Page 23 of I Choose You (Wilder #2)

Claire

I was buzzing with excitement. It was silly, really. It was just a girls’ night with some friends. New friends. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a fun girls’ night out—or in, as was the case tonight.

Maeve had texted me earlier and invited me to her house, along with her sister-in-law, Juliet, and another friend of hers.

I had put on a dress first, but that looked too, well, dressy, so I changed out of that and into a pair of jeans and a cute top.

Before I left to head over to her house, she texted in a new group chat that it was a comfy clothes kind of night, so I changed again.

Now, I was in an oversized sweater and a pair of leggings.

I stopped at the Pine Street Market to pick up a bottle of wine.

As I walked down the baked goods aisle, the case of freshly made desserts caught my eye.

I picked up a container of apple pie taquitos, figuring they would be easier to eat than a pie, and they smelled delicious.

Maeve’s house was a small Cape-style home.

The siding looked like it had been newly painted, a pretty yet subtle light blue color, but the front porch was a collection of different- colored planks of wood.

She and Wyatt were clearly in the middle of some renovations, and for some reason, it made me like her even more.

I was so used to everything having to be picture-perfect all the time, especially around company.

It was refreshing to see normal people living their lives, making small improvements over the course of time.

I couldn’t think of a single person back in Connecticut who would allow others to see their home in anything other than pristine condition.

I rang the bell, and Scarlett, from the Calla Bay Police Department, answered the door, laughing at something Maeve must have said. Her dark red hair was tied back, wild curls struggling hard to break free.

“Claire! I’m so glad you’re here.” She opened the door wider and stepped aside to let me in.

“Hey, Claire. I was going to make introductions, but it looks like you two know each other already,” Maeve said. She gave me a quick, tight squeeze.

“Yeah. We met at the police department a few weeks back when I had to give my statement.”

Maeve’s house was absolutely adorable. A playpen for Jane was set up in the living room, along with a baby chair and some toys. Everything had been tidied away, but it had a cozy, lived-in vibe.

“What’s all this?” Maeve asked, gesturing to my armful of goodies.

“I didn’t want to come empty-handed, so I stopped by the market for the wine, but the bakery smelled too good to pass by without picking something up. Apple pie taquitos.”

“Oh, my goodness, thank you. You didn’t have to do that, but I’m not complaining that you did.” Maeve ushered me into the kitchen area of the open-concept space. I placed the items on the counter, where the other bottle of wine and snacks were.

“Me either,” Scarlett said. “I say we open those first.”

“The taquitos or the wine?”

“Both,” she laughed.

A knock sounded at the front door, so Maeve went to answer it while Scarlett looked around for some wineglasses.

“Oh, hey. It’s Claire, right?” Juliet entered the kitchen in front of Maeve.

“Yup, that’s me.” I smiled. “How have you been, Juliet?”

“Good. I’d be better if I were on a tropical island somewhere though,” she joked. “Luke and I have been talking about going on a vacation sometime soon.”

“Luke doesn’t like to travel,” Scarlett said.

Juliet didn’t acknowledge the comment at all. With a smile, she continued. “How’s things with you?”

“Good. Busy, but things are moving along really well.” We made awkward small talk for a bit.

Everything seemed pleasant enough, but there was an undercurrent of hostility that I didn’t feel just moments ago.

Juliet pointedly hadn’t said anything to Scarlett, not even a greeting.

Her friendly chatter with me made me feel more like a pawn in some sort of game that I didn’t understand.

“Oh, Scarlett, you have too many glasses out,” Maeve said.

“What?” she asked, clearly confused. She recounted the four wineglasses in front of us and then looked around at the three of us standing in front of her. “No, I don’t. There are four of us.”

“Yes, but only three are drinking wine.” Maeve’s lips were pressed tightly together as she tried to suppress her smile .

Scarlett nearly slammed the wine bottle on the counter with more force than necessary, her mouth wide open.

“Are you…” Juliet trailed off. She sounded like she was afraid to ask the obvious question.

“Pregnant?” squealed Scarlett.

Maeve was nodding her head, her hands playing with the ends of her sweatshirt.

Scarlett shrieked with delight and wrapped Maeve in a strong embrace.

“Congratulations, Maeve. That’s so exciting!” I told her. After Scarlett finally let go, I wrapped my arm around her to give her a quick hug, but when Maeve hugged me back, it was a full bear hug. She was a really good hugger. I bet that meant she made an excellent mother.

“Yes. I can only imagine how thrilled Wyatt is,” Juliet said. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “So that’s why you insisted I came tonight?”

“I wanted to share the news with you. We’re basically family, after all,” Maeve said.

“Just don’t let my husband know, or I’ll never be able to shake the man,” Juliet said. Her fake laugh needed work if she expected anyone to believe that she was joking.

“We need some grape juice, stat. This calls for a celebration,” Scarlett said, cutting through the awkward moment.

“I have apple juice in the fridge,” Maeve told her.

“That works too.”

Juliet poured our glasses of wine while Scarlett got juice for Maeve and poured it into her wineglass.

“I texted Lydia to see if she could come down for the weekend, but she couldn’t make it,” Maeve said as we were sitting around her breakfast counter. She shrugged, but I could see the disappointment on her face.

“Lydia is Reid’s sister, right?”

Maeve smiled into her cup. “Yeah, she’s an art curator for a collection of galleries, mostly in New York. She rarely comes home as it is, but I was hoping she’d be able to make it this weekend so she could be here for this.”

“I’m sure if she knew there was going to be a big announcement, she would have come home for it,” Scarlett said.

“Maybe,” Maeve said with a shrug.

Maeve put on some music, and we bounced around the house singing along, or at least Maeve, Scarlett, and I did.

Juliet didn’t do much dancing or singing.

I felt like I was at a grade-school slumber party.

It was so much fun. The three of us non-pregnant ladies had finished the bottle of wine I had brought and then another one, and although I couldn’t speak for them, I was feeling pretty good.

“Claire, how was the wedding that you went to? Did you have a good time?” Maeve asked.

“It was, um, interesting,” I hedged. I didn’t know these ladies all that well, but we were becoming fast friends. It would be easier to just say it was great and move on, but it would be nice to have people I could really talk to about things.

“Okay,” Scarlett said slowly. “I’m intrigued. What was so interesting about it?”

“It was a pretty big deal. One of the Connecticut senators’ daughters was marrying a political up-and-comer from the West.”

“You know a senator?” Juliet asked, impressed.

“I know them both. The other one is my father.” I cringed.

Scarlett’s and Juliet’s eyes went wide. “Oh, shoot,” Scarlett said. “I didn’t know you were from that DeLuca family. ”

I laughed at how awed they looked. It had been so normalized with my upbringing that I forgot sometimes that it was kind of a big deal to some people.

“Yeah, that’s the one. So, you can imagine the number of people and press in attendance.

They made a whole big show of it. It was a beautiful wedding, don’t get me wrong, but absolutely massive.

Anyway, my mother was poking me all weekend, trying to get me to go back to my ex, making comments about my career, my lifestyle.

Finally, during dinner the night before the wedding, I snapped.

And I never snap at my mother like that.

” I took another sip of my wine and popped a taquito into my mouth.

“Reid wanted to just come back here, but I still needed to go to the wedding the next day.”

“Wait…” Maeve said.

“ What ?” Scarlett bellowed.

All three of them had their jaws on the floor, with various looks of surprise, confusion, and elation.

“Back up. What was Reid doing there?” Maeve asked. She could not contain the giddy look on her face.

Uh-oh. They were going to think there was a lot more to Reid’s and my relationship than there really was.

I mean, there was that one panty-melting kiss.

But that was to make a point. It didn’t mean anything.

And ever since we got back, Reid had been quieter.

Not as grumpy as he was early on, but distant in a way.

He clearly wasn’t obsessing over how it felt to have his fingers tangled in my hair or how the touch of his lips, his tongue, the scratch of his five-o’clock shadow lit up my every cell.

So neither was I. Definitely not thinking about it.

“I invited him as my plus-one,” I told them. “He didn’t want to come, at first, but he ended up changing his mind. It was really nice of him, and I told him how much I appreciated it.”

“Did you just tell him, or did you show him?” Scarlett wiggled her brows suggestively.

“Scarlett,” Maeve hissed, throwing a pillow at her. We were all laughing now, the alcohol making everything that much funnier.

“Just told him. With my words,” I said pointedly.

Scarlett pouted dramatically. “Well, that’s disappointing.”