“Fine! Yes!” Still waving. Still smiling. “But I also wrote one that saved you.”
Now my fingers are the ones tightening. “Oh yeah? And you what, buried it so no one would ever see it? Burned it at midnight under a full moon to cast some kind of hex on me?”
Wave-and-smile Victorian Wife vanishes as CJ slowly pivots to face me fully. The look on her face is almost pitying.
“Have you really not figured it out?”
I wave my mittened hand in irritation. “What’s to figure out? You were so desperate for some kind of connection that night, you made up a fantasy about us after a couple of hours, and then you took it out on me when that made-up story was a lie, just like everything that’s come after from you.”
The words taste bitter because I made up those fantasies just as much as she did, but what would be the point of admitting it? Those fantasies died a long time ago.
Judging by her poisonous expression, she’s got no fantasies left about me, either.
“Go to hell, Wyatt.” She pulls our hands out of her pocket and flings mine at me. “I want my mitten back.”
“What?”
“You heard me!” she screeches. The parade crowd has ceased to exist as Victorian Mommy and Victorian Daddy fight it out in their open-air living room.
“You’re serious right now.” I give an incredulous laugh.
“Serious as a stolen…” Her mouth slams shut, and she snaps her fingers at me. “Hand it over.”
“You fucking child,” I mutter. With a disgusted headshake, I tug off the mitten, but I hesitate before handing it over. Something about this exchange feels off. CJ’s always an erratic lunatic when I see her, but she seemed to be expecting something from me. What, I’m not sure, but this is all… wrong, somehow.
Then she gets us back on course by snatching the mitten out of my hand and jamming it onto hers.
“I hope you lose every last one of your fingers,” she says with a sniff before resuming her smiling and waving. She refuses to say another word to me for the rest of the interminable parade route.
Nine
Now
Wyatt
* * *
I throw open the door to my overpriced hideaway for the night and find my sisters sitting side by side on the couch, Becks chattering and Drea listening with a half smile. They both look up as I sarcastically gesture for CJ to lead the way into the room.
“Elf clown!” Becks cries happily.
“Who?” CJ looks around in confusion. “Me?” Then she catches her reflection in the full-length mirror. “Okay, yeah, I see it.”
She makes a move to walk toward it, but I grab her elbow again. “You. Talk.”
She pointedly looks down at my fingers, and I release her like she’s a fence that’s just become electrified. Retreating to my favorite perch on the desk, I watch warily as she crosses the room to settle onto the floor next to her bag of tricks. I refuse to notice what the act of sitting does to her already criminally short skirt.
“So.” She pulls the wig off and ignores my command. “You must be the famous sisters. Becks?” She glances at the blonde, then turns her attention to the brunette. “And Drea, right?”
Becks beams. Drea’s lips twitch fractionally upward.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” CJ says cheerfully. “I adore your brother.”
I must make some kind of noise because three pairs of eyes land on me.
“Ohhh, you mean Holly,” Becks says.
CJ scoffs. “Obviously.”
