Page 39 of One Bossy Date
We all turned around, opening up our little group to see Zoe’s grandmother, Dotty Jones, on the arm of my mother, Lilian Windham.
They had heard the news.
I was ready to be baby showered.
“Zoe? Are you really pregnant?” Granny Dotty asked happily, while my mom stared at me with the brightest eyes I’d ever seen, and a hand over her gaping mouth.
“Anderson! Oh, Anderson darling,” she gasped. “Is this true?”
Completely out of my element here, I looked to Zoe for answers. With the additions to the group, she wasn’t as confident as she’d just been, and started to stutter.
“Ah…well…um…”
“Oh, my God,” her gran exclaimed, her hands flying to her cheeks in disbelief. “Zoe’s pregnant! Zoe’sfinallypregnant.”
Whoa.This was spiraling out of control fast.
Zoe tried to stop it. “Wait, Gran, no! We aren’t sure ofanything.”
“This makes so much sense now, with Anders here at your side. I’msohappy, child.” Granny Dotty wrapped her arms around Zoe, before turning to face the room. “Everyone! Grab a glass, we’re going to toast the next addition to the family!”
My mom appeared next to me, her arms around me. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier this week? Oh,Anderson, I’ve waited for this for so long.”
For the first time in a long time, I felt I had no control over a situation.
Zoe and I locked eyes, caught in this whirlwind together. It seemed our lies would need to extend a lot further than we’d intended, and we had exactly zero choice but to go with it.
I turned to my mother. “Um, yeah, Mom. It’s still early days, don’t get too excited, we’re not sure.”
“Not sure, not sure—nonsense.” She beamed.
While the ruse was all for Zoe’s family, mine was now intertwined as well. My mother had been eager for grandchildren for so long that I couldn’t rip this from her now—at least, not without putting Zoe in the spotlight and exposing the lie.
Mom was ecstatic, hugging the shell-shocked Zoe and Lou-Ann, and then Granny Dotty, both women smiling from ear to ear as they danced with excitement. For us to admit that nothing we’d told them had been the truth, or even just to say, “No, she isn’t actually pregnant, she was just teasing,” would ruin everyone’s happiness right now.
Except, perhaps, Brody’s.
* * *
My mother clung to my arm happily. “So, Anderson dear, will you two get married?”
Fuck my life.
How did all this go so far south so quickly?
With a tight jaw, I nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s the plan.”Looks like I’m fake engaged, too.
A look at Zoe confirmed I was on my own now, which was perfectly fine. Like she had when she’d first met my dogs, she’d gone into a frozen state of shock. Had we been alone, I would’ve given her a cognac or a stiff whiskey, but now that the attention had shifted that was impossible. All I could do was shield her from the brunt of the worst and most inquisitive questions.
Mom was from an older generation. She didn’t believe in the bachelor lifestyle I’d been leading. She didn’t want it for me, or for Dax, and she’d been bringing it up more frequently. Now there was a woman in my life, and she believed this woman to be pregnant, I was expected to not just move her in with me ASAP, but to marry her.
Zoe was beautiful, witty, and downright sexy. If I’d somehow gotten her pregnant, I’d of course do all the above, and it would probably have been good. But it wasn’t at all what I had planned for myself, and my plans would swirl the drain for as long as this story held up.
“This is so wonderful,” my mother gushed. We’d moved back to our original table where my mom and Dotty had joined us, and every now and then, we received congratulations from passing relatives of Zoe’s. “You’ve waited long enough, Anders, and the timing is just perfect. You don’t have to leave by the end of the year.”
Not really. Problem was, I’d never mentioned to Zoe that I was leaving the country in eight weeks. There had been no need because the scheme was only supposed to last the evening. Now that I was fully involved in this balls-deep, I had my own family shit to worry about as well. Of course, my mom would now assume I was staying, and that there was a wedding to plan. Everything was affected.
Zoe didn’t respond to the timing comment, but there was no way she could’ve missed it. Next to me, she sat as still as a statue, watching her fake life unfold before her. While the evening had started with her being the one under scrutiny, we were now both in the same boat—no, in the shitstorm—together. I leaned towards her to tuck her hand under my arm. Waking up from her shock, she jerked slightly and gave me a tightlipped smile.