Down the Aisle (Dare Me 2.5)

The rest of it was nothing but jumbled sound as she set the phone down on the counter. Again. They’d tried and failed again. The first time, with Katya, she’d just changed her mind altogether about the adoption. That had been rough. She closed her eyes to ward off the pain of that memory. But this time, what did this other family have that she and Galen didn’t? Was it that they weren’t married yet? Or maybe she’d just tried too hard at the interview? She recalled Sarah’s face from their meeting three weeks before, and she’d seemed to like them. What could have gone wrong?

Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. How strange that just a year or two ago, she’d never even given a second thought to the possibility that having children would be anything other than an at-will prospect. She’d stop using birth control, and then she’d get pregnant. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Then, lather, rinse, repeat until she’d have a houseful of kids running around, creating laughter and chaos wherever they went. How could she have been so naive? She’d done everything according to plan. Gone off the Pill in order to give her body a chance to get regulated again for a while, and even started taking pre-natal vitamins. She had all her ducks in a row so that her body would be in the best possible shape for them to start trying right after the wedding. And then? Her body had betrayed her. Her monthly schedule that had been like clockwork while she was on birth control became a crap shoot, and she knew something was wrong.

She pressed a hand to her stomach and blinked back the tears. And worse, how was she going to tell Galen? They’d been so hopeful this time, and the wedding was only a week away. How could she tell him now?

She wouldn’t. Better to wait until after the wedding. There was no point in ruining his day. If he felt anything like she did after hearing the news, putting it off for a few days was a kindness she wished Stella had given her.

She leaned against the granite countertop for support as she ran over what the next steps would be for them. They’d explored so many options already, and it seemed like every door was slammed louder than the last.

They’d just keep trying.

Resolved, she straightened and grabbed the list from the table. Galen was a fighter, and this last year, he’d taught her to be one, too. They would get through this together.

Still, she couldn’t stop that ugly, insidious little voice that whispered…

What if you can’t?

…

“Cinnamon raisin, plain, sesame, I got ‘em all, baby.”

Galen tossed the bursting paper bag onto the kitchen island and tugged Lacey’s ponytail from behind. She turned off the faucet where she’d been rinsing their breakfast pan from the night before and faced him.

“Uh, yeah, sounds good.”

The lightness in his chest that had been there all morning disappeared when he saw her face. Gone were the pink cheeks and the soft smile playing around her full lips while she’d slept that morning. Her eyes looked sad now, her shoulders were slumped, and her voice was dull.

He pulled her into his arms and squeezed, pressing his nose into her hair and breathing in her familiar scent. “What’s the matter, babe? Talk to me.” Please.

She hugged him back, but stiffly, and then pulled away. “Just the stress of the wedding and the new job all at once. I’ll be fine in a week or two once things die down.”

Lies.

The still-warm bagel he’d scarfed down on the way home sat in his belly like a rock. Whatever she was saying about it now, he knew that Lacey had been looking forward to their wedding day since he’d first proposed. Sure it was a busy time for them both, but she’d always been the type of person who thrived on this shit—organization and lists and lace. And she’d been over the moon when she’d landed her first teaching job. This should’ve been the happiest time of her life. Was this all about their baby trouble, or was something else happening here? Had she changed her mind? He swallowed hard and decided that he’d been patient long enough. Time to push her into talking to him.

“I don’t buy it, Lace.”

She bit her lip and made a show of getting herself a bagel from the bag. “What don’t you buy? This is a stressful time. It happens.” She shrugged and tore the bread in half before stuffing a hunk into her mouth.

“Is this about the baby or is something going on about us that we need to talk about?”

She chewed for long enough that he wondered if she’d ever stop, and then she swallowed before meeting his gaze. “I’m fine. I’d be even finer if you stopped asking me what’s wrong.”

And maybe I’d stop asking you if you didn’t have tears brimming in your eyes half the time, he wanted to shout.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he stared at her helplessly, and she glared back, arms crossed over her chest defiantly. Good. He could take mad a lot easier than sad. If only he believed that’s what it was instead of a bone-deep despair that she was unwilling to share with him.

He glanced at the kitchen clock and swore under his breath. “I’ve got to call Shane and cancel. I was supposed to help him install a bathtub today and—”

“No, go!” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice, running a hand through her hair. “Don’t cancel. You should definitely go help him. It wouldn’t be right to bail last minute like that.”

The relief on her face at the thought of getting rid of him for a few hours made his stomach clench again, and in spite of his instincts warning him to tread carefully and give her space, he couldn’t help but press a little.

“Why?” He kept his eyes locked on her telltale face. “We can do it another day. I’d rather be with you.”

I’d rather be with you too, he willed her to say. That would have been the instant reply a few months ago. Now, it was just dead air between them, and his gut pitched so hard, he wondered if he might be sick. Finally, she spoke.

“I’d…rather be with you too,” she swallowed hard, “but there’s still a lot to be done. I was going to head out and pick up the groomsmen’s gifts anyway. We’ll meet up for dinner later, okay?”

The words were right this time. She even managed a strained smile when she said them. But that long pause before she’d answered…That hesitation was killing him. Was that how things were going to be now? She wouldn’t talk to him, she didn’t seem to want him around, and the only time they’d slept together was when she’d been half in the bag.

What was happening to them, and how the fuck was he going to stop it?

…

“Remind me next time to ask you if you have the air conditioning hooked up before I agree to help you with any more projects, bro,” Galen griped, taking a long pull off a sweaty bottle of water.

It was a hellish ninety degrees outside and at least five degrees hotter in the bathroom where he and Shane were attempting to install a fancy, claw-foot tub that Cat had decided was a “must have.”

“Sure. And the next time you need me to move a sectional, make sure to tell me that it’s going to be an all-day affair since your wife-to-be will want to see it in every imaginable position, in every possible room of the house, before having us put it back where it was to start with.”

Galen couldn’t fault him there. That had totally happened a couple months back and the beer and burger he’d supplied hadn’t made up for the emotional trauma.

He yanked the sweat-soaked t-shirt over his head and used it to wipe his face. “You think you’ll be ready to move in by fall?”

Shane and Cat had picked a turn of the century fixer-upper since Cat had always wanted to live in a haunted house and Shane had always wanted to do whatever Cat wanted.

“Hope so. I’m getting sick of driving all over town back and forth.” Shane bent low and started piping caulk around the drain of the tub. “Plus, I think I found a dog, and we need the space. It’s a golden retriever that lives next door to my parents. The people are getting too old to take care of him and are looking to find him a good home. Cat is talking about pot-bellied pigs, and there’s no way that’s going down. If I get a dog now, I’ll have squatter’s rights and she’ll back off.”

The words “back” and “off” weren’t in his sister’s vocabulary, but he let his buddy hold onto the dream.

“Any news on the baby front?” Shane asked, looking up from his finishing work.

Galen hesitated and shook his head before taking another swallow of water. He’d considered telling Lacey this morning about the email he’d gotten the other day, but there were still a million things that could go wrong, and the look on her face when he’d come home from his jog had only cemented the fact that she couldn’t take another let down. At least this time, if it didn’t work out, it would only be his heartache.

So it was back to the waiting game. It seemed like they were always waiting for something lately. Ovulation, a phone call, a letter, an interview. Every month, when his broken-hearted fiancée walked out of the bathroom with that look on her face, he wanted take her away from it all. To just be like fuck it and forget the whole thing. If he could be with her forever, he’d die a happy man. But he knew how badly she wanted a family, and if he was being honest with himself, he’d never imagined his life any other way. So they kept on keeping on. Even when shit got hard.

“Nothing yet. I think she’s still caught up with what happened when Katya changed her mind.”

That had been a rough one, too. So close, yet so far. It had been their first try at adopting. They felt like the gods were smiling down on them when they were picked by a teenage mom-to-be who was due to give birth in the spring. A week before her due date, she backed out, saying that she and the baby’s father were getting back together and had decided to raise the child themselves. Lacey had been inconsolable, and they had seriously considered pulling their name from the list. But in typical delicate-on-the-outside, steel-on-the-inside Lacey fashion, she rallied and a couple weeks later, she was back in the saddle.

Still, he could see a hairline crack in that steel that hadn’t been there before, and a part of him wondered how many more blows she could take before she shattered. But maybe this time…

He shut off the hopeful feeling blooming in his chest and stood abruptly. “It’ll be fine. We’ll get through it.”

“Well, we’re all pulling for you,” Shane said, and then, clearly unsure of what to say next, promptly changed the subject to baseball.

As they talked and tossed insults at one another’s favorite teams, Galen’s thoughts went back to Lacey. It had been so hard to leave her, but until she was willing to open up, there wasn’t much more he could do. Maybe she was right. With only a week until the wedding, things were getting hectic. After that, they’d have some uninterrupted time alone for their honeymoon. He pinched his eyes closed and pictured him and Lacey, arms wrapped around each other on the beach. When he opened them, he was resolved. She could hide her head in the sand now, but they’d find their way back to each other in the same place they’d started. Puerto Rico.

And everything would be okay.

It had to be.

Chapter Four

The rest of the week went by in a whirlwind, with one appointment after another. Last-minute fittings with Cat, who had designed and sewn her wedding gown, and then going over final guest lists and seating arrangements kept Lacey busy. Exactly the right amount of busy that she didn’t have time to think about that devastating phone call from Stella Martin or the near blowout with Galen afterward.

Much.

Except every time she laid eyes on him, she wanted to tell him. And every time they lay in bed at night, ignoring the elephant in the room, and she opened her mouth to do it, the words froze on her tongue. How could she break his heart just so hers didn’t have to be the only one breaking? Just a few more days. Once they got through today and the five days in Puerto Rico for their honeymoon, she’d tell him. She knew Galen better than she knew herself, and he wouldn’t be mad at her. He would only be sad that he hadn’t been able to share the pain and support her. It was exactly that sweet selflessness that made her keep her mouth shut. She was going to find a way to make this the best day of their lives in spite of the news hanging over her.