Everything I Need, page 16
“And how do your folks feel about you playing the tuba?” Samira asked, lips twitching.
“Not that excited, now that you mention it,” Jonah said, frowning thoughtfully. “I wonder why?”
Disbelieving snort from Noah.
“It’s because you sound like a constipated elephant when you play!” For dramatic effect, he balled up both fists, lined them up in front of his mouth and blew, producing a hair-raising sound that attracted the attention of people at nearby tables and did, in fact, remind Melody of an elephant suffering from gastric difficulties.
But the teasing did not go over well with Jonah, who went beet red and turned on his brother.
“Like you sound any better, idiot! And Mom told you to stop making fun of me!” He pivoted and took off toward the kitchen, propelled by righteous indignation. “Mom? Mom!”
“Stop being such a snitch,” Noah called after him, hot on his heels.
They banged into the kitchen, the door swinging furiously behind them.
The women burst into laughter.
“That’s what you have to look forward to in a few years, Sami,” Melody said.
“I know, I know.”
Melody handed the baby a teaspoon. He examined it carefully before placing it in his mouth and gnawing on it.
“So is everything all set for the big day? Need me to do anything?”
“We’re in good shape,” Samira said happily. “The wedding planner has everything under control.”
“Good. I keep thinking about your almost wedding with Terrance last year. Remember that?”
Samira’s ex-fiancé, Terrance, had canceled their wedding the night before, when he came out as gay. All that had happened a scant month or so before she met Baptiste, the love of her life.
“I do remember. I know hindsight is twenty-twenty, but I can’t figure out what I was doing back then. It wasn’t like I had a good feeling about the wedding. I had the biggest knot in my stomach that whole week. Think that was a clue?”
“You did?” Melody gaped at her. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Rueful shrug. “I didn’t want to admit anything was wrong. The wedding train was already roaring down the tracks. I couldn’t figure out how to jump off.”
“Well, thank God Terrance pulled the cord, otherwise you wouldn’t have this precious little guy.” Melody kissed the baby on top of his head. He popped the spoon out of his mouth, looked up at her, then popped it back in again. “And a sexy billionaire fiancée who worships the ground you walk on and always has. I don’t see Baptiste walking out on you the night before the wedding. At all.”
“Yeah,” Samira said, beaming and blushing to the roots of her hair. “He’s not walking out on me.”
Melody reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze.
“I’m so happy for you, Sami. You deserve all this and more.”
“Thanks,” Samira said, returning the squeeze. “And you! I don’t know how you think you’re going to help me out this week when you’re taking off for Anthony’s investiture in London. What kind of maid of honor are you?”
“I know, I know. Sorry about that.”
“Are you kidding?” Samira asked. “It’s way past time you went over there.”
“Don’t start on me again. I wanted to be cautious. And I seem to recall that you were cautious when you and Baptiste first got together. If he’d suggested you start spending time in Paris to see if you wanted to move there, it would have freaked you out a little, too.”
“Oh, whatever,” Samira said. A sudden shadow dimmed some of the light in her eyes. “So…you’re open to moving to London with him? I need to prepare myself if I’m about to lose my best friend.”
A fair question, but one that still made Melody’s chest tighten with uncertainty.
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine leaving Journey’s End. I was born here. I grew up here. All my friends are here. I love the hospital and all my colleagues. My department just got that research grant…”
She shrugged helplessly, not really sure where she was going with this.
“But…?” Samira prompted.
“I’ll be thirty-six soon. I want a couple babies like this one.” She smoothed Jean-Luc’s sweet-smelling hair. “Time is not on my side.”
Samira nodded thoughtfully.
“In more ways than one. You’re lucky the press hasn’t found out about you yet. You know that, right? Especially with his investiture coming up. I stumbled onto one of those Most Eligible Bachelor stories about Anthony last week in the Daily Universe.”
“The Daily Universe? You read that tabloid rag?”
“For the recipes and crossword puzzles, yeah,” Samira said, trying not to laugh at herself. “Okay, yeah, I read it. Don’t judge me.”
“You make it hard,” Melody said, rolling her eyes. “And that’s one of the reasons I haven’t gone to London before now. We can do whatever we want over here. You think we’d get away with that in London?”
“You’re lucky he’s willing to do that much flying all the time.”
“I know. But we did spend that weekend in Paris with you and Baptiste. And we’ve met in Toronto and Bermuda, remember? So I’ve done some of the traveling. But Anthony loves Journey’s End.”
“The point is, it’s time for you and Anthony to start discussing the future. And I’m betting he would have done that way before now if you hadn’t shut him down.”
“What’s to discuss? Me giving up everything I’ve worked for and everything I know for a man who hasn’t proposed and who’s never even told me he loved me?”
“It’s called building a life together. And if you think someone who didn’t love you would take care of you when you have the flu, you’re sadly mistaken. I love you to death, but I was happy to let you tough it out by your damn self and pray for your survival from afar.”
“Thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
“It’s just…It would be a huge sacrifice for either of us to move. I don’t even know if he can move,” Melody said. “But I can’t picture my life without him. And only seeing him on the weekends? And only when we can make that happen with our schedules? We can’t keep going like this. It’s way too hard—”
Melody’s phone chimed. The display showed that it was her sister Carmen wanting to video chat. She groaned and held it up for Samira to see.
“The Perfect Princess?” Samira asked, cringing. She and Carmen knew each other well and got along fine, but as Melody’s best friend, Samira was well apprised of all the complicated sisterly dynamics.
“It’s her birthday. She’s returning my call.”
“Oh, that’s right. You want me to take the baby?”
“Nah. I got him.” She hit the button and watched while the picture resolved and Carmen came into view. “Hey, girl! Happy Birthday! Look who I’ve got with me.”
“Is that Jean-Luc?” Carmen beamed at him. Jean-Luc gurgled. “Hi, baby! Tell Samira I’m going to give him a big fat kiss when I see him at the wedding.”
“Tell her yourself,” Melody said, turning the phone around.
“Hey, Carmen,” Samira said, waving. “Happy birthday! See you next Saturday!”
“See you next Saturday!”
Melody turned the phone back around. “So what’re your big plans for your birthday?”
Carmen twiddled with an earring. “Ummm…not really sure.”
This was a shocker, especially since Carmen was one of those folks who turned their birthday into a yearly weeklong extravaganza for her wide circle of snooty friends and never quite understood why the momentous occasion wasn’t declared a national holiday. In the past, there’d been girl’s trips to Vegas and Miami, spa weekends, cocktail parties, surprise parties, concerts and dinners. Last year, as documented by Carmen’s minute-by-minute social media postings, Carmen’s boyfriend, Leonard, had whisked her away to a surprise weekend in Cabo, the culmination of which was supposed to be an engagement ring. Yet Carmen remained stubbornly unengaged.
Melody, who had watched these Manhattanite proceedings from a safe distance here in Journey’s End, found the whole thing exhausting, but to each his own.
Now this?
Squinting, she leaned in to take a closer look at her sister and didn’t like what she saw. Carmen normally sported perfect hair, nails, clothes, shoes, bags, cars and pets, but not today.
Today, much to her surprise, Carmen looked drawn and tired, probably because her false eyelashes and accompanying makeup were not yet in place. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail and she seemed to still be wearing her workout clothes even though she’d normally be on her way to shopping and lunch with girlfriends this late on a Saturday morning.
“Everything okay, Carm?”
Carmen, naturally, got defensive.
“Of course I’m okay,” she snapped. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know,” Melody said, maintaining her pleasant attitude as best she could. “That’s why I’m asking. Where’s Leonard? How’s he doing now that the campaign’s in full swing?”
Carmen’s boyfriend was running for the US Senate.
“He’s great,” Carmen said, but her smile looked more like a grimace, and Melody was almost sure she saw the glimmer of tears. “Hey, listen, I gotta go get ready. I’m sure he has something special planned for me. You good?”
“Yep.” Melody, who’d been thinking she might finally mention Anthony to Carmen, decided that now was not the time. Carmen was never too keen on discussing other people’s lives and Anthony’s growing place in Melody’s life deserved more attention than it seemed likely to get with Carmen’s dwindling attention span. “I’ll see you next weekend. Have a great night, okay?”
“Love you. Bye.”
Carmen shot her an air kiss and hung up.
Melody sent Samira a raised-brow look across the table.
“What was all that about?” Samira asked.
“I don’t know, but it was weird, right?”
“Very weird—”
“And here they are,” said an amused male voice with a French accent. “The two most beautiful women in Journey’s End.”
They looked up in time to see Baptiste arrive at the table trailed by Anthony.
15
Having just finished their round of golf, they both had flushed faces and looked very sporty in their polo shirts and shorts. Anthony’s avid gaze swept over Melody and the baby. He smiled, making her blood hum with pleasure. Once upon a time, she’d wondered if he would one day stop having this effect on her, but now she’d ruled that out as a possibility.
The groom-to-be, looking every bit as effervescent as his bride, leaned in to give Samira a kiss.
“Êtes-vous contente, ma reine?” he asked her.
Samira beamed up at him, happiness personified. “Oui. Très contente.”
Anthony, meanwhile, went straight to Melody for his kiss. It was unabashed and sweetly lingering as he cupped Jean-Luc’s head for a little rub. Then he whispered in her ear.
“You look very good with a baby, darling.”
“You think so, Blue?”
“Absolutely,” he said as he withdrew, gave Samira a peck and sat.
Baptiste came around to give Melody her customary double-cheeked kiss, then leaned in to plant several particularly wet raspberries on his son’s fat cheek. The baby squirmed and waved his fists.
“He’s going to smile very soon,” Baptiste announced to the table at large. “I can feel it—what’s this?”
He dodged as Jean-Luc nearly nailed him on the nose with a fist.
“A spoon?” He took the offending object and examined it in minute and slobbery detail. “Who gave him this? Was it washed first? I don’t want any germs to—”
“Yes, yes, I know, you don’t want any germs,” said Melody, who was sick to death of this overprotective father routine, which was already wearing thin a few short weeks into the poor boy’s life. “You do realize that I’m a highly trained medical professional who specializes in children, right? You think I had everyone in the room suck on the spoon before I gave it to the baby?”
Baptiste blinked.
“Honestly, you need to pace yourself,” Melody told him. “What’s left? Building a plastic bubble for the boy to live in?”
“Already ordered,” Baptiste said with dignity. “It will be here in two days.”
“Oh, my God,” Melody said, smacking her forehead as they all laughed. “So how was golf?”
“Samira’s father, Daniel and I did very well, obviously,” Baptiste said, referencing Daniel Harper, one of his close friends here in Journey’s End, as he squirted sanitizer from the little bottle he now kept dangling from one of his belt loops and cleaned his hands. Then he reached for the baby. Melody gave Jean-Luc a final kiss and sadly relinquished him to his doting father, grateful she’d been allowed any time with the boy at all. “Anthony was a tragic embarrassment. To no one’s surprise.”
“Are you going to let him talk about you like that?” Melody asked Anthony.
“It’s true,” Anthony said, sighing harshly and hanging his head in shame. “Stank up the place so badly the groundskeepers came out to see if there was a decaying whale carcass somewhere on the course.”
More laughter all around as Baptiste sat next to Melody and settled the baby on his lap.
“But the course is spectacular,” Anthony continued. “High up on the hill overlooking the river and the mountains on the other side. I don’t think St. Andrews has much on it, to be honest.”
“High praise,” Samira said.
“Yes, well, there’s a lot about Journey’s End to love, isn’t there?” Anthony said thoughtfully. “Lots of hidden gems.”
“I have certainly fallen in love with it,” Baptiste said with a loving glance at his fiancée.
“Just think,” Melody said. “This time next week, we’ll have a newly minted earl and a pair of newlyweds amongst us. Are you ready for your big day, lovebirds?”
Baptiste and Samira exchanged one of their customary smoldering looks.
“We’re ready,” Samira said, blushing.
“We would be long married by now, if I had my way about it,” Baptiste said. “But what do I know about it? No one was listening to me.”
“And no one wants to hear your tragic tale of woe, either,” Samira said, laughing. “Anthony, I’m sorry we can’t come to your investiture. If it had been any other week—”
“Yes, well, you’re a bit busy at the moment,” Anthony said. “I understand.”
“And speaking of,” Samira said, eyeballing Baptiste and tapping her watch. “We still need to run to Target.”
“Target?” Anthony asked.
“We need diapers for Jean-Luc and toiletries for the honeymoon,” Baptiste said, all but levitating with excitement. “I love the travel section. They have a whole wall of sample sizes. There’s no place like Target. I’ve always said so.”
“What can I say?” Samira asked Anthony and Melody with an indulgent smile. “I’m marrying a simple man with simple tastes.”
“I am very simple,” Baptiste deadpanned to more laughter. He stood and put the baby in the stroller. “All I need for a happy life is Samira, the baby and good friends, with maybe a nice bottle of wine and a cheese plate. Voilà. That’s me.”
“What about the Tesla?” Melody asked.
“Well, yes, obviously I also need the Tesla,” Baptiste said.
“And the jet,” Anthony said.
“The jet doesn’t hurt,” Baptiste admitted. He hesitated. “You know who is also a very simple man, Melody?”
Melody’s cheeks flamed.
“Don’t start,” Anthony muttered before she could answer, shifting uncomfortably and tugging his ear. “Haven’t I suffered enough embarrassment for one day?”
“You two just make sure you’re back from London in time for the rehearsal dinner Friday night,” Samira said with a stern look as she stood and slung her Chanel bag over her shoulder. “I don’t want any delays or drama. Got it?”
“Got it,” Melody said, raising her right hand in an oath.
“And I meant to tell you that Nick will be here Friday,” Baptiste told Anthony. “We’ll have to warn all the local women to guard against his Latin charm and stunning good looks.”
“Noted,” Anthony said.
“Travel safe,” Samira told them as good-byes were exchanged all around. “See you Friday.”
“See you Friday.”
Anthony watched them go, then sank into the chair across the table from Melody, his color high. “Have I mentioned how excited I am about our London trip?”
“Oh, I know. You’ve been dying for me to try your authentic fish and chips with the skin still on, haven’t you?”
He repressed a snort. “No. I’ve been dying to have you on my turf for a bit. See if I might persuade you to spend a great deal more time there, as you well know. I think we’re ready to come out of the shadows now. Don’t you?”
No. She didn’t.
As someone who’d spent half her life in the shadows, hiding behind her hair, her surgical mask and her career, she felt quite comfortable with the shadows. The shadows were her friends.
What she wasn’t ready for?
People staring at her for a whole new reason. Pointing. Whispering. Invading her privacy.
“And did I mention that Granny’s set up tea with me and my father? She thought it was a good idea since he’ll be at the investiture. The two of them hate each other’s guts and they haven’t seen each other in years. Granny’s hoping to smooth things over”—he made air quotes —“before the ceremony. She’d sooner resurrect my mother and get her to the ceremony, but there’s no reasoning with Granny when she gets something into her head. It’ll be a nightmare,” he concluded darkly. “You mark my words.”
“I’d love to be a fly on the wall.”
“And speaking of…I’m sorry you can’t attend the ceremony, darling. It’s protocol.”
“It’s okay,” she reassured him for what felt like the dozenth time. “Girlfriends don’t go to things like this. Only fiancées, and only after they’ve met the Queen.”
