19
Getting a chance to actually speak to with his grandmother was nearly impossible. Parker pulled out all the stops, which included inviting close to a hundred people. On top of that were almost a dozen hired staff for the day: people to pass around finger sandwiches and glasses of wine, and then different people to carry all the empty dishes and spent paper napkins away again when the guests were done.
“How many of the people here are you related to?” Martin asked.
“Just the natural blonds.”
Around two o’clock, Seb finally found his grandmother, seated by herself in one corner of the living room. He took the chance and tugged Martin along.
She greeted him with a smile. Her hands on his cheeks were cool. “You are the nicest surprise we’ve had at this party,” she said. He couldn’t help but smile back. “Who’s your friend?” she asked.
Seb pulled Martin up and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Martin Lindsey, meet my grandmother, Alice Stevenson.”
“You can call me Dinah.” She held out a long-fingered hand, decked out in the large emerald ring she’d always worn.
“Dinah?” Martin frowned at Seb.
“All the eldest daughters in her family are called Alice,” he said. Using her real first name had seemed safest. It was more formal, and she’d like that. “After a great-great-grandmother or something. Too many Alices means my Nana is a Dinah.”
“I never met the woman. I hear she was a heartbreaker, though. Four husbands, fifteen children. That’s why there are so many of us Alices now.” She gave them a conspiratorial wink. Her voice was gravelly, the way it had been when Seb was small and she would take him to museums or leave him in peace to work on whatever new masterpiece his grade-school heart could dream of.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Martin said. “Seb’s told me a lot about you.”
“He’s told me nothing about you. He’s been negligent.” She still held on to Martin’s hand, but turned and gave Seb’s arm a reassuring pat to say she didn’t really mean it. He appreciated that, but they both knew it was true. Without Martin as a buffer, she’d be bending his ear.
“Seb.” Her eyes were the same color as his. “My glass is empty, and your young man is looking thirsty too.”
Seb raised an eyebrow at Martin, who was blushing furiously. Thirsty. One way to phrase it.
“I’ll be right back.” He bent and kissed his grandmother’s cheek, then kissed Martin too for good measure.
There was a line at the bar set up in the dining room. Parker lurked nearby, looking pinched.
“Nana wants a G&T,” he said. She barely glanced at him, continuing to hover. He could see her mental wheels turning as she counted and recounted the people in line. “Is that okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“How would I know? Is she on medication? Something that can’t mix with alcohol?”
“She’s got pills for her arthritis. Nothing else.”
“They didn’t give her anything in the hospital?”
Parker’s attention snapped toward him like a laser. “When was Nana in the hospital?”
“Oliver told me she was sick.”
“When?”
“Ten days ago? He called me and—”
“She wasn’t in the hospital.”
Seb opened his mouth to argue and then clacked it shut again. He narrowed his eyes, but Parker stared back at him, the same bored stare she’d given him when he was eleven and she was seventeen and he’d asked if he could go to her “grown up” high school parties with her.
Stewing, he shuffled his way up the line. He chewed on his lip, broke apart the puzzle in his head, and reassembled it until it made sense. The picture was so much clearer now, the seams between the pieces so much snugger.
He found Martin and his grandmother right where he’d left them. He handed them their drinks, then watched his grandmother for a minute, trying to see anything to contradict what he was pretty sure he knew now.
