“Yeah, something like that.” I take a stab at the elephant lurking in the parking lot. “Look, I know we never really hung out or anything. Heston pretty much preferred me to be as far from his orbit as possible. But just so you know, I’m not anything like him. You seem to have a pretty good grasp on Gwen’s family, so if you think that me being here will damage Sugar’s reputation with them, I should bail now.” I rake my hair back, blowing out a hard breath. “I really like this girl, so the last thing I want is her being judged on an association with my asshole brother that doesn’t even exist.”
“They’re not like that,” he says, twisting at the waist to peer in the window. “I mean, fuck, I’m petty as hell, but Gwen’s family? They even forgave me, and you know how much of a shit I was to Gwen. They’ll probably just see any association with Heston as another reason to take her under their wing. They love adding a new wayward soul to their flock.” He laughs, dark eyes flashing. “Hell, why do you think they like me so much?”
“Okay.” I nod, feeling a little bit of the tension easing. “Okay, good. That’s a relief.”
“How is your brother, anyway?”
“The same,” I reply, giving a bitter, tight-lipped smile. “I avoid him as much as possible, truthfully.”
He looks toward the door where the girls just walked in, face set into a pensive frown. “Have you told him about her?”
“Fuck no,” I reply quickly. Maybe too quickly. “You know how he is. First sign of a weakness and he grabs hold.”
“Yeah, I know.” He shakes his head. “Your girl looks tough on the outside—I guess she’d have to be to deal with the assholes at Preston—but bro. Bro.” He gives me a significant look. “Underneath that, she’s really got that fragile, lost thing going on, you know?”
Irritation at him sussing out Sugar so quickly puts me on edge. “The fuck does that mean?”
“Gwen’s family is the least of your worries. Your brother will sniff that shit out in a heartbeat.” He holds my eye. “If you know what’s good, you’ll keep him away from her.”
I already know this. It’s why I kept him away from her at the car show. But hearing Hamilton say it—Hamilton Bates, who was such a terrible bastard that he was the only one at Preston who could keep my brother in line—just cements my determination.
I exhale and nod. “Yeah, of course. Thanks for the advice. And look, not that it’s worth much, but I’m sorry about what he did to Gwen and Micha.”
Hamilton holds up a hand. “Don’t apologize for that sack of shit. That’s his baggage, not yours.”
By the time we walk into the restaurant, I’m seeing Hamilton Bates in a whole new light. He still seems like the same prissy little shit he always was, but he’s grown up a lot since high school. He doesn’t even mock me when I hold the door for an elderly couple exiting.
Meeting the rest of the family is a bit of a whirlwind. Sugar, seated to my right, looks like she’s already been caught in the storm of it. There’s a tightness around her eyes that tells me someone touched her—probably a handshake, maybe even several. And I was outside dicking around with Hamilton Bates. Fuck.
She just gives me a thin smile when I take my seat though, having given my own handshakes. Being so focused on her discomfort does have the advantage of taking my mind off everyone realizing I’m a Wilcox.
Micha reaches across the table to tap the table in front of me. “I told them not to touch her.”
His mom’s eyes widen. “Oh goodness gracious. You know that I completely forgot?”
“We weren’t supposed to touch her?” the oldest son—Brayden—asks.
Michaela offers, “Everyone at school knows it.”
Sugar looks like she wants to crawl into a hole and die. “No, it’s fine. I’m okay.”
I jump in, “So Micha, Michaela, you’re in the photography club too, right? I haven’t really given Sugar the chance to talk about it much. What all do you do?”
Michaela tilts her head, voice a perfect deadpan. “We take pictures.”
Her twin scoffs. “No, we do more than that. Critical theory, color theory, you name it. Mr. Lee has been on this wild composite photography kick lately. Sugar’s stuff has been really good this week. Not as good as mine,” he clarifies, making sure everyone at the table has ample opportunity to roll their eyes. “But still really good. I’m guessing because she has that fancy new laptop.”
I raise an eyebrow at her, not even trying to hide my smugness. “Yeah, she’s really good, right? There’s this one picture she took of our cat—I mean, not our cat, but one of the cats we feed. I wanted to buy the print for my mom because she’s always hassling me to send her pictures of the strays at Preston. But Sugar totally shot me down. Probably smart. I’m sure it’ll be worth like tens of thousands of dollars one day.”
Sugar blinks back at me, face slack with surprise. “You never told me you wanted that for your mom.”
I just shrug, shaking it off. “I have a camera on my phone. It’ll do, even if it’s not ‘true art’.”
Gwen and her mom go off on some tangent about a wildlife photographer they met in Africa. Sugar seems appropriately engaged in that—he’s apparently a big name in the industry—so I dig into my salad, trying my best to follow along.
It isn’t until Skylar asks, “So do you know where you want to study next year?” that I start to worry for her again.
Apparently, I don’t need to. “Well my absolute dream would be Yale. Their fine arts program is second to none. But my more realistic dream is probably SCAD. The counselor at Preston helped me apply to a lot, though, just in case.”
Mrs. Adams’s face lights up. “Oh, SCAD is lovely. Such a beautiful city. But I wouldn’t sell yourself short on Yale. They’d be lucky to have you.”
Sugar shrugs. “It’s a really competitive school, so I doubt it. Can’t hurt to try, though. SCAD is still—”
I lean in to interrupt, “What’s SCAD?”
“Savannah College of Art and Design,” Sugar explains to me. “The campus is fu—reaking amazing.”
“Better than Preston’s,” Mrs. Adams says, “and that’s saying a lot.”
“What about you, son?” Mr. Adams asks. “Got your eyes set on a particular school?”
I answer easily. “Ah, the appeal of academia is lost on me. I’m going to spend a few years travelling the world instead.”
The Adamses don’t look the least bit put off by this, even if Sugar shoots me a curious glance. Mrs. Adams even raises her glass to me. “That’s an equally valid experience. Learning from the world, giving back what you take, living on your feet. I had a couple years abroad in South Asia before law school, myself.”
Maybe they could have a talk with my dad to that effect. He’s not as sold on that whole validity thing. He hasn’t forbidden me or anything, but he’s still set Preston’s counselor on me like an attack dog.
Sugar and I share an awkward smile, glossing right over the obvious implications of what those kinds of plans might mean for a relationship. It’s early—too early to start thinking a future together—but whatever is happening between us is also too intense to completely ignore it.