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“I’m fine.” I realize that I’m being irrational and cold, but I just want to go upstairs and dress.
Darren nods, his hand moving from the post, and I go up the stairs to the guest room I’ve been occupying. I sit for a minute, looking around the room – my clothes are strewn over furniture and occupying parts of the floor. I wasn’t like this in my apartment. I was clean and organized, but somehow, being here has turned me into someone who leaves their clothes all over the place, throws food in the kitchen, and leaves leftovers spilled in the hallway. What must Lottie think of me?
I reach into my bag for my phone. I haven’t bothered to turn it on since I got here. It vibrates in my hand and I look down at the screen. There are a few messages from Cleo, and one from a number I don’t recognize, but I know the message is from my mother.
18
You Don’t Marry Them
Darren
Reality never sets in harder than when Rausch is in front of me. I can tell he doesn’t like that I’m sitting behind my father’s desk while he’s on the other side.
“Do you have no sense?” he starts off by saying. “You told the press you’re married?” he continues.
“I didn’t hold a press conference.”
“Everything’s a joke to you. You told a reporter she,” he gestures somewhere in the house, “is your wife.”
“She is.” I settle into the leather high-back chair, turning a pen between my fingers.
“You don’t tell the fucking press that.”
I shrug. “What does it matter?”
“Have you picked up a paper lately?” he asks, and then gestures towards the front of the house. “Or looked out your front door?”
“I’ve been busy.” I give him a suggestively arched brow.
He curls his lip in response and stands abruptly.
I follow him reluctantly because he looks like he has a point to make. When we reach the formal living room, he opens the curtain slightly to reveal a few reporters waiting on the sidewalk in front of the gate.
In all the years my father was a Senator, there have never been reporters on our front lawn.
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah. What the fuck, Darren?” Rausch parrots.
Telling one reporter that Evangeline was my wife wouldn’t garner this much attention, would it?
“What do they want?” I ask.
“They want to know why the late Senator Walker’s only son got married not a day after he fucking died!”
“How would they know when I got married?”
“Marriage licenses are public record!”
I didn’t think of that. I look past Rausch to see a few reporters loitering on the street as if they have nothing better to do.
“The Post deems this news?” This doesn’t seem like news to me, but what reporters deem as news is beyond me these days.
“I’m pretty sure Broadsheets have better things to do. These are reporters from the popular press – tabloids,” he says with distaste.
When I look at him with confusion, he sighs. “The tabloids pick this up and it gets attention, The fucking Post might as well report it!”
“I don’t give a fuck what they think.” I throw my hands in the air. “They can stand out there all they fucking want because I don’t owe them anything.”
