“Yes,” I said, staring her down.
Andy meant more to me than any stories Pippa might tell. Than anything anyone could say about me.
The moment I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake. Pippa’s eyes lit up like all her Christmases had come at once.
She’d found a weakness. I’d gone and handed it to her.
“Really?” she asked, diving past me to grab at Andy again.
“Hey!” he objected, but too late. Pippa had his tattered wallet in hand, and there was no getting it back without fighting her for it.
“Let’s find out about this boy you like so much,” she said, flipping it open. “Oooh, look at this.”
Pippa pulled out a single-use lube packet and a condom wrapper, and my stomach sank as the whole room burst into laughter.
“How is it they phrase it?” Will spoke up. “Pitcher or catcher, Andy?”
Another round of laughter that made my stomach twist into knots.
“Give me that,” Andy said, snatching for it, but Pippa only laughed as she held it out of his reach.
“Ah ah ah,” she scolded. “Play nice.”
“Andrew Moreno,” she read, holding his driver’s license up so everyone could see it. “Oh, look at that, two years younger than Kit. Got a taste for older men, Andy?”
Another round of laughter rumbled around the room, and I was helpless to stop it. Helpless todoanything. Defending Andy would only make it worse.
I didn’t know why I’d expected them to age out of their cruelty, but they hadn’t. Of course they hadn’t. Why would they? Cruelty hadn’t ever gotten in their way.
“Give it back,” Andy said, stepping forward even as Pippa backed up again.
“Well, at least we know he can drive,” she added.
“Yeah, I can drive,” Andy said, finally snatching his wallet out of Pippa’s hand. “My dad made me learn, because he figured I could always fall back on cab driving if college didn’t work out. Like he did. Did everyone hear that? My dad drove a cab all his life until he died of a heart attack at fifty-seven. My mom cleaned houses for people like you until we lost her to lung cancer when I was fourteen. I grew up in Brooklyn doing odd jobs for my neighbors and relying on charities like the one Kit’s dad runs to eat. I’ve got more in common with your goddamnstaffthan I do with any of you spoiled assholes and I’m proud of it. You wanna laugh at me? Laugh. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.”
He shoved the wallet in his pocket and walked off before I could react, the door slamming behind him hard enough to rattle the walls.
Everyone laughed. Again.
Anger welled up in my throat.
I’d had a lifetime of being tormented by these people, but Andy didn’t deserve it. Andy had never, as far as I knew, done wrong to anyone in his entire life.
“Are you happy now?” I asked over the laughter. “Do you feel better about your miserable little lives now that you’ve convinced yourselves that the best thing in mine isn’t worth having?”
“Come on Kit,” Will said. “We’ve all gone in for a bit of rough here and there, but he’s—”
“He’s what?” I snapped.
“Not one of us, is he?” Flick spoke up. “It’s not as though you could be serious about him. We were only having a bit of fun.”
My fingernails dug into the flesh of my hand as I clenched my fist, white-hot anger flashing through me.
“Icanbe serious about him because I damned wellamserious about him,” I said, louder than I meant to. “I have never met a man more thoughtful or kind or brilliant than he is. You can be as cruel to me as you like, I don’t ever expect that to change, but I willnotallow you to be cruel to Andy. You aren’t fit to shine his shoes for him, and you know what? He wouldn’t let you suffer the indignity, hestillwouldn’t let you, because he’s a good enough person that I have no doubt he still thinks you lot rise to the level ofhuman, which you do not.”
Will opened his mouth, which was very brave of him considering how badly I wanted to hit something at the moment.
“Before you say it, I could not give less of a damn who you are, Will. If you can’t extend the basic courtesy of not terrorizing a guest, then you can take your entire bloody estate and shove it so far up your arse that you choke on it.”
