Page 52 of Promising You
“Hey, what about me?” Garret acts offended. “You didn’t miss me, too?”
She smiles and reaches her arms out to him. He takes her from me. “I missed you, Garret.” She buries her head in his shoulder.
It’s so cute to see them together. He’s really good with her. He’ll make a great dad someday. What am I saying? I don’t want kids! If he wants kids he’ll have to marry someone else.
“Mom and Dad were yelling.” Lilly’s voice goes from happy to sad. “They were fighting. Are they gonna get a divorce?”
How does she know about divorce at that age? Do they talk about it with her? Maybe she heard about it on TV.
“Sometimes moms and dads fight,” Garret tells her. “It doesn’t mean they’re getting divorced.”
She lifts her head. “But if they do, will you still be my big brother?”
He smiles. “Yes. I’ll always be your big brother.” He sets her down. “Let’s watch a movie, okay? You can pick out one of your cartoons.”
She shakes her head. “Tea first. Then a movie.”
I look at Garret, smiling from ear to ear. I’ve been dying to see him attend one of these tea parties and now I’ll finally witness it.
“Come on, Lilly,” he says, trying to get out of it. “We do the tea party thing all the time. Let’s play a game instead.”
“Please?” She gives him her sad face and tilts her head.
Garret lets out a long sigh and I can’t help but laugh.
“This never leaves this room,” he says as he walks past me to the tiny white table set with little pink tea cups and pretend cupcakes. It makes me laugh even more.
After the tea party, Garret helps Lilly get a movie going while I go to the bathroom. As I’m heading down the hallway, I hear Garret’s dad talking downstairs.
“Don’t worry about Iowa. It’s too late to get votes there now. You don’t need to win that state anyway. You need to focus on New Hampshire. My guys have everything set up. You just need to smile and read the teleprompter.”
“My numbers are way down in New Hampshire. A smile and some scripted speech isn’t going to get me where I need to be. I told them that at the meeting last night.”
“Let us worry about getting you there. The convention is still months away. We have plenty of time to make you the nominee. The public hated Sinclair in the beginning and he ended up the frontrunner.”
“Sure, but he had—”
“Stop comparing yourself to other candidates. Just do as we say and you’ll have nothing to worry about. We’ve got this thing locked away. You’re the one, Kent. You’re the next President of the United States.”
I haven’t moved from my spot in the hallway. I hear footsteps on the tile floor in the foyer and glance down the stairwell to get a glimpse of the man Mr. Kensington is talking to. I’ve seen the guy on TV. He’s one of the remaining six candidates trying to win the nomination for president. What is he doing here? Does Garret’s dad know all of these guys? First Sinclair, and now this guy? Kent Gleason. That’s his name. Mr. Kensington seems awfully sure this guy is going to win. Not just the nomination. But the presidency.
He opens the front door and four men in suits walk in. One man is holding a laptop.
“How did the video turn out?” Mr. Kensington asks him.
“Excellent. You’d think Kent was really there. You gotta love CGI. Makes things so much easier.”
“Let’s go in my office and you can show us.” He leads the way and the men all follow him into the office.
I hurry down to the bathroom. When I come back out I see Garret walking down the hall. “There you are.”
“Yeah, I’m coming,” I say. “Did you start the movie?”
“No. Lilly insisted we wait for you.”
We only get halfway through the movie when Mr. Kensington comes in. “If you two need to go, I can watch Lilly now.”
“No, Daddy,” Lilly says. “Don’t make them leave.” She’s wedged between Garret and me on her tiny twin bed.
