There’s no need to stay while Reynolds is in the room. Shane and I can’t speak freely with her around. Besides, Eden’s text hooked me. I want to see what the girls in the library are doing.
11
ARYA
We move to the dining room, which is good. Eden and Tavi need to get some food into themselves. My ears ring as though I’m getting the buzz of feedback from bad speakers. Briggs apparently pours a very strong drink.
Tavi’s in full bloom, answering Avery’s sex questions and more. “Old men turn into boys when they get things they wished they’d gotten when they were younger,” Tavi confides.
Wow.Tavi’s getting dangerously close to talking about the GU alumni club in Boston where she secretly visits sugar daddies who pay her way through school.No oneis supposed to know about the illegal arrangement.
My forkful of aged Wagyu beef pauses. “Octavia,cuidado.”
She turns her warm brown eyes in my direction and rattles off an explanation in Spanish—or maybe an excuse. Sometimes Tavi speaks so fast I can’t understand her. My Spanish is decent, but I’m not fluent.
Her lips protrude in a pout, and I feel bad for telling her to be careful. It’s her life, after all. If she wants to talk, she can talk. But I have a feeling her drunkenness is loosening her lips in ways Sober Tavi will regret.
Tavi grabs her hair and lifts it on top of her head, as if her neck’s overheated. “I feel bad about Brock. He could be a jerk, but he was nice to me.”
“When?” Avery asks.
Shit.Definitely getting into dangerous territory now. Tavi has never confided the names of her sugar daddies, even to me. And she keeps a ton of things secret from Eden because Eden gets jealous.
“Yes, when and where was Brock Stowe nice to you, Tav?” Eden presses.
“Mmm, at school things.”
Tavi never named the men from the sex parties, but I have an idea who they probably are based on who she’d get into long conversations with at alumni appreciation parties.
I finish the last of my steak and try to think of something to say to divert the conversation away from Tavi.
A shadow falls on the table, and the other girls’ gazes flick up to stare past me. I turn my head to find Sorensen filling the doorway, watching us.
“Oh good,” Eden says with a ‘cat that ate the Tweety bird’ smile. “Come in, Erik. Is the meeting over?”
“More or less.” He steps into the room, and I cringe inwardly. He and Cami are reporters. I don’t want them around when Tavi or I might slip about her visits to the secret Boston club.
Rising to my feet, I reach out for his arm. “I need to head home, so I can lie down. Those drinks were like Molotov cocktails for the brain. Can you drive us?”
“Us?”
“Tavi and Eden have been drinking, too. We should drop them.”
“Hang on,” Eden protests. “We can sleep off our buzzes in a guest room.”
I walk over to Tavi, lean close and whisper, “I’m worried about you. Don’t stay here. You’ll say something you’ll regret.”
Tavi, as sweet as agave, kisses my cheek. “Yeah, I’m really tired, too.” She wobbles to her feet. “So tired.”
Erik’s cool blue eyes examine the scene. “Sure, I’ll drive them. Give me a minute.” He turns and walks down the hall to the kitchen.
Eden erupts with protests, causing me to roll my eyes.
Tavi moves behind me and wanders into the hall. I stay in the doorway to cover her retreat. Tavi is not good at standing up to Eden, or anyone for that matter.
“I can take care of Octavia,” Eden says, her mouth thinning as she purses her lips.
“Usually, yes. Tonight? No.”
