“I planted some new rose bushes,” Lucy begins as she leads us to the back corner of the large yard. I smile and nod and follow along, but don’t really hear what she’s talking about as she gives us the grand tour on the pretty light-lined paths that meander through the yard.
“It doesn’t mean anything, you know,” Sam says quietly beside me. She and I slow down, falling behind Lucy and Nat, who continue to happily chat about Lucy’s plants. Nat is carrying Livie, who happily points to butterflies and birds flying nearby.
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.” She shakes her head and loops her arm through mine. “You have to know he wasn’t celibate for ten years.”
I toss my head back and laugh. “Of course not. Have you
seen
him?”
“I have. He’s not gross.”
“No, he’s not.” I sigh and shove my hair behind my ears. “We need to talk.”
“I think I might bust Leo’s balls if it were me. But then, I’m not a terribly jealous person, I would just want to mess with him a bit.”
“I’m not typically jealous either, but seriously? That chick sent him a picture of her boobs.”
Sam shudders and then laughs. “Girls strip their shirts off and shove their tits in Leo’s face. It’s delightful.”
“Ugh.” I sigh and bite my lip. “Girls suck.”
“Yes, they do. She probably doesn’t know he’s with you now.”
“A lot of girls don’t care,” I remind her.
“True. He’ll tell them. He’ll be embarrassed when he sees what you saw.”
“I don’t want him to be embarrassed.”
“What do you want?” she asks.
“I don’t know.” I jerk one shoulder up in a shrug and then smile at her. “To unsee it. Thanks for talking me down from the ledge.”
“You’re welcome. Now when you talk to him, you can do it in a productive way.”
“I was daydreaming of stabbing him with that knife he was using,” I confess, making Sam laugh.
“Well, I guess that means you love him, because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t care who texted him.”
“I love him,” I say. “But I’m still pissed.”
She nods just as Lucy and Nat join us.
“Your yard is beautiful, Lucy,” I say and smile.
“Thank you, dear. I think dinner should be ready by now.”
When we step inside, the house smells amazing. The guys are just setting steaming plates on the table and Luke is feeding Keaton a bottle.
“He woke up?” Nat asks Luke.
“Yeah, he’s hungry,” he replies with a grin. Seeing Mark’s handsome older brother with the baby is a sight to behold. There’s a reason that Luke graced magazine covers and teenagers’ walls for so long. The man is hot.
“Are you okay?” Mark asks as he slips beside me and wraps his arm around my waist.
I could lie.
But I won’t.
“No. You missed some texts.” I point to his phone and walk away from him, sit at the table and decide to enjoy the rest of my evening with these nice people. Mark retrieves his phone as he sits next to me and checks the messages and then cringes and shakes his head in disgust.
Dinner is a flurry of good food and even better conversation. I forget about those stupid women on Mark’s phone for a little while and enjoy the people around me. When we’ve finished eating, the girls jump up to clean while the guys take the babies into the family room.
When the last dish is placed in the dishwasher and the kitchen is clean, we join the guys.
“Can I hold him?” I ask Luke, who is holding a sleepy Keaton.
“Of course you can,” he replies and gently passes the baby into my arms.
“I’m getting braver with the little ones,” I say with a smile. “How do you hold them all the time and not worry about hurting them?”
“They’re stronger than they look,” Neil replies and wraps his arm around Lucy’s shoulders, tugging her close to his side. No wonder the Williams men are affectionate. They’ve learned it from their father. “You won’t hurt them, sweet girl.”
I brush my finger down Keaton’s nose and kiss his little round cheek. He makes little sucky motions with his lips.
Suddenly, there’s a very foul smell coming from the little bundle of joy.
“Um, I think he needs to be changed,” I say and glance around the room in a panic.
“Come on.” Nat stands and motions for me to follow her. “I’ll help you.”
“Oh God. I don’t want to break him,” I whisper and follow Nat down the hallway to a small nursery. “Lucy and Neil put in a nursery?”
“They did. They love keeping the kids.” Nat helps me lay Keaton on the changing table and walks me through changing his very dirty diaper.
“Dear God, Keaton!” I exclaim when I open the diaper. “What are they feeding you?”
Nat laughs and hands me baby wipes.
“I should be wearing a hazmat suit,” I mumble and clean the baby’s butt, powder it and under Nat’s supervision, wrap him back up again.
“You’re a natural,” she says with a smile.
“I might need therapy now.”
When we return to the family room, everyone is laughing and watching us walk down the hallway.
“What’s so funny?” I ask and settle back on the couch with the baby in my arms.
“You are,” Mark replies and kisses my temple. “We could hear you through the baby monitor.”
“Yeah, well, Keaton’s parents should reconsider his diet.” Keaton, wide awake now, is chewing on his fist, watching me talk. He grins a wide, toothless grin, and I fall even more in love with him. “You’re too handsome to smell like that. Yes you are.”
“Sam, tell Meredith the story of you and Leo babysitting Liv when she was a baby and you had to call Meg to come change her diaper for you.” Luke is laughing now, holding his stomach. “It was so classic.”
“It was the first time we babysat her by ourselves,” Sam begins.
“First and only time,” Mark adds, earning a glare from Sam.
“And she filled her diaper. I had never changed a diaper before, and neither had Leo.”
“I still say it’s unethical for a man to change a little girl’s diaper,” Leo says, holding his hands up in surrender. “It’s not appropriate.”
I giggle and watch Sam and Leo take turns telling the story of waiting forever for Meg to show up and change the screaming baby’s diaper. They’re so great together, finishing each other’s sentences and looking at each other with so much love in their faces it’s blinding.
“It worked out in the end,” Leo says as the story comes to a close.
“That’s hilarious,” I reply and gaze down at the baby blowing bubbles in my arms.
“We should go put the kids to bed,” Luke says and kisses Nat’s cheek. “I’m ready for some alone time with my wife.”
“Ew,” Sam says and wrinkles her nose. “We don’t need that announcement.”
Luke just smiles smugly and kisses his wife again, making Sam gag.
“You guys are funny,” I say, not realizing I said it out loud until Sam laughs and shrugs.
I lay Keaton in his car seat and step aside as Luke buckles him in and lifts him off the floor. Nat is carrying Liv and we all walk outside to say goodbye.
“We should go too,” Mark says.
“I have some work to do,” Sam says and smiles up at Leo. “Ready?”
“I’m ready.”
There are many hugs and promises of calling soon as we all climb into our vehicles and wave at Lucy and Neil before pulling away from the house.
“I’d like to go home, please,” I say and stare out my window.
“I was going to take you to my house.”
“I’d rather just go home.”
Mark sighs next to me and drags his hand down his face. Now that we’re alone, the anger is back. I’m tired and honestly, my feelings are hurt.
And I don’t really care if that’s irrational.
“Mer—”
“We’ll talk when we get there, Mark.”
I close my eyes and settle back in the seat and let him drive to my apartment in silence.
***
“I’m going to change,” I announce as soon as I get inside my apartment, but Mark stops me.
“No. You’re going to sit and we’re going to talk.”
I turn on him and cross my arms over my chest. “Really? This is the moment you’re going to choose to be bossy?”
“Sit down, Meredith.”
“Fuck you, Mark.”
“Are we going to do this again? Do you honestly believe I’m fucking those women?”
I pace away and fling my arms out at my sides.
“No, I don’t believe that, Mark! That’s ridiculous.”
“Then why are you so angry?”
I stop and stare at him as if he’s just grown a second head.
“Because,” I begin and take a deep breath, “two women obviously think they can text you, crook their finger, and you’ll come fuck them at a moment’s notice.”
“But they can’t. You know that.”
“
I
do.
They
don’t.”
He frowns and scratches his fingers over his scalp in agitation. “So?”
“We’ve been together long enough for you to let your fuck buddies know that you’re no longer available, Mark.”
“I haven’t even thought about them since you and I have been together, Meredith. Why would it occur to me to text and tell them I’m in a relationship when
you’re
all I fucking think about?”
I shake my head and pace away.
“Look. Clearly you had a healthy sex life before I came back into your world. But I didn’t need it to blindside me while I was sitting at your mother’s dining room table. Your
sister
saw it. It was humiliating.”
“Meredith, listen to yourself.
You
were at my mother’s table. None of those women ever met my family. I don’t give a flying fuck about those women and you know it. How many times do I have to tell you that I love you?”
“I don’t question your love for me, damn it!”
“I’ll make it clear to them and anyone else that contacts me that I’m happily unavailable, Meredith. I don’t have a problem with that. I do have a problem with this jealous streak you’ve developed in the past ten years.”
I open my mouth to respond, but he holds up a hand, shutting me up.
“Lena,” he begins, “and I have been friends since our freshman year in college. She and Colin, her now husband, were the closest friends I had for a long time. They knew about you.”
I cringe when he raises a brow.
“For years we helped each other through classes and labs. I was the best man in their wedding, Mer. Lena is a very good friend, and she’s looking forward to meeting you.”
“Okay.”
“If you have a question, ask me. Want to go through my phone?” He tosses his phone at me, but I toss it right back. “I don’t care if you go through it. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
I sigh and deflate onto the couch. “I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, Mark. I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“But you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust women.” My head jerks up as I stand again, passionate about making him understand. “I don’t trust women.”
“Why?”
“Because women can be catty, and many don’t seem to care if a man is taken. But the bottom line for me is this: those women shouldn’t be sending you messages like that. I know you didn’t do anything wrong, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Well, then let’s move on to the next issue. When were you going to tell me that you’re going back on tour with Starla?” His hands are propped on his hips and he’s glaring at me accusingly.
“I’m not.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” His voice is low and rough and thoroughly pissed.
“I’m not lying to you. She offered us our old jobs back.” I hold my breath as he closes his eyes on a long sigh. “But we turned her down.”
No answer.
“Mark?”
Nothing.
“Mark, we turned her
down.
”
He clears his throat. “Go on.”
“She said that she misses having us with her, and now that Mom’s gone and life has settled a bit, she was hoping we’d choreograph her next tour and go back out on the road with her next year. But you know what?”
“What?” he whispers. I hate the slight tremble in his voice. I move to walk to him, but he holds a hand up, stopping me.
“For about ten seconds, while she was stating her case, I thought it over. I thought about the long days of travel, not knowing where I am, not having a real home. Not to mention, I’m not super young anymore and I could get hurt with as rigorous as Starla likes the routines to be.”
I pace away and shove my hands through my hair.
“And I told her, it’s just not for me anymore. I love my studio and my students, and I love you. I’m happy in Seattle. That world doesn’t fit me anymore.”
“Are you sure?” he asks softly.
“It was never going to be a yes, M. Even if I didn’t have you, which I’m
so glad
that I do, I still would have turned her down. That time in my life is done, and I like where my life is now.”