The women aren’t blind. He just isn’t interested because he’s hung up on some girl he refuses to tell us about. And it’s been going on since… I can’t even remember.
“Nice ring,” he says, glancing at my finger. “You always have the best taste in jewelry.”
“Luce picked it.”
“Luce?”
“Lucienne feels impersonal.”
“Ah.” Nicholas’s smile is entirely too serene and knowing.
“What?”
“Just gathering another data point.”
“For…?”
“I think you might like her a little.”
“Jesus, stop. This is what happens when you don’t drink coffee.” He isn’t a huge coffee drinker. He drinks it when he joins us for brunches—since the rest of us are coffee addicts—but on his own, he doesn’t really seek it out. It’s unnatural.
Nicholas and I walk inside. Noah’s home is a prototypical bachelor pad with weird postmodern chandeliers that look like handguns and breasts—it’s the way the orbs are shaped—and darts, a billiard table, a pinball machine, foosball and a fully stocked bar that’s impossible to miss. A gigantic framed black-and-white photo of Marilyn Monroe graces the wall. She’s bent forward with her hands on her knees for maximum cleavage exposure. Her signature is scrawled on the right-hand corner, and Noah paid more money than is sensible for it.
Interestingly, there’s not a single shot of cheetahs. Noah is a wildlife photographer, although he wants to become a novelist for some reason only he can understand. There’s an actual typewriter on the desk in the corner, overlooking the ocean. A huge stack of paper sits next to it, but I’d bet my left nut he still doesn’t have the opening line.
On the long cherry dining table is a massive spread of roast beef, poached wild salmon, German potatoes and other side dishes. Since Noah adores carbs, there’s a mountain of freshy baked bread in the center.
He’s stuffed his mouth with a roll, his cheeks as full as a hamster’s. When he notices me, he quickly swallows, then washes it down with Pétrus. “I can’t believe you didn’t invite us to your wedding!”
“Oh, come on.” I scoff as I take an empty seat and help myself to roast beef and mashed potatoes. I’m starving.
“We invited you to ours,” Emmett says. Grant nods next to him. He and Emmett founded a venture capital firm together, and they’re generally in agreement on everything.
“Do you know that the percentage of people who don’t invite their family to their weddings who end up divorced is—”
“I didn’t invite you for a good reason,” I interrupt before Griffin can launch into the statistics and research papers he’s read on marriage failure. He spends way too much time with government records on all sorts of bizarre topics. But then, he’s an economist. It’s like a fetish.
“You invited Dad,” Huxley says. “Noah showed us the pic Joey posted on Dad’s Instagram this morning.”
“I can’t believe it took him that long,” I mutter.
Noah says, “Do you want to see the caption?”
“No.” I don’t need to read what Joey said. I shared the same space with him for far too long yesterday. “I only invited them because the whole thing was a joke.”
Grant angles his head, making a big deal out of checking my torso. “Did your new bride stab you for inviting him?”
“Don’t see any blood,” Nicholas says.
“She probably got disgusted and left,” Griffin says.
“Guys,” I say, “shelikeshim.”
A befuddled silence falls over the room. My brothers stare like I just told them I’d love nothing more than to get butt-fucked with a cactus.
Finally, Emmett gulps down the rest of his Bordeaux. “Say that again,mais en français—because I think I lost my ability to understand English.”
Since all of us studied in Europe, we speak French, in addition to German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish—and of course English. So I oblige. “Elle l’aime.”
