Page 10

10

EVE

E cho handed me a towel as I stepped off the stage, and the cheers and whistles from the crowd died away.

I smiled at her gratefully but didn’t stop to chat the way I would have normally. I wiped the sweat and glitter off my skin, hurrying toward my office. The thumping beat from the DJ reverberated through my skull, but I didn’t even hear the words of the song or have any idea of who was scheduled to be up on the stage after me.

Augie leaned on the wall outside my office, arms folded across his bare chest, a pair of jeans fit snugly around his waist. “She’s good,” he called above the music, without any sort of greeting to me.

Which I wouldn’t have expected because that wasn’t how Augie rolled. He nodded toward the stage, and despite my reluctance to chat, I glanced over my shoulder.

The new girl we’d only hired last week was spinning around the pole, her sexy librarian costume mostly on the floor. A pearl choker still clung to her throat though, and she was somehow managing to keep black-framed glasses on her nose.

Augie wasn’t wrong. She had moves even Lyric couldn’t do, but she also looked sweet and innocent enough to be a kindergarten teacher. We all knew men lost their shit over the ‘sweet on the outside, freak on the inside’ act.

“She reminds me of Fawn.”

I glanced over at Augie, swallowing hard because any mention of Fawn had that effect on me. Even now, five years after we’d all watched the video of her falling to her death, her memory was always with me, never too far from my mind.

But more so lately, because Laura had stepped into the same role Fawn had played so effortlessly.

“She does,” I agreed, leaning back with him and watching the end of Laura’s performance.

“You going to let this one stay?”

I sighed, not even bothering to deny it. “I’m trying, Aug.”

“You’ve fired every woman you’ve tried to replace Fawn with.”

I pressed my mouth into an unhappy line. “Yeah, well, they all sucked.”

He chuckled. “No, they didn’t. You hired all of them because they were good. But after a few weeks…”

After a few weeks the guilt built up to an unbearable level, and I found a reason to let them go. Either their hair extensions looked tacky. Or their voice grated on my nerves. Or they left makeup smears on the mirror.

Stupid, unfair reasons, when the truth was, I’d never been able to replace Fawn with anyone.

Because nobody was like her. Nobody had ever been able to fill her place either on my stage or in my heart.

I nudged Augie with my elbow. “I’m really going to try with this one. I promise.”

He nodded, his gaze lowering to meet mine. “Can you come over for dinner this weekend? It’s Lia’s birthday. She’s saying she doesn’t want a party…”

I grinned. “But you know she kind of does?”

He shrugged. “That. And I want to celebrate her.”

“We’ll be there. If you need us to bring anything, just let me know.”

Augie nodded distractedly. “You going to flip out if I invite the new girl?”

The guilt that always crept in when I thought about someone taking Fawn’s place rose like black smoke inside me. I tried to keep my expression neutral. “Do you really think Ophelia wants someone we hired to replace her sister at her birthday?”

“You’re the only one who sees Laura as a Fawn replacement, Eve.”

I sighed. I knew he was right. And I knew Augie had loved Fawn just as much as I had. Her death still hurt him, and it wasn’t fair for me to act like I was the only one affected.

It also wasn’t fair for me to keep Laura on the outside, when she’d done nothing wrong.

This club had always been a family, welcoming in anyone who needed that in their lives. I’d been the one to insist on family nights, where I closed the club one night a week, cooked up huge pots of food, and everyone brought their families in to eat together.

Laura had been with us for a month and hadn’t come to one. Because I hadn’t invited her.

I was such a jerk.

“Invite her,” I told Augie.

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

I nodded. “I’ll deal.” I opened the door to my office. “And if I try to fire her—”

“I’ve already told her you will. And she knows to ignore you.”

I blinked.

The corners of Augie’s mouth turned up as he battled back a laugh.

I dug my elbow into his ribs. “Why do I even let you keep working here? It’s not like you need a night job on top of working with your brother during the day. You’re such an ass.”

“I know. But seriously, I will tell her if you even so much as look like you’re going to show her the door. Check out the crowd, Eve. They’re eating her up.”

The club had been busier than ever the last year or two, but when Laura’s sexy librarian act had hit the stage, we’d seen an even higher rate of return customers.

There was no doubt she was good for business.

Just like Fawn had been.

At least this one didn’t dye her hair blond like Fawn had.

Maybe I’d let her stay.

In my office, I closed the door.

“Hey, Evil.”

I jumped about a mile, spinning around, hand to my heart, only to see my stupidly attractive husband sprawled out on the couch.

“Jesus, you scared me! What are you doing here?”

A sheepish expression settled on his sweet face, and he pointed at the brown paper bag sitting on the couch with him. “Brought you a little something.”

I eyed the bag suspiciously. “Did Tiffany’s change their branding?”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me onto his lap, not bothered that I was sweaty and only wearing the lingerie I’d danced in. He ran his nose up the side of my neck and placed sweet kisses along my jawline until he got to my lips.

I knew I was being buttered up for something, but I never could resist the man, and when his lips pressed against mine, I responded enthusiastically, kissing him back.

His fingers fisted in the back of my hair, tugging my head to expose my neck, and he trailed kisses along it, licking and sucking with quick flicks of his tongue. His dick got hard beneath me, and I ground over him, feeling my body respond to his, just like it always did.

“No jewelry inside this time. Just a pregnancy test.”

I stiffened. “It’s going to be negative.”

He drew back, brushing his lips over mine gently. “You’re two days late, and you won’t know if you don’t test.”

I sighed. “What’s the point? If the last two rounds of IVF didn’t work, the odds of us suddenly getting pregnant by ourselves in between cycles is pretty much impossible.”

“Pretty much, but not totally.” He put the brown paper bag into my hand. “Please, babe. I can’t stand the not knowing. It’s all I thought about today.”

He wasn’t the only one. But it was just so hard to keep doing this to myself. We’d spent years trying, and then more going through all sorts of treatments that hadn’t worked either. We’d gone through periods where our entire lives had revolved around trying to get pregnant, each one ending with me sitting on the bathroom floor in tears, Boston wrapped around me, holding me together.

He and the club were the things that kept me going. But I wanted to be a mom more than anything, and yet it seemed the one thing we just couldn’t work out how to do.

But I knew I was going to have to take that test at some point. So it might as well be now.

I kissed my man, my heart full of love for him and the way he somehow managed to keep being optimistic, month after month, year after year. He wanted this just as much as I did. Had cried just as many tears.

All I wanted was to make him a daddy.

I left him on the couch and took the test into the bathroom to pee on the stick. When I’d finished, placed the test face down on the sink, and washed my hands, I opened the door, calling him in.

He glanced at his watch, and then at me, his fingers finding mine and threading in between. He squeezed them softly. “It’s going to be positive.”

I so wanted to believe it.

But I just didn’t.

I smiled for him anyway, because I loved him and I would have given anything for him to be right.

He glanced at his watch again and picked up the test. “You ready?”

I wasn’t, but I never was. At some point, you just had to rip off the Band-Aid. “Yes.”

He turned it over.

I instantly knew it was negative. I knew him too well for him to hide it.

Despite myself, despite preparing for this and knowing the odds of getting pregnant naturally were almost none, tears filled my eyes.

He pulled me close, crushing me inside his arms and kissed my head. “We’ve still got another round of IVF to go.”

I nodded, his solid heartbeat in my ear.

“All I want is to make you a mom, Eve,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I hate I can’t do that for you. I’m so sorry.”

I cried on his chest until he cupped my face with both hands and tilted it up, wiping my tears with his thumbs. He stared down at me. “I love you.”

I nodded. “I know. I love you too.”

That was all we had to cling to on days like this. It was how I pulled myself together each time and picked myself up off the floor. Knowing that I was the luckiest woman on earth because I had him. And that even if I’d known we’d go through all of this pain, I’d still choose him again and again, every day, for the rest of my life.

T he next morning, I kissed Boston goodbye as he left to work at his security firm. And when I went to the bathroom, the blood between my thighs was a sad reminder of what we’d already realized the night before.

I got in the shower and stood there for a long time, letting the water fall down around me. I didn’t need to be at the club until later, but I didn’t want to be alone in the house either. My emotions were too raw, and I didn’t want to get sucked down into them. So I got dressed, and got in the car, driving aimlessly until, all of a sudden, I wasn’t.

I drove up to the bluffs, parked my car, and then walked the long familiar track I’d hiked many times over the last few years. The waterfall and the big natural pool it made at its base welcomed me back, the sense of peace I always found here settling over me once more.

It was easy to see why this had always been Fawn’s favorite spot.

I picked at some stray leaves that had caught against the remembrance plaque we’d gotten permission to put up years ago. We hadn’t had a body to bury in a cemetery, and remembering her here, amongst the trees, with the water flowing over the rocks had just felt right.

I traced my fingers over the engraved letters of her name. “We’re trying another round of IVF. The appointment is already scheduled.” I swallowed. “But I think this is the last one. I don’t think I have any more in me. My heart hurts too much.”

I sighed, grateful for the warm sunshine and the quiet day. Birds chirped happily in the trees, and there wasn’t another soul in sight. I turned my face up to the sky, basking in the warmth. “I miss you,” I whispered. “Time hasn’t made it hurt less.”

Some days I’d wanted to join her. When the grief of losing her combined with the ache of not being able to have a baby and my heart felt like it would never be whole again.

But even on the darkest days, I kept going.

For her, because she hadn’t been given the choice.