“It’s bad, Ned. Really bad—”
“You’re telling me!”
“—because he doesn’t want your money. He wants you.”
2
LAVENDER
“Wants me to what?”Honestly, if my brows get any lower, they’ll be a mustache.
“He’s under the impression I was wageringyou.”
The space between us falls silent before it fills with my bark of a laugh.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tod. You can’t bet people—you can’townpeople. Not in this century.”
But Tod isn’t laughing. In fact, he looks in pain.
“He’s expecting me to hand you over. Like, right now.”
“Hand me…” I blink heavily as Tod’s explanation and its meaning sink in. “I’m not a fucking pizza!” I bellow, hurling my champagne glass across the room.
“I know,” he says as he ducks. But if I’d been aiming for him, he’d be picking glass out of his hair by now. “I know, and I’m sorry!”
“You’re sorry?” My voice is so shrill, I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself surrounded by barking dogs. Closing the spacebetween us, I stomp across the room without giving a flying fart for the sway of my dress as I swing it out of the way. “What you are is a fucking ingrate. After everything I’ve done for you! I’m not your posh Patek Phillipe,” I say, poking him in the chest, “because I’m not fake!”
“I lost that already.”
“I’m not a piece of art you can sell or trade!”
“I tried that—ow! Ned, you punched me.” His tone is full of reproach as he rubs his injured shoulder.
“It wasn’t an accident.” As one of seven siblings, four of them brothers, I know how to scrap—fight outside of polite lines. But I suppose the funny thing about that is, the one time I needed my fight club skills, they deserted me. I froze. But not now. Because now I think I might just pulverize Tod. “I’m going to do it again, only much harder and somewhere much more sensitive if you don’t tell me exactly, immediately, what the fuckery you’re talking about.”
“I didn’t mean—”
I raise my fist, but it seems my scowl is frightening enough as he brings up his hands in a show of surrender.
“I just meant you’d bail me out,” he blurts. “Not that I thought you’d need to—I swear I thought I had a winning hand!”
“Well, that makes me feelsomuch better.”
“I didn’t for one minute think I was offering you up as… as…”
“Collateral?” I sound like the queen. The angrier I get, the posher my accent becomes.
“But then I lost, and he said that wasn’t the deal. I argued, Ned. I really did!”
“My hero,” I deadpan.
“But then he sort of loomed over me.” His eyes dip to where my foot taps against the wooden floor. “And I…”
“Decided selling me into sexual slavery suited you better?” As the words spill from my mouth, my stomach turns inside out.Suddenly, my thigh-split slinky dress and heels don’t feel so sophisticated.
“He didn’t say that.”
“Don’t be such a floppy cock,” I snap. “He’s not expecting me to pop around and mow his lawn or put out his recycling.” Not for the money Tod’s suggesting.
