A head shake. “Not much of a family guy.”
“Fair enough,” I manage to say, although his words needle a part of me I’d rather ignore. “I appreciate your honesty.”
If only Clark had told me those words when we first got married, I wouldn’t be in this position right now: overworked, out of money, and desperate for a family of my own.
Or a child, at least.
Because my dear soon-to-be ex-husband insisted he wanted kids and spent the next ten years putting it off and putting it off, until he’d put it off so long that he somehow tripped into a twenty-year-old and knocked her up. She’s due any day now. So, I guess, he actuallyisa family man.
He just didn’t want a family with me.
Which is fine. Good riddance. I can do it by myself. Like I built up this restaurant by myself, while he was off knocking up girls half his age.
Thank goodness for IVF. And modern medicine. And living in a place where I can decide what to do with my own body and just how I intend to do it.
“Welcome to the team, Jake Brand.” I hand him a clean apron, which definitely won’t fit and make a mental note to order some XXLs. “And thank you. Truly. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
The second that clear blue gaze hits mine, a shot of adrenaline races straight through my bloodstream.
Wow. Okay then.
Pure trouble.
That was my first impression and nothing thus far has changed it.
What kind of fool goes and hires a man who looks like this one?
A fool who needed a little breathing room. At least now I’ve got six weeks to find someone permanent.
I just hope this isn’t a decision I’ll come to regret.
2
One week later…
Kit
I turned forty today. Which is fine. Forty is young, everyone keeps telling me. Well, everyone except for that one reproductive endocrinologist who referred to my eggs as geriatric.
His exact words were that they were in great shape for geriatric eggs, so I guess it’s a positive.
Wasa positive. Was.
I’m done with the IVF. No babies. No family.
So, I’m celebrating forty or, I guess grieving, here at my bar at the end of a very long shift, with a birthday bourbon.
Two, actually. This is my second.
I pick up my phone again, open the group chat and smile at the Happy Birthdays from Trina and Beth, now married in New Zealand, Jules with her new guy in Paris, and my other friends who left town and scattered to the four corners of the globe, with their smiling, happy, complicated families.
Their kids.
My eyes blur as I look at the photos of babies and toddlers and tweens, grinning out from the warm safety of these wild,sweet families my friends have created. I’m so proud of them. And so painfully jealous.
Dammit, I’m being morose. I promised myself—and Frank when he called—not to get down in the dumps today.
