Annie stared at the Post-It with Parker's phone number on it for what felt like hours before working up the nerve to actually dial. She'd ambushed Auggie in his office and gotten him to quickly dictate it in between tasks without ever really giving him the chance to ask why she needed it. Annie knew that Auggie would want to work it out between them, help arrange the first meeting between his baby mama and fiancee. But Annie didn't want to give him that chance. She needed to meet Parker on her own terms.
Parker was hesitant on the phone, but sweet. She had one of those sexy raspy voices Annie always wanted but never achieved. The kind men really liked. She sounded young. She agreed to meet for coffee on Saturday morning.
...
"Annie Walker called you?" Auggie asked incredulously, pulling a t-shirt over his freshly showered torso.
"Why is that so hard to believe?" Parker laughed, pulling her hair out of its towel turban and letting it fall damp and wavy around her shoulders.
"It isn't," Auggie said quickly. "I'm glad my fiancee is finally meeting my best friend."
"Well, I'm glad too," Parker said, applying a dash of lip gloss and slipping into her skinny jeans. "Really glad. We'll be seeing a lot of her."
"Figuratively, in my case."
"Whatever. You know what I mean."
Parker grabbed her purse and jacket and planted a quick kiss on her fiancee's lips. "I'll see you in a few."
"Tell Annie I say hi."
"Will do."
...
Annie watched the door like a hawk. The first few people were definitely not Parker- a fifty-year old woman, a male construction worker, a young mother with a triple stroller. Then, a slim brunette. She had a sweet face, with searching eyes and a pearl ring on her left hand, and Annie knew she was the one. Parker Rowland. The humanitarian, the fiancee, the legend.
Annie knew there was no way Parker would have any context for her visual description, so she stood and approached her.
"Parker?"
Parker smiled. "You must be Annie!" Her eyes flickered to the blonde's abdomen. "You're barely showing!"
"I'm just into my second trimester. Can I buy you a drink?"
"Oh, I couldn't..."
"Come on, my treat. You drove all the way out to Georgetown, after all."
"Vanilla chai?" Parker requested, her cheeks flushed with the guilt of perceived imposition.
"No problem. I'm just right over there," Annie indicated the table where she left her book.
The two of them settled in with their drinks and took a long, awkward sip.
"So how are you feeling?" Parker asked.
"It's been fine so far," Annie said. "It took me long enough to figure out I was pregnant. I guess I wasn't really displaying symptoms."
"This is such a weird situation," Parker admitted.
"Your honesty is refreshing," Annie laughed in spite of herself. "It's all damn weird."
"It's going to be a whirlwind," Parker said. "But Auggie's going to be such a good dad."
"For sure," Annie said. "That's comforting, at least. And I'm sure you're going to make an amazing stepmom. That is, if you want."
"I've given it a lot of thought, and I love Auggie," Parker said firmly. "We've weathered a lot of surprises these past few months we've been together."
"You really have."
"And it's rare to find that support system in someone else," Parker mused. "But I think we finally found it. I'm not thrilled about the situation, but I still think I finally found it."
Annie took a sip of her tea, trying to deflect those words and spin them, so they didn't hurt. This was a positive thought, after all, Auggie and Parker being each other's support system. It was good. Good for the kid. Good for their future unconventional family. But Annie felt the words like arrows, stinging with the reality that she'd always seen Auggie has a support system that was exclusively hers. He'd been her personal scaffolding. She didn't want to believe that he could be that for anybody else. But everything was changing.