Maybe Never (8 page)

This morning, he was going out to play golf with his Dad, and Tracy would go with his mother to look at dresses for the wedding and for lunch afterwards. Before they even got to Charlotte, Tracy had insisted that Brendan tell his parents the reason they were getting married so soon. She didn’t want to be in the room to hear their reaction, but when he’d gotten off the phone, Brendan had come back to tell her they were “excited.” Having met them now, she was sure that was true, but at the time she’d been stunned.

Her own mother had responded to the news with silence. At first. Then she’d launched into a twenty-minute lecture “because I’m concerned about you, Tracy Ann.” It had been a bone of contention between them for awhile, Tracy’s relationship with Brendan.

It didn’t seem to matter that he had been there for the past couple of years, standing next to her, her mother still refused to accept him as anything other than a mistake. There were moments—that Tracy kept trying to shove to the back of her mind—when she wondered whether her mother was actually . . . envious. Especially given her mother’s own difficult history, and her lifelong conviction that men like Brendan, good men, were in fact just too good to be true.

There had only been one trip out to Atlanta as a couple, for Thanksgiving. A misguided mission if there ever was one. Tracy had booked her and Brendan a suite at the Sheraton near her mother’s house, knowing full well that her mother would have an issue with them sharing a bedroom, as though she was some bastion of morality. She didn’t tell Brendan why, but he went along with it because she’d insisted.

On Thanksgiving morning, they’d headed over to the house where Brendan had almost immediately gotten in good with Tracy’s uncles and male cousins, and with more than a few of the women as well. That was the thing, everyone loved Brendan.

How could they not?
Tracy thought, watching him now as he stood at his mother’s stove, hand on her shoulder, leaning over and pretending to be impatient as she cooked him scrambled eggs.

But all Thanksgiving Day, her mother had remained sour-faced and truculent with him, barely managing to respond to his overtures. And he kept making them, tirelessly trying to break through her mother’s icy demeanor.

Finally, at the end of the day, Tracy had cornered her privately.
The least you could do is make an effort with him!

I don’t know what you mean
, her mother returned.
He’s in my home, isn’t he? Sitting down to dinner with our family? That is very much an effort on my part, I assure you
.

Why?
Tracy demanded.
What is it about him that gets to you like this?

Her mother hadn’t been able to produce a response; and so Tracy had waited only another half hour before telling Brendan it was time for them to leave.

He’d been in the middle of watching a football game with the men and looked confused about why they would head back to the hotel so soon after the meal, especially since they’d flown all the way from New York for the occasion. But he’d asked no questions, and pleasantly thanked everyone.

On the ride back to the hotel, when Tracy started to cry silent tears he somehow knew not to ask why, but had simply reached over and grabbed onto her hand. At that, Tracy had leaned into him even while he was driving, hugging his arm, her head on his shoulder. They never talked about it, but she never suggested they go visit her mother again, and he didn’t ask why. That evening in the hotel room, to cheer her up, Brendan ordered three desserts and a bottle of champagne from room service, then gave her a full-body massage that, not unexpectedly, turned into more.

Just thinking about that evening still gave her chills. Brendan had taken even her
toes
in his mouth . . . Tracy shifted in her seat, blushing as though Mr. and Mrs. Cole could read her unchaste thoughts about their son.

No, her mother would never understand—but almost no one would—what he meant to her, and what Brendan did. He transformed occasions and things that were ugly, and unpleasant and difficult into something clean, and new and precious. What she felt for him  she couldn’t even explain; it both healed and hurt her heart.

Sometimes being with Brendan felt like those dreams everyone gets, of falling off someplace really high up, dreading the moment when you would come crashing to the ground. Tracy knew now why they called it
falling
in love. She fell a little more every single day, her emotions a heady mix of euphoria, fear, anticipation, exhilaration . . . And yet, he was also the solid ground beneath her feet, holding her firmly and securely, and sometimes holding her together.

“There’s a pretty little bridal shop not too far away from here,” Brendan’s mother said now. “I always wanted to go in there, but never had the occasion to.”

Tracy looked up and smiled at her.

Mrs. Cole was tall too, maybe about five-ten, making Brendan’s height even more understandable—and a striking woman with strong, vivid features, smile lines about her eyes and a straight, almost sharp nose. Brendan’s symmetrical features were also somewhat visible in her face, though upon a superficial glance he seemed to be more his father’s child.

“Tracy’s buying some sickeningly overpriced designer gown, Ma,” Brendan said, grabbing a fork and sitting across from her with his eggs.

“I am
not
. It’s . . . Riley’s buying it, and . . .” Tracy blushed, then shot Brendan a warning look. It was true, her dress was obscenely expensive. She would be mortified if he made her say how much out loud.

“I got married in a courthouse,” Brendan’s mother said dryly. “Wearing a little yellow Easter suit-dress, during my lunch break. So I’m not about to have any objections to a woman wanting to do it up on her wedding day.”

“So, no big wedding Mrs. Cole?” Tracy asked.

“Please Tracy, call me Ma, or Nancy, whichever makes you comfortable. And no, no big wedding. We were in a little bit of a hurry . . .” Then she looked at her husband and smiled. “Somewhat like you all.”

Tracy looked down at her fruit salad.

“Nobody wants to hear about their parents knockin’ boots . . .” Brendan said with a full mouth, shaking his head. “So if you don’t mind. . .”

“My son is such a prude,” Mrs. Cole said, walking up behind him and squeezing his shoulders.

Tracy lifted her eyes just in time to meet Brendan’s gaze, which was the way it almost always was when he looked at her—blazing hot.

If she dared, she would beg to differ. Brendan Cole was no prude. Rather than contradict her mother-in-law to be, she decided to change the subject.

“We should go to the bridal shop anyway, Nancy,” she said. “So we can find
you
something.”

The morning and afternoon with Brendan’s mother were like visiting a foreign country; a country where Tracy didn’t quite know the language. It was a country where women and their daughters looked at pretty garments and tried them on, offering each other compliments. Where they suggested other more flattering choices and fetched each other accessories, or gave opinions about the best hairstyles to accentuate the look. A country where you sat over a pleasant lunch and laughed about everything, like celebrity marriage gossip, and reality shows on television and the latest fashions.

Over dessert, Nancy carefully looked away as she made a comment that Tracy knew was bound to be loaded, just from the change in her demeanor before she spoke.

“So Brendan tells me you don’t see much of your mother,” she said.

Tracy stiffened. After a day of warmth supplied by the present company, it was like having a bucket of cold water tossed in her face to be reminded of her mother. The mother who had declined coming to New York for a week before the wedding to help her with last minute preparations.

“Not as often as I should,” she said, using the coffee-cake in front of her as a reason to look down.

“Well, when you get . . . further along. I hope you know you can always call me, and I will be there in a
second
. I can’t tell you how . . .” She grasped Tracy’s hand. “Brendan was . . .”

She stopped and would not—or could not—continue. But Tracy wished she would because she still wasn’t sure she knew
how
Brendan was taking it. He’d been so sweet about apologizing after botching his initial reaction, and since then had occasionally stroked her stomach when they were lying in bed watching television, but they never talked about what it meant that they were going to be parents. These days, all they seemed to talk about was the wedding, which was probably her fault.

She just wanted it to be
perfect
. What woman didn’t? Planning to pull off a wedding in six weeks was madness, but Tracy was determined not to have anything resembling a bump when she was in her dress. It was bad enough that she wasn’t sure she would even be getting married if she weren’t pregnant . . . That nagging suspicion was the one thing that continued to plague her late at night, when Brendan was fast asleep:
did he even
want
to get married, or was he doing the Brendan-thing and being her rescuer?
After all, that was how they’d started.

She looked across the table at Nancy’s warm face and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “If I need you, I promise, I
will
call.”

________

“How’s Brendan doing with all this?” Riley asked, stretching her legs out in front of her. She still had a hint of pregnancy plumpness about her face, and had recently cut her hair very short, not wanting to have anything that needed maintaining when she had two small children. But she was still so, so pretty. Happiness had a way of doing that to a person.

An errant ray of sunlight, streaming through the trees fell across the baby’s face and she blinked rapidly, her little lashes batting prettily. Riley passed her into Tracy’s outstretched arms. They were sitting on the grass under the large red maple tree in Riley and Shawn’s backyard.

The men were inside, in Shawn’s home studio, probably having the male equivalent of exactly the same conversation. Cullen, Riley’s two-year old was with them, because he was almost always with his father when he was awake. And sometimes when he was asleep as well. Riley had jokingly complained to Tracy that the only way to have crazy, loud-ass sex anymore would be to slip their son some Benadryl and take him back to his room once he’d passed out. Shawn liked him sleeping with them, which Riley grudgingly permitted, but only occasionally.

“I have no idea how he’s doing with it,” Tracy said kissing her god-daughter’s cheeks. She smelled like . . . baby, the scent unlike any other in the world. “He’s never home anymore. I’m planning this wedding all by myself at this point.”

Riley shrugged. “Well, you didn’t think he’d be picking floral arrangements, did you?”

“No, but . . .” Tracy stopped and sighed, kissing the baby again.

“But . . . what?”

“I don’t know. It’s like he wants to pretend it’s not happening.”

“You don’t think he wants to do it? To get married?”

“I don’t know. Even the way he proposed . . .”

Riley wrinkled her brow.

“It was like an
avoidance
of a proposal. He . . .” Tracy shook her head. “I can’t explain it without being really graphic and you probably don’t want to know the details of our sex life.”

“I want to know the details of
someone’s
sex life,” Riley said. “Because Shawn and I haven’t had sex in like, two and a half weeks.”

Tracy looked at her. “You had a baby three months ago. And you have a toddler. Welcome to the real world, Riley.”

Her best friend laughed. “I’m just not used to it, that’s all. I swear, I’m almost jealous of my own kids. He’s so
into
them . . .”

“And once upon a time the only person he was into like that was you,” Tracy finished for her.

Riley nodded, grimacing a little, almost as though embarrassed by the admission. “I miss that sometimes. Being the center of each other’s universe.”

Tracy said nothing. Riley still was the center of Shawn’s universe. Only the recipient of that kind of unrelenting adoration could fail to recognize it. The way he still looked at her when he thought no one noticed, the way he would touch her if she was anywhere within arm’s length. Riley had no
idea
how lucky she was.

“Well, leave the kids with your mother and go on a long weekend or something.”

“First of all, Lorna would lose her mind being left with two kids under three years old on her own, and even if that wasn’t the case, I’m not sure I could pull that off just yet. I’d be miserable without them nearby. And I think Shawn would too. Last time he had to go out of town was when Cass was a couple weeks old and he asked whether I thought we should all go with him .

“Maybe we’ll do that when Cass is a little older. For now we’ll stay put and probably do the nanny thing. Anyway, enough about me. You were about to tell me something graphic and nasty about your and Brendan’s sex life.”

“He put the ring on my finger while he was going down on me,” Tracy said, spilling the words out in a rush.

Riley spluttered. “
Excuse
me?”

Tracy nodded. “That was how he did it. He didn’t actually say the words,
will you marry me
. But he was on bended knee at least . . .”

Then they were both laughing, and continued until tears were spilling out of the corners of Tracy’s eyes.

“Well . . .” Riley finally managed, still struggling not to laugh. “Brendan always was . . . original.”

“It
was
a Brendan kind of thing to do,” Tracy acknowledged. “But sometimes I think he uses humor to . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Distance himself from his feelings.”

Tracy nodded.

“But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have those feelings. He loves you so much, Tracy. You have to believe that by now.”

“I do. It’s just . . . something. Something’s off.”

Lately, Brendan had made himself scarce in the evenings, coming home around eight-thirty and heading straight up to the kitchen to eat. Instead of bringing his plate to the bedroom—which Tracy used to get on him about, though she secretly liked that he wanted to be there next to her—he stayed up in the loft alone, even watching television up there when he was done. And when he finally came to bed, he pulled her back against him, and asked about the wedding preparations, but politely, like he didn’t really care but knew that he should.