Theo points to his son. “Earmuffs, dude.”
Without missing a beat, Nash stuffs another bite of meatloaf into his mouth, and then covers both ears.
“While we all love a juicy story, Wyn...” Theo starts to say.
But it’s Jameson who sits with his arms crossed, observing, and shifting from being a part of this dinner and into hisdetective role. “Theo, come on,” he says, annoyed and almost reprimanding. When he looks back at me, it’s Wyn who he addresses. “Wyn, I’ve been told there are reports coming in too frequently lately, and while it’s not my department, if this is true...”
Fuck my life.
But Wyn answers over whatever her sister was saying. She looks at her uncle first. “I’m okay, and I shouldn’t have said that.” She shakes her head. “But that’s what it felt like,” she says, trying her hardest to backpedal.
Birdie just sips her wine, watching her granddaughter lie. Because I absolutely drugged her, but for some reason—and one I’m hoping has everything to do with how she wants to see me again too—she tells the men who looked seconds away from beating my ass that it was a poor choice of words.
“It was a bit...like I was in a daze, or like we—” She stops and looks down at the leather cuff she’s still wearing and smiles. Glancing quickly my way, she shakes off whatever she was planning to say. “We met a while ago, and I’m still not sure how I feel about seeing him again.” Her eyes are glassy when her attention lands back on me. It makes my chest ache. “Things got heated last night, and now it just feels like an inconvenient coincidence that we ended up in the same place again,” she says with an exhale.
Her words feel like a slap across the face.Inconvenient.
A succession of quick knocks sounds at the front door right after the doorbell rings out.
Jo stands, circling the table. “I’ve got it.”
“JulianfuckingColton,” she says, turning her head left and then right, almost in disbelief. “Damn, big sister. Total opposite of your usual type.”
I’m dying to hear this.“What type is that?” I whisper.
Wyn’s glaring eyes meet mine, and I can’t help but smirk at her. The twinge of jealousy that’s seeping through my veins of her having “other types” is only covered up by the fact that this dinner is a fucking shit show. “Can we talk for a minute?” I ask her.
Before she’s able to answer, Jo interrupts, lingering in the threshold of the room with another woman. “Birdie? She’s asking if she could have a chat with you?”
Wyn’s arms cross as she observes for a moment just as the young woman with glasses sees her and holds her hand up in a shy wave. “Good to see you, Dr. Crowne.”
Who the hell is that?This house is nothing if not unpredictable.
“Birdie, I’m so sorry, I tried to call,” the girl rushes out. “I didn’t want?—”
Birdie cuts her off with a click of her tongue. “No apologies necessary, honey. Glad you’re here now. You can head through there, and I’ll be right behind you.” When the woman walks down the hall that we had come in from, Birdie looks to Wyn and says, “I’d love it if you could find a few bottles for me, Wyn. I have to chat with my friend.” Humming to herself, distracted for a moment, she then comes back to what she was saying. “I hadn’t realized she was a student of yours.”
“Andi is a TA for our department,” Wyn says simply.
“Ah, that makes all the more sense,” Birdie says with a nod. She glances at Lu, one of their many silent exchanges I’ve noticed just in the time I’ve sat at this table, before looking back at Wyn. “There are a few clients who I’d like to offer something very special to when they arrive.”
“Wine or whiskey?” Wyn asks.
“Something of yours might be nice. Bring it to the bar for me?” She raises her eyebrows, pulling attention to the fact thatshe was drugged and slept it off in the same clothes from last night.
Wyn smiles at her grandmother, stands from the table, and brushes past me and mumbles, “Let’s go.”
I push my chair back and do the same, and the sound of it gliding against the wood floor has everyone’s attention. “I’ll help,” I say.
“She’s more than capable of getting what she needs on her own,” Lu says as she sips her drink, kicking her legs up and blocking me from following Wyn. “You can stay right here.”
I stop and look down at her legs brushing up against mine. “With all due respect, ma’am?—”
“Ma’am?!” she scoffs.
“Lu, let him go,” Birdie says. And just when I think she’s going to ignore the matriarch of their family, she lets me by.
I don’t say anything more; the dynamics in this room are far too complicated for me to figure out right now. I’d like to tell Lu to fuck right off, that I’ve done what I was asked to do, and my time is no longer their concern. But I have a feeling it would be wasted words. And at the end of it, she’s still Naomi’s—Wyn’s mother.
