Page 64 of Black Wave

Liv places her hand on her belly. “I look forward to a drink when this little one is born.” She keeps her hand on her stomach, now displaying a progressing pregnancy.

Soon, there will be a baby, and I long for the day I can have a family with Eduardo.

“Are you happy, Liv?” I look at my friend, and I can see when she looks at me that she is in love and happy, whereas that look wasn’t there before.

“The happiest I have ever been. I thought I loved Brodie and he was it for me, but I realized we were just comfortable with each other. We didn’t have the connection that Dax and I have. I just wish things could have been different and the accident never would have happened.”

I grab her hands from across the table. She has made such progress in therapy and talking to someone about the guilt that she carries.

“Liv, you know that isn’t any of your fault. He made a terrible choice that had terrible consequences. Sometimes, people make mistakes that cause harm to other people they love, and it can’t be undone. We think, what could we have done differently? If I didn’t do this, then this wouldn’t have happened. But it did, and all we can do is try to move on. Learn from it and try to forgive. Otherwise, the guilt will kill you.”

She squeezes my hand and smiles. That is when she sees my ring. “What the heck is that, Emma?” She points at my engagement ring.

I smirk. “Took you long enough,” I say, wiggling my finger at her. “That’s why I asked you here for lunch. I knew you wouldn’t notice, and I was trying my damnedest to hide it from you, but now it seems like the time to flaunt it.”

She touches it and brings her hands to her face. Liv exits her chair and walks over to me, leaning down to hug me. She rocks us back and forth. “I am so happy for you, Emma. Please tell me all the details.”

She moves back to her side of the table, and I tell her the clean version of how Eduardo proposed and that we don’t haveplans for the wedding to take place anytime soon. I ask about her wedding plans, and she says the same. No plans yet, but maybe before the baby is born. I smile, knowing that she will be married by the end of the year, which is only a few short weeks from now.

“What do you make of that woman out front?”

I shake my head. I knew she wouldn’t forget about that. “The hostess? I assume that she knows Eduardo. A lot of women do. He is a very wealthy and successful man, but he’s all mine. We have our past, Liv, but that’s not important. What’s important is that he chose me, and we are moving forward. We can’t change anything we did, but I am his, and he is mine.” I want to tell her more. I want to say to her he has been mine for as long as I can remember. He was always supposed to be mine.

Our food comes, and we order a crème brûlée. It has a dark berry gel with orange crystals served with lemon gelato. Liv orders the mille-feuille with fresh red berries. Delicious is the only word I can use to describe the food. I am so full right now and am so glad that we went shopping first on an empty stomach. I might not have been able to fit into anything, but I didn’t want to feel this stuffed. We signal the waiter over, and he asks if we need anything else.

“I’ll pay this, Liv.” Before she can protest, the server holds his hand up.

“The bill has been paid for, and the gratuity as well. Thank you, ladies, for coming to dine with us and for your generosity.” He pulls our chairs out for us, and we stand, perplexed as we leave the dining area.

We are passing the hostess station in front, and Liv looks into her purse for her keys before we go outside the restaurant—typical thing for living in a big city. Always have your keys ready with panic button mode, or as my mom taught me, use your keys as a weapon, intertwining them in your fingers to punch or stab an eye. I internally laugh, remembering when she taught mysister and me that technique. It scared us for a couple of days, but we recognized the importance of it.

“Liv, we can give you a ride to your car. In fact, I insist.” She shakes her head.

“Emma, you have done enough. Eduardo paid for that whole meal, didn’t he?”

I hear the hostess from earlier snort. I turn around and look at her, remembering we have an audience.

“Do you have something to say? If you do, then I suggest you say it.”

She looks at me like I’m beneath her. Little does the hostess know who I am and who my family is. Eduardo and I are the same. I may not have been in this life all along, but I was born into it, and my uncle is too, also passed down from my grandfather, of course.

“What do you have that I don’t have?”

I look at her, walking up slowly to her station. She senses the danger, backing up a little, and maybe I am dangerous. I have a dangerous family and a dangerous fiancé.

“I have his heart,” I say, lifting my flashing diamond to her face, “and his ring, if you count material items. I have many material items if you want to get technical. Even before him.” With that, we leave, and I don’t bother further acknowledging someone like that.

We give Liv a ride to her car, and I am fuming over the audacity of those two women—first the red-haired one and then the one at the restaurant. I am sure that Eduardo slept his way through the greater Houston area, but I just wish I didn’t have to deal with his conquests breathing down my neck.

Eli helps me with my bags, carrying them into the apartment, and I thank him for his help. It feels odd that Liv and I both live with our fiancés and still have an apartment of which we still continue to pay for the lease. The lease contract is not upuntil next year. We didn’t expect to both be engaged. I am sure that if you asked us last year where we saw ourselves now, it would not have consisted of Liv being engaged and expecting a baby and me engaged as well. It is strange how things work out sometimes. Eduardo wanted me to keep the lease contract so if there is more activity with Julian, they could catch him there instead of at our home. We are still trying to track his whereabouts, but he remains untraceable.

I am putting my stuff away when Eduardo comes in looking scrumptious in his workout gear. He came straight from work at his gym today. As I take him in, I am glad to be off tonight. He looks at me with his deep-brown eyes and tousled hair. Curls just hanging a little over his right eye. He walks toward me and gives me a hug and kiss. He places his chin on top of my head.

“Did you have a good day out shopping with Liv?” He pulls back to look at me, and I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. He searches my eyes, and I look away, stepping back.

“Yes. We did.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Why am I sensing a ‘but’ here, Emma?”

---