Signalling the bartender, Stacey orders two of something—I don’t know what. "No, she's not that young; she's in her forties. She's just got a good plastic surgeon."
I observe her from a distance. "Is she always like that?"
"Vile?" Stacey asks without looking at her. "Yes."
I squeeze my eyes shut. "She's so...cold."
"She's always been like that."
"What about when they were babies?" I imagine a baby Max all alone in a house full of toxic masculinity and Chanel Number Five.
"They were raised by the nanny." Stacey touches my arm and I open my eyes again. "When the nanny wasn't busy screwing around with Butch... everyone calls Luca,Butch."
My eyes sting. "Who did they have to love them?"
"Each other..." She takes a shot. "And me. And Butch loves them as best as he knows how. He's always offered them friendship and protection and so much praise it would have been intoxicating. He's proud of his boys. She's just a shitty person."
"I can't sit with her."
"You have no choice now," she says.
Scrunching my nose up in disgust, I toss the liquor back. "She slapped Max across the face at my birthday party."
Stacey squints at me. "When was she at your birthday?"
"She came to the house to get something from him, I think, and then she slapped him. Twice."
Stacey stares at the ground for a moment before sighing through her own words. "She hits him all the time, Cassidy.Butch had to travel a lot for Jimmy. He'd sleep around. She'd get drunk and then take it out on the boys. Max and Bronson got the worst of it. A slap is nothing."
My eyes pool. "Why do they put up with it?"
"What do you want them to do about it? Hit her back?"
"No," I mutter as one hopeless tear streams from the corner of my eye. "I can't handle that. I can't be polite to that woman."
"Stop being naive. Not everyone had the perfect upbringing you and Flick have had. When you're around us, you need to think before you open your fucking mouth."
"Woah. Don't be a jerk. You sound like Max."
She exhales through her nose. "That's because you're so clueless. You say the wrong thing in front of the wrong person... You just don't understand what these people are capable of."
I still. "What people?"
She stares straight-faced at me. "All of them, Cassidy."
I swallow down a lump. "Including Max?"
"All. Of. Them. Cassidy."
"Then why are you still here?"
She lifts her chin and speaks quietly while avoiding eye contact. "You don't know what they've done for me."
I shake my head in disbelief. "Why are you telling me all of this now? I thought 'it wasn't a good idea'?"
"It's too late." She draws her brows together. "You're sitting at our table. Max had his hand on your leg at the match. That will have been noticed."
"By who? Why don't you want us together?"
