The Redhead Revealed (Redhead #2)(34)
Author: Alice Clayton

“This is the single most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me. I’d be an idiot to turn my back and walk away,” I answered, putting down my bagel and laying my head on the counter. My stomach had felt strange all morning, and now it was fluttering like crazy. Must be nerves about tonight.

“Grace?” Holly asked, placing a hand on my shoulder and shaking me a little.

“How could I walk away?” I asked, almost to myself.

“From the show or from Jack?” she asked quietly. I heard her bagel thunk down on the plate—a plate from the set I’d ordered and never even eaten a meal off of.

“What does Jack have to do with this?” I asked the countertop sharply.

“Grace, look at me,” she commanded. I peeked at her through my arms.

“Where’s your head? Why does it sound like you’re making a choice all of a sudden?”

“Well, don’t I have to? I mean, it’s going to come down to that eventually, right? How the hell can we keep this going like this? This is insane…” I began, surprised by the words coming out of my mouth.

Where was this coming from?

Where do you think? You have a giant mental drawer of “I will think about you tomorrows” you’ve piled up and never gone through. Someone asks you one little question and Now It Will Rain Shit.

“Grace? You really want to do this now? What else is going on?” she asked.

I looked at my best friend. The one who’d taken care of me so many times, looked out for me, and opened her home to me. The one who helped me get back on track and never, ever asked for anything in return, other than my friendship. She knew me as well as anyone, and the knowledge that I wouldn’t be able to hide anything from her made me lose it.

The tears came in a rush, flooding my eyes and dripping onto my cheeks and my shirt—his shirt. He’d cut a slit in each side of the neck hole so it would never get stuck again, making it mine now. When I’d said something about it, he smiled and said, “Heh-heh, you said neck hole.”

I sobbed silently, with no idea exactly why I was crying. All I knew was it had to come out. My thoughts were swirling, not letting me take a breath.

Holly just sat and watched me. Neither one of us was big on the sister hug. She patted my hand, then wiped my snot when I began to calm down.

“Okay, start at the beginning,” she said, her eyes kind.

“I don’t even know where the beginning is! I didn’t even know I was upset. I—I—” I began to wail again.

“Grace! Grace, get control. Calm down, ya dillhole,” she instructed.

Her words broke through my wail and made me laugh a little. I took some deep breaths and laid my head back down on the cool granite.

“Just talk, fruitcake, and we’ll see what sticks to the wall,” she said.

So I talked. And I talked. And I was terrified at what came out of me. I talked about how amazing the show was, and how happy I was in New York. I talked about how glad I was to be back up on a stage again, thrilled to be working with such amazing people. I talked about Michael, and how glad I was we were friends. I talked about Michael, and how close we’d gotten again.

I closed my eyes in sudden exhaustion. I was frightened by the images playing in cinemascope on the inside of my brain. My own little highlight reel:

Snapshots of Jack and me driving up the coast, happy and carefree.

Michael and me arguing over lunch. Him stealing my fries when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Jack and I sexing it up on the floor of the closet together.

Michael walking away with Abigail, her tiny hand in his.

I stopped suddenly.

“Holly, do you ever think about having kids?”

“What?” she asked, her face astonished. Neither of us had ever wanted kids. It was one of the things we’d bonded over right away. We both promised we’d never turn into breeders.

“I mean it. Do you ever think about it?”

“Umm, no. Why? Is there something you want to tell me? You’re not…”

“No! I mean, no. But don’t you ever think about it?”

“Do you ever think about it?” she asked.

I chewed my lip. I hadn’t thought about having kids for years. I always assumed it meant something that I’d made it this far in life without an inkling of thought toward the subject. It meant I wasn’t meant to have children. I’d decided something at twenty-two, slapped a sticker on it that said DECIDED, and filed it away in the don’t-have-to-worry-about-it drawer.

I would have wanted them by now, right?

Kids made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to talk to them, they were weird, and they smelled funny. I hated baby talk, and I never went ass-over-apple cart when I saw a stroller go by, trying to peek inside. Isn’t that what women did when they wanted kids?

Not all women behave that way. That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be a great mom. No one would be more entertaining.

Had I made a decision about this too long ago—not allowing myself to even consider a different life, a different path? Did I need to think about whether I wanted kids? Could I allow myself to think about it?

I was thinking about it…

Let’s timeline this. You’re thirty-three, about to turn thirty-four. If you want kids, and marriage, and that life—well, hell! Let’s pretend, just for a second, that you’re with someone other than Jack, someone who wants kids.

I flinched thinking about it not being Jack.

You’d need to get married, and that would mean dating for at least a year. Engaged at thirty-five. Then, depending on how long the engagement lasts, maybe married at thirty-six. You wouldn’t want to have kids right away—be a wife for a while. So, maybe Baby Number One at thirty-seven.

Baby Number One?

Wouldn’t you want more than one?

I flashed to a picture in my head that I didn’t even know I’d stored away. It was a family on the beach: a toddler walking in front of the parents, a little one in Daddy’s arms, Mommy smiling. A family of four.

Yes. Yes, I would. I’ll have two hypothetical children with my hypothetical husband. Mr. and Mrs. Hypothetical.

So Baby Number Two at thirty-nine, maybe even forty.

Fucking hell. Pregnant at forty…when did I get so damn old?

“I am thinking about it,” I finally responded. “Not in the sense that I want them, but in the sense that I need to consider things very carefully now. I’m not getting any younger. And neither are you, by the way,” I said slowly.