I feel myself bristling, shifting on my feet and preparing myself for a full-on assault.
He doesn’t even give me the satisfaction of trying to one-up him with some casually thrown commentary. Instead, he collects his croissant, slips it in the front pocket of his Whitehall Prep hoodie (weird, but okay), and then sweeps past me, knocking me out of the way with his elbow.
I turn to … I don’t know, follow after or something, but then Tess appears at the bottom of the stairs, pausing to place a gentle hand on the top of Parrish’s head, like he’s seven instead of seventeen.
“Morning, son,” she says, her eyes warm with love. He pauses to let her kiss his forehead, but otherwise gives no indication as to whether he enjoys the attention or not. “Morning, Mi—” Tess stops herself, her eyes darkening slightly as she focuses on me. A pang of longing hits me in the chest, memories of Grandma Carmen’s big Irish breakfasts, the ones that her grandma taught her how to make. She looked at me and Maxine the way Tess looks at Parrish, with unfailing dedication and endless love.
I try to remember if she still looked at me that way after she knew, or if her eyes were just too clouded with sadness to see anything but the storm of regrettable melancholy.
“Dakota,” Tess says finally, and I can’t help but notice Parrish glancing over his shoulder to smirk at me before he slips out the front door.
“You’re a sickening disappointment.”
He wasn’t wrong about that: I can see it written all over Tess’ face. I am not what the millionaire crime novelist was expecting.
The feeling inside of me is compounded by the fact that Tess was—and probably still is—my favorite author. So, my idol and my mother both are disturbed by me.
“Good morning.” The words sound hollow, like an echo of the greeting I’d call out as I hurried down the worn, wooden steps and skidded around the railing back home, a mere three thousand miles away from here.
Tess smiles at me, but the expression doesn’t quite reach her eyes, eyes that are the same endless pitch as my own, as Kimber’s. My stomach hollows out, and I turn back toward the kitchen, ignoring the way anxiety makes my gut twist as Tess moves into the room behind me.
I hesitate near the kitchen island, my eye falling to the basket filled to the brim with croissants, scones, shortbread cookies, tea cakes, and brownies. I’m surprised for a brief moment that this is an acceptable breakfast in a house such as this, but I’m too hungry to resist.
I reach out to take an all-too tempting scone dotted with bits of cranberries and orange zest when Tess makes a small sound as she comes up beside me.
With the scone in hand, I glance her direction and find myself surprised to see her staring at me with an uncertain expression.
“I’m sorry, Dakota,” she starts, the sound of my real name scraping off the end of her tongue like it hurts her to even force it out. “But that basket is for Paul’s business partner; it’s his one-year anniversary of joining the practice.” She hesitates as Chasm snickers and skirts out of the room to join Parrish.
Meanwhile, I’m left standing there, holding a scone that feels like it weighs a million pounds and wishing the floor would just open up and swallow me whole.
Guess she didn’t see Chasm and Parrish chowing down, now did she?
I feel suddenly so awkward that I’m afraid I might throw up again. Here I am, stuck in this house with these people, and I’m supposed to act like it’s my home and when I do …
I put the scone back and Tess cringes again, only to make me realize that I’ve just sort of contaminated the whole basket by tossing it in.
“Mia, wait,” Tess calls out as I spin on my heel and take off for the side door that leads into the garage. I slip inside, ignoring the crush of reporters that I can see through the open garage door, and then slide into the backseat of an idling sportscar.
“Whoa, Little Sister,” Chasm whistles, turning to look at me over his shoulder. My face is burning, and I know I look ridiculous, barefoot and mussed and flushed all over. Can’t wait to see these photos popping up all over the internet. “What are you doing in here?”
I glance to the right just as the door opens again and Tess appears, flustered and red-faced.
“I can’t be here anymore,” I choke out as Parrish proceeds to ignore me, pulling his stolen croissant out and biting into it. He gives me a bored, apathetic sort of look in the rearview mirror. “Please.” I hate the way my voice sounds, high and reedy and pleading. Tess turns back around and heads inside, like she thinks I must’ve escaped the house in some other way. As in, the thought of me sitting in a sportscar with her do-no-wrong son is an impossibility. “Just drive.”
“Suit yourself,” Parrish says, and then he shifts gears and reverses out of the open garage door in just such a way that my body slams back against the seat and then flies forward when he hits the gas to head toward the front gate.
It slides open automatically, and we just barely clearly the edge of it as it continues opening along a track. Reporters duck out of the way, snapping pictures of the car as we go.
Chasm and Parrish share a look and then Chas leans forward to turn up the volume on some CORPSE song that I vaguely recognize.
Leaning my head back against the seat, I try to be grateful that they’re ignoring instead of taunting me.
My eyes close as I struggle not to go back to that moment, to Tess’ reddened face. Why are embarrassing moments so sticky? They cling like cobwebs to the corners of your mind, latching onto any stray thought until they’re at the forefront and you’re forced to live them over and over and over again.
With a groan, I swipe both hands down my face and then lean in between the two front seats to turn the music down.
“You might’ve told me those pastries were for your dad’s work,” I growl out, turning to look at Parrish as Chasm chuckles on my other side.
As if in response to my question, Parrish slams on the brakes and sends me flying into the back of my seat with a grunt.
“Maybe you should’ve asked?” he counters, hitting the gas again and taking off with a squeal of tires. I struggle to get my seatbelt on, cursing my new stepbrother all the while and hating his stupidly gorgeous best friend with the crazy hair and the whiplash smile.
Nevaeh and Sally would be in boy heaven. Feels like I’m in boy hell at the moment.
“Is Tess always so …” I struggle to find the right word as Chasm turns the volume back up on the music, but not quite as high as it was before.
“Uptight?” he queries, and then gives another barking laugh as Parrish shoots him an evil look. “Yeah, pretty much. Why? Let me guess: it was all puppies and kitty cats back home?”
His voice straddles the edge between playful teasing and mocking derisiveness, leaving me unsure how to respond.
I regret saying what I did to Parrish last night, but at the same time, I’m not about to let these two bully me.
“If you mean, did my grandparents love me unconditionally and show it through words and actions? Then yeah, it was puppies and kitty cats. Seeing as you’re always at Parrish’s place”—not about to call that sterile asylum home—“I’m guessing your homelife most certainly isn’t.”
Chasm flinches at about the same moment that I do. Shit. And there I go again, saying awful, awful things that I don’t really mean and feeling guilty about it.