Page 43 of I Choose You
“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 Icould 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 wantto 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.
