Page 63 of Expecting an Argument
Just once. Just so she knew she could always come back to me.
My feet went still and she paused the dance with me. Slowly, I took my hand off the small of her back. Right as I lifted my hand to tilt up her chin, Olivia sniffed and stepped away. I looked down and caught her eyes glistening with tears.
“I’m sorry, I…” she stammered before covering her mouth with her hands.
She retreated to the bandstand and sat on the step leading into the clamshell as she cried. I followed her, hoping I hadn’t pushed her too far.
She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes as I quietly sat next to her.
I resisted the urge to pull her into a hug. “Are you tired? Are you hurting anywhere?”
“No…it’s just…” she wiped away the tears on her cheeks. She put her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and stared out into the ballroom, deep in thought.
Was I foolish enough to hope that she was having her doubts about leaving? That she realized she would miss me too?
She blew out a shaking breath. “I always hated you because you had what I didn’t. When we were in school, you had money, a big group of friends who worshiped the ground you walked on, and everything was just so easy for you. And now…” She swallowed and gestured out to the ballroom. “I hate that you have a history—a good story—because you have a family and I don’t.”
I rested my elbows on my knees to distract from the heavy disappointment sinking into my stomach. She was only jealousof my family, but she had no idea what the Fontaine family history even was.
I ran my hand through my hair and stared at the blue tile of the dance floor. “Everyone has a history, sugar. You just have to find yours.”
Olivia whipped her head toward me. “You think I haven’t tried? All I have of my dad is a bad reputation and a name—Johnny Adams. Do you have any idea how many men named John or Johnny Adams there are in this country? Even the best background check programs at my old firm couldn’t find him.”
She hiccupped. “I want my babies to have my last name because I wanted my mom’s last name. I never understood why she wanted to honor that man instead of just using her sense!” She threw out her hands. “The Fontaine name carries a legacy, memories,meaning.What does the Adams name carry? Nothing! Because the man I was named for stole everything from my mom and left us with nothing.”
My heart started to ache, but then she turned to me with a ferocity in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in months. “So every single time you’ve ever called me ‘Adams,’ you really just called menothing.”
I held my breath, forcing my next words behind an imaginary gate as if it were a race horse rearing in its stall.
Then there’s no reason to give Annie and Brady his name.
The argument was sound, and since Olivia was emotional and vulnerable, it was sure to win her over. I would finally conquer the last name debate. I could get her to agree to securing the Fontaine legacy once and for all.
But though the opportunity was laid before me, I couldn’t take it. Unlike the Fontaine men that came before me, I was weak. My sense of self-preservation had withered to dust. Just like when she had broken down in the kitchen on Christmas, I wanted to break down too.
I couldn’t let the mother of my children believe she was nothing.
Not when comparing herself to the Fontaine legacy. Not when she didn’t even know the real truth.
I ran my hands down the front of my jeans. Only because I knew my mother was drunk at a parade and would have no idea what I was about to confess to, I took a deep breath in and gathered every molecule of courage I had left in my body.
“Olivia, don’t ever think you’re inferior to me because of your father,” I said over the soft sniffles of her crying, “especially when I haven’t told you about my dad.”
He had just wanted to talk about his father, but sitting in Beau’s bedroom made me feel naughty—like we were sneaking around under our parents’ noses.
Beau stood in front of me, his hands gripping the oak dresser behind him, and stared at the floor. Though I merely sat in his bed—on top of the covers, even—, a prickle of unease crawled through me.
My eyes wandered around the room to distract me from the silent intimacy. His room was messier than I expected, with every bookshelf and flat surface filled with clutter from both high school and college. The areas not taken up by old physiology textbooks or football memorabilia were full of dozens of framed photos. Amongst the frames were pictures of his grandfather leaning on his platinum cane, his mom smiling and holding baby Beau at the beach, and even photo strips of him and Katie at a college formal.
Though I quickly averted my eyes from any images of Katie, they always found a man who looked just like Beau in the frames—blonde, always wearing a polo, and flashing perfect white teeth in every snapshot. I recognized his father from the brief glimpses I saw of him at football games and school assemblies. Everyone knew Beau’s dad worked a lot to be as rich as he was, so it was like an A-list celebrity had stepped on campus during the rare times he showed up.
Beau blew out a breath and kept his eyes on the floor. His knuckles rippled as he tightened his grip on the edge of the dresser.
“When you have three Beaus in one house,” he said, “everybody goes by a different name. Grandpa was, well, Grandpa or Big Daddy, depending on who was addressing him. Dad was Junior or…Dad, obviously. Mom and Grandma called me Beau most of the time since Dad and Grandpa were always out of the house working, but Dad…”
Beau looked up at the frames on his shelves. “Dad called me Buddy.”
I tracked his gaze to a photo of a six-year-old Beau holding up a freshly-caught fish, his father beaming behind him.
