Vested Interest

Telling elise

CHAPTER 5: TELLING ELISE

They chose Elise's apartment for the conversation, neutral ground away from the office and away from the charged, complicated energy of Adrian's private study, though Sloane suspected no location would have made the coming conversation feel genuinely comfortable.

Elise opened the door already talking, phone tucked between shoulder and ear, gesturing them both inside with the same easy warmth she brought to everything. "Sorry, sorry, work call, give me one second." She disappeared into the kitchen, voice trailing behind her, leaving Sloane and Adrian standing awkwardly in the living room surrounded by half-finished floral arrangements and the pleasant chaos of a creative person's home.

"Are you ready for this?" Adrian asked quietly, close enough that she could feel the tension radiating from him despite his outward composure.

"No," Sloane admitted. "But I don't think waiting longer would help either of us feel more prepared."

Elise reappeared moments later, tossing her phone onto the couch with visible relief. "Sorry about that. Difficult client wanting to change an entire order two days before a wedding. Anyway, you two said this was important. Should I be worried? You both have very serious faces right now."

Sloane glanced at Adrian, and something passed between them, silent confirmation that there was no gentle way to ease into this particular revelation.

"Elise, sit down," Adrian said gently. "There's something we need to tell you, and I want you to know upfront that we should have told you sooner. We didn't mean to keep this from you as long as we have."

Elise's easy smile faltered slightly, genuine concern replacing her earlier casualness as she sank onto the arm of her couch. "Okay. You're scaring me a little. What's going on?"

"Three months ago," Adrian said carefully, "before Sloane started the audit, before either of us knew the other existed beyond a single evening, we met at a hotel bar. Neither of us gave our names. It was meant to be one night, nothing more."

Understanding began dawning slowly across Elise's face, her gaze moving between them with growing, disbelieving comprehension. "Wait. Are you telling me that you two... that the mysterious no-names hookup you told me about," she said, pointing at Sloane, "was you?" She turned to her brother. "With him?"

"Yes," Sloane said quietly. "I had no idea who he was until I walked into the lobby for my first day at Voss Industries. Neither of us planned this, Elise. It was genuinely a coincidence neither of us saw coming."

Elise sat in stunned silence for a long moment, processing the revelation with visible effort. "Okay. That's... that's a lot. That's genuinely insane, actually. But also," her expression shifted slightly, something almost amused breaking through the shock, "kind of exactly the type of thing that happens in the ridiculous romance novels I read on the train. You have to admit there's a certain cosmic irony to it."

"There's more," Adrian said, something careful entering his voice. "Elise, Sloane is pregnant. The child is mine."

The room went completely silent. Elise's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, several attempts at words apparently failing before she finally managed a response.

"Pregnant," she repeated slowly. "You're pregnant. With my niece or nephew. From a one-night stand with my brother that happened before either of you knew who the other actually was."

"That's an accurate summary," Adrian confirmed, watching his sister carefully for her reaction.

Elise stood abruptly, pacing a small circuit around her living room, hands pressed to her face as she processed the enormity of what she'd just learned. Sloane felt her chest tighten with anxiety, watching her friend's silence stretch longer than felt comfortable.

"I need a minute," Elise said finally, still pacing. "Not because I'm angry. I want to be very clear about that. I just need my brain to catch up to the fact that my best friend and my brother are having a baby together after a secret one-night stand neither of them told me about."

"Take whatever time you need," Sloane said softly. "We understand this is a lot to process."

Elise stopped pacing and turned to face them both, something settling in her expression as the initial shock began giving way to more considered thought. "Okay. First question. Are you two together? Like, actually together, or is this just co-parenting logistics?"

"We're figuring that out," Adrian said honestly. "Slowly, carefully. We both want to build something real, not simply manage a practical arrangement, but we also don't want to rush into anything neither of us is ready for."

"Good answer," Elise said, something approving entering her tone. "Honestly, considerably more mature than I expected from either of you, given how dramatic this whole reveal has been."

"Are you upset with us?" Sloane asked, needing to know despite her nervousness about the answer.

Elise considered the question seriously, crossing back to sit beside Sloane on the couch. "A little, if I'm honest. Not about the situation itself, that's clearly circumstance, not something either of you engineered. But I don't love that you both sat on this for two days without telling me, especially you," she said, gesturing to her brother, "given how obviously miserable and distracted you've been all week. I could have helped, or at least been a supportive sounding board, instead of finding out through this dramatic sit-down conversation."

"That's fair," Adrian said, genuine contrition in his voice. "I'm sorry, Elise. We were trying to figure out our own feelings before adding your reaction into the mix, but I understand that wasn't fair to you."

"I forgive you," Elise said, though her tone carried genuine weight rather than easy dismissal. "Both of you. But I expect to be kept in the loop going forward. I'm going to be an aunt. That's a significant thing, and I don't want to be sidelined from it because you two are still figuring out your own relationship."

"You won't be," Sloane promised, relief flooding through her at her friend's evident willingness to move past the initial shock toward genuine support. "I promise, Elise. This friendship matters to me considerably more than the awkwardness of this reveal."

Elise pulled her into a fierce, unexpected hug, some of the earlier tension finally breaking. "I'm happy for you," she said, voice slightly thick with emotion. "Both of you, actually, even though this is objectively one of the strangest ways I've ever learned I'm about to become an aunt. But you deserve good things, Sloane, after everything with Marcus. And you," she said, pulling back to look at her brother, "deserve to stop being so relentlessly guarded about everything. Maybe this is exactly the chaos you both needed."

"That's a generous interpretation," Adrian said, something warm and relieved in his voice.

"I contain multitudes," Elise said, wiping at her eyes before her expression turned suddenly sharp and businesslike. "Okay. Now that the emotional part is handled, I have several thousand questions about logistics, timeline, and whether I get to help decorate a nursery, because I absolutely will be involved in that process regardless of what either of you decides."

Sloane laughed, genuine and relieved, the anxiety of the past two days finally beginning to ease into something considerably more hopeful. "I think that can be arranged."

They spent the following hour working through practical questions, due dates, how Elise wanted to handle the news with their parents, the careful timeline for eventually making things more publicly known. By the time Sloane and Adrian finally left, walking together toward their cars in the quiet evening air, something had fundamentally shifted in the careful uncertainty that had defined their situation.

"That went considerably better than I feared," Adrian said, some of his earlier tension finally easing from his shoulders.

"She's a good person," Sloane said. "You're lucky to have her."

"I am," Adrian agreed, glancing at her with something warm and genuine in his expression. "And for what it's worth, I think you're lucky to have her too, now. Whatever else happens between us, I'm glad you have that friendship intact."

Sloane felt something settle warmly in her chest at the observation, understanding that whatever complicated shape her future continued taking, she was building it now with people who genuinely wanted good things for her, rather than the careful performance and quiet disappointment that had defined her marriage.

It was, she thought, driving home through the quiet evening streets, an unexpectedly solid foundation for whatever came next.

Her phone buzzed just as she pulled into her driveway, Elise's name lighting up the screen with a message that made her laugh out loud in the quiet car.

Already researching nursery themes. Please tell me you're not opposed to a slightly excessive amount of botanical wallpaper, because I have ideas and very little restraint when it comes to floral design opportunities.

Sloane typed back a response granting full creative permission, still smiling as she gathered her things and headed inside, the weight of the day's revelation finally settling into something manageable rather than overwhelming.

Inside, she made herself tea and sat at her kitchen table, replaying the evening's conversation with a kind of grateful disbelief. She'd spent three years bracing herself against exactly this sort of complicated, messy vulnerability, certain that opening herself to that kind of risk again would only lead to further disappointment. Instead, she'd found a friend who'd absorbed genuinely startling news with grace and humor, and a co-parent who seemed, against every reasonable expectation, to be building something honest rather than merely convenient.

Her phone buzzed again, this time with a message from Adrian.

Elise just called me to say she approves of you being family, officially, whatever that ends up meaning for us. I thought you should know. Also, she's already texted me four separate nursery color palettes.

Sloane laughed again, warmth spreading through her chest at the small, ordinary intimacy of sharing this particular joke with him. She typed back, telling him she'd already received a similar warning, and watched the three dots appear and disappear several times before his response finally arrived.

I meant what I said earlier, about wanting to actually get to know you properly. Dinner this weekend, if you're amenable. Nothing complicated, just two people figuring out what they're building together.

I'd like that, she typed back, and meant it completely.

She set her phone down and sat with the quiet, unfamiliar feeling of genuine hope for a while longer, watching the evening settle fully outside her kitchen window. Three months ago, she'd walked away from a hotel room expecting never to think about that stranger again beyond a private, pleasant memory. Now she was building an entirely unexpected future, messier and more complicated than anything she'd planned, but considerably more honest than the careful, hollow performance her marriage had required.

Whatever came next, the pregnancy, the audit's remaining weeks, the careful courtship Adrian had proposed, Sloane understood she was no longer navigating any of it from the guarded isolation that had defined her since her divorce. She had Elise, fiercely supportive despite the shock of the revelation. She had Adrian, honest and steady in ways she hadn't expected from a man she'd first known only as an anonymous, charming stranger.

And she had herself, considerably more capable and considerably less fragile than three years of careful rebuilding had ever fully let her believe.

That, she thought, finishing her tea and heading toward bed, was worth every bit of the day's overwhelming vulnerability.

End of Chapter Five.