Page 106 of Glorious Ruin
He looked at me. Then his gaze dropped to Josie.
“What’s going on?”
Scott walked out of the kitchen, a dishtowel in his hand, his sharp eyes missing nothing. “Josie? Where the hell have you been all afternoon? Your mother’s been looking for you to help with the pies.”
The air in the room grew thick enough to choke on. Si reached out, his hand grabbing my forearm, completely clueless to the bond I formed with his cousin today. “Come on, babe. Let’s go home. Let them handle the dinner prep. We’re in the way.”
“I can’t leave, Si.” My tone left absolutely zero room for argument.
“What do you mean youcan’tleave?”
“Josie needs to talk to her parents, and I’m not walking out that door until she’s finished.”
He stared at me, the gravity of my tone finally penetrating his confusion. He looked at Josie, then looked back at me, a sudden realization dawning in his brown eyes that something monumental was happening.
Cadence and Jayme walked into the living room behind Scott, their faces masks of concern.
“Mom. Dad. Cadence,” Josie whispered, her voice trembling in the quiet room. “I… I need to tell you something.” She paused before she finally found the courage to speak the truth. “I’m pregnant.”
Scott’s face went a dangerous, bright red, his jaw dropping in total, unadulterated shock as he looked at his daughter. Jayme let out a sharp gasp, her hands flying to cover her mouth as tears instantly welled in her eyes. She sprinted across the rug to wrap her arms around her daughter. Cadence let out a shattered cry, running over to join the embrace, the sisters melting into each other in a chaotic sea of strawberry-blonde hair.
And then, there was Silas.
I looked over at my husband, and the visual was the most hilariously, tragically bizarre thing I had ever seen in my entire life. He looked like the sickest, most profoundly horrified human being on the face of the earth. He hadn’t said a single word. His eyes were wide and fixed on his little cousin like she had just transformed into an alien right before his eyes. His jaw hung so low it looked unhinged, his golden skin fading into a pale shade of shock. His cousin’s pregnancy must have been a concept that didn’t compute in his meticulously organized mind. He looked over at me, silently screaming the one question his mouth couldn’t form:
How the fuck did that even happen?
I reached over, grabbing him by the shoulder, squeezing firmly to pull him back from the edge of his own mind.
“Breathe, champion,” I whispered to him. “Welcome to Christmas Eve.”
27
THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA // ORLANDO, FLORIDA
Now playing: Timeless - The Weeknd & Playboi Cardi
Thecallfromthehigher-ups had come in like a raid. Our indefinite suspension hadn't been lifted, we were still banned from stepping in front of a camera until the Man Overboard pay-per-view in late January, but Presley's spite knew no bounds. He had quickly realized that leaving us alone in North Carolina was too much of a vacation. We were ordered back on the road immediately. Not to perform, not to interact with the fans, but to be physically present at the upcoming loops to begin training and mandatory corporate management. It was a thinly veiled leash, a reminder that even if we were written off the screen, we were still assets owned by the United Wrestling Federation.
We had no choice. The flights were booked for the following afternoon. This wasn’t just a regular return to work. This was the precipice of a cliff. We were walking right into the turning point of everything, an invisible, dark current dragging us toward a final, definitive collision. And as I watched the shadows stretch across our bedroom ceiling, I knew with a bone-deep certainty that the outcome of these next few days would alter the trajectory of our careers and our lives entirely.
Before Silas’s alarm could even think about cutting through the quiet room, I was already out of bed.
I hadn’t slept. Whenever the UWF shadow stretched over our lives, or whenever Silas suffered through a midnight panic loop, my body refused to drop into true, deep rest. I spent the night lying perfectly rigid, my ears tuned to the low, steady rhythm of his breathing.
The winter morning in coastal North Carolina was a brutal, biting beast today. The air was freezing, thick with a damp, crystalline frost that made every breath turn into a white cloud before my face. I walked across the yard, my boots crunching sharply against the stiff, frosted blades of grass, the sound echoing like small gunshots in the quiet dawn. I marched straight down the path toward Scott’s house, my hands shoved deep into my pockets, my jaw locked so tight, my teeth ached.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, my numb fingers navigating the screen, and dialed Scott’s number.
“Cal?” Scott’s voice came through the receiver, rough, alert, and instantly dropping into that protective register he used when the family was threatened. “What’s wrong? Is Silas alright?”
“I’m outside your front door.” My voice was a flat line in the cold air. “Come down. Don’t wake anyone.”
I could immediately hear the muffled thudding of footsteps inside. He rushed, the underlying panic vibrating through the floorboards.
The door flung open in a matter of seconds. Scott stood there in the entryway, dressed in a faded gym shirt and sweatpants. His eyes scanned my face, searching for blood, for tears, for the ruin of another media disaster. I was perfectly calm on the outside, an sheet of unreadable ice, but he could clearly feel the anxious energy radiating off my skin.
“Come inside.”
