*Olivia*
I smoothed my hands over the sleek, dove-gray dress Dahlia had picked out for and tried not to fidget in the back of the limo. The fabric whispered silkily under my fingers and soothed so of my nerves.
Elena was finally off bed rest, and she claid she was feeling good, so Gio had invited her out to dinner with us to celebrate the transfer.
All of us.
Elena had already t Dahlia and Gio, of course, but Tallon and Alessandro would be new to her. Plus, the siblings were bickering about who had to sit in the middle, which of course none of them did on the spacious limo seats. And, as usual, my husband had picked out a world-renowned, Michelin-starred restaurant. Elena had been surprised by the choice, and the reason Dahlia picked out my dress was that I had been busy sending a gown to our surrogate. I didn’t want her to feel out of place like I had in those early days.
On top of all that, the worrying part of my brain kept insisting it was bad luck to celebrate sothing before I knew it had worked. Of course, we knew the transfer had been successful, and that alone could be enough reason to celebrate. But hope and nerves warred for control over my opinions, and right now, nerves were winning.
Gio grabbed my hand and pressed it to his lips. “You’re worrying,” he murmured against my skin.
I sighed. He knew too well. “I just keep thinking that we don’t know if she’s pregnant. This seems like a big celebration for a half-step forward.”
He dropped my hand from his mouth and laughed. “Then we’ll just have to do sothing even bigger when we find out she is pregnant. Celebrations of increasing magnitude from here on out!”
I laughed with him, tickled by his extravagance, and he grinned.
“There you go, carina. This is a happy occasion. I can’t have you upset around our unborn baby.”
I rolled my eyes. “Then you should’ve married soone else.”
He feigned hurt, and the limo rolled to a stop outside Elena’s apartnt building. I stared up at it for a mont. I hadn’t been here while not in the grips of total emotional turmoil yet, so it felt like my first ti seeing it–slightly crumbling stucco, bars on the windows. Not an awful place by any ans, though. It retained the old Florentine charm with its tiled roof and parchnt-tinted façade. I could easily imagine being happy in a place like that when we arrived in Italy.
I was struck with the sudden knowledge that, if Dahlia’s family were not who they were, we would have lived in a building like this. If I had different friends, I could have been Elena in a lot of ways.
I fidgeted with my dress, pulling it further down over my knees, silently cursing Dahlia for making wear her heels that laced all the way up the calf and demanding they be visible. Elena hadn’t shown a smidgen of judgnt yet, but all the wealth on display suddenly felt extravagant.
I texted her that we were out front, and a heart popped up on the ssage imdiately. I took a deep breath. Elena liked us, and we were here to celebrate her and this journey we were taking together. I was just overthinking things.
“She’s on her way down,” I told everyone in the car.
Dahlia, Alessandro, and Tallon abruptly hushed. Dahlia and Alessandro even moved from where they were crushing Tallon between them to sit at a perfectly reasonable distance.
I nodded. My friends knew how to behave, within reason. We probably wouldn’t scare her away.
The door at the front of the building swung open, and Elena stepped out into the dim sunset just as the streetlamps flickered on. She blinked, shielding her eyes for a mont, and I got that strange feeling of looking in a mirror again as Tallon hopped out and held the door open for her.
She was wearing the dress I’d picked out for her, and admittedly, I’d opted in line with my own tastes because I didn’t know hers quite yet. The dium-length cocktail dress shimred in the streetlights, showing the quality of the fabric even at this distance. The cut was simple, an A-line skirt with a sweetheart neckline and off-the-shoulder sleeves, but I’d noticed she tended toward pastels in her wardrobe, so instead of the black I probably would have chosen for myself, the dress was a pale lilac. As she regained her bearings in the sudden shift of light, I realized how much pale purple and light gray looked alike.
Tallon extended a hand to her, and she laughed. I shook my head. I was letting baby nerves get in the way of a good night.
“Good evening, Elena,” he said, exactly like a vampire. I would’ve smacked him if I could reach him.
Luckily, Elena was made of sterner stuff than . She simply laughed and put her hand in his. “I’m afraid you have the upper hand on , sir. What’s your na?”
He bowed low over her hand. “Tallon Valentino, at your service.”
She kept laughing at him as she bent to peer inside the limo. I waved sheepishly. I never should have let Tallon handle door duty.
She grinned. “I’ve never been inside a limo before.”
“ either, until this sumr,” I said. “Make sure to duck your whole body when you get in. I hit my back for the first three months.”
She climbed in carefully and took the bench across from Dahlia and Alessandro. Tallon clambered in after her and made sure to sit so Alessandro was between him and Dahlia. I shook my head.
Introductions and greetings were exchanged in a flurry, and luckily, Alessandro managed to seem like a normal adult instead of a cartoon villain. Elena’s easy, sunshine-y deanor seed to put everyone at ease, and soon the conversation was flowing freely.
I breathed a sigh of relief. The restaurant Gio had picked was nearly a forty-minute drive from Elena’s apartnt, and I had been so nervous people wouldn’t get along in the confined space.
Tallon popped a bottle of champagne with a bang that echoed around the interior and began handing out glasses. I winced and tried to stop the circle of flutes.
Gio leaned forward. “Tallon, she can’t drink.” His voice sounded heavy with warning, but Tallon just grinned.
“What kinda host do you think I am? Check the label, cuz.” He spun the bottle in his hand to display the gold-leaf label to the rest of us.
In scrolled black text across the front, it read “Sparkling Apple Juice.”
We all laughed, and glasses were handed out freely. When everyone had a flute, Gio raised his.
“To the beginning of a beautiful journey, and with any luck, a beautiful friendship,” he declared.
Everyone raised their glasses to et his with a hearty “Cheers!”
Seats shifted as the drive continued, and sohow I found myself on the sa bench as Alessandro and Elena, talking about Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights,’ which they’d both seen in Madrid.
“I just think the piece cannot truly be understood without the other two panels,” Alessandro said. “‘Earthly Delights’ itself is, of course, the most sensational piece, so it gets the most focus, but there’s at least as much to see in the other two panels.”
Elena laughed. “I love art as much as you or Olivia, but I think the aning is created in the viewer’s experience. Bosch left no writings about the work, so there is no true way to experience it. Whatever piece of the triptych you see, whatever reaction you have, is the true understanding for you.”
Alessandro threw his hands up in the air. “Olivia, you were studying art in school. You can’t think art is really just in the eye of the beholder.”
Elena turned to as well. “I’m not saying there’s no value in history or intention, rely that art is ant to be experienced. Sobody without a degree can have as good a ti in an art museum as sobody with one.”
I smiled. I knew Alessandro argued more often than not simply as a way of communicating, and I loved seeing how easily Elena fit into the dynamic. She didn’t seem mad or irritated with his stubbornness, just interested in the debate.
“I think it’s more complicated than either of you are letting it be. Should a piece be viewed in full? Sure, whenever possible, especially if it is being studied. If you are looking for an academic understanding of Bosch, there’s no other way to view a triptych like ‘Earthly Delights.’ But, and I’ll deny this if you ever tell my professors I said it,” I winked at my two friends, “art is more than academic understanding. The emotions it evokes in a viewer are equally important, regardless of the viewer’s circumstance.”
Alessandro huffed and crossed his arms. “Anybody viewing a Bosch without the proper context is only going to feel confusion, but I’ll concede the point in general.”
“Did you see the Goyas?” Elena asked, and the conversation shifted again.
Later, I found myself in conversation with Dahlia, Elena, and Tallon.
“Superman beats any other hero from any canon in a fight, hands down,” Elena announced.
“No way!” Dahlia said. “The Flash can ti travel.”
“And,” Tallon added. “Aquaman can breathe underwater. Superman gets a lot of power from our yellow sun, but he doesn’t have that.”
“But what if they had to fight on the moon?” I offered. “Superman’s weaker, but there’s no water for Aquaman and the Flash can only turn back the fight itself.”
All three of them rounded on , jabbering discordantly about how fighting on the moon breaks all the rules of their system, and I may as well have asked if Batman could fight with all the BatKids at once. I just put up my hands and laughed helplessly. All my comic book knowledge ca from the movies, but seeing them gang up on ward my heart.
As we approached the restaurant, I ended up back next to Gio while Dahlia, Tallon, and Elena chatted and Alessandro tapped at his phone.
“Well, carina? Feeling a little better?” my husband asked.
I nodded, cheeks aching from how long I’d been smiling. “You were right. I should have known that the people I love could only love Elena as much as I do.”
Sothing flickered through his eyes so quickly I couldn’t quite catch it, but he said, “Exactly. She fits right in.”
I smiled up at my husband. “How did we get so lucky?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. But any process that ends with us having a baby would feel lucky to .”
The limo stopped, and we all climbed out with varying degrees of grace. The restaurant bustled, and warm light leaked out through the windows, illuminating us as the driver disappeared into the night.
“Let’s go celebrate!” Tallon hollered.
Gio, Tallon, and Elena began walking toward the door. I moved to follow them, but Alessandro caught my and Dahlia’s wrists.
I turned to him, confused.
“Can I speak to you both for a mont?” he asked quietly.
Dahlia glanced at , and I shrugged.
“Shoe problem! We’ll catch up!” I called over my shoulder.
Gio nodded, and Alessandro pulled us out of the many pools of light.
He seed to struggle with his words, but finally, he said, “I don’t know about Elena.”
My mouth fell slightly open. Dahlia crossed her arms. I thought everyone had been getting along so well....
“What the hell?” Dahlia demanded.
He ran a hand through his hair almost nervously. “I don’t know. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Sothing’s just... off.”
I scrubbed my hand across my face. “That’s not super useful, Alessandro.”
He threw his hands up. “I know! There’s just a vibe.”
“Fuck your vibe,” Dahlia said. “Are you sure you’re not just jealous sobody else is competing for Gio and Olivia’s attention again?”
Alessandro’s brow furrowed in anger. “You can’t keep throwing that back in my fucking face. I apologized. I’m trying to keep everyone safe, and my gut is telling we aren’t.”
I put my hands up to try to calm the siblings. “I hear you. But Gio checked her out, and she’s clean. Everybody else likes her. And honestly, this is really important to .”
“I know it’s important!” he whisper-shouted. “It’s important to , too. That’s why I’m fucking telling you before things get out of hand.”
Dahlia opened her mouth, but I raised my hand to cut her off. I could handle this.
“Can you just try to see her through our eyes? Please?” I asked. Things had already moved along far enough that there wasn’t much I could do now anyway. She had our babies inside of her body.
Alessandro sighed, and all the fight went out of his body. “Yeah. Fine. Whatever.” He stalked toward the restaurant, and Dahlia shrugged.
“He’s such a freak sotis,” she said.
I nodded, but in the back of my mind, I started worrying I might have missed sothing.
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