Chapter 30 Abbie
ABBIE
The ballroom looks exactly the same. Same chandeliers, same burgundy carpet, same stage. Gray’s hand rests against my back.
Not quite two years ago, I sat at the VTG table in a red dress and smiled until my face ached while my marriage crumbled in slow motion beside me.
Tonight I'm thirty-nine weeks pregnant in emerald green, my agency is nominated for Best New Agency, and my husband is looking at me like I hung every one of those crystal chandeliers myself.
These are the agency awards, not the spring Creative Campaign ceremony.
Same venue, different calendar, and an entirely different table with my name on it.
"You're thinking about last time," Grayson says quietly.
"I'm thinking about how I can't see my feet."
"You're thinking about both."
He’s in a tux, tattoos showing at his cuffs, his light blue eyes on me.
"I'm thinking," I say slowly, "that I need to sit down before your daughter decides this is the moment to make her entrance."
"She wouldn't dare. She knows you have a speech prepared."
"I have bullet points. That's not the same thing."
We move through the crowd. The whispers have changed. I keep walking.
Grayson walks me across the ballroom to the Halo Creative table, and I can feel the weight of attention following us. Let them look. I'm too pregnant and too tired to perform normalcy for an audience I didn't invite.
Wren spots us first, shooting up from her chair like she's spring-loaded. "Oh my God, you're here. I was starting to think you'd gone into labor in the car."
"That would require good timing, which this baby has demonstrated zero evidence of."
"She's not late yet," Grayson points out.
"She's been threatening to come early for three weeks. Now that there's an actual event she could ruin, she's quiet? It's suspicious."
Wren pulls out my chair, and I lower myself into it while my team shuffles to make room.
"You okay?" Grayson asks, crouching beside my chair so we're at eye level.
"I'm perfect. Go sit with your people."
"You're my people."
"Grayson."
He grins. I spent a year refusing to live on that look alone.
"I'll be watching," he says. "When they call your name—"
"If they call my name."
"When they call your name, I'll be the one embarrassing himself at the VTG table."
"Please don't stand up and cheer. This is a professional event."
"I make no promises."
He kisses my forehead, lingering there for just a moment, and then he's gone, weaving back through the tables to his seat across the ballroom. I watch him go, feeling Wren's gaze on the side of my face.
"What?" I ask without looking at her.
"Nothing. Just enjoying the visual."
"You've seen us together before."
"Yeah, but it hits different when you're about to pop and he still looks at you like that." She picks up her water glass, takes a sip. "You two are disgustingly in love. It's actually nauseating."
"I'll try to tone it down."
"Please don't. It gives me hope for humanity."
The host works through his jokes. I shift in my chair as the baby rolls beneath my ribs.
Not yet, I think at her. Give me one hour. Let me have this.
VTG wins Best Full-Service Agency. I clap while their new CEO accepts, and Gray, at his table across the room, keeps his eyes on me instead of the stage.
"You okay?" Wren murmurs.
"I'm fine. Stop asking."
"You have your thinking face on."
"I have my 'there's a human being pressing on my bladder' face on. They look similar."
Two more categories come and go. VTG wins one, loses one. The room settles into that familiar rhythm of anticipation and applause, everyone checking their phones between announcements, the open bar doing steady business along the back wall. And then:
"Our next category celebrates the agencies that prove innovation doesn't require massive infrastructure. Best New Agency recognizes organizations under five years old and under ten employees who are making waves in their respective niches."
Wren grabs my hand under the table. Her palm is sweating.
"The nominees are: Halo Creative, for their groundbreaking work in boutique brand strategy and talent narrative development. Larkin Management, for their innovative approach to emerging artist representation. And Stonebridge & Associates, for their—"
I stop listening to the third nominee. My heart is doing something strange and fast, and across the ballroom I can see Grayson leaning forward in his seat, watching me instead of the stage.
"And the winner is..."
The pause lasts forever. Wren's grip tightens until I'm pretty sure I'll have bruises.
"Halo Creative."
Wren shrieks and helps me to my feet. Across the room, Gray presses a hand over his mouth.
"Go," Wren says, practically pushing me toward the stage. "Go, go, go!"
I walk toward the stairs with one hand on my belly. People reach out to congratulate me. The stairs. Oh, God, the stairs.
I'm standing at the bottom, looking up at the stage, and there are approximately seven hundred steps between me and that podium.
Okay, maybe three. But I'm thirty-nine weeks pregnant and my dress is floor-length and my balance is a distant memory.
And then Grayson is there. I don't see him approach, one moment I'm alone at the base of the stairs, the next he's beside me, his hand extended.
"What are you doing?" I hiss.
"Helping you not break your neck."
"You can't just—"
"I can. I am. Take my hand."
I take his hand. He steadies me on each step, then squeezes my fingers and moves aside. The presenter hands me the trophy. I face the microphone.
I look at Grayson, standing at the edge of the stage. I look at Wren, who appears to be crying at our table. I look at the trophy in my hands.
The trophy is heavier than it looks. I wrap both hands around it and step up to the microphone. My team is screaming from their table.
"Okay." I lean into the mic. "First of all, Wren is going to be insufferable about this for at least a month, so everyone blame the Academy or whatever this is."
Laughter. Wren throws both hands up from the table like guilty as charged.
"Almost two years ago, I started Halo Creative with a folding table, one laptop, and a two-room office above a taqueria.
I kept this old trophy on the windowsill, different award, different life, and I'd look at it every morning and think, if I did that, I can do this.
" I shift my grip on the new one. "Turns out I was right. We were right."
I find my team in the crowd. "Carmen, Drew, Mika, Jordan. And Wren." I pause. "Wren Castillo, who believed in this thing when it was just me being delusional in a very small room. This belongs to you. All of you."
The clapping swells again, and I wait for it to settle.
"I'm going to get personal for ten seconds, and then I'll shut up.
" Deep breath. "On my thirty-first birthday, I was waiting for one person to remember.
Just one. They didn't." I keep my voice steady, almost light.
"I used to measure my worth by whether people paid attention to me.
Whether I was memorable enough. Important enough. I don't do that anymore."
I let that sit for half a beat.
"What I do now is build things. With people who show up.
Who remember." A small shrug. "So, thank you to my husband, Gray, who has bought me coffee twice a week for months now.
Never three times, because he respects the boundary.
" Scattered laughs from people who get it.
"Who asks about my work and actually listens to the answer.
Who earned his way back into my life the hard way.
" I glance toward the edge of the stage.
He's watching me with that quiet intensity he gets, and I smile at him.
"This award isn't yours, babe. But you can carry it to the car. "
More laughter. I lift the trophy slightly.
"Thank you to everyone in this room who took a chance on a new agency run by a woman with a chip on her shoulder and a very specific vision. Halo Creative is just getting started."
I step back from the microphone. The applause swells as I step back from the podium, and Grayson is there immediately, his hand finding mine.
"That was perfect," he says, and his voice is thick.
"Are you crying?"
"The lights are very bright."
"Grayson Valentine, are you crying at an industry awards ceremony?"
"I'm having an allergic reaction to sincerity. It's a medical condition."
He helps me downstairs, then into an alcove off the ballroom. He kisses me. I grip his lapel. His hand slides into my hair, deepening the kiss.
I feel it like a pop, low in my belly. Then warmth, spreading down my legs.
"Oh," I say against his mouth.
Grayson pulls back. "What's wrong?"
"Um." I look down. My gorgeous emerald dress is rapidly becoming less gorgeous. "So. Remember how I said she had terrible timing?"
"Are you—"
"Yeah. Yeah, I think my water just broke."
"Here? Now? In the middle of—"
"Trust me, I didn't schedule this."
Grayson stares at me, panic giving way to focus.
"Okay," he says. "Okay. Hospital, now. Where's Wren?"
"At the table, probably wondering why we disappeared into an alcove."
"I'll get her. Don't move."
"Where exactly would I go?"
He's already gone, cutting through the crowd with purpose, and I'm standing in a service alcove at the Beverly Wilshire with amniotic fluid soaking through my designer dress and a trophy clutched in one hand, laughing at the absurdity of everything.
My daughter's timing, as it turns out, is impeccable. Wren arrives at a sprint, then heads to the valet for our bags. Elliot’s manager clears a path to the exit while Gray calls for the car.
"I called Richard," Grayson says, appearing at my side. "He’s still here, at the valet. He’s bringing his car around in case we need it."
"Why would we need a second car?"
"Backup. I don't know. He offered." He's pulling out his phone again, opening an app. "I'm starting a stopwatch."
"A stopwatch?"
"For the contractions. We need to time them."