If It Makes You Happy(114)
If she is pregnant, it will be another wonderful person added to our family. It will be fine.
All will be fine.
I pick it up, inhale, and flip it, and looking back is one single pink line.
A single line.
I close my eyes and finally break out into an exhausted laugh.
A single fucking line.
“What?” Emily asks, scrambling to the side of the bed. “What, what, what?”
“It’s negative,” I announce.
The air in the room rushes back.
In one smooth motion, Emily’s eyes roll to the back of her head, and she falls backward onto the bed with a giant, loud, exhaled groan. “Oh, thank God.”
I can see the weight fall from her shoulders. Michelle shakes them with a grin.
“I never want to do that again,” Emily groans. “That’s it. No children for me. Ever.”
“Music to my ears,” I tease.
She grins at me, but it falls quickly. “We can’t tell Mom.”
My stomach twists.
Impossible.
“No,” I say.
Emily’s eyes widen.
“Sorry, kiddo. She deserves to know.”
“Why?” she whines.
“She’s your mom. It wouldn’t be right. But how about this? I won’t tell her while she’s here, okay? That way, you only have to deal with her over the phone.”
Emily exhales. “Okay. Deal.”
She jerks out her palm, and I roll my eyes, shaking her hand.
“Good.” I clear my throat. “Now, back to business … where is Josh?”
She tilts her chin down. “Dad.”
I playfully hold up my palms. “I want to talk to him—”
“Dad,” she warns again, a sliver of a smile on her face.
“Me, Josh, and a machete.”
“Dad!”
Suddenly, she breaks into laughter, and I do too. Then I’m hugging her again and kissing her forehead even though I get more whines of protest.
“Love you, kiddo.”
“You love Josh too?”
I snort. “I’m heavily indifferent.”
“Who wants a cinnamon roll?” Michelle asks, breaking the tension.
“Please,” Emily groans.
Emily hops off the bed, rushing to the doorway. I gesture her through, peering over at Michelle, who is grinning from ear to ear. I can’t stop smiling either. It’s the nerves of the whole situation pounding through me. The thought that we went through this together. Michelle was here for my daughter when she needed her. And Emily did need her.
The unspoken truth rings through my head, as it has for weeks now.
I love Michelle.
I love her, and I’ll have to let her go.
Michelle’s face falls. Mine must have too.
It’s all going to end.
Emily stops short of the threshold, spinning to face us. She points a finger between me and Michelle, breaking our eye contact.
“You were in the guest room together,” Emily states.
My stomach knots.
“Are you two …” Her words fade, as if she’s expecting an answer, but I don’t know what response to give.
Are we dating? Are we in love?
There’s no clear-cut answer to our complicated problem.
I exhale out a nervous laugh, clapping Emily on the shoulder. “Our business is between us, Em.”
A smirk slides over Emily’s face so slowly and sinisterly that it could rival the Grinch’s. “But there is business?”
I lightly shove her back into the hall. “Get out of here, kid.”
Emily bites her bottom lip and snickers.
But when I glance at Michelle, her eyebrows tilt in too. I reach back and drift my fingertips over hers at the same time she reaches for me. We exchange a weak smile, then walk into the kitchen behind Emily.
CHAPTER 38
Cliff
The morning Tracy rolls into town is, of course, the one day we get multiple orders placed for holiday parties around town. I called George and told him his usual order wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow. Considering he and Lisa are attending two out of the three other parties I’m catering, he didn’t hem and haw much.
Once everything is either finished or in the oven for Carol, I frantically rush back to the house with flour on my arms and probably smeared somewhere on my face. My tires screech over the driveway with the key fob jangling against the ignition. Emily walks out the back door with lifeless, bored eyes.
I barely have the car door open before she’s whispering, “Mom keeps asking Josh about his plans for the future. Make her stop asking Josh things.”
“She’s your mother; be nice.”
“She’s also asking where you’ve been.”
“Perfect,” I breathe out sarcastically.
“That’s your ex-wife; be nice,” Emily mocks.
I ruffle her hair, and she pushes my palm away.
Creaking open the screened back door is a Herculean effort because I know in two seconds, I’ll see—
Tracy.
Standing in our kitchen, with one hand pressing buttons on our phone and the other clutching her beeper, is my ex-wife. Her lips are pursed tightly, but her hair is pulled back in an even tighter ponytail. Her sharp, tailored blazer and slacks look like they popped out of the pages of Michelle’s Cosmopolitan. The city life suits her.