Page 71 of Knocked Up
“You’re late and dinner might be getting cold. We should start our meal.”
I’m five minutes early and I have no doubt that the caterers are hiding off our formal dining room, ready to serve piping hot and delicious entrees.
“Actually, Cara and I will not be joining the rest of you for dinner tonight.” Graham says, walking up to me and giving me a hug. “I’m so damn sorry,” he whispers in my ear before pulling back.
“What?” My eyes widen and I jolt, but am unable to move out of his hold. He adjusts me to his side and winks at me before looking at my parents.
“Excuse me,” my mother says. “Dinner is ready.”
Graham glances at a watch that isn’t on his wrist. “So is our reservation. I believe for what you are all planning, Cara and I should have our conversation privately.”
“Graham—” Darla says, but she’s cut off by my father.
“That makes sense,” he says. “Yes, that sounds like an excellent plan. You two go out and get reacquainted. You can join us back here for drinks later.”
He raises his highball glass in a toasting gesture.
It takes everything I have not to snap at him. Instead, I take comfort in Graham’s still firm embrace.
This whole conniving extravaganza has well exceeded the line ofnever gonna happen,but at least dinner will no longer suck.
—
“So,” Graham says to me as soon as we’re seated at Le Chat Noir, a French restaurant I absolutely adore, “you want to explain to me why I was called to the house tonight or”—his eyes drop to my stomach, hidden beneath the table, but his point is obvious—“or do I need to guess?”
I reach for the glass of sparkling water with one hand while the other rests on my stomach. “I believe we’ve been set up.”
I grin, but it’s solemn, and I’m not sure what Graham’s been told, but other than being a goofball and willing to play his father’s game to become partner by thirty, something Miles has always wanted for his son, he’s a good guy.
Him whisking me away from the nightmare at dinner only to call and get us a table at this place on the way is proof of it.
On the way here, I guided the conversation to Graham and kept it there, what he’s been up to since the last time I saw him, which coincidentally was Jimmy’s funeral, and how he’s been with his studying to pass the bar.
He failed it his first time. From the sounds of the stress in his voice and the tight pinch of his mouth while he explained studying for it the second time, his test in a few weeks is weighing heavily on him.
“I got that, honey,” he says, “but what I want to know is why and how it is you’re pregnant in the first place.”
“Well, you see, sweetie,” I tease, leaning in, “when there’s a boy and a girl, a boy puts his parts inside a girl’s—”
“Cut the shit, Cara.”
Oh-kay. Apparently stressed Graham lost his ability to joke.
“Sorry.” I take another sip of my water and set the glass down, trailing my finger around the stem of the elegant wineglass. “What have you been told?”
“I was told by my mom, who talked to your mom, that you’re in an unseemly situation”—I all but roll my eyes as he air-quotes “unseemly.” Please.—“And that you’re alone, struggling with no income to raise a baby, and your mom spoke with my mom, and your dad talked to my dad, and they think, since we’ve been family friends forever, that it’s best at this point to become family. Hence,” he points his finger at his chest and scowls, “I’m supposed to marry you. And I’ll do it, honey, you know I will.” He leans forward, and for not the first time in my life, his attractiveness is almost enough to steal my breath away if I still liked the polo shirt, suit-wearing, golf-club-membership kind of guy.
And, you know, if he was straight.
Fortunately, I find I have a taste for the tatted-up, knitted-hat, rough scruffy jaw, muscled variety. Which is why I’m boiling, my lid about ready to blow right off my top before he’s done talking.
“Excuse me?” My forehead aches from the stress of my brows shooting up so high and so fast. “You were told what?”
“I see that might not be the truth.”
“It sure as hell isn’t,” I hiss, leaning so close to the table I’m almost bent over it. “I am not alone and I’m most certainly not struggling for income. Granted, I’m not rolling in six figures, or even high five figures, with my job at the gallery, but I sure as hell am not alone. I’m living with Braxton, the father of my child, and we’re together, and Mom and Dadknowthis considering they showed up at my apartment one night when we were there, and I told them.”
One would think Graham would be shocked by the fact his parents and mine have had no problem lying to him.
