Page 24 of A Very Oceanport Christmas
"Congratulations!" someone shouted into my ear. The same person who was throwing confetti at me. My cousin Aiden. He wasn't the only one who'd come to surprise me here either. Far from it. It looked as if my entire family had assembled, and everyone was looking at me. My parents, my cousins, my uncles...Hell, even Rogue was here, and so was Mrs. Rosewood, for some reason.
The reason being, of course, that this was a baby shower, judging by the pink and blue balloons and the huge banner that had been hung on the back wall and all the gifts that had been neatly stacked on the table below it.
You couldn't have a baby shower in Oceanport without Mrs. Rosewood there. Everybody knew that.
I swallowed, taking it all in. I hadn't even realized that all my cousins were on winter break now, that everyone was back in Oceanport. I'd thought I still had time to prepare myself for this, that I wouldn't see the rest of my family before the big Christmas dinner.
That had been naive, of course. There was nothing my family loved more than a reason to jump on a big get-together.
Someone said something about a cake while I stood rooted to the spot, merely a step away from the entrance to the ice cream parlor. I wanted to turn around and run.
Everyone was going to have so many questions that I couldn't answer.
That I didn'twantto answer.
I didn't want to deal with this. Not tonight. Not ever. I didn't want everyone to stare at my belly and wonder how exactly the baby had gotten there. They probably all had their own ideas. Some probably came close to the truth too.
"Sam? Are you okay?" David's hand landed on the small of my back.
I took a deep breath.
"I thought you could use the support," he said.
Support. Right. My family was here to support me. And whatever gifts they had stacked up in the back, I probably needed all of them. "Thank you," I made myself say, even though I still kind of wished the ground would swallow me up, or that I'd at least gotten some sort of warning before all this.
I stepped farther into the room, feeling all eyes on me. "Thank you," I repeated, this time to my family. "Thank you all for coming." My parents had raised me better than to be ungrateful, right? I turned to them now. They regarded me with smiles, but I could tell that deep down, they still wanted to know how I'd ended up in this position in the first place.
Thiswas definitely not the right time to tell them.
"There's cake too!" Someone said. Uncle Griff. I forced my lips up into a smile. Cake was good, right?
"C'mon, sit." A hand on my arm, David led me to one of the tables, and I was eternally grateful to him for taking charge for a moment. I let myself sink into the chair and a few minutes later, people sat around me and we had cake on our plates. Some kind of chocolate cake. Someone told me that Uncle Dean had made it. I wasn't sure who'd said that. My cousin Gavin maybe. He and his mate Caleb were sitting across from me. Caleb was a couple of years older than me, but he and Gavin didn't have babies yet. Of course not. They were too smart to make stupid mistakes like that while they were still in school.
"Are you all right?" Garett asked, shooting me a concerned look. "David said you went to the doctor's today. Is everything okay with the baby?"
"Yeah, the baby's fine. Actually..." For the first time since I'd stepped into the ice cream parlor that evening, a genuine smile took over my face as I thought back to the appointment. "I found out the sex." They'd printed a picture of the ultrasound for me too, but I'd left it in the car for now. I should get it later to show to my parents. I wanted to share this with them--and I still needed to apologize too. I glanced at them, but they were standing over by another table that had an assortment of drinks. Dad had a glass of amber liquid in his hand.
I couldn't blame him.
"You found out the sex?" Caleb asked and everyone at the table leaned in. Mrs. Rosewood looked especially curious. "What is it?"
I grinned. "Maybe I'll keep it a secret." Not from myself, but from everyone else. That might be kinda fun, right?
"No fair," Caleb complained.
Two seats over, my cousin Mary nodded in agreement. "This is your baby shower, Sam. We're all here for the baby. Might as well spill the beans."
She probably had a point there. It wouldn't be fair of me to keep my guests in suspense after everything they were doing for me. "It's a boy," I said, still smiling.
At least, I was smiling until Mrs. Rosewood spoke up. "Oh, a boy," she said. "Little boys are so lovely. I do hope you can reconnect with the other father in case he turns out to be an alpha. Little alpha boys need an alpha's guidance in their lives."
Everybody gaped at her, the air in the room turning so sick it felt oppressing.
"I don't know who the other father is," I bit out before I could stop myself. Hell, even if I had known, I never wanted to see the guy again. I directed my gaze at the ground, biting my teeth together, feeling the weight of everyone's stares on me.
This was not what they had expected, was it?
Or was itexactlywhat they'd expected?
