“I can’t believe how much this little blob means to me,” she murmurs. “Just this piece of paper, even…it’s everything. It’s the one thing I’d save in a house fire.”
“We’ll frame it. Put it where it’s the first thing we see every morning.” I take her hand and stroke her fingers. “Anyway, Eli and Dean know you’re pregnant, but…are you ready to tell the gang we’re going ahead?”
She nestles into my neck. “As I’ll ever be.” She chuckles. “Funny. I’d never have said any of us were really kid people.”
I look down at her. “They’ll love her. Or him. You know that, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” she replies, “just…it’s going to be interesting to see.”
We finally get out of the car, heading towards the studio, holding hands like we’ve never done anything else. “I’ll call my family after this,” I add. “You gonna call yours, or tell them in person?”
She hesitates, her lips twisting into a grimace. “I suppose I dohaveto tell them at some point.” She sounds like she’d rather have root canal work done without novocaine. While dipping her toes in acid at the same time. With her hair on fire. And her fingernails being ripped out.
“‘Fraid so.” I stop in the street and lift her chin up. “Talk to me.”
She looks to the side, clearly picturing what’s to come and, by the way her mouth purses, not seeing anything good. “My dad is going to be an arsehole about this,” she says finally.
“In what way?” Forewarned is forearmed, after all. Anything I can’t head off at the pass, Icanbrainstorm about beforehand.
“In that he’s still mad at me for not being able to retain the stand up guy that is Peter, and in that he’s still one thousand percent pissed off that Tim and Nat had Eleanor as teenagers, out of wedlock.” She looks up at me for a split second before moving away. “He’s getting worse as he gets older.”
“Pumpkin, you know I’d marry you tomorrow.” It’s the truth, after all.
She laughs. Great. Just what a man wants to happen when he…well, in fairness, that wasn’t a real proposal. “I didn’t say it to force you to marry me,” she retorts,as if it would put me out to do it, “and anyway, it’s much too soon for anything like that, on top of everything else. Just…” She places her hands on my chest in a way that’s almost soothing, and my heart skips a beat. “He’s not going to be very nice about this. And he’s probably going to be a complete bastard to you. And I’m not happy with that, or ready to deal with it.”
Hmm.
I think this might be one of those situations where I have to back her up, but be ready to step in. He’s not going to upset my girl any time I’m around, and certainly fucking not in her condition. I know she can handle herself, but it’s different when it’s your parent. It’s harder to say what needs to be said and stand up for yourself the way you would with anyone else.
“Tell you what,” I say finally, “invite them over to dinner at my place. It’s a nice house which will hopefully impress them, I’ll be with you, and we’ll tell them together.”
She mulls my words. “Or I can bring you to the next Stewart family dinner. I was going to try to skip it, but…” She looks listless, and irritated about it.
“Deal. When is it?”
“Tomorrow evening.Six o’clock sharp,” she says in a tinny, nasal impression of, I assume, her father. “Tim will be there, which is something. And Jacob, which will be… Well.” She shrugs. “It’ll give my dad at least one kid to be loudly proud of.”
“Sounds like a plan. We tell your parents and your other brother in one fell swoop. Rip the band aid off, everyone will know, and it’ll all be sorted.”
“Yeah,” she says sceptically.
Sadie
This is going to be horrible.
Nope, ‘horrible’ doesn’t cover it. It’s going to be the stuff of nightmares. I think I’d honestly rather follow Pennywise down a drain.
Dad has only seen Leo in passing, and he’s always been disgustingly scathing about him, referring to him as ‘that thug’ and ‘that lout you work for’ just because he has long hair and tattoos. Never mind that he’s wealthier and more successful than Dad could ever dream of being, and a way better person as well. But Dad thinks the Peter type is best, the suit wearing prig who feels and behaves like he’s superior to everyone, as though that truly makes him better. Jacob, my permanently-business-suit-clad IT god brother, is his pride and joy, the ‘right sort of man’, though he’s nowhere near as snobbish as Peter; just a bit on the awkward and stiff side. Tim is almost there, in Dad’s narrow mind, but he blotted his copy book when Nat got knocked up and Dad’s been trying to make him sorry ever since. I’m simply a crashing disappointment, and he frequently makes bigoted comments about how ladylike I’m not.
Wait until he hears that the thug I work for impregnated his black sheep daughter. He’s going to have a shit fit like nothing he’s thrown at me before. And I really, really wish I could swerve it somehow.
But Leo radiates such calm, such confidence that he can handle it and that everything will turn out OK. I could almost believe him, but I know the sort of nasty, offensive things my dad will say, and Leo’s bound to get his feelings hurt.
Well, not this time, Pops. If he starts, I’ll kick off, too.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Leo
