Page 94 of Before Girl
And that was why Cal was slumped back in the passenger seat while I drove us home after my thirty-seventh birthday dinner. Since we wanted to keep my pregnancy quiet until after the wedding next month, Cal covered for me by drinking my wine. And his.
He was just smooth enough to pull that ruse off and get totally hammered in the process.
He tipped his chin up, a sloppy smile warming his face. "How are you doing, sweet thing?"
"I'm good," I replied, a laugh thick in my words. "I'm really good."
"Feeling all right?" he asked.
"I am," I said. "I'm tired but I'm all right. It was a good day."
I'd worried about making it through the meal without setting off suspicions. Since peeing on the stick last month, my appetite had vanished. All I wanted was toasted cinnamon raisin bagels or corn flakes with almond milk. Nothing else interested me. But I'd tolerated Mom's cooking well enough. She sent us home with leftovers to last the week and a Dominican cake with pineapple filling she'd whipped up just for me.
That smile of his, it was sloppy as ever. "You're fucking beautiful."
"I appreciate you saying so. Especially since I've been a bit gray and wobbly and—"
"And fucking beautiful," he said, catching a lock of my hair between two fingers."I'm not putting up with any of this gray and wobbly bullshit, Stel. You've never been more amazing than you are right now."
I loved him. Like, crazy, wild, boundless love. There was no structure to it, no routine. And the heat of his adoration, it was everything. It was a light that never went out. I didn't know I could love someone else this way. Didn't know I could open myself to the kind of vulnerability that came with giving and receiving love.
But Cal made it easy. He made it worth the risk and all the uncertainty.
And he guzzled wine to keep my parents from noticing I wasn't drinking on my birthday.
"Honey, you're drunk." I laughed as I turned into our neighborhood. I was still learning the shortcuts and back ways to our new house in Cambridge. For the first time in my life, I lived north of the city. For a south-of-Boston girl, this was a big change. It was practically a different state up here.
We lived a few blocks from Nick and Erin Acevedo now. We'd debated the merits of my little Cape house in Buttonwood Village over his postage stamp apartment in the city but the choice made itself when we decided we wanted to try for a baby right away. As cute as my house was, it was cute andsmall. And my husband-to-be is a man-brick.
"I know I'm drunk. I drank"—he held up all his fingers and mumbled out a few numbers as he stared at them—"all the wine."
"Thank you for doing that, Cal." I pulled into the driveway and turned off the car. "But you didn't have to drink so fast. That's why my dad kept refilling our glasses."
"He's so happy when I drink the wine he buys," he argued. "I figured it would be a good distraction if you lost your appetite again."
My parents were still obsessed with Cal. I wasn't sure but I think they still mowed the lawn and filled the window boxes before we visited. And my dad seemed to think this wedding hinged on plying my future husband with "the good wine."
But I waved him off. "Like I said on the way over, we're getting married in a month and I'm allowed to watch what I eat. Can't risk the wedding dress not fitting. If anyone really pushed on the topic, I was ready with some spin."
He held out his hand for the keys as he gifted me with a warm, lazy grin. "I cannot wait to fuck my wife."
I dropped them in his hand, ran my fingertips over the inside of his wrist. "What about your fiancée?" The only answer he offered was a growl. "Your rumbles and grumbles are not words."
He jingled the keys in his palm and reached for the door handle. "Stay there. I'm coming to get you."
He rounded the front end of the car, his stepsuneven. He really did drink all the wine for me. He helped me out of the car, grabbed my ass in the process, and then steered me toward the door. It took him a few tries to get the key in the lock but then he whisked me inside. He had me against the door before I could switch on the lights.
"I love you," he whispered, his lips on the corner of my mouth. "I fucking love you."
"And I love you," I replied, lacing my arms around his neck. "Fucking love you."
This wasit. The scary, strange, amazing thing we'd found on that trail more than a year ago. I hadn't wanted it and I hadn't believed it was for me, but now I knew better because a better man taught me.
"I want to fuck you," he announced, his scruff doing the best things to my neck, "but I will need a nap before I can do anything but lean on you."
"Then we'll nap," I replied. "We have all the time in the world."
