“Seriously? That game is so old it belongs in a museum.”
“And your face belongs in a Ripley’s Believe it or Not. Get the fuck out of here, Kimber.” Parrish doesn’t falter in his gameplay, watching my six as I open a treasure chest. He’s not bad, I’ll admit. Not as good as Maxx, but not bad.
Maxx. Maxine. My sister.
I swallow hard but push the emotions back, focusing on my kick-ass Valkyrie avatar instead of my pain. That’s what I like about gaming, the ability to become someone or something else for a brief period of time. But in the end, reality always wins out. You can’t escape who you really are, can you?
“I hope the Seattle Slayer gets both of you,” Kimber spits, shoving Parrish’s shoulder before she takes off. He ignores her, scowling as he focuses on button mashing with me. We make it about halfway through before we’re both dead, and the game ends.
I hazard a glance his way.
“Tackle this again after some food?” I ask and Parrish nods. He doesn’t look at me though. Actually, he looks nervous as fuck, and I can’t figure it out. Is it because he admitted that he’s into me? Has to be.
We end up heading upstairs to find Tess, Paul, and Laverne seated around the table. Somebody ordered in, so there’s plenty of Chinese food to pick through. Also, it seems my bio mom is deeply entrenched in a bottle of wine.
“You don’t understand how the author world works,” she drawls, swinging her wineglass around in just such a way that liquid slops over the side onto the floor. Paul scrambles to clean it up while Laverne glares. The toxicity in the air is pungent; my immediate instinct is to GTFO. “Most people are social climbers. They use you until they get to the rung they want, and then they abandon you.” She sniffles and downs the rest of her wine as I approach the table with caution.
“Well, what did you expect when you got into the business of writing fairy tales?” Laverne quips as I cringe internally, piling my plate with fried rice while Parrish goes for the chow mein. “I don’t see why you continue churning out those ridiculous pulp fiction novels. You hardly need to work at all. You should be spending more time with the children.”
My shoulders tense and Parrish notices, flicking a warning look my way. It quite clearly says don’t fuck with Laverne, Dakota. Only … I’m not really paying attention to him. Instead, I’m focused on Tess’ exaggerated frown. I’m still angry with her, obviously. But I also want to see how she claps back at the matriarch of the Vanguard family.
“I write because … oh.” Tess sniffles again, looking at her empty wineglass like she can’t quite understand how it got that way. “I wrote to find my daughter, Laverne.” Tess gestures at me, drawing both Laverne’s and Paul’s attention my way. Fantastic. I keep adding food to my plate and acting like I’m not listening. “But there’s more to it. I just … I can’t explain it.”
I lift my head up to look at her. Her comment from that awful lunch at the country club—Maybe you don’t fully appreciate how much I like money?—rings in my head. Was she lying then? Does she see her work the way I do, as art, as something important?
“The children need a guiding hand,” Laverne continues, giving me a look. The way she looks at me, it’s that same cold assessing gaze I got from Parrish in the beginning. Clearly, she isn’t impressed with me either. “Someone has to be around to do it.”
“Guess I’ll deal with the fallout later, won’t I?” Tess quips right back, pouring herself more wine and sloshing it all over the table in the process. She’s definitely one of those Millennials who has shirts that say things like It’s Wine O’Clock and Eat, Pray, Wine. Not that I blame her. Actually, it’s one of her more intriguing qualities. “Maybe Paul should quit his job and deal with the kids?”
Laverne ignores her in favor of staring at me.
“How did you manage to find your way into this family?” she asks, which surprises me.
“Grandma.” Parrish’s tone holds a sharp warning that Laverne either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore.
“It just seems odd to me that you heard about a wealthy family looking for a lost child and then magically appeared, ready to enjoy all the benefits that come with it.”
Tess slams her wineglass down on the table and stands up, her chair legs scraping across the floor.
“She took three DNA tests, Laverne. And look at her. I mean, really look at her. You’re always scheming and plotting behind other people’s backs, so you assume everyone else is doing the same.” Tess throws back her wine as I stand there with my plate of food and try to decide if I should run or simply chuck my body out of one of the upstairs windows. Surely the high desert would be more forgiving than this crazy family?
“What do you think of your new sister, Parrish?” Laverne asks, as if she didn’t just call me a gold digger and a liar two seconds prior.
Parrish slams his plate down on the table so hard that it cracks before turning to look at his grandmother.
“First off, she is not my sister. Stop calling her that.” I hear the same words from him that he’s been repeating like a mantra since moment one only … the meaning is different. I catch myself holding my breath and force out a long exhale. “Second … she …” He chokes on the words for a moment before reaching up and running his inked fingers through his hair. “She’s alright. She definitely isn’t here for fun. Who would be? This family fucking sucks.”
“Parrish.” It’s a warning from Paul this time.
“And you can’t make someone love you by controlling them,” Parrish says next, surprising the crap out of me. He looks up and straight at Tess. “You shouldn’t keep her from talking to her sister and her grandparents.”
“Parrish.” This time it’s Tess, but she’s practically choking on his name.
“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Laverne continues, oblivious to the tension in the room. “You let the boy cover his skin in gangster tattoos and then find yourselves surprised when he talks back.”
“This is his art,” I blurt, surprising myself. “And he’s damn good at it, too. Have you ever looked at his sketchbooks? Do you even care?” I double the portions on my plate, slapping the food onto it with a vengeance. “Excuse us.”
This time, it’s me who grabs Parrish’s hand and drags him away from the table.
We end up sitting and sharing the plate of food at a small table on the opposite side of the room from the shuffleboard table.
“Did we just defend each other?” he asks me, staring hard at the fried rice instead of my face. “When did that happen?”
I do my best to stifle a smile, but it comes through anyway.
“I have no idea, but I like it. It’s much better than you ‘burying me’.” Parrish cringes slightly at the reminder of his opening challenge to me back in February. He picks at the rice with his fork.
“I’m sorry about my grandma. She’s a bitch, but we all put up with her because she’s a billionaire and everyone wants her money when she dies.”
“She’s a billionaire?” I ask dryly. “Like for real? Also, that’s pretty dark.”