Page 89 of Beau Pair
Beau
“Oh my God, Beaumont. Don’t tell me you’re gonna cry now?” Mama Hadlee says behind me, and I can see her rolling her eyes even though I’m not looking at her.
“Come on, Mama. It’s my little monster’s first day at school. If I don’t feel tearful now, when am I supposed to?” I tell her.
“First of all, it’s preschool. And second of all, look at Gordon. Is he crying? He’s not,” she says.
“How do you know I’m not about to?” he asks her, and Zoe laughs next to him.
“Oh, dear Lord. Let’s get this over with, shall we? We’re becoming a spectacle,” Mama says, looking around us at the other parents who are staring at our big group.
“If our family is a spectacle, let them stare,” I tell her, and she rolls her eyes again.
“Poor girlie, stuck with these idiots for the next fifteen years,” she tells Elsie, who just laughs at my mama. Or Nana as she’s learned to call her since she moved to New Harlow.
Dolly drops to her knees and hugs her daughter, followed by Zoe and Gordon. Mama pets her head, and I urge her forward, toward the schoolteacher waiting to take her in.
“Buh-bye,” she waves at us, and it melts my heart seeing her go to school for the first time.
It’s been a long year, but it also feels like it’s all gone by in an instant. So much has happened in the last ten months, yet it only seems like yesterday when Gordon and I became a couple officially.
It turned out we needed more than just to report our relationship to the dean. Legal papers had to be drawn that covered lawsuits, preferential treatment and assessment, and a whole lot of other legalese I never understood. But Gordon had been prepared, and it didn’t take long for everything to become entirely official. He even announced it in class.
Which got him a celebratory blowjob under his desk after.
Don’t judge me. I’ve got to reward bravery somehow.
By the time January rolled around, Gordon had also helped me with my business. I started with baby clothes, but it didn’t end there. A month after the official launch, and having been completely sold out in the first week of business, I posted a picture of Gordon and me celebrating in the suits I’d made, and the requests for tailor-made suits started flocking through my mailbox too.
The highlight came when I got contacted by Dawson Eldred, one of Hollywood’s biggest A-list celebrities, to design a suit for one of his award’s shows.
And that’s when things got real crazy. Like going from a one-man show to a full-on business with employees, kind of crazy. I was the lead designer, and I had people do everything else for me. Including a marketing manager.
I wouldn’t have accomplished any of that, however, without my man, my rock. My Gordon.
It was thanks to him, his experience, his love and support that I had come so far. And it was thanks to his devotion to his family that our roles had reversed. It was me who was the workaholic now, and Gordon being housebound looking after Elsie.
My little monster walks into her preschool, and before they close the door behind her, she turns to wave at all of us again and then disappears.
“You’d think she’s going to the slaughterhouse the way everyone’s reacting. Y’all do realize you’re picking her up again in three hours, right?” Mama Hadlee tuts when Dolly and I hug each other staring at the closed door.
“Mama!” I yell.
Gordon and Zoe are laughing, but I’m not amused. I’ve grown close to Elsie. After all, she is, for all intents and purposes, my stepdaughter, and being here for one of her milestones is one of the most precious memories I will ever have.
“Come on, everyone. Let’s go. We don’t want to embarrass her on her first day,” Gordon says, and opens his arms for me.
We all walk away and back to our cars. I drive Scarlet with Mama Hadlee in the passenger seat and Gordon in the back—there’s no question of Mama ever going in the back—to For Heaven’s Cake to have some brunch before everyone gets back to their lives and Dolly and Zoe go to pick Elsie up from Pre-K.
Dolly and Zoe order the Honeymoon Special, even though it has been three months since their honeymoon. Yeah, they’re still milking the whole getting hitched thing, announcing their newlywed status left, right, and center, and getting discounts and freebies in most places.
“So, how’s the sequel going?” I ask them after we all give our order to the waitress.
They published their first book on their wedding day, and it literally broke the internet. Not only did the publishing site crash, but it also climbed its way into the NYT Best Seller List, putting Zoe’s name on the publishing map seemingly overnight.
“Almost there, and it’s our best work yet,” Zoe says.
“And our publisher is far more prepared for the traffic when it eventually comes out, so hopefully, nothing breaks this time,” Dolly laughs.
