“Dinner will be served in five minutes.” Tobias’s voice is like a soothing blanket as he interrupts the room, but, if anything, his presence calms my nerves. Which makes absolutely zero sense, but I never claimed to make any sense at all.
“Let's get this show on the road,” Travis says, gulping down the remnants of his drink, which smells like whiskey. He and Cole make up the front of our little pack, with Sawyer at my side and Asher behind us.
Yeah, this is weird.
It’s like we’re gearing for battle and I am so not here for it.
But I let myself be led, like a lamb to the slaughter, to my seat at the table. At least this time, with this many people, it doesn’t seem so obscenely big.
I end up seated between Travis and Sawyer, opposite Senator Beckett.
Yeah, this isn’t awkward at all.
Never have I ever wanted to run away as much as I do right now.
That’s actually a total lie, I’ve definitely experienced worse than this, but god, do I feel awkward.
We eat, and while it looks beautiful, I struggle to enjoy the five courses because, well, anxiety is a cruel mistress and I feel like I’m sitting on pins waiting for Chase to get to the freaking point of his dinner.
Once the dessert bowls are cleared away and Tobias brings out coffee, Chase finally clears his throat and stands. “Thank you all for joining us here today, as you know, I brought you here to bring you in on some news.”
He pauses and squeezes my mom's hand and my stomach flips in direct response. “We actually have two pieces of news. The first is that we’re pregnant, and we couldn’t be happier.”
I glance at Travis and his jaw clenches. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“And second, is that I am going to be running for mayor of New York. The current mayor has their sights set on stepping up, and after talking with Theo, we agree that this is a great step for me. With his backing, of course.”
He pauses again and I glance around the table to see exactly what I’m supposed to do here.
“What this means for you is, obviously, campaigning and keeping yourselves out of trouble. We will need you available for appearances when called upon, zero exceptions.” Chase glares at Travis with his final words.
“Congratulations, Mr. Kensington,” Cole says with a smile on his face that I haven’t seen before. Oh yeah, he was definitely raised by a politician.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Travis says, standing and leaving the room before another word can be said.
Everyone gets up and starts to talk while I sit, dazed by the fact that my mom is pregnant. She eventually comes to sit beside me and smiles. “I know this is a surprise, Briar…”
“A surprise? Mom, you’ve never even been able to look after yourself, how do you expect to look after a baby? I have school and I want to have a life. I can’t just raise your kid the way I raised myself.”
Her eyes go wide, like she hadn’t considered that I wouldn’t be happy for her. Maybe that makes me the asshole here, but after my childhood, how could I be happy for her?
“Briar—”
“No, Mom,” I say, cutting her off and standing. “Don’t ask me to be okay with this. Not after everything.”
Her mouth closes, and I see when it registers with her just how fucked up it is that she told me like this.
After everything…
No, I am not going down that rabbit hole of despair. I survived too much to go back there.
Without another word, I leave the room and head to the car.
They can have their baby and their campaign, but they can leave me the hell out of all of it.
* * *
I throw back another shot of tequila before lifting my hands and becoming one of the woo girls I usually roll my eyes at. I barely slept last night, and what sleep I did get was wrought with nightmares. Thanks to Mom’s lovely baby bomb, more than a few unwanted memories tried to rise to the surface, so I squashed them down with coffee, and now I fully intend to drown them in tequila.