Twisted Palace(38)
There’s a giant painting of Maria that hangs over the fireplace, and when Callum and Brooke announced their engagement, Brooke sat under it with a smug smile. The boys were so mad about the engagement, the way it was announced, even about Brooke’s ring—which was a match for the one Maria wore in the portrait. The whole setup was like a human-sized middle finger.
“She didn’t have the time,” I mutter.
“I suppose not. I imagine the first thing she’d do is redecorate the place from top to bottom. Everything in that house has Maria’s fingerprints all over it.” He shakes his head. “Those boys all idolize her. Callum, too, but no living person is a saint.” He tilts his head slightly, sliding a glance in my direction. “It’s not good to place a woman on a pedestal. No offense, sweetheart.”
Is that…resentment in Steve’s voice? I really can’t tell. “None taken,” I mumble.
If Steve had intended to make the conversation between us even more awkward, he picked the perfect topic.
“So this car is really fast,” I say in a desperate attempt to distract him from the Maria train of thought.
A faint smile touches the corners of his mouth. “I hear you. No more questions about Maria. What about your mother? What was she like?”
“Kind, loving.” What do you remember about her? I want to ask, but before I can, he’s already moving on.
“How are you enjoying school? Grades okay?”
This man has a serious case of ADHD. He can’t stay on one topic for more than two seconds.
“School’s fine, I guess. My grades are fine.”
“Good. That’s good to hear.” He throws me another curveball. “You’re dating Reed?”
My mouth snaps open in shock. “I…ah…yeah,” I finally admit.
“Is he treating you well?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like seafood?”
I fight the urge to rub my confused eyes. I don’t understand this man. All I know is that he drives too fast and has spitfire conversations that make my head spin.
I can’t make sense of him. At all.
* * *
“That. Was. The. Worst.”
Hours later, I stomp into Reed’s bedroom and throw myself onto his bed.
Reed sits up and leans against the headboard. “Aw, come on. It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” I grumble. “It was the worst.”
“What was the worst?” Easton asks from the doorway, then barrels into the room.
“Dude, you need to learn how to knock,” Reed tells his brother in exasperation. “What if we were naked?”
“Naked implies you’re having sex. And we all know you’re not.”
I stifle a sigh. I should probably be used to the frank way Easton discusses Reed’s and my sex life, but I’m not.
“You weren’t in Chem,” Easton informs me, as if I wasn’t aware of my own absence. “You and Val skip?”
“No.” I grit my teeth. “Steve pulled me out of school for some father/daughter bonding.”
“Ah. Gotcha.” Easton flops down on the bed next to me. “Didn’t go well, huh?”
“Nope,” I say glumly. “I don’t get him.”
Easton shrugs. “What’s there to get?”
“Him.” I run a hand through my hair in frustration. “He’s like a man-child. We had breakfast at the pier, then took a drive up the coast and had lunch at this restaurant on top of a cliff. I swear, all he did was talk about cars and how much he loves flying planes. Then he told me about all the times he almost died on his crazy adventure trips and how he wishes he was still a Navy SEAL because he loved blowing shit up.”
Reed and Easton snicker. They’d stop laughing pretty darn fast if they heard the comments Steve had made about Maria, but I don’t want to poison that well, so I concentrate on the other weird stuff. And there was plenty.
“He changes subjects so fast it’s impossible to keep up,” I say helplessly. “And I can never tell what he’s thinking.” My teeth sink into the inside of my cheek as I look at Reed. “He knows we’re together.”
My boyfriend nods. “Yeah, I figured. We weren’t exactly trying to hide it.”
“I know, but…” I swallow. “I got the feeling he doesn’t like it. And that’s not even the worst part.”
“Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like a badass day?” Easton pipes up. “I want to eat on a cliff.”
“He wants me to move in with him and Dinah.”
That shuts Easton up. Both he and Reed go stiffer than the bedposts.