"Well, I have to say that was a long ass weekend." John greeted Evangeline from the front steps of her porch.
"John? What are you doing here?" Evangeline was finally alone and hadn't been expecting company. Layla had graciously taken Lisa to dinner to give Evangeline a break. After the shower ended, Lisa went right back in on her list of why John shouldn't be living with Evangeline. Even after she agreed, her mother still persisted. Layla had been there as a buffer, but Lisa was in rare form and was all fired up. The thought of Evangeline getting back with John was too much for her to bear.
"I spent my whole Saturday putting up with your family and mine. Today was supposed to be my day off, but I got called in on a robbery gone wrong. Robber walks in on a murder-suicide. Wife was still alive when he got there, but instead of calling for help he makes off with her jewelry and some other electronics. She probably would have lived if he called it in. He's in custody, so it's on the DA now. And, I have exactly twelve hours before I'm on shift again. I've got beer and I've got dinner. You want to join me." John held up the Chinese takeout bag as he stepped inside. He'd stunned Evangeline with all the information he'd just spurted out.
"I can't eat that. I'm trying to watch my diet, and we both know beer isn't on the menu either." Evangeline had to call after him because he'd walked right past her and toward the kitchen. It wasn't like John to be forceful, but it appeared that he planned on staying before she said it was okay.
"I've talked to your doctor. You can cheat tonight. Probably won't make a difference in the long run." John started to pull out the takeout containers and open them to see which one which was. He got a couple of healthy things, but for the most part he got all the fried stuff that was covered in fattening sauce. "I remember you're picky and pregnant, so I got a variety of stuff here. Surely, there's something you'll like."
Evangeline smiled despite herself. She was planning on having a salad, but the smell of the takeout food was getting to her. She'd eaten extremely healthy throughout her pregnancy, but that had been an extreme shift from her normal diet. Any other night she would probably be able to resist, but John was here with some of her favorite foods during after a stressful weekend. "Tell me you at least got some vegetables."
John smiled knowing that he'd won. "As a matter of fact, I didn't, but I'm sure there's vegetables in here. Look, this has got broccoli in it. This one has peas and carrots." John pointed to a couple of things and wasn't quite sure what they were. He ordered by number without asking about specific dishes.
"Close enough." Evangeline sat with him in comfortable silence as they each fixed their plates. They hadn't done anything like this since before the breakup, and, despite that, it wasn't a painful reminder of how things used to be. Right now, they were just two friends sharing dinner.
"So, your blood pressure still okay. Four hours with your family about had my blood boiling." John spoke in between bites. In the end, he had to work hard to keep his mouth shut to keep the peace around Evangeline's family. Speaking your mind was one thing, but they were being down right rude at times. Layla, Nora, Lily, and Evangeline's cousin, Claire, had quickly come to her defense whenever anyone said anything that sounded too mean spirited. John was glad that she had good friends and family like that.
"McBain, you are just speaking your mind tonight. Guess some of that rubbed off on you." Evangeline had to laugh at his honesty. They were trying to bait him and her into an argument, but neither would stoop to their level. She was sure that it was their intent to embarrass and shame her for getting pregnant out of wedlock, and with a white cop no less, but they were the ones who looked foolish.
"Maybe. I just wonder what the point of showing up was if all they wanted to do was try and trash you." John was still angry thinking about it. None of them had the right to comment on her life when hadn't been there to support her.
"That's nothing new to me, John. A lot of my cousins are jealous and are always looking to find fault in me. This was their chance to gloat at my perceived misfortune. What they were saying wasn't getting to me." Evangeline had grown used to that by now. "My mother said it's great practice for the future. If I can put up with my family's criticisms, I could deal with the tabloids when I'm ready to run for office."
"Hell of a way to prepare yourself." John took a long sip of beer and leaned back in his chair. He wasn't so much hungry as he was in need of company.
"I should be asking if you're okay. Claire asked me to apologize to you. She said you were talking, and she thought she might have said something out of line. She thought she might have hurt your feelings. Her words." Evangeline had almost forgotten that Claire pulled her aside. "She was really sorry. Claire is a little clueless sometimes. She connects easy with others and tends to get too casual too quickly. Whatever she said, I'm sure it wasn't said with malice."
John nodded and again sipped his beer. He would like to have forgotten about that, but her words resonated in him. "No worries. She's nice. I like how she sticks up for you. She's like Layla 2.0."
"No, Layla is like her. Claire has always been like my big sister. I remember being a kid and I was always trying to catch up to her. She fell out of favor with the family, and we lost touch. All this time, I feel like I'm still trying to out do her." Evangeline pushed her plate away. She wasn't nearly as hungry as she thought she was. That, or this conversation was ruining her appetite.
"Is it because," John stopped short without asking the question.
"I remember my mom talking to me when Claire first came out. It was right before she started medical school. My mom and others were upset that she was 'making things harder on herself.' She was in love, though, and no one could change her mind. Claire and her wife, Tiff came out together. They've been together for more than twenty years now. We still have family members who try to convince her to find a man to marry, so that she can realize her true potential in life." Evangeline felt sad knowing that was why Claire had distanced herself from the family. If they couldn't accept her life, she wouldn't accept them. Sadly, that included Evangeline who was still struggling with her own demons.
"Twenty years is a long time. Sounds like a ringing endorsement for marriage." John tried to steer the conversation to something lighter.
"They were legally married in San Francisco, but the law is undecided on that area. You know, it's not the paper that's kept them together all these years. They really love each other, and they've worked hard at it. Knowing that these two people are the personification of what marriage really is and they aren't even allowed to marry is crazy. Thinking of their plight has always given me reservations about marriage. Makes me wonder if I will ever find love like they have." Evangeline's fear of marriage hadn't stemmed entirely from her parents divorced.
"Sounds like you already found that guy if you ask some of your family members." John again changed the topic. He was intending on keeping the mood light, but whatever he said seemed to bring Evangeline down.
"They are never going to let me forget about Dennis." Evangeline laughed and rolled her eyes. Years later her family was still holding out hopes for a rekindling of their romance. It didn't help that Dennis still attended family functions and had actively tried to pursue her after the breakup. "That ship has sailed. I am never getting back together with Dennis."
"Must have been really serious, though. He was at that funeral we went to. He seemed to mix really well with everyone." John had been jealous that Dennis was on such friendly terms with Evangeline's family. He wondered if Dennis had gotten the same treatment that he did, or if they'd made a special exception of John.
"For a while we were very serious. We were pre-engaged." Evangeline frowned when she said the words out loud. She hated the term, but she and Dennis hadn't thought of a better term for their arrangement.
"Pre-engaged." John laughed heartily. "Sounds so romantic."
Evangeline's mood instantly soured. She was sharing with John and he was mocking her. "Yeah, not all of us have those whirlwind romances where we just know we're going to live happily ever after. I know it's just some joke to you compared to what you and Caitlyn had, but for Dennis and I we were in love and committed to each other."
The tone of her voice clued John in on his error. Seemed like no matter what he said he was going to ruin the mood tonight. Actually, it had been this way whenever they talked seriously about relationship stuff. That had always been John's clue to back off, but tonight he would try something different.
"I didn't mean to laugh. I'm sorry." John put his beer down and leaned toward her. "Caitlyn and I didn't have a whirlwind romance either. I…I, uh," John fumbled his words. He'd never said these words before, though few people knew the truth outside him and Caitlyn.
"Forget it, John. This isn't important." Evangeline wouldn't wait for him like she had before. He was always on the edge of saying what he was feeling, but something deep inside always held him back. They weren't together, so she wouldn't try to drag it out of him.
"It is important. It's important to me." John slid over into a chair so that he was sitting right next to her. "Friends share stuff, right? I want us to be friends again." John looked at her pleadingly. "It's just hard for me to get the words out."
"John, it always is." Evangeline stared into his eyes and could tell that he was being sincere.
John sighed. She wasn't going to give him a pass, and he wasn't expecting one. "I thought she was pregnant." John forced himself to blurt it out. "She thought she was pregnant, but she wasn't. Her parents found out and were insistent that I do the right thing by their daughter."
"John," Evangeline saw sadness in his eyes. He always had the same tortured look on his face when he spoke of Caitlyn. Evangeline knew he loved her, and that he would still be with her if fate hadn't intervened. The painful way that she was taken from him had always given Evangeline a reason to hide from his pain.
"We weren't real young, but we were both scared. A baby changes everything. Marriage changes everything." John was silent for a moment after his admission. There was more to the story, but he would save that for another night. It had been hard enough getting that much out. If he said anymore, he wouldn't be able to deal with the heartache afterwards.
"Fear is normal. That's nothing to be embarrassed about." Evangeline touched the side of his face tenderly. "But you got over that fear, and you and Caitlyn decided to make a life together. Maybe not a fairytale, but it was right for you."
"Definitely wasn't a fairytale. I still expected to build a life with her. I planned for forever." John was disappointed when Evangeline pulled her hand away.
"Dee and I were to the point where the next step was marriage or going our separate ways. That was kind of the purpose of the pre-engagement. It was a way for us to say this is who I want in a life partner and can you be that person. We weren't going to get engaged unless we absolutely knew that we were going to spend our lives together." Evangeline tapped lightly on the table. She didn't like to think of her almost engagement with Dennis. They were in love and exactly the couple you would expect to marry. It was Evangeline who broke things off.
"So, we're talking about a trial run." John smoothed Evangeline's hair back away from her face. He was surprise that she allowed the intimate contact.
"More or less. We talked in depth about our current and future financial outlooks, our future career plans, our goals and how to achieve them. We were fine until we started talking about having a family. Dennis wanted exactly two kids. One boy. One girl. No pets. A big house in the suburbs. American dream type stuff." Evangeline remembered the long list of things that Dennis wanted.
"Sound pretty tame. Wasn't for you?" John continued to stoke her. He missed moments like these with her.
"The dream wasn't the problem." Evangeline put her hand over John's. She was enjoying the physical contact far more than she should have. "Dennis had this female friend who was gearing up for a congressional run. She was married with kids and a very successful husband. She was the ideal woman to Dennis. There wasn't any romantic attraction, but he wanted his children to be raised in the same way she was raising hers. To that end, I spent some time with her and her family to better understand their family dynamic."
"Oh boy," John didn't have to guess that this was a bad idea. He assumed Dennis to be a smart man, but to tell the woman you want to marry that you want her to be like another woman was not the smartest move.
"She was great, John. Ambitious. A leader. Smart. Funny." Evangeline arranged their hands so they were resting on her knee.
"Sounds like but is coming." John held his hands still not wanting for her to pull away.
"But she wasn't a good mother. She loved her kids, but they were just accessories for her life. Both kids had their own nanny to take care of their needs. She wasn't the one who loved them and coddled them. She was the one who dictated their routine and kept them on a tight schedule. For example, I was having dinner with their family when the little girl, who was four, declared that she wanted to be a zookeeper when she grew up. You would have thought that she said she wanted to be an exotic dancer. Her mother was embarrassed and really pushed the girl until she agreed that being a zookeeper was a silly idea." Evangeline pulled her hands away from John's when she stood up. She'd been sitting for too long.
"It was just silly kid stuff, but the mother just really kept pushing the point home that mediocrity was never acceptable. Their boy who was older was used to the system and declared that he knew being a zookeeper was silly that's why he'd be the first African American male president. Sound like anyone you know?" Evangeline looked over her shoulder as she paced. "I asked her about it later, and she was really convinced that you can't entertain such silly things even for a child. I mean, can you believe that? We're talking about a little kid. They eat ice cream and they want to drive an ice cream truck. They visit a fire station and they want to be a fire fighter."
John stood and walked over to her. When she turned to him, he put his hand on her abdomen tenderly. "I won't let our kid settle for anything less than conquering Earth." John joked and Evangeline smiled.
"I told Dennis that I didn't want that. I wanted our kids to be happy, be what they wanted. When he brought up Layla and her struggles it really opened up my eyes. My parents weren't as intense, but they wanted us to dream big. They encouraged it. Layla was never that kid. She didn't dream about the future. She lived in the moment. Took a while, but I finally understood my sister. She was living her own dream, and not someone else's." With John's hand on her abdomen, Evangeline was frozen in place. "So, I ended it with Dennis. He tried to reason with me. After all, we'd been together for so long. People were expecting us to be the next power couple. We owed it to our families to work it out."
"Guy sounds like a real charmer." John carefully pulled her into a hug to stop her from pacing.
"Dennis is a great guy. Don't get me wrong. He's just…just not the guy I want." Evangeline's voice trailed off. This was the closest she and John had gotten in months. As much as she enjoyed their closeness, she couldn't allow it to continue. Nothing had really changed between them. John was starting to open up a little, but it wasn't enough. She started to pull away, but John held her in place.
"Wait, wait. Is that what I think it is?" He moved his hand around her stomach slowly searching for what he'd felt before.
Evangeline caught on and moved his hand to the right place. "That's our baby. The baby is very active especially at night time or first thing in the morning." Evangeline would have let him hold her longer, but she heard the sound of the front door closing followed by the voices of Layla and her mother. She pulled away from John. She didn't want to give her mother anything else to complain about.
"John, what are you doing here?" Lisa stared between the two. She didn't like the idea of John being alone with her daughter
"We're sort of working on a case together. John brought by some files I needed and picked up dinner on the way," Evangeline lied effortlessly. "He was just leaving." The spell between her had John was broken, and she snapped back to reality. She would not let him break her heart again.
John was crushed by her dismissal. "You guys don't keep her up too late." John dropped his head as he made his way to the front door. This had been why he'd kept his distance. Every time they got close, she put up a wall. He was trying to open up to her, but, as usual, the timing wasn't right.