23
PERRY
The reception isloud enough to hide a war.
Toasts have started again. Someone’s uncle is telling a story about Jason in middle school involving a stolen golf cart. Laughter ripples through the room at predictable intervals. Glasses clink. The band tunes again.
I’m standing at the edge of the dance floor, pretending to watch the best man perform charm.
Suddenly, Damian is at my elbow. He murmurs, “You should have told me.”
“I know.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s not an apology.”
“Is that what you want?”
“It’s a start.”
The music swells to cover our low voices, but I can feel the tension humming between us like a live wire. “I didn’t know how.”
“You knew how to say it in a hallway.”
His words sting. But he’s not wrong.
There’s no reasonable way to explain what I did, because what I did was not reasonable. I’ll still try. “I ran out of space to hold that on top of everything else I’m dealing with, and I blurted the truth. I wish I hadn’t done it like that, but I did, and now we have to figure out what comes next.”
His breath is shallow. Controlled. Furious. “You let me fall in love with you.”
The sentence lands in my chest like a physical blow. I swallow while my heart races. He’s never said that to me before. Why does it have to come now when it hates me?
He growls, “Do you understand what this does?”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
I meet his eyes. “I understand that you’re their father.” The words feel steadier now. “I understand that you’re furious. But I don’t understand what to do about it.”
His hands flex at his sides. “What am I supposed to think, Perry?”
“I don’t know.”
The crowd crashes into applause for the end of the toast. We are both vibrating under the noise. He steps closer. Too close. “This is not something you sit on.”
“I know that?—”
“You don’t get to decide when I deserve to know. I should have known when you figured out you were pregnant.”
“I wasn’t deciding for you.”
“Don’t lie to me again. You did.” His voice is low but edged. Dangerous.
People are clapping around us. The room is celebratory. And we are detonating quietly by the dance floor.
“You’re angry,” I say.
“No shit.”
