“Excellent. I’d say that’s progress.”
“You’re a brilliant mentor in the pursuit of alcoholism.”
I laughed. “Thanks, I try, but let’s not make that an actual pursuit, shall we?”
She looked into my eyes for a long moment, her bright blue eyes turning slightly wary. “Why are you agreeing to marry my idiot sister?”
“Wow. Straight to the point, then, huh?” I just sat there for a second, then nodded. “Okay. I can respect that.”
Technically, neither Jesse nor I had agreed to marry anyone, but Eliza clearly hadn’t been told that, and since I was supposed to be trying to get my brother into her good graces, I figured this wasn’t the time to question her father’s communication skills.
On the other hand, he probably didn’t know about Jesse’s refusal either. Eliza kept looking at me, everything about her so innocent and pure that I suddenly had the intense urge to protect her, to shield her not only from all this bullshit, but from the world as a whole—and vodka, but at least I’d won that battle already this evening.
“I assume you realize what you’re signing up for publicly,” she said, mercifully oblivious to my thoughts. “Do you have any idea what Winnie’s reputation is?”
“Yes,” I said, although it was only true in the broadest possible sense.
She leaned forward slightly. “No, I don’t think you do.”
Oh boy. Here it comes.
“Winnie is…” She paused, pretty obviously searching for a diplomatic word to describe her sister. “She’s, well, she’s Winnie.”
“She is.”
“What that means is that she tends to be impulsive, slightly dramatic, and absolutely everything she does ends up online.”
“Yeah, I think I got that part.”
“You got a taste of it, but I’m not kidding when I say that most of her day is spent with her camera on,” she said. “Then there’s Eugenie.”
I gotthis closeto making a face at the mere mention of her name, but managed to catch myself right on time. “Yeah, Eugenie. How is she these days? I haven’t really kept up.”
Picking up my drink again, I swirled the liquid in my glass, trying to look like I might have some fond memories of her, as well as some complicated feelings about her. It was a dangerous game, since I had no idea what Jesse’s actual relationship was with her at this point, but it was also my only option.
Eliza studied me for a moment. “She’s Eugenie.”
Okay. That seems to be a family diagnosis, then. I wonder what it really means.“Well, she did always have a strong personality.”
“So you remember how things ended, then?”
Uh, no, but since I can’t actually say that, this is going to be where my business skills are going to have to come in.“Yeah, of course, but I’m curious how you saw it.”
She didn’t even hesitate. “I saw it as a complete disaster, but I suppose that was why it ended between you. Honestly, everyone saw that breakup coming from a mile away.”
I nodded, not even having to fake how true that was. Happy that I’d successfully baited her into doing the work for me, I leaned back and just listened. Pretending to be Jesse was one thing. Trying to remember every disastrous phase of his love life was an entirely different level of nightmare.
As she spoke, recounting some of the more entertaining incidents that had happened between him and her sister, she kept sipping her syrup disguised as a cocktail. Finally, she smiled and flushed again. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this. You were there, of course. I’m sure you remember.”
“It was a long time ago. I was young and stupid. Frankly, it was a different time. I was a different person.”
Literally.
She looked at me like she was trying to see through my skull, but I wasn’t worried. Everything I’d just said had been true—for both Jesse and myself. We’d both been young and stupid, but back then, Jesse had also been reckless and chaotic. Probably even flammable some days.
“I always wondered how you felt now about everything that happened back then,” she said after pausing for a brief moment. She looked back down at her drink, turning the glass slowly between her fingers. “I suppose you both really were young, though. Only college students.”
I nodded, but as I reached for my drink again, I caught a flash of her laptop from the corner of my eye and decided to try again. If for no other reason than my own morbid curiosity and an exit ramp out of this line of conversation.
