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I bent and buried my nose into Zip’s unbound hair, inhaling deep.
“You ready to go home?” I asked.
“Whitney!”
I froze, looking up to find my dad looking frantically at the phone. He was on the floor, his eyes leaking, and he was calling my mom’s name over and over again.
She’d asked for my dad to go with me.
But sitting there, looking at the phone over my father’s drooped shoulders, I knew what had happened.
She’d died, and no one was there with her when she did.
CHAPTER 25
Better grab my dumbrella. It’s pretty stupid out there today.
-Zip to Nash
ZIP
Turns out, cancer patients protected their own.
Not a single person who’d recognized Nash for who he was—professional NASCAR driver #28—had shared his secret.
But Nash was still in the news.
News of his mother’s fight with cancer, and her loss, spread like wildfire through the community.
There were photographers everywhere we went.
Oh, and they’d found out that we were married.
That was why they were all at the circus, lining the walls, and screaming questions at me.
I cursed when the wind picked up and my shirt went with it, exposing my belly.
I groaned when there was a collective gasp from the entire line of paparazzi.
“She’s pregnant!” I heard one of them say distinctly.
“Jesus Christ,” I grumbled. “What the hell is going on? Nash isn’t this popular.”
“He made it onto Rave Magazine. He’s third in the Top Forty Under Forty,” I heard Simi call from the front of the small group that was heading into the circus for practice. “The issue just came out today.”
I cursed under my breath. “How did they find out about me so fast, though? Why?”
“You’re young and gorgeous. You’re exotic because you work at a circus. You’re famous as hell in your own right because of the bullshit that our so-called father put us through. And then they find out that his mom died, y’all are married, and now you’re pregnant. That’s a lot of news really fast. Oh, and the car he’s supposed to be driving is really sucking it up. It’s a lot of stuff all at once.”
That it was.
But still…
My phone rang, and I reached blindly into my purse to pull it out.
“Nash,” I said when I saw the readout. “I’ll meet y’all inside.”
My sisters and Keene, all of them together, stopped and waited for me to answer. None of them going inside.
I rolled my eyes and answered my phone. “Hey, Nash.”
“Hey,” he said, sounding rough. “You left without saying goodbye.”
“I left because you were still sleeping, and you haven’t gotten very much of it lately,” I said. “I’m at the circus.”
“I know,” he said. “I stalked you before I called you.”
I snickered.
Man, I loved that app.
“Oh,” I said. “What’s up?”
“My mom’s funeral.” He sighed. “There’s a shit ton of paparazzi in town for some reason, and they’ve already looked up the funeral time. I talked to Dad and my family and we think that we need to push it back to this evening. The funeral home closes at around eight, and they said that we could do it then.”
“What about all the people who were coming for the funeral?” I asked.
“They’re still going to have the public one,” he said. “Though they’re going to act like we’re there in that family room. Then we’ll have the private one after they close.”
“Good,” I looked at the gate where there were people still taking photos. “Just FYI, but there are about thirty of those paparazzi here taking photos. And they know I’m pregnant and we’re married.”
He cursed. “How did they find out you were pregnant?”
I patted my belly, which wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t not there, either.
“The wind Marilyn Monroed me,” I said. “The wind blew, my shirt went up, and there are probably about eight thousand photos on the internet right about now.”
“More,” he grumbled as I heard him distractedly tapping on what sounded like his laptop. “You’re all over TMZ, People, and the internet in general.”
Awesome.
“Cute photo, though.” Nash snickered. “You look cute today. And you’re wearing my sweatpants again.”
“They’re all that fit,” I grumbled. “I need to get to the store and get some shopping done for looser pants. All of my leggings, even my stretchiest ones, are too tight. They make me want to throw up.”
“We’ll go tomorrow,” he said. “I’m going to let you get practice out of the way. Who’s bringing you back?”
“Hades and Hannibal,” I answered. “They picked me up, and Hades saw a really cool tree in the backyard that she wants to take a photo of. She said it’ll go good with whatever aesthetic she’s trying to accomplish on a website she’s designing.”
He chuckled. “Probably Mom’s Red Maple. It’s gorgeous right now.”
“That might be it,” I said softly. “I love you, Nash.”
“I love you, too, baby,” he said. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
