her, waving at me,
before the three of them headed down toward the beach. They looked like the
perfect little family, and I felt a stab of excitement. I wanted that so badly.

It
was easy to lose track of time playing with Maggie. I wasn’t sure if she
remembered me from the night before, or if it was just her good-natured
personality, but she seemed perfectly content to sit with me, splashing in the
water. I dribbled water down her chubby little arms, making her squeal and
laugh. Though she’d been splashing here with Ginny for at least an hour, she
still seemed completely fascinated by the water. It was fun to watch, and I
couldn’t help but imagine all the things I wanted to see my own baby discover
someday.

“Hey.”
Eric’s voice startled me out of my reverie. I looked up and saw him standing at
the edge of the pool. “I just realized you were gone. I think I was half asleep
when you left.”

“You
were,” I said. “Totally blissed-out and chilled.”

“Hard
not to be, around here,” he said, looking across the grounds. “So why’d you
decide to give up the relaxation in favor of baby duty?”

I
shrugged, turning my attention back to Maggie. “Annie was
gonna
give Ginny a break so I told her I’d take a turn first.”

He
watched me without speaking for a minute. “Any particular reason why you
volunteered?” he asked, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly, as if he
was trying to keep himself from smiling. Crap. He was totally onto me.

I
gave him my best innocent look. “No. Not any particular reason.”

“Really.”
He was full out grinning at me now. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with
anything my mom might have said to you last night?”

I
decided to drop the act. “I wasn’t sure how much of that you heard.”

“I
heard enough,” he said. “So you’re thinking you might be ready for a baby,
huh?”

“The
thought has crossed my mind,” I said, choosing my words carefully. His mother’s
comment on my ability to convince him to do anything still weighed on my mind.
I had no desire to try and convince or cajole my husband into doing something
he didn’t want to do. “I mean, I think we’re getting to a point where we could
do it, you know?”

He
watched Maggie splashing in the water for a minute. I decided to go on. “Your
work is going well, and Jen and I are doing better than ever. You know we’ve
been talking about hiring an associate to help with the workload. It seems like
a good time for me to take some leave, if I needed to.”

“I
don’t know, Kiki,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like we’re still such kids
ourselves. How are we
gonna
know what to do with a
baby?”

“Here,”
I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward me. He sat down on the step
beside Maggie and me. “Take her.”

He
looked at me, his expression best described as terrified, but he held out his
arms all the same. I scooted Maggie over in the shallow water so she was
resting in his hands now. She continued to splash and giggle. “I don’t think
anyone is ever really, truly ready for a baby,” I told him. “I mean, look at
Ginny. She was single and unemployed when she had Danny. But she and the girls
figured it out, and I know she wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Eric
was silent, watching Maggie while she splashed. “We’d have a lot of help, you
know. Our parents. Jen and Matt. We’re probably in better shape than a lot of
people when they first have a child.”

“When
I came around the corner and saw you playing with her…” Eric started, before
falling silent. I knew better than to push him. Sometimes it took him a moment
to figure out what he wanted to say. It was something that I loved about him,
the way he gave weight to things that were important.

“I
liked it,” he finally said, looking up at me and smiling almost shyly. “I liked
seeing you with her. You looked really happy. It looked…right.”

I
felt my heart swell. “Does that mean—”

“It
means I think we should start talking about it,” he said firmly, cutting me off
before I could get carried away. “This isn’t something we should decide in a
weekend,
Kiks
. It’s a really big deal.”

I
nodded eagerly. “Of course. You’re totally right.” I was quiet for a moment,
watching him hold Maggie, trying to quell the overwhelming urge to jump up and
hug him. That would probably be too much. “But we can think about it?”

“Sure,”
he said, smiling at me.

“And
talk about it, too?”

“I
think that would be good,” he said, and I could tell he was trying not to
laugh. Maybe I wasn’t doing such a good job of keeping the excitement out of my
voice.

Suddenly
he leaned over and kissed me briefly, his hands still steady on the baby. “And maybe
we could start practicing, too,” he said, his voice low and amused.

I
felt my tummy swoop a little bit, the way it always did when Eric used that
voice. God, he could be so
sexy
sometimes. “Practice, eh?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Mr. Thompson, I’m sure
I have no idea what you mean.”

“Don’t
worry, Mrs. Thompson,” he said, winking at me. “I’ll show you later.”

***

“Ooh,
this is exciting,” I murmured to Eric as I pulled on his hand, wishing he would
hurry. “Aren’t you excited?”

“I
am out of my mind with excitement,” he said, his voice dry and flat, making me
giggle.

“Come
on,” I pushed. “You love snorkeling, I know you do. We went, like, three times
on our honeymoon. And this is snorkeling
with
stingrays
. How awesome is that?
And
we get to take a speedboat ride. What could beat that?”