Egotistically Yours by Hayley Faiman
Chapter Twenty-Three
BETHANIE
Shopuntil you drop is a real thing. I didn’t realize that it was, I’ve never actually done it before but here I am killing it. My entire body aches as we head home. My mom, however, is ready for more, and I don’t understand it.
“You’re still recovering,” she says as she takes the stroller from me and begins to push it toward the elevator.
“I’m something,” I mutter. “I don’t know how I’m going to put in a full day’s work and then come home and do regular life, too,” I confess.
She doesn’t say anything right away, but as the elevator car opens and we step out into the hall, she finally speaks.
“Are you sure you want to go back to work?” she asks. “Laurent told your father he was okay with you staying home with Tucker.”
My heart races and I wonder what’s changed my mother’s tune. Last night she was all about protection and marriage, and what better way to protect yourself when you’re not married than to have your own job?
“I’m going to try going back to work. I don’t want to stay home just yet, besides I’m a terrible cook. I would feel completely useless.”
My mom stops in her tracks and I take a couple of steps forward before I realize that she has stopped. Turning to her, I bite the inside of my cheek and wait for whatever it is she is about to say, because I know my mom and this is a shits-about-to-get-real moment.
“Cooking and cleaning is not the measure of a woman or a mother,” she states. “Get that out of your head right now. You being a stay-at-home mother has nothing to do with housework or food, it’s about raising and loving your babies. Being there when they need you, or when they just want you. It’s okay to be a stay-at-home mother and it’s okay to be a working mother. Neither are wrong, but don’t ever think that your measurement of motherhood depends on a dish from the kitchen or how well you can dust.”
My eyes widen and I blink a couple of times.
“Okay,” I whisper.
She clears her throat. “Damn straight. Now, let’s get these things in the condo. I’m going to get it all set up while you relax a little. Maybe go swim so you can work out your sore muscles?”
“Okay, Mom.”
She smiles, then winks, and together we make our way into the condo. It’s quiet inside and I glance down at my phone in my hand and frown. It’s well after five thirty and Laurent is usually home by now.
My mom whistles as she moves around my house. Tucker is with her, and I’m not about to take him away from her for anything other than feeding him. She is all about him and loving every moment of being here. This is her last day here, so I am not going to even try.
My dad is supposed to be over here in thirty minutes for a final dinner and I’m shocked that Laurent isn’t home yet. Making my way upstairs, I take my mom’s advice and change into my swimsuit, then I send a text to Laurent.
Is everything okay?
He doesn’t answer right away and I carry my phone with me, gripping it in my hand as I grab a towel and make my way toward the pool. Sinking inside of the cool water, I let out a sigh at the same time my phone dances on the deck next to me.
LAURENT: DON’T WAIT UP. MEETING TONIGHT. SORRY BABY.
Staring at my phone, I wonder what the hell he’s talking about. I am half tempted to call him and ask him, but I don’t. Work is work and I know that it’s his company, he’s working hard to get it off of the ground all by himself. He doesn’t need me hounding and harping on him.
Okay. See you tonight.
I watch the phone, waiting for the three little bubbles that show he’s responding, but there’s nothing. Then when I close my eyes and inhale a deep breath and let it out slowly, I hear the incoming text.
Looking at my phone, I instantly smile at the new message.
LAURENT: LOVE YOU.
I love you too.
I spend about twenty minutes swimming around the pool, then I hear a commotion inside and I look over to see my dad walking through the door. Smiling, I lift my hand and wave. He lifts the bags in his hands before he sets them down on the kitchen counter, then heads toward me.
“Hey darlin’ girl, where’s your man?” he murmurs as he opens the door and slips outside.
“Hey, Daddy. He has to work late,” I say, scrunching my nose.
He chuckles, but the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It happens,” he says with a shrug.
“Yeah.” I nod. “It does.”
I don’t want it to happen though, as much as I say I know that it does, I can’t help but wonder what working late means. I know that Laurent was disgusted by Cody and what he said, what he did. But that doesn’t mean that Laurent wasn’t exactly like that just a few months ago.
I try not to think about the what-ifs and spend the evening with my parents and Tucker. It’s my last Saturday at home. I have new work clothes, thanks to my mom shopping with me. Tucker’s room is complete and amazing, again, thanks to my mom.
When we finish dinner and visiting, I know that the evening is drawing near and I’m feeling very uneasy about it. I don’t want my parents to leave, not just because I’m going to miss them, but also because I don’t want to be alone.
Standing at the door, Tucker in my arms, my father gives me a hug and whispers that he loves me before he turns me to my mom. She is crying and I’m on the verge myself. They only live a few hours away, it’s not like I’m not going to see them again soon, but it’s been so great having them here for a few days.
“You be good and take care of yourself and my sweet grandson,” she whispers.
“Okay,” I say with a nod.
They turn and leave and I stand at the closed, locked door with Tucker, wondering why I feel so damn alone. It’s not like I haven’t lived alone my entire adult life, it’s not like Tucker and I didn’t start off alone together. It’s not even like I haven’t been alone during the day, all day, every day, since moving in here.
It’s the being alone at night. That’s what has me. When Tucker goes down for the night, he’ll wake up once, but otherwise, it’s just going to be me alone, at night for the first time ever. I should not be as upset as I am, but I really am.
My mind starts to wander and the places it goes, it’s not good at all.
LAURENT
Something ugly passesthrough me at the sight of Cody sitting across from me. I wasn’t supposed to go into the office at all today, it’s Saturday. Typically I spend the day with my family. But with Bethie’s parents in town, they were going to spend the day shopping, so I came by here to get some work done.
Big mistake.
Now I’ve been roped into a dinner with Cody. He texted me out of the blue and I replied that I was at the office, then he showed up. Now, I’m sitting in the bar of a restaurant, at a table, but still very much in the bar, waiting for some food.
“You need to let loose. Just because you have a woman and a kid doesn’t mean you can’t have fun anymore.”
I want to tell him to fuck completely off, but that little voice in the back of my head tells me that I need him a hell of a lot. Clearing my throat, I lean back in my seat, lifting my hand, I motion for the waiter to come over here.
I order a light beer, deciding it’s a little safer on the alcohol list than anything else. Cody smirks, then orders himself a whiskey. My food should be here any second, and all I want to do is eat and go home. Cody may not like his homelife much, but I fucking love mine.
Inhaling a deep breath, I let it out with a sigh and nod my head. “So what was it you wanted to talk about?” I ask.
He doesn’t say anything right away, his attention isn’t even on me or anywhere near me. Turning my head to the side, I see exactly what his attention is on. It’s a woman. A woman and her goddamn friend.
“I’m not being your wingman,” I grind out.
He jerks his chin, then turns to me. “Just smile, you don’t even have to say anything.”
“What about your secretary?” I ask through gritted teeth.
He laughs, his eyes almost twinkling with delight. “I’m not committed to anyone, Laurent, and honestly, you shouldn’t be either. Tying yourself down to one person is fucking stupid. We are animals, we are not meant to be monogamous. Besides, my marriage has never been better these days.”
I think back to the horrible dinner we had at their house and I want to laugh in his face. His marriage is a fucking train wreck. It’s a goddamn disaster and it’s nothing I would ever want for myself or anyone that I actually like.
It’s what he wants and that’s fine, but it’s not for me and the fact that he’s trying to push his shit on me, yet again, is just pissing me off.
I look up to the waiter when my beer is placed in front of me and I thank him as I bring the bottle to my lips. Taking a long pull, I try not to think about anything that is happening and try to come up with a good excuse to get the fuck out of here and go home.
“I’m happy being monogamous, Cody. Not every one person is the exact same as the other,” I try to explain without telling him that he’s a dumbfuck and that I think he’s fucked in the head or anything like that.
He smiles, shaking his head. “I just know you, Laurent. You’re going to explode if you keep going like this. I can see it inside of you, building. She says she’s cool not being married, for now. When this newness wears off, she’ll want the ring. You’ll add kids, continue to work yourself into the ground, and one day you’ll realize it’s been six months since you’ve been laid.”
His words aren’t wrong, at least not for everyone. I know that relationships go the exact way he’s explaining, married or not. But I’m not going to head into anything with the feeling of doom hanging over me, especially this shit he’s trying to plant a seed about.
“Brother,” I mutter. “If it happens that way, then it does. I’m not worried about it right now though.”
“You should be,” he states. “Cut it off before it even happens. Don’t let yourself get bitter.”
I almost burst out laughing and ask him if he knows who my mother is. Bitter? That’s her middle fucking name. I don’t. It doesn’t matter what I say to him right now, he’s got an idea of what he thinks life should be like for me, for himself, for the whole fucking world.
Nobody is going to change his view, just like he isn’t going to change mine. I’ve seen what cheating does. I’ve also seen what the other spouse allowing it to happen, then doing it too does. It’s not a tit-for-tat situation, it kills slowly.
“Have your fun, Laurent. Life is too short to try and make something perfect at home. You can have it all, we all can and we do. Do you think any man in pure power, in positions like us, are faithful perfect puritans?”
I could tell him that my father is, but he’s only been married for a short amount of time and he wasn’t completely faithful to my mother in the end, but in the beginning, for a long fucking time, he was just that.
“Maybe I’ll be different,” I say with a shrug.
He snorts. “Doubtful, but even if you are, she won’t be.”
“Why do you say that?” I grind out.
He leans in closely, licking his lips as if he’s about to tell me some juicy fucking secret. I’m about ten seconds from standing up, abandoning my food and going the fuck home.
“How’d you begin?” he asks.
“Work,” I admit. “Casually.”
He curls his lip. “Figured as much. Asked around a little. It’s why I brought you out tonight. You were the big dog there, right. Boss’s son. Playboy, handsome. Pussy lined up for days.”
I snort, shaking my head once. “Yeah.”
“You’re building the company back up, you’re not on top right now. Not the bottom, but not the top. What happens when the top walks past her desk again?”
Resting my elbows on the table, I look across from him. “Are you trying to tell me that she’s going to fuck someone else who has more power, more money, and is in a better position than I am? That somehow she is a gold digger and only after the next payday.”
He’s fucking painting my Bethie to be a gold digger and that shit pisses me the fuck off. I’ve seen gold diggers in my day. I’ve seen women who go after the biggest whatever it is. Biggest dick, biggest wallet, biggest car, biggest house, whatever the goddamn case, I’ve seen it all and Bethie is not that.
Not by a long shot.
The fact that he thinks she is, it just makes me realize that he doesn’t know shit and he can’t read people at all.
Not in the fucking slightest.
“Mark my words, Laurent.”
