"Let's go out to lunch," I suggested.
"Are you trying to distract me?" Ceci asked, looking up at me with her big brown eyes. We were on the sofa and her head was on my lap as I played with her hair.
"Definitely," I grinned. "I can think of several ways to do that, but I just heard your stomach growl so eating should be the first order of business."
"I could really go for some calamari tacos," she said wistfully.
"We're not in L.A. and I don't know of any places here that have them. Wanna fly back to Cali for a few days? You know I'm willing."
As much as Toronto was my true home, I really missed our west coast house. We were back in Canada as the wedding drew closer, but the plan was to spend a month in Los Angeles after our honeymoon, returning here just in time for Christmas with our families.
"I don't think we'd get there on time for lunch, so I'll settle for sushi instead," she said as she sat up and stretched, wincing slightly, which meant her shoulder was bothering her.
"Want me to get you some Advil?"
"No. I'm fine. It always hurts for a few days after physical therapy. By tomorrow I'll be back to normal."
We went upstairs and got changed out of our pajamas. Once we were dressed, we went down to the parking garage and took a short drive to our favorite Japanese restaurant. Normally we would have walked, but the sidewalk outside the entrance to our building was flooded with the paparazzi who wanted pictures and a statement following today's sentencing.
This was why I was distracting Ceci. I knew that if we sat around the condo waiting for a phone call from the prosecuting attorney, she'd go a little nuts.
The trial had been difficult for us, especially since we both had to take the stand to share what had happened. Jake and the two other guards had also testified, plus there was security camera footage, so there was no doubt that Sanders had been the shooter. The murder charge was the tricky one. Ceci's doctors testified, but his attorneys also called in expert witnesses who made a pretty good case for the possibility that the fetal death could have happened up to ten days before the shooting. Apparently the hormone the pregnancy test measures stays in your body, so the fact that she'd taken the test the day before was irrelevant.
His defense team also tried to say he was insane, but all the psychological exams showed that he knew right from wrong. There was strong evidence that he'd been plotting the crime for years, and a wall of his bedroom was covered with pictures of me, many of them drawn on or ripped so that they were distorted. The guy definitely was crazy, but not so crazy that it excused what he'd done.
Ceci's testimony had been emotional, and when she talked about losing the baby, you could hear the sound of crying in the quiet court room. Our families were there to support us, so of course they were in tears, but I noticed that even some jury members had to wipe their eyes. On the following day when the jury returned from chambers and announced that he'd only been found guilty of the two attempted murder charges, she'd fallen apart. The prosecuting attorney had warned us that was the likely outcome, so we weren't unprepared. It still hurt that there was no justice for our baby.
The most difficult part for me was being in the courtroom with the man who had shot her. There's not a violent bone in my body, but I wanted to hurt him. Badly. Eric and I sat up one night during the trial drinking scotch and he shared that he felt the same way. That made me feel slightly better.
"I talked to Andrew yesterday," I told Ceci while we waited for our food. "We'll issue a short joint statement after the sentencing."
"Once this is behind us, we can focus a hundred percent on the wedding. I came up with some new ideas for the table decorations."
The wedding was coming up fast which stressed me out a little. It wasn't that I had any doubts about spending the rest of my life with Ceci, but until the shooting, I hadn't believed that we needed a ceremony or a piece of paper to commit to each other. My parents had been together for over twenty-five years and they were as solid as any married couple. It worried me that Ceci was putting so much emphasis on our actual wedding. Once the day was over, I feared she'd feel let down about not having something to plan and look forward to.
As we ate, she described different types of fairy lights which went over my head. We returned home, and as we took the elevator up to our penthouse, her phone started to buzz. She took it out of her purse and looked at me, her eyes wild with worry.
"I think this is it," she said.
"Do you want me to take the call?"
"No, I've got it," she said before answering. "Hello, Mr. Waltrop...Yes, I'm fine, thank you...How are you?"
Then there was a long pause while he spoke. I watched as her face relaxed.
"That's good news...Yes, I'm satisfied...please thank the team for us...goodbye."
"So? What did he say?" I asked as we exited the elevator.
"Two life sentences, back to back instead of concurrent. It's the maximum sentence. Mr. Waltrop feels that even if the fetal murder charge didn't result in a conviction, it was probably taken into consideration in the sentencing. There's the possibility of parole, but he doesn't think that will be granted for at least sixty years."
"That's great. Do you regret not staying to see his face when he got the sentence?"
I'd wanted to be there just to see him squirm, but Ceci said she couldn't handle another minute in the courtroom.
"No. I'd rather be here right now. I'm feeling numb now that it's over."
I put an arm around her. "Happy numb?"
"I think so. How do you feel? I know I say this all the time, but it was you who he wanted to kill. This isn't just about me because I was shot."
I preferred focusing on her, which was hard for me to articulate. Even if I'd been the target, I'd walked away physically unscathed, so this really was more about her. We shared the loss of the baby, of course.
"I'm just glad it's over, and I think we should celebrate," I told her as we entered the condo.
"It's a bit early for champagne," she commented.
"That's not the kind of celebration I had in mind."
I took her by the hand and led her up to our bedroom. We made love and then she fell deeply asleep. I wasn't tired, so I went downstairs and called Andrew to let him know he could release our statement. Then I called my mum.
"I just got off the phone with Lisa. How're you and Ceci feeling about the sentence?" she asked.
"We're happy. It was exactly what we wanted, given the verdict. She's asleep, but I'm sure she'll call her mom and dad when she wakes up."
"Lisa said she is going with Ceci to pick up her dress tomorrow afternoon. She asked me to join them. Maybe you, Eric, and your dad could do something."
"Sure," I said.
"Have the guys planned a bachelor party for you?" she asked.
"I explicitly said I didn't want anything wild. It doesn't feel right given the year we've had. Brian said we could just get drunk at my place, so I guess Ceci will have to spend the night with a friend or her folks."
"You sound very unenthusiastic," she commented. "Honestly, Shawn, whenever I bring up the wedding you get a little flat."
"That's how it's supposed to be, right? It's more the bride's day than the groom. No one talks about there being 'groomzillas' for a reason."
"No, it should be your day together. Maybe you aren't as interested in the planning details, but you should be as excited as she is about what your wedding means."
I sighed. "I know. I wish I did feel that way, but I don't."
My mum was silent for a few moments. "Are you having second thoughts?"
Running my free hand through my hair, I replied honestly. "Not exactly. I just feel like I may have rushed the proposal and now Ceci has rushed the wedding."
"Rushed the proposal? What do you mean?"
"Ceci was in a really dark place this summer, which was understandable. I was struggling with a lot of guilt. I felt like...I dunno how to put this...I owed her. She'd saved my life and lost our baby because of that, and I needed to do whatever it took to show her I was grateful and that I loved her. I just wanted her to be happy."
"So you asked her to marry you even if that wasn't what you wanted?" she asked, clearly horrified.
"It's not that I don't want it. I love Ceci and have every intention of growing old with her. The closer we get to the day, the more I think we should have waited until we were both in a better place emotionally."
"You need to tell her this! If you get married with ambivalent feelings, you're asking for problems. I mean it, Shawn. Be honest with her. She might be upset, but she'll understand."
"And how exactly do I do that? 'Hey baby, do you mind pushing the wedding back a year? I only proposed because I felt obligated after you took three bullets for me.' That's not going to go over well."
"No. It definitely won't," a voice said from behind me.
I swiveled around and saw Ceci standing there, her face twisted in pain.