Page 75 of Breaking News

This thing with Graham was never supposed to get serious. But somewhere, between all the late-night conversations, the sweet forehead kisses, and the way he talked to me when we were alone, things had shifted.

And if he got that permanent CEO position, things could get pretty messy. Maybe I needed to be the one to pull back alittle before it turned into something I couldn’t walk away from without getting hurt.

Maybe it was already too late.

“Maybe I’ll quit,” I joked, with a sad kind of laugh. “That’d benefit literally everyone.”

Meghan scowled, and for a moment, I thought she might shove me—it wasn’t like she hadn’t before. “Don’t joke like that. Getting to work in the same building as you is the one of the coolest things that’s happened to me in a long time. Don’t you dare take that away from me.”

I blinked hard, feeling the slightest sting in my eyes. “I didn’t mean it,” I said, wondering how I got lucky enough to have a friend like her.

I also had the slightest inkling she was planning something for my birthday behind my back. Not only had she double-checked that I’d be at the Gardners’ on Friday, something that should have been a given, but Chase had also not-so-casually asked if I had fun plans for my birthday.

Now, why would my clueless new co-anchor know anything about my birthday?

Meghan let out a sigh, turning back toward the building. The stickiness in the air clung to my skin, making the short walk back to the studio feel like a sauna. “I guess we should go see if Marco’s emerged from his office yet,” Meghan said as we made our way inside. “We don’t need him ripping into Chase without me there to defend him.”

“You could say he learned that word from you,” I teased. It seemed my co-anchor and I had some pretty protective partners willing to fight our battles for us.

As much as I loved the protection, part of me wished I didn’t need it.

chapter twenty-nine

Graham

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

Coming from Richie, I was inclined to respond with an immediate “no,” but I was doing my best to try to like this kid, and I didn’t want to be rude. I reached for the tongs and dropped some spaghetti onto my plate, giving myself a couple of seconds to brace for this before I answered. “Yeah, go for it.”

He pushed a meatball around on his plate with his fork, eyeing me from across the dining room table. “Did you see Olivia and Caleb come out when they were born?”

My eyes widened at the red sauce spreading out across the noodles. “Uhh. No,” I said, clearing my throat. “They were both born via C-section.”

“Oh. So you didn’t have to watch their heads, like, stretch out the…”

For the love of God.“No.”

“Richie watched a birthing video today, and he’s a little traumatized,” Olivia explained, shaking her head.

“I just didn’t know vaginas could look like that,” he said, making Caleb explode into a giggling fit next to me. Hearing my daughter’s boyfriend talk so casually about things I’d rather not think about was jarring, but then again, there was no need to tiptoe around the subject. He’d already gotten her pregnant, and in just a few months, witnessing childbirth would be his reality.

I reached for a piece of Texas Toast from the plate in the center of the table. “Well. Nothing about parenthood is going to be what you expect,” I said, glancing up at him and Olivia. “Just wait until you learn about meconium.”

“What’s that?”

Olivia answered before I could. “Our baby’s first poop is going to be all black and sticky, like tar,” she said, looking into Richie’s eyes. “I read about it in one of the baby books.”

“That is so disgusting,” Caleb said, dipping his bread in his spaghetti sauce. “I’m never, ever, getting a girl pregnant.”

“That should be easy,” Olivia teased. “You’d have to get a girl to touch you first.” Caleb tore off a piece of crust to throw at her, but it went over her shoulder and landed on the dining room floor.

“Hey,” I said, moving my fork around in my spaghetti. “You’re going to pick that up as soon as we’re done.” I almost brought up the time he threw a ketchup-covered French fry at his sister at our old house, staining the kitchen curtains, but I was distracted by the way Richie was staring at Olivia.

“You’re not eating much,” he whispered, reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. Olivia had only taken a bite or two, and she hadn’t even picked up a piece of Texas Toast. Old Olivia could’ve lived off of garlic bread alone.

“It’s the garlic,” she said, making a face. “It smells like… feet.”

Richie gave her a warm smile and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “Let me guess. The baby wants a burrito bowl from Taco Bell?”

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