I kept my poker face. I had been carefully studying and strategizing about how to once and for all convince my father to sign over my brother to me.
I knew he was self-absorbed, but he loved nothing more than to lord his power over other people. My father was also lazy, which was why he was going after a naïve, impressionable, twenty-one-year-old and not an experienced woman his own age who would not worship the ground he walked on and would definitely not put up with his shit.
If I made it sound like Alfie was a big headache, I might be able to convince my father to sign the adoption papers.
“I thought you were completely obsessed with him,” my father said, regarding me critically.
“Like I said, he’s a weird tween. Plus, now that he’s done with the cancer treatments, it’s not like there are any events or fundraisers you can take him to. I regularly foist him off on the Svenssons for free babysitting. Alfie’s going to want to start sports teams in the fall, which means chauffeuring and sweaty laundry. He eats all the food and leaves dirty dishes in his room. You don’t want to deal with his drama while trying to make Tatiana happy.”
“Eh.” My father took another sip of his beer. “Yeah, I guess it would be better not to. But I don’t see why you can’t just stay his guardian. I don’t see anything wrong with our current arrangement.”
“I just want the tax break,” I said, trying to keep my body language loose and open. “I can bounce money off him into an offshore account much cleaner if he’s my son. You know how it is.”
I knew my father didn’t know anything about finances. He was a professor of antiquities. But he loved to pretend he was savvy.
“Ohhh, I see,” he said, nodding, “Right, right. Well, you know what? Why don’t you come to Tatiana’s graduation and bring Alfie. I’ll think about what you’ve proposed in the meantime.”
Over lunch, I made polite chitchat with my dad, really stroking his ego as he bragged about all the college girls who were all over him. I was proud of myself for not giving away how appalled I was when he elaborated on how he had been working his way through all the girls in the study-abroad trip he had chaperoned in Greece over spring break.
Just a little longer.
I had come further than I ever had with my father on the adopting-Alfie front. I was so close.
Just don’t blow it.
After my father left, I had to order my own drink and settle my head back on straight.
I would count the lunch as a win.
But honestly, a drink wasn’t quite what I had in mind for celebrating.
I took out my phone to text Amy.
29
Amy
“Oh, Sebastian,” I moaned as he licked my ear. “You came back. You want to finish what we started?”
He didn’t answer, just kept licking my ear then my neck. They were very slobbery licks too.
I blearily opened my eyes then jumped when Baxter neighed at me.
“Oh my god,” I said to the pony as he took a mouthful of my hair and pulled. “You can’t seriously be mad about the pretzel.”
The little horse neighed in indignation.
I petted his furry head then stumbled to the bathroom.
Talk about wild rides!
Sebastian had been amazing.
I wished I had experienced the whole shebang.
“Bet he’s hung like a horse,” I told myself as I ran the water for a shower. In the kitchen-slash-living-room-slash-bedroom-slash-shrine-to-the-disaster-my-life-had-become, Baxter banged around, expressing his displeasure at not receiving his post-travel pretzel the previous day, and at the fact that his owner was not making haste to immediately correct the grievance.
I stuck my hand under the water, hoping it was warm so that I could shower and start my day. We had several big meetings planned.
