Chapter 11
Dillon
“Where’s Charlie?”
It’s the first thing my grandmother says as she opens the door, peering past me, searching for her like she might be hiding in the rose bushes that sit on either side of the paved path.
When Gran looks at me expectantly, I ask, “Didn’t Mom tell you?” I didn’t expect to have to rehash everything today, and my voice is choked, rough—like it doesn’t quite belong to me.
Gran gives me an impatient look. “She told me,” she says easily, but I can tell there’s more coming. “But she’s a liar, so I wasn’t sure if I should believe her.”
There it is.
“Mom is not a liar,” I protest. “She just likes to…exaggerate.”
Gran makes ahmphnoise before standing to the side and letting me in, the smell of lavender and patchouli assaulting my nose. “Well, you’re just in time, even if it’s just you. We were about to put the kettle on and have some tea. It might help with the dour look on your face, and you can tell us what you did wrong.”
I grimace, because tea was only going to make thedourlook worse, but there was no telling Gran that. Instead, I follow her to the kitchen. “How do you know I did something wrong?”
She stops in her tracks, turning to look at me over theframes of her glasses. “You’re kidding, right?” she demands, humor coating each word. “Have you met your parents?”
“Mother, leave my son alone,” a voice demands, and then my mom is there, her smile small. “Hello, baby.” She comes over to me and presses a kiss to my cheek, leading me to the table, pressing me down into a seat. “Dad couldn’t make it. Some friend asked him to go watch a football game, and you know how he is.” Mom shoots a pointed glance at Gran, who just scoffs as she pours the tea.
“We do know how he is,” Gran tells us. “A weak, spineless lizard.”
My mother sucks in a breath, looking pained. “Mom, please. This is why he doesn’t like to come here. You just keep needling him until he…”
Gran looks over at that, white eyebrows high on her brow. “He what, Liz? Don’t stop there. Finish the sentence.” Mom opens and shuts her mouth a couple of times before she looks away with a huff, and Gran puts her nose in the air like that proves her point. “You want sugar in your tea, Dillon?”
I press the heel of my palm to my left eye, right where I can feel a vicious headache brewing. “Yeah, please,” I say quietly, thinking sugar might actually make the drink palatable, and won’t end with me dry-retching all over the table.
Mom’s busying herself pulling out the cookie tin, setting it on the table. “Here, baby. Gran made you some shortbread. I know it’s your favorite.”
I pick one out silently, nibbling at the edges of the buttery treat as Gran sets my mug in front of me, both she and Mom taking their seats.
“Now,” Gran says. “Tell us what happened.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, the shortbread turning to ash in my mouth as dread fills me. I don’tparticularly want to have this conversation, but I’m grateful my dad isn’t here to add his two cents.
In fact, he would probably just say something along the same lines as Jack did that night—that Charlie isn’t good enough to be with me anyway—and then Mom would get all quiet and sad, while Gran would start using her words like she was holding a stick and beating him with it.
“Dillon?” Mom asks, drawing me out of my thoughts.
I moisten my lips, stomach lurching as I stare into the murky brown depths of my tea. “I fucked up,” I mutter. “My friends. They…Iletthem say really horrible things about Charlie, and she overheard it. And then when she confronted me, I—” My voice cracks at the memory of calling hernothingand acting like it was true.
There is only one person who is nothing between us, and it isn’t fucking Charlie.
“You pulled a Gavin, didn’t you?” Gran says perceptively. “You got your head stuck up your ass and spewed out a pile of shit.”
Mom gasps, looking a little green around the gills. “Mother!Jesus. I’m not arguing with Gav about him coming round anymore if this is how you’re going to behave.”
Gran narrows her eyes at Mom. “And when will you ask your husband to behave, Elizabeth? When are you going to tell him it’s not okay to speak to you the way he does? Because look at what he’s done now!” She waves a hand in my direction, not even looking at me. “Your son is clearly ruined because of that slimeball you married. Why else would he think it is okay to talk to sweet Charlie the way he did?”
“Now, hold on,” Mom argues. “We don’t even know what he said, or what his friends did. Maybe it wasn’t thatbad. Charlie’s a sensitive girl. Maybe she’s just…you know…overreacting.”
Gran leans in close, her gaze intense and fiery. “Charlie’s not overreacting or underreacting, my girl. She’s justreacting—something you wouldn’t know anything about.”
Mom’s mouth trembles, just slightly, and then she whips her head toward me, demanding, “What did you say to her?”
