The CEO’s Quadruplets

            That would be out of character for Amory Blake, and both women knew it. Isabella felt concern for her husband. He loved that company to let it cause marital strife, so risking it on more trivial matters like that made Isabella worry for him. It was almost enough to call him, but not enough. Isabella made her bed, and was lying in it without question.

            Still, Isabella just had to ask, “What makes you think that?”

            “Have you ever seen a really fluffy dog get wet?”

            “Yeah, we had a sheepdog once when I was little. At least, she was half sheepdog.”

            “Then you know how sad they look when they get wet. That’s what Amory looks like right now. He’s deflated and sad like a wet dog with long drippy hair. It’s not exactly a good look for business.”

            Isabella could imagine her absent husband kind of like that childhood dog. She could see his sullen face as water dripped down and made his dark hair cling to his skin. Regret coursed through her as she felt responsible. Isabella wished Anne had left it alone, but her sister-in-law meant no harm. Sipping her drink, Anne changed the subject, calming Isabella.

            “Hey, Bella, random question: do you have your guest list all finished?” Anne asked. “I’ve got the invite website waiting with bated breath.”

            Nodding, Isabella pulled a list up on her phone, and sent it to Anne via email, saying, “It will be in your inbox in a jiffy.”

            Sure enough, Anne’s phone hummed in the back pocket of her jeans. With a smile of satisfaction, she forwarded the email to the invitation makers, and officially checked of on her long list the box beside “sent off the invites.”

            “House call!” Isabella recognized Lizzie’s voice coming down the hall. Still in her scrubs, she held a pink box from their favorite bakery in town. “But it seems my idea was stolen.”

            “I brought dinner, so we were just different enough!” Anne joked.

            Lizzie smiled. “Anne Blake, you crafty girl. It seems you know Bella almost as well as I do.”

            “Well, Dr. Harris, she is after all my sister.”

            “She’s my sister too!” Lizzie said in joking tone with her voice pitching upward into an exclamation.

            “But which is higher?” Anne joked. “Sister-in-law or sorority sister?”

            Anne pretend to weigh imaginary weights back and forth in her palms as Lizzie began to fake a pouting expression. Isabella shook her head and rolled her eyes as they both began to laugh.

            “You both are my sisters! I love you both very much because all I ever had were little brothers who I had to drive to soccer games and who also liked to steal my bras to show their friends.”

            “Ew,” Lizzie said with a grimace.

            Anne concurred, adding her own look of disgust as she told them, “I’m glad Amory never did that to me.”

            “He was already in college when you wore a bra, Anne. He did not exactly need to play pranks like that,” Isabella replied.

            “Oh yeah,” Lizzie said, nodding as she began to fish around in the cupboards. “Do you have any alcohol in this giant house, Bella?”

Isabella pointed as she answered, “I have a few bottles of rose wine and some cider in that cabinet. They were on sale, and I was going to wait to drink them when there weren’t little underage people inside me.”

“As your doctor, I recommend that,” Lizzie noted. “Anne, do you want a glass of wine with me?”

“Totally,” the woman chimed back, and went to hunt down the appropriate glasses in the cabinet.

            Several minutes later, they all were heading to the living room to talk and eat. The gnocchi was comforting to Isabella as her closest friends worked to cheer her up. The conversation inevitably led back to Amory, which Isabella was unaccustomed to. After all, the only two people who knew the full extent of her situation now sat before her eating the handmade fresh pasta and drinking wine. Isabella did not mind the company, but now she was having to face her anxieties and general heartbreak as the days passed without Amory at home with her.

            Leaning back in the sofa, Isabella refused to look at her friends as the subject shifted to the man missing from her house. She stared at the painting on the wall rather than look into their eyes as she finally began to be honest with them.

Isabella groaned. “Annie, I love your brother, but I don’t need him to stress me out. I wasn’t going to keep him around. My body has enough stress as it is, and I’ve got the stretch marks on my stomach and ass to prove it!”

Annie laughed at the joke, but patted her leg with an empathetic expression. “My brother is great most of the time, but he has a thing about not seeing the world for what it is. He’s lived his life in movies for too long.”

Lizzie nodded. “Most guys have unrealistic expectations about women, but he just has them about life. In some ways you could call that a good thing, but right now it does pose a problem for you.”

“It has just been so long since I have even seen him. Although it is because we are both such busy people that I do not really see it until I look at the calendar, I just do not know how this has gone on so long. Guys, I do not even know where to begin, but I know that I cannot give in after all this time.”

“No, don’t!” Anne told her. “Amory is so stubborn. He was the same stupid way when we were little, but you might have to push him, Bella. I think with him so flustered with work that he won’t take time to realize what went wrong. He might not even remember why you fought in the first place.”

“But I’m not his mother.”

“No,” Anne sighed. “I am.”