Page 98 of Beyond Oblivion

He shrugged, wiping his eyes again. His gaze met mine and he offered a weak grin. “Just don’t go anywhere, okay?”

“Okay,” I said with a smile.

His phone chirped, and he looked down, the screen illuminating the redness around his weary eyes. He sighed. “They’re here. They wanna talk.”

“Thomas and Travis?”

“And Liis,” he said, standing. “I’ll bring you back an ice water. Need anything else? You hungry?”

I shook my head.

He pointed at me. “Don’t move, sugar britches. I’ll be back to cuddle you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

He kissed his fingers and held them out to me, and then disappeared into the living room. “Well, hello, my favorite group of two-faced truth hoarders. Did you come by to present me with the award for Least Trusted Family Member, or were you just hoping to practice your guilty stares in my general direction?”

Thomas, Travis, and Liis tried to keep their voices at a hushed pitch, but their words slipped through the walls, and even more easily through the door Trenton had left slightly ajar.

“The more people who know, the more dangerous this gets,” Thomas insisted. “For everyone.”

“More dangerous than what happened today?” Trenton seethed.

“Yes, actually, a lot more,” Thomas shot back.

Travis interjected, “The worst-case scenario would make today look like a tea party with Grammy. Staking out your shop from afar is just polite chit-chat over cookies compared to the five-alarm dumpster fire going on behind the scenes.”

Trenton let out a dark, bitter laugh. “Oh, so it’sso dangerousthat Camille caught on, but it’s important enough to ask her to hide it from me? What am I, Margaret the church gossip? You act like we’re dealing with national security here. What, Tommy, you got caught up in some advertising turf war? Corporate espionage involving your wife, our baby brother, andMadisonfuckingDavis? Give me a break! This whole thing’s a goddamn joke, and none of it adds up.”

“The choice to clue you in isn’t up to me, Trent. I don’t know what else to say,” Thomas said. He sounded angry—whether at the situation, the universe, or himself, I couldn’t tell.

“None of that matters,” Liis said, her voice cool and composed. “What matters is that Camille and the baby are okay.”

Trenton scoffed. “Oh, thanks, Liis. Truly. Appreciate you saving us from whatever convoluted clusterfuck your husband’s created. Queen fucking Eliisabeth. Slumming it in Eakins six times a year to make sure everyone knows they’re blessed by your presence, playing the moral authority to perfection, but you ain’t winning a Daytime Emmy, Your Highness, because even Toto knows you still hate Cami just because your husband met her first—and he’s half deaf and blind in one eye!”

“Hey!” Travis barked. “Leave Toto out of this, you monster!”

My mouth fell open, but when the shock went away, I winced so hard I could feel it in my molars. Part of me wanted to go out there to calm Trenton down, but after that, I was too embarrassed to face anyone.

“Trent, you only get one pass to lash out at my wife. That’s your one,” Thomas said, more menacing than I’d ever heard him.

“Don’t steal my shit,” Travis said. “That’s mine. Your one-liner in The Circle was… forgettable because I can’t even remember.” After a beat, he continued, amusement in his voice. “Damn, Trent, I’ve never seen you like this. You’re a salty bitch when you’re jealous.”

“Jealous ofwhat, shit stain?” Trenton seethed. There was a long pause, and then Trenton spoke up again. “No, really, why would I be jealous? Are you saying…?”

“No,” Thomas thundered, his voice echoing through the room. He stopped to soften his volume, a hard edge still in his tone. “Absolutely not.”

“Then why would he say that?” Trenton asked. “One of you motherfuckers better start talking.”

Oh my God. He thinks the secret is that I’m carrying Thomas’s baby, I thought, panicking.

Just when I’d made the decision to intervene, Travis spoke up. “Jesus Christ, Trenton. Jealous because you’re feeling left out.Boo fucking hoo, you’re not in the club. You think we’re thrilled to be the inner circle of the ol’ top-secret trainwreck? That we enjoy keeping secrets from people we trust? We’re doing this to save your ass, Loki. Cope harder.”

Trenton’s voice rose then, his tone carrying a hurt I hadn’t heard before. “You’re holding state secrets that only you can know, fine. All that matters to me right now is Camille and our baby. Thank Christ we’re building our own family, because it feels like I don’t know you guys anymore.”

The words sank into the silence that followed, and my hand instinctively went to my belly.Just tell him, I thought, wondering what was going to be left of our family when they saved it.

The doorbell chimed, and moments later, the bedroom door creaked open. Hazel eased in, her eyes scanning the room behind her. By the look on her face, she’d instantly noticed the tension crackling in the air. “Hey, mama,” she greeted me. “How’s our baby? You doing okay?”

I offered her a small smile, my voice barely more than a whisper. “Still hanging in there.”

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