There it was. She didn’t say her name, but we’d been edging around her all night. I was prepared for it, though. Not reacting outwardly to mention of Lainey Young was a skill I practiced actively. Tessa darted a glance in my direction but seemed encouraged by my non-reaction. I may have even smiled. Below the table, my hands gripped each other to keep from rubbing the achy spot in my chest.
“So, I just knew if anyone, it would be Dan. He reminded me so much of—” She paused. “Well, let’s just say he was the first man I’d met in a long time who made me think of the possibility.”
Uncle Dan reminded Tessa so much of whom? I wondered. I knew many things about Tessa, like how she used to date a banker from California who’d fly all over the world to see her, but it certainly wasn’t him.
“Of course he did, Tess. We all knew it was fate.” Martin toasted to each of them—Tessa, Uncle Dan, and fate, along with the as-yet-undetermined baby. Tessa’s club soda and lime made an off-note when it clunked our wine glasses and she laughed.
Fate. Fuck fate. Lainey had been right when she said it felt more like chaos. I understood now.
“When?” I asked. It was the first time I’d spoken since we sat back down. The waiter had just cleared our salad plates.
“We’re due the end of May,” Tessa said, rubbing her still-flat stomach. Belly? “Almost twelve weeks now. I’m feeling great, just a little tired, and, well, morning sickness does not occur only in the morning.” She shook her club soda and laughed again, while my uncle rubbed her back. “That has to be the biggest lie about pregnancy ever told.”
I nodded. “I meant: when did you ask him?”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed and she couldn’t meet my eyes, so I knew. After a breath, she said, “It was right before Lainey’s”—she dragged the L out when she said her name, as if her tongue hesitated to say it to me—“graduation. And the announcement. So much was happening then…” She stopped and took a gulp of her drink.
“It was a very busy time,” Uncle Dan concurred.
No kidding. “And when did things…change?” I said, looking between the two them, and the way Uncle’s hand covered Tessa’s. They hadn’t told the whole story yet, how they went from partners in an arrangement to having a child together.
Tessa blushed, and it was the only time I thought she and Lainey looked like mother and daughter. She cleared her throat. “After the procedure, when my doctors told me it was official, I called Dan to let him know. He asked me to dinner, and then…” She smiled, shrugging her tiny shoulders. “We thought it best if we didn’t make a big deal out of it.”
I swallowed hard not to laugh, but Martin actually chuckled. This was most definitely a big deal. In fact, it was nothing short of insane.
“We haven’t told anyone,” she was saying. “Except my parents, last weekend.”
“Anyone?” I said.
Tessa glanced at my uncle. “We’re going to Boston this weekend.” So Lainey didn’t even know yet.
“So you understand we’d appreciate if we kept this news between us,” Uncle Dan said in his gentle command voice, the one that meant of course we would.
“I’m always discreet,” I reminded him, at the same time Martin nodded vigorous assent. He wasn’t Sententia, but he wasn’t stupid either. This was about more than telling the families. Uncle Dan was running for president, for God’s sake.
“Carter—” Tessa started. Stopped. Those big brown eyes of hers were imploring me, and I was afraid she might cry again. I was gripping my wine glass too hard, so I set it down. “You’re not upset, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“It’s just—” She did cry. Big tears that plopped from her eyes even as she grinned and wiped them away.
“Tess,” my uncle said. It was his most private tone of voice, the one I sometimes thought was reserved for me.
“I’m sorry!” She swiped more tears and gulped her fizzy water, setting it down with a heavy thud that made her grimace. “Damn these hormones. Carter, I am sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said, because what else could I say?
“No. Ack.” She fanned her eyes with her hand and took a familiar deep yoga breath. “This isn’t going at all how I wanted it to.”
Did anything, ever? I considered inviting her to join my club. I’d been president for nearly twenty-one years. Instead, I said, “It really is okay. It’s a surprise, but”—I looked at my uncle—“you know I can’t be anything but happy for you.”
“Thank you,” he said.
Tessa echoed him, adding, “I just hope you understand. We didn’t go into this planning to keep secrets from you, and, well, I wonder if I shouldn’t have asked for your blessing.”
“I’m not sure it works that way.”
“Maybe it should.”
“I think what Tessa is saying, son,” Uncle Dan interjected, “is we’d like you to be a big part of the baby’s life. We’d like your blessing, too, albeit we’re asking a tad late.”
I grabbed my wine and lifted it. The firelight behind me winked off the glass, throwing warm red shadows across the table.
Even I thought I sounded perfectly genuine when I said: “To fate and late blessings—and healthy babies,” and we all clinked glasses one more time.
Chapter Thirteen
Lainey
You know you’re going to regret sitting like that someday, right? You’re so tall, it will probably be worse for you.”
I sat up straight and found Natalie watching me from our doorway. “Thanks for the reminder,” I said. Again, I thought and had to clamp my mouth shut to keep from snapping at her.
I’d been sitting cross-legged on my bed and leaning over my laptop, a position I adopted too often if Nat’s constant reminders were any indication. She was right, of course—I shouldn’t sit like that. She was also, however, annoying. I slipped on my headphones and pretended like I was alone again.
College so far had been so many things: enlightening, liberating, fun, frightening, and, also, disappointing. I hated thinking that about my roommates, but it was the truth. Without Amy, I was afraid I might actually be lonely, and that made me a little sad.
Was I doing this wrong? I liked college, a lot. I loved classes and campus and pretty much everything except for Natalie. I liked Jack, more than I wanted to. I hung out with Serena and her friends sometimes, but I still felt a little separate from her group. The truth was, I still didn’t know how to make friends. Maybe no one knew how. It was just something you did, naturally. Or not.
The biggest problem was that I missed Carter. He would have—should have—filled in the small spaces that now were empty. Like tonight, when I had no plans except to read a book and feel sorry for myself.
Nat tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped high enough to rock the bed. Though I wasn’t actually listening to anything, I pressed mute on my computer just for show and took my headphones off. “Hey. What’s up?”
“I was going to get coffee. Want to come?” Maybe Natalie was lonely too. Actually, I was sure she was. She rarely sought out my company, or any really. What I should have said was yes, but I’d opened a sad door in my head and I needed Amy to help close it.
“Not right now, I’m sorry.” She dropped her eyes, making her look sadder than usual, so I added, “Maybe tomorrow? Or later?”
“I’m going to the play with Kendra later.” She hesitated a second. “It’s just at Fine Arts, if you want to come.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that. And actually…” I tugged my bag over and scrounged a five out of my wallet. “Would you maybe bring a coffee back for me?”
As soon as she was gone, I closed our door and called Amy. I laid back on my bed while the phone rang and stared at the photo collage on Nat’s dresser that I could see reflected in my mirror. The faces were fuzzy from my angle, but I knew she was smiling in most of them.
Finally Amy picked up. I was afraid I’d missed her before she left to spend the long weekend in Iowa. “L
ainey-baby. Just when I was sure you were avoiding me, you call me back. Finally.”
“Sorry.” I ran my finger along the edge of the Out of Africa poster over my bed. I had a theme, one for each of my roommates. Turned out we were all a little international, not just Ginny. Kendra had been born in Ethiopia. I had Pearl S. Buck’s The New Year for Ginny and Like Water for Chocolate for me. For Natalie, whose mom was Italian, I had Roman Holiday. “It’s been a busy week.”
“Busy avoiding me.”
I didn’t want to tell her she was right, but she knew she was. “I’m sorry.”
Amy sighed. “I know. So. Let’s get it out of the way. Go ahead, ask.”
“Did you have fun?”
She sighed again. “Yes. It was freaking great. But to answer the real question, yes, Carter was there. Yes, I talked to him.”
I dropped an arm over my eyes. For some reason, it was easier to have these conversations with my eyes closed. “What’s he doing?”
“Besides Alex-bitch Morrow?”
“God, Amy.”
In softer tones she said, “Besides studying, he’s doing data analysis and statistics, he says. He reads a lot.” My stomach churned and I pressed down on it. That was it? Daniel Astor was ready to kill me to have Carter do math and read for him? Like I would have kept him from any of that! “Lane?” I was quiet for too long.
Finally I said, “Did he…did he seem happy?”
“Truth?”
“Always.”
It was her turn to be quiet. After a few seconds, she said, “I think so. He said he doesn’t know, but I think he just doesn’t realize it. He loves classes and feeling like he’s helping Senator Astor. He looks amazing. And I think…” She hesitated. “I think he likes Alexis more than he should.”
“I’m…glad,” I said, because what else could I say?
She laughed. “Well at least that makes one of us.” She regaled me with the rest of Homecoming, which really did sound like a good time, and I dutifully filled her in on my boring life, leaving out the ruminating and feeling sorry for myself. By the time I got to my volleyball match, my stomach was feeling better.
“And then I saw Jack,” I admitted.
“Again? I think he’s following you.” On the other end of the phone, I could hear the sounds of her last-minute packing.
“That’s what I said!”
“There are worse things to follow you around.” She huffed as she zipped up a bag. “Like rumors and syphilis.” I laughed. “Mr. H.O.T. is more like a puppy. A sexy puppy.”
“He’s pretty fit,” I added casually.
“No shit. So what’s he do again?”
“He plays basketball and lifts—”
“Sentimentally I mean, Lane.” That was her code for Sententia. “You know I don’t care how he works out. He’s not a sex demon, right?” Amy was still rightfully bitter about her experience last year with Alexis’s cousin Mandi, a Siren who’d tried really hard—and nearly succeeded—to ruin her year. “Though in this case maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Amy.”
“I’m just saying—you could use a sex demon.”
“Jesus, Ame.”
“What? You could.”
I pulled a tack from the corner of the poster and pushed it back in. Finally, I said, “I’m not ready for that yet.”
Amy made this throaty noise of dismissal. “Sure you are. You broke up with him, or did you forget? Sometimes you act like you didn’t want to and I don’t get it at all.” She cursed under her breath as it sounded like she stacked her bags. I could hear her door open and close.
“I didn’t forget,” I said. I never forgot. This is when it hurt most that I couldn’t tell her what happened. “I’m just…trying to adjust to college and everything. I’m not ready to throw relationshipping into it. Plus, he’s still my TA.” I took a sip of water to help me swallow the lump in my throat.
“I know. That just means it’s going to be awesome when you finally do it.” I choked on that water. “All the waiting will be totally worth it,” she went on, oblivious. “And besides, I really wasn’t talking about a relationship.”
“God, you’re impossible.”
“I think the same thing about you, you know.” I knew. It was part of why we loved each other. After a pause, she said, “I gotta go, babe. My ride’s here.”
I could hear the wind and traffic as she stepped out of her dorm, swallowing up our goodbyes. I tossed my phone on the end of the bed. It bounced and slipped over the side, through the little space next to the wall. Shit.
I flopped backwards onto my pillows. From beneath the bed, I heard my phone buzzing but I didn’t have the energy to retrieve it. With one hand, I smoothed the corner of the poster I’d been worrying.
Even though she was impossible, I was sorry it took so long for me to call Amy back. I hated that she was involuntarily caught in the middle of Carter and me. It wasn’t her fault. Hell, it wasn’t even my fault. It was Daniel Astor’s fault, that manipulating, lying, asshole uncle of mine, among other choice terms. I refrained from using son-of-a-bitch, though it flowed so nicely, because his mother Evelyn was actually a gem of a woman. I refrained from using life-ruining too, because he wasn’t in control of my life anymore. He wasn’t even part of it.
My phone was buzzing again. Crap. I squeezed my arm down between the bed and the wall, but when I tried to grab it, I pushed it out of reach. It stopped buzzing. With a sigh, I heaved off my bed to retrieve it. The two missed calls were from Aunt Tessa. Huh. I was just getting off my hands and knees when our door buzzer rang. I just could not win.
I skipped down the stairs to see who it was, but even before I’d opened the vestibule door, I could see behind the glass wasn’t a friend, or pizza delivery guy, or even Natalie, forgotten her keys. It was a man, clearly not a student, and he looked…almost like a police officer, standing straight and with a serious kind of intensity. The missed calls from my aunt! I rushed to the door and threw it open without a second thought.
“Miss Young?” the man said as soon as I opened it.
But I didn’t even see him.
Beyond his broad shoulders, waiting at the bottom of the steps in an eggplant colored velvet coat, was a petite brunette alive, unblemished, and beaming at me. And she wasn’t alone.
I gripped the door frame until my fingers were white. “Auntie?”
“Surprise!” she called, though I barely heard her.
Because behind her was Daniel Astor. His razor smile was the last thing I saw before I passed out.
I WOKE UP in a nightmare. Halloween wasn’t until next weekend, but I felt like I was being tricked right now. This couldn’t be real.
My aunt was having Daniel Astor’s baby.
This. Could not. Be real.
“I know it’s a shock, honey.” My aunt was sitting next to me on my bed and petting my hair. Quietly in a corner and safely out of my reach stood the baby’s father, making the room look shabbier and more beige just with his presence. I kept darting glances in his direction and blinking in hopes that when I opened my eyes he’d disappear and I was, in fact, dreaming. Nightmaring. Was that a verb? If not, it should have been.
I couldn’t make my mouth work, so my aunt just kept talking. “This is something I’d been thinking about for a long time—you knew that. I wanted to talk to you about it sooner, I did, but there was so much…happening, and then, well”—she flapped her hand toward the corner—“with Dan, and the sensitivity of his situation, and so we just waited until we were sure, and you understand, don’t you, sweetheart?”
Finally, what I managed to say was “Who’s he?”
Aunt Tessa blinked. “I’m sorry, honey, what?”
“Him.” I nodded my chin at the big man, though he wasn’t taller than me, who’d rung my doorbell and seemed to eschew sitting. He stood just outside the bedroom door, not at attention, but not lounging either.
“Oh,” my aunt said.
Obviously, he was at
least half listening and not required to pretend he wasn’t, because he turned his head and smiled. He had a nice smile, actually. “I’m the one who caught you, Miss.” And that, I supposed was true, because if not for him, my head probably would have hit the stairs pretty hard.
The man in the corner I was trying to pretend didn’t exist cleared his throat. “Manuel is with the Service. There’ve been some security…concerns, so he’s been with me for a while.”
My brain wasn’t processing the importance of security and concerns, but I understood Service, capital S, as in Secret. That made a lot of sense, actually, the way such a large man could so easily blend into the wall. “Where are your sunglasses?” I asked him.
He cracked another smile and you could tell he was trying, really hard, not to laugh. He coughed a little before he said, “I prefer not to wear them at night, Miss.”
“You can call me Lainey.”
“Thank you,” he said, though I could tell he’d probably keep up with the Miss thing.
Next to me, my aunt’s forehead looked a bit like an accordion. “Sweetie, I think—that is, are you having migraines again? Do you need one of your pills?”
I looked at her. “I’m fine. I just need some coffee.”
“Er. Okay! We’ll get some!” she said, too brightly. She, too, kept flicking glances at the senator in the corner. “I mean,” she amended, “I’ll have decaf.” Her hand fluttered to her stomach and I had this horrible, horrible feeling I might throw up.
I stood too quickly, making my head swim, and when my fingers failed to grab hold of my dresser, I sat right back down again. The bed gave a muted squeak underneath me and my little, pregnant aunt rocked back and forth. Right about then, the front door banged open and Natalie said, “Whoa,” before calling, “Lainey?”
“In here, Nat. Don’t mind him.”
“Um,” she said and appeared in the doorway, fairly clutching a tray of white and green cups. Nat glanced at Manuel before her gaze traveled to me and Aunt T. “Oh, um, hi. I think you’re—” she was saying when she realized there was still one more person in the room. “Holy shit!” Her eyes grew so wide I thought a blood vessel might burst. The coffee tray tipped precariously toward the floor, and Manuel, very graciously, reached out a hand and tilted it back up. Nat didn’t even notice. “You’re running for president!”
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