So that’s what I do.
I stop at the grocery store, buy a tub of ice cream, and head to my sister’s house. When I pull into her driveway, I check my phone again to see if Harrison has sent me anything, but there’s nothing. Turning off the ringer, I throw my phone into my purse and grab the ice cream.
Before I even approach the door, she has it open. “What are you doing here? Wait, is that ice cream?”
I push past her as I state, “I just left the doctor. Yes, it’s ice cream. Help me eat it.”
Her eyes follow me as I grab two spoons from the kitchen—and not those regular sized spoons either. No, I grab the large, barely-fit-in-your-mouth spoons. “Uhh, Gwenny? I didn’t think you were supposed to eat ice cream,” she says hesitantly.
I scoop a huge bite of rocky road ice cream and reply, “I’m not. But Harrison missed our appointment and it was either eat ice cream or cut off his balls with a wooden spoon.”
“Ouch,” she says, coming over to the counter and grabbing the other spoon. “Sounds painful. Why’d he miss?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, shoveling more cold goodness in my mouth. “He didn’t show. I watched him put it in his calendar after last week’s appointment. He marked the entire three o’clock hour off so that he didn’t miss, but whatever.”
“Uh-huh, whatever. Obviously, you’re a little peeved.”
“A little.” I shrug.
“How’d the appointment go?” she asks, taking a much smaller bite of ice cream.
I plop down on the stool and use my spoon to draw a flower into the ice cream. “Not good. My blood pressure was high, but that’s probably because I was upset about Harrison missing the appointment. We got a call at two this morning about the alarms going off, and then he had trouble with his security code. They had to reset the whole system.”
“They’ve had a lot of trouble these last few weeks,” Gabby adds, setting her spoon down. “You’d think someone was trying to sabotage them.”
I glance at her, my heart pounding like a snare drum. “What did you say?”
“What?”
“What did you say?”
“I don’t know. I was just thinking out loud.”
“You said it sounded like someone was sabotaging them.” Just saying the words aloud has my mind racing.
Gabby stands up straight. “Do you think someone is?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “It’s just that a lot of weird things have been happening. First with my car, then with the building. Plus, some of the orders were changed, like the new towels for Porter arrived in orange and green instead of white, as ordered.”
“Who would mess with that?” she asks, giving me her full attention.
“No clue. I mean, Harrison and Chase are the only ones who order and have access to all of that stuff, right?”
“Well, besides Gina,” Gabby adds.
“But she’s been gone for three weeks,” I note, remembering how upset Harrison was when he found out Gina told me she overheard him saying I was getting fat in my pregnancy. That moment had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, and he’d called Chase to fire her immediately. With everything he’s been dealing with, he hasn’t had time to hire a new assistant yet.
“And didn’t these weird things start happening about three weeks ago?” Gabby asks.
I glance her way, and don’t need to use words to confirm her suspicions. My stomach tightens painfully, with much more intensity than earlier.
“Wow, what was that? Are you okay?” she asks, coming around to my side of the counter.
“Fine, just those stupid Braxton Hicks contractions,” I reply, taking a few deep breaths.
“You sure? That seemed pretty intense.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“What can I get you?” my sister asks.
“Maybe a glass of water.”
She guides me to her living room. “Come on, go sit down on the couch. I’ll grab you some water. You probably put your daughter in a sugar coma, since you haven’t had ice cream in months.” Gabby hustles off to the kitchen to get water. “Where’s your phone?” she hollers from the other room.
“In my purse. Why?”
“I’m going to call Harrison,” she says, returning with the glass.
“No, don’t do that,” I demand, taking a slow sip of water. “I’m fine. He’s obviously very busy, otherwise, he would have been at my appointment.”
She gives me a look that lets me know she doesn’t exactly agree with me, but she relents. “You can stay here and relax, but if you’re still contracting in an hour, I’m calling him.”
“Fine,” I grumble.
“In fact, I’ll shoot him a text and let him know you’re here,” she says, grabbing her own phone. I watch as she types out her message and taps Send. “There. At least he’ll know where you are.”
We spend the next hour visiting, chatting about everything from work to the gym. Chase is still training Gabby, but I’m not sure how much longer that’ll continue. She says all he does is push her buttons so that she’s all sorts of pissed off by the time she leaves. Gabby can give as good as she gets, most times, but with Chase, I don’t know. He pushes her to her limit, both in the gym and out of it, considering she threatens to maim him on a regular basis.
“Do you remember that time we met Harrison and Chase at Twist of Lime right after my twenty-first birthday?” Gabby asks as we reminisce about life before full-time jobs and bills. You know, when trying to figure out what to wear to the bar on a Saturday night was your biggest decision?
“No,” I tell her, trying to ignore the tightness in my stomach. This one’s just as intense as the contraction I felt almost an hour ago, but I try to hide it.
“You and I went to the cinema to see that new Ryan Reynolds movie. By the time it was over, you had a message from Harrison to meet him uptown. We went, and they were shooting pool with… wait,” Gabby says, jumping up from the chair. “Gina!”
“What?” I ask, getting up from the couch.
“Gina was there! Don’t you remember? She was hitting on Harrison hard when we walked in. He was being polite, but trying to get her off him?”
For some reason, that night comes back to me easily. I recall walking into the bar and spotting my boyfriend across the room. He was watching Chase shoot, barely paying any attention to the young girl beside him, except for the occasional polite nod and smile. And when I say she was beside him, I mean, hanging on his arm and rubbing herself against his side. I could tell he was uneasy by his body language, but the moment our eyes met across the bar confirmed it. He was practically begging me to rescue him without so much as saying a word.
“I went up there just as she was asking him to give her a ride home,” I recall.
Gabby snorts. “Oh, she was wanting a ride all right, and maybe in the back seat. She was so disappointed when we arrived, especially when he laid the kiss of all kisses on your lips.”
Now that I remember. That kiss was a prelude to some amazingly dirty things later that night. “Didn’t she go home with Chase?”
Her jaw tics as she stares at me. “Yeah, she did. It all makes sense now, but when I saw her the next day, she said the guy she was trying to take home fell through, so she took his best friend instead.” I swear my sister gets pissed as realization sets in—that her friend slept with Chase.
“Why wouldn’t Chase remember her?” I wonder aloud.
Again, Gabby snorts in disbelief. “Are you kidding? That man sleeps with anything with a vagina. No way would he remember all of them, especially someone from seven years ago, during a night of drinking.”
My stomach clenches tightly, and this time, I’m unable to mask my discomfort. “Shit,” I groan, doubling over in pain.
“Gwen?” Gabby rushes to me and helps me sit on the couch. “I’m calling Harrison,” she adds, reaching for her phone.
“No, wait.” Deep breath, in and out. “I think you need to take me to t
he hospital.”
Everything happens quickly after that. My sister grabs my purse and my hand and leads me toward the passenger seat of my car. I keep my hands protectively around my stomach as she tears out of the driveway. “Gabby, slow down. You’re going to get pulled over.”
“You’re in labor, Gwenny. I don’t think I can do slow,” she replies, practically taking the corner on two wheels.
The moment we hit Main Street, traffic seems to slow down. It seems busier than usual, even more so than a Friday night, just after six o’clock. “What the heck?” I wonder out loud.