Oh my God.
Another thing Prue never told me.
“She writes?”
“Both. She produces graphic novels.”
Holy crap.
“Seriously?”
“Although they’re not my usual genre, I’ve read them, and they’re all superb. It could be bias, but I don’t think so.”
“Are they sci-fi? Fantasy? Goth?”
“Fantasy romance. Fae and dragons and things like that. The imagery is beautiful, and the stories have depth.”
“Has she looked for an agent? A publisher?”
He glanced at me, and he didn’t have to say anything because I read it from his glance.
“She hasn’t,” I stated what I read in his expression. “She’s hiding her light under a bushel again. And she didn’t tell me because she thinks…I don’t know. Maybe that I might think she’s using me for my publishing connections, or she doesn’t think her work is good enough, or whatever those fucking bitches at her school, and your fucking father who didn’t protect her from them, make her think.”
Battle was again silent.
And I realized I’d allowed my mouth to run away from me.
So I rushed into damage control.
“That wasn’t my place. To say ‘your fucking father.’ I never met him, and I shouldn’t say things like that about your dad. But I can’t hide that it really upsets me, the effect his decision had on Prue. Tempie told me more about it. How she didn’t have sleepovers or get invited to parties. It must have been really, really bad, but he didn’t intervene. And it had to be so bad, she’s thirty-one years old and just met the designer she adores whose boutique is a two-hour train ride from her home.”
“My fucking father was a fucking piece of shit. I don’t mind you pointing out that truth. But this won’t work, Vivi, if you don’t feel you can speak your mind. I thought you already knew that, and it was one of the multitude of things that attracted me to you. Many dance around me to curry favor. From the beginning, you didn’t. It was refreshing and incredibly alluring.”
Well.
Gee.
Was I blushing?
“It’s clear we won’t see eye to eye about everything,” he said. “It’s also clear we have the capacity to discuss it if we don’t. And I have questioned my sanity about this since I met you, but the truth is, I enjoy rowing with you. You demonstrate a quick wit, a strong will and courage every time you do it. So please don’t bury that habit now.”
Okay.
It was safe to say it might only take a car ride across England to fall for this man.
Boy, I was in trouble.
“Are we agreed?” he asked.
“We’re agreed, honey.”
“Brilliant.”
“And we might share the same mental ailment, because I think it’s hella fun to bicker with you two.”
“We don’t bicker.”
“Battle, we totally bicker.”
