Cheeks flushing, I mumbled, “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
“With as much time as I’ve spent with my head in the toilet recently, I should be apologizing to you. I didn’t realize the walls were so thin.” She placed her hand on my arm. “Are you okay, Rachel?”
Very few people asked me that.
Rain and Rex mostly.
I always lied.
But as I looked at Giulia, I found that I couldn’t.
Uneasily, I told her, “Scott… he said things that were…”
“Hurtful?” she prompted when I fell silent.
I nodded. “Very. He… I shouldn’t have said what I did either though.”
“I heard most of the conversation,” she admitted.
I didn’t bother cringing. “Is that why you asked if I had an abortion? Because he said I ‘threw my baby away?’”
“Yeah. No judgment here if that’s what actually happened.” She squeezed my wrist. “Don’t know you all that well, Rachel, but what I do know is that you’re on the cold side. Me? I blow up. I get mad, set metaphorical fire to shit, punch the wall. You’re the opposite. If I know that, I’m sure if you’ve been friends a long time, he knows that too—”
“Not sure that makes this better,” I grumbled, rolling the glass against my forehead.
Maybe she was right to ask if I was okay.
I sure as hell felt feverish, and keeping any food down was next to impossible.
It didn’t help that I hated doctors. Going to the hospital as often as I did for Bear was a fucking nightmare in and of itself. The last thing I wanted was to be back there with my own symptoms.
“Not sure I said it to make it better,” Giulia replied with a soft laugh. “I was just saying that he must have come to you for logic.”
“Or law advice,” I muttered bitterly.
“That too. You’d have a problem with that?”
“Not ordinarily, no.”
“What he said really was out of order if that helps any.”
My mouth firmed. “I’m sure he thought I was invalidating his feelings.”
She snorted. “So he invalidated yours? See, this is why I don’t like people.”
Despite myself, I found that my lips were twitching. “In general?”
“In general,” she confirmed, planting herself on the seat beside me. Her nails, short and blunt but still long enough for the black lacquer on them, tapped the table. “They suck. Do you disagree?”
“How can I?” I countered on an exhalation. “You know most of my clients.”
A choked laugh gusted from her. “True. But they’re decent. Mostly, anyway. And for all that they’ll kill a pedo, I mean, they wouldn’t hurt us, would they?”
“No.” I placed the glass back down on the table. “I’m okay, Giulia. You don’t have to sit with me or anything.”
“You still look pale,” she said mutinously. “Do you want something to eat? Maybe get your blood sugar up?”
I shook my head, grimacing at the thought of food.
“Before I found out I was pregnant, I looked just like you. Turned my nose up at food, was puking all the time. I even lost weight, which is one of those ironic things, don’t you think? Lose weight before you put on three times as much?” she complained but patted her stomach as if she were trying to soften the blow to her baby.
“I’m not pregnant though,” I mumbled. “I think I’m coming down with the flu or something.”
“Ugh, that’s miserable. You should get some rest.”
“I can’t. I have things to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like work?” I heaved a sigh. “Plus, I need to find out how to fight Scott’s surrogate if she is thinking of absconding with their baby.”
“Even after he talked down to you?”
“Even after that,” I said grimly.
Her arched brow told me that she thought I was crazy.
Maybe I was.
She shrugged. “I’ll leave you to it.”
I watched her get up, wasn’t going to say anything at all, then as she made it to the door, I said, “Thanks, Giulia.”
She hitched a shoulder but her grin flashed as she turned back to look at me before she strode out of the kitchen. “I speak the truth and no bullshit.”
No, her bullshit-o-meter was definitely low.
Most days, mine was too, but Scott had gone for the jugular, and he’d scored a solid hit.
A part of me wondered if I should contact Craig, see what else was going on. Scott had a habit of overreacting and blowing up at the smallest thing. Craig was a lot calmer. To be honest, I didn’t know how Craig put up with Scott, and after today, after such a nasty sideswipe at me, I was left questioning that even more.
The rest of the afternoon, as a result of that one call, was unproductive as hell.
I couldn’t get past how easy it had been for him to jump on everything I had to say and to cut close to the bone with each retort.
When I eventually gave in and tried to call Craig, he didn’t pick up. Which told me he was taking Scott’s side in this.
I guessed that made sense seeing as they were in a relationship and he had to live with the man, but that hurt too.
I hadn’t done anything wrong aside from be myself.
Was it so bad that I wasn’t maternal?
I’d never pretended to be. When they discussed their plans of using a surrogate, I’d listened because I loved them and wanted them to be happy—they’d been considering this for years by the time they’d contracted everything with Andrea—but I hadn’t promised to be the best aunty in the US.
Nor had I said that I’d be their babysitter whenever they needed.
I’d figured that they knew how I was because upon realizing they were going to ask me to be Sarah’s godmother, I’d told them that I wasn’t a good fit. I didn’t think they were offended—they hadn’t said anything. After they’d offered the role to someone else, the topic had never been brought up again.
Maybe it was a point of contention, maybe they felt insulted, but I didn’t see why. I wasn’t the one who suddenly wanted a kid.
It felt as if they’d changed the parameters of our friendship and they hadn’t told me.
Giulia, I realized, wasn’t wrong—people sucked.
I just didn’t think I’d ever lump Scott and Craig into that mix…
Fine. I was fine. Just, it was more F.I.N.E.
I’d never liked that acronym.
“What’s with you?” Parker, my EA, demanded on our final call of the day. “You don’t even have to go out again and you’re grumpier than a sow’s paw.”
My brow furrowed. “Isn’t it a bear’s paw? Do sows even have paws?”
“My grandma used to say it.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was used to Parker’s grandma’s wrong sayings. It didn’t stop me from always correcting her though.
“I’m sure she did.”
“She did!” Parker argued, but she was laughing at me, and my lips, I had to admit, were twitching. “Come on then, sourpuss. What’s going on?”
“I’m just stressed.”