I shook my head. “My feelings haven’t changed. I just… everything is confusing.”
“I get that.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. A tense moment stretched between us.
I exhaled a long breath and admitted, “I mean, Iamworried about Eddie. It’s not that I didn’t believe you when you said that Eddie had problems, but I guessseeingit…?”
“It’s different when you know,” he said.
“It’s real now,” I agreed.
He scratched the back of his neck. “Well, don’t worry too much. My father is going to spend every dime he has personally flying all the way around the globe to save his son.”
“Mad Dog said the same when I got back to the lodge.”
Fen didn’t seem surprised that Mad Dog knew about this. “My guess is that they’re going to pay off some high-level people to get him out, and it’s going to be expensive.” Fen shook his head slowly. “At some point, it’s so dumb that you just give up. What’s the point of caring anymore? My all-powerful father is willing to go to such great lengths to rescue my fuckup of a brother—no offense.”
“A little taken,” I mumbled.
“Yet that same father can’t be bothered to drive a mile and a half down the street to come work things out with me. He’d rather dump me at my aunt’s and move on.”
My father wouldnever.
I couldn’t count on much in this world, but I could count on Leo Marlow. I’d kept a lot of secrets from him. It was the Marlow way. We needed a new way.
“I’m sorry,” Fen said. “I shouldn’t unload on you about Eddie. That’s not fair. This is all new to me, you know.”
“Oh, really? You don’t regularly slink around with your brother’s girlfriend?”
“You’re my first slink.”
“You’re mine too,” I told Fen. “And I’m not very good at slinking. I drove all the way around the lake in a car that I failed to check out properly on the lodge’s automobile checkout sheet.”
“Hot wheels? See, I disagree. If you didn’t sign it out, then you didn’t take it. Smart. Very slinky.”
“So basically, I’m the better deviant right now?”
“And to think, you once calledmethe Ruiner.”
I snorted a laugh. “Did I really say that?”
“Youshoutedthat.”
“Pot to kettle,” I said, shoving him lightly.
He laughed a little. “You give good shouting. I was just riffing off your energy.”
“No, I was raised not to shout. Domestics are quiet. After spending the day with your family, I can tell that you all had to shout over each other to get attention. Ari’s got lungs on him.”
“Ani’s got lungs too, but she chooses to play her cards close to her chest.”
“I like the twins. I had fun today. Until… you know.”
“Tell me more about how you enjoyed today, because that’smaking me feel better,” he said as we walked to the piano.
“Okay, let’s see… I liked that you don’t have a team of domestics, because it makes a house too sterile and you walk around paranoid that you’re going to leave fingerprints on the glass and have to wipe them up before someone sees. People should leave a mark, you know?”
“Never thought about it like that.”
“And I liked eating new food.”
