The door opens.
Hello, Cinderella.
Thatcher enters with a chocolate smoothie and a Styrofoam to-go container. Look, I don’t like when people compare us, and fuck me when I do it to myself. But I’m the one that loses everything.
I know my brother didn’t lose his way to Sulli’s room.
“What’s up?” Akara asks him, zeroing in on the food. “Is Sulli okay?” He touches his mic, about to radio the temp guard, but Thatcher gives him a stiff, hearty nod.
So Akara slowly drops his hand.
For a blip of a second, Thatcher looks to me, and I swear something is torn up in his gaze. My best guess: my brother is having a fuckin’ tug-of-war in his head.
I just hope it’s not about me or Akara or Sulli.
“You miss us, Thatch?” Donnelly slips off his reading glasses.
“I’d bet five on yes,” Oscar adds. “He made a pit stop just to say hi.”
Farrow rolls his eyes. “He hasn’t said anything yet.”
“So you want to put five on no, Redford?”
I jump in, “Thatcher?” My frown deepens. Is this about his wife? “Is Janie okay?”
“Yeah.” He nods, just as stiffly as before. One tensed breath later, he places the smoothie and to-go carton in front of me. “You take these to Sulli and Luna.”
Confusion eats at me, but a strange urgency pushes me harder. I stand up, shoving my chair in, and whisper, “Why couldn’t you do it?” He said Sulli is fine.
No.
He nodded to Akara.
Is that the same thing?
Unholy shit, my mind is whirling at five jarring speeds.
Wouldn’t he think it’d be more important for me to be in this meeting? That’s why he went to take their lunch orders in the first place. During the event, he’ll be in the stands on Jane’s detail and I’ll be on the ground protecting the Olympian where more scenarios for failure exist.
He’s cagey as fuck as he bends towards my ear. Whispering, he says, “You need to go talk to your girlfriend.”
I cast a glance at Akara.
He mouths, what is it?
I shake my head, unsure, but I fist Thatcher’s shirt and drag him over to the wall. Drag is a harsh word for what I do, considering his big, coordinated feet do a good job of following my movement.
“Banks.”
“Thatcher,” I snap, drawing us further away from the Yale boys and Gabe and unfortunately Akara.
Get this right: I’m not about to rush out without Akara, my metamour—not when Thatcher’s giving me absolute shit to go off of. I love my brother like something deep. And beneath his serious features, I can tell he’s cut up over…
Over what?
“It can wait?” I ask him.
“No. It can’t.” He rakes a hand through his hair.
“What’s going on?”
Thatcher would’ve used comms and radioed in an emergency. Christ, he would’ve never left my girlfriend if she were in trouble. He’d throw himself in front of a speeding train for Sulli. And I know that’s been hard for her to believe—considering he’s not warm and fuzzy—but he’d die for her without thought.
I know if I’m the six-seven teddy bear to Sulli, he’s the fucking grizzly.
With our backs to the conference table, Thatcher growls out a frustrated noise. “I can’t say.”
“You can’t say?” I scoff.
“Are you a fucking parrot?” he growls. “Yeah, I can’t fucking say.”
“Jeeesus.” I hold up a hand, now confused and concerned.
He pinches his eyes and blows out a hot breath. “Just go talk to her,” he says, voice rising just as Akara slides into our two-man huddle.
Akara whispers hotly, “I thought you said Sulli is fine?” He fits on a baseball cap backwards, waiting for my brother to speak. It takes him a second.
Thatcher rubs his face roughly. “Cutthemeetingshort.” He slurs all of that together.
“What was that?” Akara asks, breathing harder in alarm.
“He said cut the meeting short,” I translate.
“It’s an emergency?” Akara asks tensely. “Thatcher.”
He’s not speaking. Just shaking his head. “Forget it—”
“No,” Akara and I say in unison.
The Yale boys are definitely staring. We all rotate a little more. Backs to them. Akara whispers, “Whatever strain there is between you and me”—he motions from his chest to Thatcher’s—“it shouldn’t get in the way of security. And it shouldn’t be at the cost of anyone we love, man. If this were about Jane, I wouldn’t be biting my tongue. Don’t tell me we’re that far gone, you and me.”
Thatcher cranes his neck backwards. Staring painfully at the ceiling. “I already said too much. I shouldn’t have said a thing.” He groans into his hand. “I need to unfuck this.”
“Unfuck it by telling us facts,” I urge.
“I can’t!”
“Yeah, you can!”
“She’s pregnant!” he screams.
It physically jerks me back.
Akara has a hand over his mouth.
“Fuck. Fuck.” Thatcher touches his forehead like he’s in deep shit.
I’m frozen cold. Barely processing.
Akara shifts his weight, then drops his hand. “You mean Jane—Jane’s the pregnant one.”
“I wasn’t supposed to say anything,” Thatcher says tightly, barely even looking at me or Akara. “Fucking Christ.” He stares pained at the door.
So it is Sulli?
Sulli is pregnant.
I’m wide-eyed.
“No, no.” Akara shakes his head with a slight laugh. “This doesn’t make sense, man. Why would she tell you before me or Banks?”
“I don’t fucking know, but I wish she didn’t.”
“Who’s pregnant?” Gabe asks from the conference table.
“Lovely,” Akara mutters under his breath. All of SFO heard Thatcher’s outburst. Can’t fault him. I pushed my brother there.
At least the Yale boys are shaking their head at Gabe to shut the fuck up. While they whisper to him, I exchange a severe look with Akara.
“We’re going now?” I question. “Because I can’t wait here knowing she could be…she’s…” Why can’t I say it? Why does it feel more unbelievable now than back when the condom ripped? Worse than anything is knowing she’s been alone with this knowledge. For how long?
Part of me is happy that she told my brother.
Maybe she needed to confide in him.
God, I hope he wasn’t a complete idiot and pushed her away or said something stupid.
“Yeah, you and I are leaving,” Akara confirms, which eases me. To my brother, he says fast, “Take over. We were about to discuss the Fire Alarm Scenario.” Where some shitbag pulls the fire alarm.
Like a bullet, I grab the to-go container and smoothie and bolt out of the conference room. Akara isn’t on my ass. He’s not leading the way.
He’s at my side.
All this time we’ve been going over different Worst-Case scenarios.
We didn’t think about this one.
Our girlfriend being pregnant.