Page 74 of Expecting an Argument
“Maybe you should get off your feet, then,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be seated on your throne or whatever Ashley made for you?”
Olivia rolled her eyes. She wore a beautiful flowing white dress and had aptly-themed sprigs of baby’s breath worked into her hair. She was thirty-four weeks pregnant and glowing, looking effortlessly bridal.
The small box in my pocket felt heavier and heavier with eachpassing second.
“Let me read the rest of the names andthenI’ll sit,” she bargained.
Ashley and Tyson had solicited donations for the Kaye house renovation from people all over the world, but they had given a special spotlight to donors that honored female-owned businesses in Elren in the form of a tasteful plaque.
The bronze plaque read:“To all the Elren businesswomen who made it.”
Nicole Liu’s name was on the plaque, and so was Marisol Martinez and her mother, Lupita, who had been cutting my hair since I was a toddler. John Whitecloud donated on behalf of his mother, Charity, who owned the coffee shop downtown.
It was a lovely detail of the house. If Mom had been a businesswoman, I would have put her name on the list too.
But if Olivia had truly read the list of names of all the Elren women who followed in Miss Kaye’s footsteps, she didn’t pay much attention to them. Instead, her fingertip traced the raised bronze letters of the woman she donated on behalf of—her mother, Annie Brady.
“She’d be so proud of you, you know,” I said softly.
Olivia finished tracing the “y” at the end of her mother’s name and slowly pulled her hand away from the plaque. “Damnit, Beau, I already almost lost it when I put her ashes on the mantle in the other room. Don’t you make me cry in front of all these people.”
I reached down and held her hand. “Come on, maybe opening some presents will help.”
We walked into the big white room that was filled floor-to-ceiling with pink and blue balloons and twisting crepe streamers. Even though the twins’ nursery was going to be purple and green—orlavender and sage, as Olivia put it—, Ashley chose classic boy-girl colors for the baby shower. Oliviaand I even parked the pink Bel-Air and the blue Mustang on the front lawn to go along with the color scheme.
Olivia pressed into my body as we weaved through the tight crowd toward Olivia’s chair. Though the baby shower was technically for the twins, it was also an open invitation for the community to debut the house renovation. I hated the idea of that many people squeezing into our family moment, but Olivia wanted it and who was I to tell her no?
Although I wondered if evensheexpected half the town to show up.
I sat Olivia down in the large wicker chair that Ashley had decorated with vines of fake blue and pink flowers. Olivia started opening her gifts while I stood to the side and hoped no one would notice me.
Unfortunately, our audience was less interested in the purple and green baby outfits that Tyson’s older sister had made and was more focused on darting their eyes toward me and whispering to the person next to them.
I bit my tongue to keep my face from going sour. I would have thought the shock of a Fontaine pregnancy out of wedlock would have worn off by now, but everyone in Elren had to ruminate on their gossip like cows chewing cud until something new came along. They were probably calculating the twins’ conception date back to the class reunion. Or wondering why my parents weren’t at the shower. Or taking bets on which twin would get sacrificed to the magical catfish in our cow pond that allegedly maintained my family’s wealth.
Nothing I wouldn’t expect from Elren’s mouth-breathing finest.
Still, all the eyes on me made my skin crawl.
“Oh, this is so cute!” Olivia gasped as she pulled a green blanket out of a large silver bag. “Beau, look at how cute this is! Destinee’s wife knitted this!”
“So cute,” I parrotted back. I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Let me get you a snack so you can keep your energy up.”
Olivia gave me a thumbs-up and I held back a relieved sigh at the dismissal. I crossed through the foyer and walked past the tables full of food in the dining room to hide in the kitchen.
I leaned against the quartz countertop by the sink and took a deep breath. I might have been alone, but the ring lights and cameras scattered around the kitchen made me feel so exposed. Ashley and Tyson had filmed all their precious content before the shower started, but couldn’t they have found anywhere else to stash their fucking equipment?
I raked my hair back as cold sweat began to form on my temples. I needed to calm down.
Quietly, I pawed around the plastic catering containers scattered all over the counters until I found an open bottle of champagne from the pre-shower mimosas Ashley had made.
I held the neck of the bottle like a damn freshman and took a sip. The champagne had gone flat, but I needed something to cure the tight dryness in my throat.
I gripped the champagne bottle in one hand and pulled out the leather ring box with the other. The box weighed in my palm, grounding me to the earth. No matter what anyone at the shower said about me, or my family, or my babies…none of it mattered because I was about to finally win Olivia.
She might have never said she loved me, or even that she wanted to make whatever we were permanent, but Olivia changed after the April Showers gala. First, she started grabbing my hands and pressing them against her belly any time one of the twins moved. Then, I caught her reaching over the pregnancy pillow and gripping my bicep in her sleep.
When she held my hand during her last ultrasound, I knew I had her.
