Chapter 24 – Honeymoon's Over

Three days. That was how long the honeymoon lasted. It served more as a retreat from their lives and the chaos back in New York than it did a honeymoon.

To her surprise, Lance had sprung for three nights at a honeymoon suite at a beachside hotel after the spur-of-the-moment wedding. He said they deserved it; they needed a vacation, and if this was the furthest they could go for a honeymoon because of her being pregnant, they might as well make it relaxing.

That first night had been the best.

He swiped the key card through the slot and waited until the light turned green before he reached for the handle and pushed it down. When it opened, he reached his arm out in front of her as she was getting ready to step inside.

“Nope,” he said, turning to her and smiling. “That's not how a bride enters the room on her wedding night.”

“Please tell me you're not going to...”

Before she could finish her sentence, he bent down slightly to lift her up by her knees, cradling her to carry her over the threshold.

“Lance,” she said while laughing, “put me down.”

“But it's tradition,” he said as he kicked the hotel room door closed with his foot.

“Ancient tradition that is completely unnecessary.”

“Still tradition,” he said, walking her to the middle of the room. “And I'll be in enough trouble with my mom when she finds out that I ran off to Atlantic City to get married and left her out of it – let me have this one.”

He slowly lowered her to stand on her own feet. He reached around her waist and pulled her to him, smiling as he leaned in to steal a kiss.

The stolen kiss lasted a few moments too long to be considered stolen for long. He held her close to him and she wrapped her arms around his neck, running her fingers over the short hairs on the back of his neck.

“Wait here a minute.”

He broke away from her and pulled his cell phone out of the pocket of his slacks, swiping it to bring the screen to life. He stood next to the round, wooden table by the window, his finger moving across the phone busily. As she was about to accept that she had lost him to his love of social media, he sat the phone on the table and the familiar music came out of the speaker.

“You like this song, right?” he asked, a coy smile on his face.

“How did you know?” she responded with her own smile.

He moved to her and scooped her hand into his in one fluid movement, pulling her close to his body as Elvis started serenading them.

“It's true, you know,” he said into her ear.

“What is?” she asked, her head leaned comfortably against his as he slow danced with her.

“That only fools rush in.”

She smiled.

“I guess we're both fools, then,” she said, lifting her head to look him in the eyes.

“I'm sorry that today wasn't exactly the way you always envisioned it,” he said apologetically. “Addy, I wanted to give you everything – the flowers, the photographer, the cake, the million dollar wedding dress...”

“Shut up,” she said playfully. “It was perfect, Lance. All I needed was you, me, the witnesses, and the guy who could make it official. I had everything I needed. I had one of those beautiful, magazine-worthy weddings already – and look how that turned out, how happy I was. It was only window dressing, a good disguise to hide the huge mistake I made. I wasn't happy, and that's all that matters – and I'm happy now.”

He only smiled as he looked at her – his new wife.

“Take my hand...take my whole life too,” he sang along to the song. “I can't help falling in love with you...”

After that, it hadn't taken long for him to pull her to bed with him. They made love that night. They took a brief interlude the next day to spend some time on the beach relaxing like they hadn't in years before they were back at it again that night. She smiled, realizing they probably christened every space they could in that room by the time they were done.

It was over all too soon. They had to return to New York, to their regular lives...to the chaos.

“Fuck!”

Addy was sitting at the kitchen table filling out a mountain of paperwork when he startled her by throwing the magazine down on the table, making her jump.

“Sorry,” he said when he saw her terrified reaction. “Fuck.”

“What's wrong?” she asked. It wasn't often that she heard Lance curse that harshly, even if it came along with anger and throwing things.

“It's all out there, Ad,” he said, pointing at the People magazine in front of her. “All of it.”

Picking up the magazine, she scanned over the glossy cover until she saw it – in the corner, a picture of her and Lance taken at a benefit they had attended a few months ago in Los Angeles, accompanied by “Wedding and Baby!” in all caps.

“Page 48,” he said.

She turned until she reached the page, and was surprised to see a full two-page spread about them – from their secret wedding in Atlantic City that week to pictures speculating her growing bump.

“Hey, we got more than a corner on a page, we're important now,” she said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood.

“There's no keeping secrets anymore, is there?” he asked. “Nobody in the media has any tact, do they?”

“You know, my job could probably be considered 'media' so watch what you say,” she said. “Besides, we knew we wouldn't be able to keep it a secret forever, right?”

“Four days, Ad. Four days. I assumed we'd at least have a week!”

“At least it's all out there now,” she said. “We don't have to do anymore pretending. Remember how torturous that was? Would you want to pretend we weren't married?”

“My parents, Addy,” he said. “They don't know yet – about any of it. Especially not the fact that you're pregnant!”

That was something she hadn't thought of. She didn't have to worry about telling any of her friends or family – the only people that were up on the list that would need to know that they'd run off to get married on the fly were Melissa and Stephanie. Melissa was present, and she had made sure to call Stephanie during their trip.

“I thought I had a few more days to figure out what to say to them,” he said. “They were so happy that we'd be getting married in a church, even though it was in New Jersey. I wanted them to hear it all from me.”

“Well, now is as good of a time to tell them as any,” she said.

Within minutes she had control of his phone, and was seated next to him at the kitchen table, watching him react nervously as she brought his mom's cell phone number on the iPhone. She knew he wouldn't dial the number willingly himself, so she pressed the call button and put it on speakerphone, placing it on the table in front of the both as it rang. She only hoped she would catch both his mom and dad at times when they weren't at work.

“Hello?” Diane answered after only three rings.

“Hello there,” Adeline answered first with a smile towards Lance. She had talked to his mom enough times on the phone that she would know immediately who it was.

“Addy!” she responded. “It's good to hear from you, honey. Why do you have Lance's phone?”

“Because I have Lance here, too,” Addy responded. “You're on speaker.”

“Hi mom,” Lance said, though with not as much enthusiasm as she had answered.

“Hi sweetie,” Diane said. “How are you two? How's things going?”

Lance and Adeline exchanged a glance, thinking it may have been a positive sign that they didn't know anything they weren't supposed to yet.

“We're good,” Addy said. “Listen, Diane, have you been to the store lately? Maybe stood in line at the checkout and glanced at the rag mags the past couple days?”

Lance held out his arm and narrowed his eyebrows at her to send the message that he disapproved of her lack of a lead-in. She only shrugged.

“No, I try to stay away from those junky things, they bring nothing but trouble,” she said.

“Just checking,” Adeline said, smiling as she silently smacked Lance's chest with the back of her hand, teasing him. “Is Jim with you? Can you put him on speaker so we can talk to you both?”

It was only a few minutes before Diane and Jim both appeared on speakerphone. Adeline said her hello to Jim before poking Lance in the ribcage, eliciting more narrowed eyebrows.

“Hi dad,” Lance finally said.

“Hi son,” Jim responded, making Addy smile. “What's so big that you wanted to talk to us both?”

Addy and Lance exchanged a glance with each other.

“Are you sitting down?” Lance asked.

“Yeah,” his father said.

“I hope you didn't book your flight to New York next year for the wedding already,” Lance said.

“Why?” Jim said, starting to sound concerned. “What's going on?”

“There won't be a wedding.”

“Lance, what did you do?” Jim asked, making Addy giggle slightly. Even Lance cracked a smile.

“I got married this week, dad,” he said.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, long enough for them to exchange a worried glance with each other.

“You did what?” Diane said softly.

“We...got married,” Adeline said, smiling at Lance, who smiled back.

There was another long pause before they both heard Lance's mom let out a small shriek, startling Addy and making them both laugh.

“When did this happen, son?” Jim asked.

“We went to Atlantic City four days ago and we just...got married.”

“Why didn't you tell us you were doing this?” Diane asked.

“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision,” Lance said. “We got tired of waiting. Another year was too long. We're sorry you couldn't be there, but we couldn't stand to wait any longer.”

“Lance, Adeline,” Jim said, “are you two happy?”

They glanced at each other again, exchanging smiles.

“We're thrilled,” Lance said, reached over to squeeze his wife's hand.

“Then that's all that matters, and we're so happy for you,” Jim said.

“When you come for Thanksgiving, we'll have a big party for you,” Diane said.

Lance squeezed even tighter on her hand, and she nodded in response. With her being such a high-risk, she had already been restricted from so many things – heavy cooking, heavy cleaning, and especially travel. Her doctor didn't even want her running long errands that would require her to be riding in a car longer than an hour. Airplanes were completely out of the question, and with a due date two days after Christmas, by the time the holidays rolled around she would be heavily pregnant – if she made it that far.

“Mom, Thanksgiving is kind of out of the question this year,” Lance said. “And so is Christmas. We're going to have to stay in New York.”

“Why is that?” Jim asked with a chuckle. “Did the wife already put her foot down?”

“Not by choice,” Lance responded.

“We have something else to tell you guys,” Adeline said.

“What is it?”

Lance laced his fingers through hers, giving her unspoken support.

“I'm pregnant,” she said.

She wasn't sure what reaction she was expecting – but when Lance's mom screamed so loudly that she felt him jump next to her, all she could do was laugh and wrap an arm around him.

“I think that's your mother's way of saying she's happy,” Jim said, making Lance smile finally.

“A grandchild!” Diane said. “Oh Lance...Addy...”

Hearing her mother-in-law's excitement over her pregnancy and a new grandchild made Addy smile, but that smile soon fell. Nobody around her seemed to “get it”. They talked about “when” the new baby came – when for her, it was more in terms of “if”. Lance was aware of the risks and that it was a possibility, and he was careful about what he said in front of her about the baby, but there were still times she caught him slipping.

He wanted to put together a nursery as soon as possible – which meant moving out of her apartment and potentially buying a house, because the one-bedroom wouldn't even begin to accommodate all three of them. It was so painful before having to go home after the loss only to have to empty out an already put-together nursery...she didn't know if she could do it again.

Everybody was feeling the excitement, wanting to think of names and go shopping for baby clothes and accessories. She couldn't do it. She could barely bring herself to go shopping for new pregnancy-friendly clothes, not knowing how long she would actually need them. Facing tiny little girls' dresses, socks and booties, and even car seats and strollers...it was too much.

Lance noticed her smile fall, and squeezed her hand.

“Mom, just...remember,” he said. It was probably one of the hardest things he'd ever had to discuss with his mother; it was hard to form the right words. “Remember that there's a...history here.”

A silence fell over the room for a moment. She knew that silence; she hated that silence. It was the point at which everybody's mental faculties switched from happy, joyous time to...death.

Nobody would say it, but they thought it. It was another harsh reality of her life taking a turn to walk down this path.

“We know,” Diane finally said, her tone now soft. “And we understand. We want you to know, we're here for you guys – every step of the way.”

“We love you guys,” Jim said. “Whatever happens – we'll be here for you.”

Adeline couldn't stop her eyes from watering. She had never really experienced support like that.

“Thank you,” she finally said, noticing that Lance glanced over at her with a slight smile.

The in-laws kept them on the phone a few extra minutes asking about details of New Jersey and considering plans to visit New York soon, since the normal holiday plans would change this year. After their goodbyes, Lance hung up the phone and cleared his throat.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

She had regained her composure by then, tears no longer in her eyes.

“You know, I think I am,” she said. “It's better if they know. And they understand. I think it will be okay.”

“Yeah, I think you're right,” he said. He paused a moment, tapping his fingers on the table, before standing up from the chair. “I think I'm going out to get us food. You want anything?”

“I could go for something,” she said, pulling her paperwork back to her to get back to work. “What'd you have in mind?”

“I'll be happy with anything if I don't have to go out at two in the morning for like, watermelon and crab legs and peanut butter fudge ice cream, or something like that,” he said, smiling as he pulled a leather jacket over him.

“Smartass,” she said, not bothering to look up from writing. “Pizza?”

“Pizza works,” he said, snatching his keys from the counter. “I'll be back.”

“Mmmkay,” she mumbled, putting pen to the paper as she heard him open the door.

She expected to hear the door close after only a few seconds, but she never heard it – and was surprised when she heard him speak.

“Addy?”

She wrinkled her nose, looking up from her papers. “Yeah?”

“Come here,” came the low response.

She sighed as she lifted herself from the chair, walking barefoot over the linoleum floor of the kitchen. When her feet hit the fibers of the carpet, she saw him standing in front of their opened door, frozen while looking at it.

“What's wrong?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

He didn't respond, but she saw it before he could – something long and slender sticking out of the wood of their door. She walked toward it and as she got closer to it, it finally came into her full view.

A knife.

Her hands flew to her mouth as she released a half-scream, half-shrieking sound. The clean, shiny metal tip of the hunting knife was stabbed deep into their door, holding in place two papers.

“Get back,” Lance said, motioning his hand for her to take a few steps back for her own safety. When she did, he grabbed the white bone handle of the knife, yanking it out until it released the papers.

“What are they?” she said, watching as he sat the knife out of harm's way on a table near the door and put the papers up into his sights.

“It's the People article,” he said, holding up the larger paper, which she recognized as the same article he had brought her, ripping straight from a copy of the magazine. “And...another one.”

She watched him lift the white card up for a moment for her to see, before turning it back to himself.

“'Congratulations are in order',” he read from it. “'Honeymoon's over lovers...now, the hunt is on. We'll be speaking soon.'”