Page 62 of The Unexpected

Lachlan is my uncle. My mother’s brother, though I didn’t know it, and obviously neither did he.

I can’t breathe. I can’t even move.

The noise of the room fades, the quartet in the corner nothing but a phantom. The only sound is the clink of my champagne flute as I set it down, careful not to break it.

Hunter is watching me from across the room, and his face is perfectly blank. He likely has no idea what’s going on, but can sense danger. My father is watching too, his expression calm, like he’s been waiting for this moment all night.

I stare at the gorgeous blond man I’ve been fucking for months, and I want to scream, or run, or just disappear into the dark space under the table.

Instead, I sit there, numb, as Brenda wraps an arm around my shoulders and laughs, and the world keeps spinning, oblivious to the earthquake at this table.

The glass on the table rings with the force of my hand, but no one hears it except me.

21

THE FALL-OUT

Stella

There’s a centrifugal force in a ballroom, something about the way chandeliers force light into the crowd that makes everyone look blurred around the edges except the ones you’re programmed to see. Me, I’m a statue at the perimeter, staked like a hunting decoy in black velvet, hands numb around the stalk of a glass I don’t remember picking up. The champagne inside is warm. The rim leaves a cold sweat on my upper lip.

Across the room, Hunter signals with a look that is “are you okay?” and “one signal, and I’ll come.” His jaw is set and the line of his shoulders telegraphs possession. He stands slightly apart from the others, as if the air pressure around him is higher, as if he might break something by accident. He doesn’t notice the passing donors or the scent of lilies and burned wax; he only sees me. I don’t know how to communicate with him except in gritted teeth and body language. There is no language for this, not in front of two hundred pairs of eyes and especially not in front of my own mother.

I’ve been fucking my uncle. Lachlan is my mom’s long-lost brother. How is this possible?

The champagne flute tilts, almost off balance. But I’m not off balance. I am perfectly, terribly balanced, yet the golden liquid almost slips to the floor.

Meanwhile, Lachlan stands next to Brenda, posture so neutral it hurts to look at him. His lips are compressed, the shape of the clerical collar suddenly less adornment and more executioner’s rope. He has one hand at the small of my mother’s back. The touch is cousin to violence, not for what it does but for what it refrains from doing. He’s tall, but Brenda is tall too, and their heads incline together, gold and gold. They look related, but only in the way you might see echoes of the same storm in different parts of the sky.

Brenda beams, her smile bright and almost childish, oblivious to the knife she’s just jammed in my social spinal cord. She’s got this way of acting as if everything she says is a compliment, even when it’s the sort of thing that would get you punched in a different crowd.

I don’t breathe until she pulls me in, one hand on my bare arm, her diamond rings biting the skin. “I know, right?” she stage-whispers. “Small world.” To her, this is a funny anecdote, a conversation starter for next year’s brunches. She is not aware that she’s detonated a grenade under my life. Or maybe she is, and she likes the sound.

I try to answer, but my throat is full of bees. “That’s—wow. Yeah.” My voice cracks on “yeah,” and Brenda laughs, mistaking it for dry wit.

“We need to celebrate this!” she says, and steers us away from the crowd, herding me and Lachlan toward a shadowed stretch of the hall. She knows exactly where to go; it’s the same place she would have dragged me at age seven if she wanted to tell me a secret, or keep me from embarrassing myself in public. A niche between two marble columns, so narrow that when you sit on the bench inside, your knees almost touch the far wall.

Here, the light is different. Candlelight rather than chandeliers, guttering in iron sconces. The velvet bench has a line worn into it where hundreds of privileged asses have left their mark. The air is cool, the stone sweating with old history. There is a faint scent of beeswax and a sharper one, animal and mineral, maybe the ghosts of a thousand private conversations. The string quartet outside is muffled by the stone, so that the only real sound is the clink of glass from the party and the wet click of my own tongue when I swallow.

Brenda doesn’t sit so much as lounge, knees crossed, velvet dress spilling around her like a pool of blood. She pats the space beside her, and I sit because that’s what you do when your mother tells you to.

Lachlan sits on her other side, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles are bleached. His gaze is fixed at a point on the opposite wall, the small muscles in his face working overtime to keep it smooth. He is, I think, only just breathing.

“So,” he manages.

“So,” I echo.

“So amazing!” Brenda trills. Of course, my mom has no idea that I’ve been having sex with her brother, so her voice is bright and alive with gossip. “So, I suppose the cat’s out of the bag, isn’t it? I’ve always said families are complicated, but this is a record even for us.” She nudges Lachlan with her shoulder, and her laugh rings like silver. “You know, it’s the damndest thing. When my mom married your dad, I was already off at college, so we never got to know one another. You were like a baby, practically.” She looks at me, eyes wide as a child’s. “Of course, you weren’t a baby, but it always felt more like we were more friends than siblings, didn’t it, Lachy?”

Lachlan’s mouth turns up at the edges, but it isn’t a smile. “Suppose it did,” he says. “Didn’t see much of you growing up. Or anyone, for that matter.”

“Oh, you were in that awful prep school, weren’t you?” Brenda says, as if it’s a game of Trivial Pursuit. She turns to me, her hand still warm on my arm. “He was always getting into trouble—weren’t you, sweetie? Just a terror. My mom used to say the boarding school saved your life.”

Lachlan’s jaw ticks. “Irma packed me off after my dad died. Your mother didn’t want me around.” His tone is light, but there’s glass under it.

Brenda tsks, dismissing the pain as if it’s just another embarrassing childhood photo. “Oh, darling, it was the best thing for you. Look at you now! Military, then seminary, now a pastor! Mom would be so proud if she’d lived to see it. Don’t you agree, Stella?”

I try to nod, but my head won’t move. “Um, I don’t really know what Grandma would think.”