I fight the urge to sink down to the floor and hide behind the desk.
“Howdy, brother,” Milo returns in a silly, carefree tone.Tell the man he’s on speaker, please!
“I’m finishing up at Welch’s,” Nik returns. “I met Prue.”
Three torturously long seconds pass.
“She’s something else, right?”
“Yeah, sure. She’salsosaying no to coming to ours for dinner.”
“What?”
“Sef sent me to invite her to dinner tonight, as a thank-you. Prue seems to think you wouldn’t want that. If I go back to my wife and—”
“Wait, why would she think that?”
He looks at me as if I’m supposed to answer. I willnot.
“I don’t know,” he answers. “You tell me.”
“Well, what did she say?”
“That you’ve blown her off.”
My mouth opens on a soft gasp.I did not say that,I mouth to him.
Silence follows, as I hear footsteps on gravel through the phone. “All right, I’ll fix it.”
“So, she can come?” Nik asks.
“Of course, I don’t care.”
“You don’t care?” Nik says, chuckling. “Is that why Sef found about twelve sketches of her laid out on your bed this morning?” He turns his attention toward me, smiling as his younger brother so often does. But the flirtatious way Milo does it is nowhere to be found. This is more familial. Like when Mom would tease Dad and get me to join in.
Milo sighs deeply. “I asked Sef to stop going in my room.Someprivacy would be nice.”
“Yeah, like any of us are going to tell Sef what she can or can’t do…”
Twelve?I mouth to Nik, who nods with bulging, teasing eyes. I flash my eyes back at him, then suppress a giggle.
“Sef said that the way they were laid out on your bed looked like the beginning of aDatelineepisode. Is Prue safe? Should we alert local authorities?”
“Why are you talking like that?” Milo asks.
“Like what?” Nik replies, his smile growing.
“Like you have an audience…”
Nik says nothing but holds the phone out to me in an offering.
“Twelve is a bit excessive,” I chime in.
Five deliciously long seconds of silence pass as Nik and I both try not to break into laughter.
“You little shit.”
“See how quickly things can be resolved when we communicate?” Nik gloats.
