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She considered. She needed some sperm. Preferably rich sperm . . . and smart sperm. Not Max’s sperm, apparently. Someone else’s.
Well, she was heading to a reunion. There oughta be plenty there.
* * *
Delta pulled up the Spanx over her legs and torso with an effort. A year, they’d said. A year to lose the baby weight. Well, it had been a year, and though she’d dropped ten of the extra twenty pounds she’d put on, the second ten were being really stubborn. Her mother had flapped a hand at her when she’d complained. “You look beautiful. You were always too skinny.”
This was patently untrue, but Delta appreciated Mom saying so. But now it was reunion time, and she felt almost queasy thinking about the silent body shaming she could expect from the Five Firsts.
Four firsts, she reminded herself, as she had every time since graduation that she’d thought about the name they’d christened their group.
Resignedly, she eyed her figure. The Spanx took care of the worst of the softness around her waist, but it was hellishly uncomfortable.
“Beauty hurts,” she reminded herself through her teeth.
“What?” Tanner asked as he moved into their master bath. He was half-dressed, his shirt unbuttoned, his tie loose around his neck. Were they going to be overdressed? she wondered. Though the invitation had specified formal wear for a dinner at the West Knoll Golf Club, the venue and food were generally pretty casual.
She was embarrassed to be seen in the Spanx and slid out of the room and quickly grabbed up the dress she’d purchased for this occasion. It was yellow, a lemony shade that she’d fretted over but that set off her dark hair and the tan she’d developed this summer. Her shoes were champagne-colored strappy sandals with a shorter heel than she would’ve liked, but the color was perfect.
She quickly dressed and then pinned up her dark hair into a loose bun. She added wide gold hoops to her ears and surveyed the results. She’d already put on makeup earlier. Not bad. The Spanx made her image bearable.
Tanner came out of the bathroom, smelling like citrus aftershave, buttoning up his shirt. Delta smiled at him, more sure of herself now that she was dressed. Their lovemaking had taken a hit since Owen’s birth—well, since her pregnancy . . . and maybe even before that.
“Who’s taking care of ‘O’?” he asked in an offhand way.
Delta was a little surprised he’d even asked. He didn’t concern himself with the baby in any way. He’d been happy when Owen had taken his first steps and toddled his way, saying, “Look at that!” and then he’d gotten on his cell phone and left the room to talk “business” with one of his people.
People . . .
Although he mostly covered up his conversations, she’d heard him snickering a time or two, joking, slyly muttering some double entendres. Those people were females, almost to a one, Delta believed.
Somehow, over the course of their marriage, maybe their whole relationship, she’d become the mother to both him and Owen.
Maybe you always were.
“Mom’s coming over,” she answered. Like always. If you ever paid attention.
“You look nice. How do I look?” he asked, holding each end of his tie and thrusting out his hips, striking a pose.
“Good.”
“Just good?” He smiled at her. His sexy smile. Delta smiled back faintly.
“Superb,” she said.
He laughed and finished tying his tie, smoothing it down in front, looking at himself in the full-length mirror that Delta had moved out of the way of. Tanner was a peacock. She hadn’t known that when they were young. How had she not known that? Was she that love-blind?
“I talked to Woody,” he revealed. “He’s going to be there with Crystal.”
Woody had married his on-again, off-again girlfriend from high school, Crystal of the tattoos and penchant for Goth attire. Into crystals, like her name, and eschewing any kind of high school traditions, or expectations, or day-to-day experiences. She had rejected coming to the fateful pig roast barbecue, but had always had a lot of opinions about it and what they all should have done. McCrae might have accused Delta of sounding judgmental like Ellie, but Crystal beat both of them by a mile.
“Maybe we should get a table together,” Tanner suggested.
Delta made a noncommittal sound. She supposed that would be fine, though it might be a tad awkward as Delta had made a big deal out of marrying Dr. Tanner Stahd, even before he completed med school, implying that he would be so successful, bragging about how quickly he’d made it through school.
“Couldn’t have done it without Delta,” Tanner always said with that same sexy smile that somehow negated his words, when in reality Delta had worked day and night making sure he made it through, dragging him awake when he was near exhaustion, quizzing him over and over again, helping him with presentations. Tanner was a quick study, but he also had a wide streak of laziness, and it was only through Delta’s constant organization and rigid timetable that he squeaked through without being shit-canned.
But those days were behind them. He was just finishing up his residency at Laurelton General, and he already had one foot in the door of his father’s clinic. Delta had been working hard to make sure the clinic’s reputation improved from the sort of new-age herbs and potions his father had peddled to a full-on facility where Tanner could take over from long-in-the-tooth Dr. Gervais, who was regarded by most as a sweet old quack.
