Page 75 of Expecting an Argument
I sucked down a deep breath and put the ring back into myblazer pocket. No more running, no more hiding. I had to go back out there.
As stealthily as I could manage, I slipped out of the kitchen. Relief flooded through me when I noticed fewer voices echoing through the house. The stragglers remaining were probably only people Olivia liked.
I grabbed a plate at the end of the food table and started gathering a snack for my future wife. I piled chicken nuggets onto her plate—not the most dignified food, but she couldn’t have the deli meats on the charcuterie board and she was craving protein lately. She probably needed a little sugar boost at the end of a long party, so I reached for a brownie—no, those were topped with walnuts and Olivia didn’t care for nuts and chocolate mixed together. I spotted a vanilla cupcake with a swirl of pink icing on top, so I grabbed it and set it on the plate next to the nuggets.
“Are you feeding a five-year-old?”
I turned. Mom stood in the entryway between the dining room and the foyer. She wore thick black sunglasses and her fingers twitched at her side, as if she were about to quick-draw a cigarette. Aunt Liz stood next to Mom, holding a large pink-and-blue gift bag in her hands.
“I-I’m surprised to see you here,” I said.
“We’ve actually been here for over an hour,” Aunt Liz said. “We sat in Cheryl’s car and waited for the crowd to thin before—”
“So, how bad was the riff raff?” Mom interrupted. “Did anyone ask Olivia if we’ve inducted her into our cult yet? Or audibly debated if the twins were actually human?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You think I wouldn’t have laid someone out if they spoke that way to my…”
I stopped myself right before saying wife.
Aunt Liz cut Mom a sly look. Mom lowered her glasses to lookme in the eyes.
“Your what, Beau?” Mom said with a smirk.
I kept my eyes on the floor as I nudged past them. “Myvery hungryco-parent. There’s stale champagne in the kitchen if you want some.”
Mom scoffed. “You act as if I have no standards.”
As I left Mom and Aunt Liz behind, I breathed a little easier once I went back into the big white room. Just as I had hoped, only Ashley and Tyson’s family were left. Ashley had her phone on some kind of stabilizer rig, running around the room like a mad woman filming more of the party. Tyson was tossing a blue balloon in the air as his kids ran underneath it, their hands splayed up as they tried to keep the balloon from touching the floor. Dr. and Mrs. Copeland sipped on their punch from straight-backed acrylic chairs as they watched their grandkids play.
I turned and found my lovely Olivia on her flowery throne, talking to Tyson’s sister and her wife. Olivia’s brown eyes lit up as I approached.
“What took you so long?” She spread her hands over her belly. “The babies need a snack.”
I smiled and handed her the plate. “Ran into my mom. Hope you forgive me.”
Olivia smiled back at me. The apples of her cheeks were rosy and her skin looked so soft. The gentle daylight from the windows lit up the curves of her face and made her hair shine.
She was so damn beautiful I could hardly stand it.
And because she was carrying our babies, and she was my best friend, and I was about to ask her to be my wife, I bent down and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek.
Her skin flushed beneath my lips before I pulled away. She froze, but looked up at me with doe eyes, her lips parted slightly.
“Aww!” Destinee’s wife cooed, her hand flush against herchest. “You two are so cute together!”
Olivia’s head snapped toward the pair, her mouth clamping shut and her chin jerking up. “We aren’t together.”
As the final word left her lips, time stopped.
During my first game as quarterback, another player hit me so hard that I ended up on my back with no air in my lungs, staring up at the moths flying around the stadium lights amongst the black void of the night sky.
That feeling of shock and emptiness stayed with me. I hadn’t been hit that hard again until I got that email from my dad at graduation, and then when Katie came clean about her fake pregnancy.
Even though I had convinced myself that I grew stronger after every blow, Olivia’s cold, decisive, and public rejection was worse than being hit by a freight train.
But even as Destinee and her wife glanced at me with wide eyes, the four of us steeping in the leaden aftermath of Olivia’s declaration of nothingness between us, I stayed on my feet. The Fontaine facade slid into place, even as my heart crumbled.
“Excuse me,” I said quietly to the ladies, “I need to get Olivia some punch.”
