“I don’t need you to defend my honor,” I mutter, but I slide out of the booth anyway.
“I’m not defending your honor, I’m telling her to stay the fuck out of things that don’t involve her,” he says, and gives me a surprisingly gentle forehead kiss, given how pissed off he is. “Be right back.”
I slide back into the booth and look across the table at Silas and Kat. “Shit,” I mutter. “Sorry about this, we were having such a lovely time with pie.”
“You’re not the one who sucks, she’s the one who sucks,” Silas points out, and Kat nods.
“Also, floozy?” she says and I snort. “Harlot?”
“One of Gideon’s brothers called his other sister a Jezebel,” I say, and that gets a laugh out of Kat.
“That’s almost charming,” she says. “Shitty, but I don’t know if I could get mad about it.”
“I could,” Silas says. “I could get real mad.”
“Arrrrgh,” I say, shoving my hands into my eyes and remembering a little too late that I’ve got mascara on. “We were having such a nice time.”
‘That was fast,” Silas says, and I look up. Gideon’s back, standing by the table, and glowering.
“They left,” he says. “Either that or they’re hiding in the kitchen. You all ready?”
“Are we chasing them down?” Silas asks, and Gideon snorts.
“I wouldn’t give Beth the satisfaction,” he says, and we all slide out of the booth.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT
GIDEON
I walkthrough the parking lot dreaming of arson and how I could get away with it. I don’t want to murder my sister and her family—I doubt I’ll ever be that angry—but God, I’d like to light something on fire and watch it burn. Beth’s car, maybe. The shed behind her house. Her stupid garden that yields about three tomatoes per year but that she talks about like she’s virtuously feeding the whole neighborhood. It wouldn’t do a single goddamn thing to make her less of a self-righteous asshole, but I’d enjoy it.
“Sorry,” I tell Andi as we get into the car. It’s at least the third time I’ve said it. I might have said it more and already don’t remember. “I’m sorry about them. She’s—Beth’s—"
“A raging bitch with a martyr complex?” Andi says, sharp-edged but bright as ever.
“That,” I say.
“A fucking busybody who wants everyone to fall in line to validate her own life?” Andi goes on. “Pathologically incapable of imagining other modes of existence?”
I swallow hard and pull the car out, already driving a little too fast. On the road I take a glance over at Andi, and nearly crash.
She’s… smiling. Smirking? That face she makes when she’s up to something and about to start laughing.
“Yeah. Those,” I say, swerving the car back onto the road. “Are you okay? She has no fuckingright.”
“Sure she does. This is America, we’ve got free speech and shit.”
“Not what I meant.”
“I know. Sorry,” she says, and why issheapologizing, all she’s done is light up my life for the past two months.
“Don’t be.”
“Gideon, it’s fine,” she says, for maybe the fifth time since the incident. “I can handle your sister saying something impolite to my face. She’s disliked me since she was six and I made one of her knock-off Barbies drive around naked.”
I want to saythat’s not truebut I’m pretty sure it is.
“Maybe it’s some kind of alpha female pissing contest since she’s the oldest girl, I don’t know,” Andi goes on. “It doesn’t matter.”
