“This is too good!” she said, snapping pictures.
“You can’t send that out!”
“Too late. Do you know how boring it is working in a lab? This is the highlight of the year! People are going to be dildos for Halloween next year, just you wait!”
“I highly doubt I will be working at Svensson PharmaTech that long.”
* * *
“That’s a wrap for today, ladies,”I said several glasses of wine later. Jasmine had three fridges, because of course she did, and we packed the prepped food into them. There were going to be another couple days of prep. Hopefully, I would sell enough to start making a dent in my loans.
“I can’t believe my father,” I hissed through my teeth.
“Have you heard from him?” Jasmine asked in sympathy.
“No,” I said, shoving a pan of pasta into the fridge. “But it’s for the best.”
I still couldn’t believe it. There I had been, humming along in my bubble of bliss at college, writing a paper on Jane Austen, when the financial aid office had called me in and said the tuition check for that semester had bounced. That had led me to find out that my father and his girlfriend had convinced my grandmother, in her addled final months, to sign over all her property and money, including my college fund, to them so they could go be part of some cult in the desert.
“Unless he’s coming back with a stack of cash, then I don’t want anything to do with my father.”
I tried to be upbeat the rest of the evening, but I was dejected as I drove back to the apartment. I dropped off the dildos in Ida’s mailbox while Erika showered. Then I sat on the bed, scrolling through my student loan and credit card payment reminders. I flopped down on the comforter.
My phone buzzed with a message.
Dad:Hey honey, Moonbeam and I are thinking about taking a trip. We’ll be in your neck of the woods. We’ll stop by. Love to see you!
No. Absolutely not.
19
Parker
“You’ve been acting strange,” Garrett said, cornering me in the hallway. “And I don’t like it.”
“Let me guess…you have some sort of convoluted plan involving Dad, and you’re paranoid I’m going to ruin it. Are you sure he’s not back at the compound?”
“Dad is going to a wedding, supposedly.”
“I doubt he’s going to contact me.”
“Let me know if he does,” Garrett warned.
I brushed past him to the dining room and joined my little brothers in line.
“See,” Ellis said when he saw me. “Penny helps Garrett cook.”
“It’s just pasta,” Penny said as she handed him a plate.
“You don’t have to serve them,” Garrett told her, taking the spatula from her. “Sit down. You spent all this time cooking.”
“What happened to not having your girlfriend cook?” I said to Garrett.
He raised the metal spatula threateningly.
“I love cooking!” Penny exclaimed. “I never do it enough. And it’s a use-it-or-lose-it skill.”
“Parker never had it to begin with,” Isaac said.
