“You don’t own a watch,” Drew pointed out.
“Whatever. It’s an expression, dummy.”
Cody elbowed his brother and then returned his fork to his plate again so he could shovel some more mashed potatoes into his mouth.
“Are the teenagers girls or boys?” I asked. “Or a mixture of both?”
“Both.”
“They’re not running a brothel,” Amber said.
“I said a human-trafficking business, not a brothel. There’s a difference.”
Mr. Nolan looked deeper in thought than I’d seen him all night. “Why’re you just sharin’ this little theory of yours now?”
Cody shrugged. “I don’t know. Thought Ryan might think it was interesting.”
“Well, you wanna know what I think?” Mr. Nolan pointed his fork at his son as he spoke. “I think I’m gonna take a little walk over there tomorrow and see what’s goin’ on. If they don’t want the cops coming to check things out, then they better think of a way to keep me quiet.”
It took Mrs. Nolan a minute to draw a conclusion about what her husband meant, but once she put the fucked-up pieces together, she said, “No way, Drew. You will not threaten to call the police on our neighbors.”
“They’re not our neighbors. You heard Cody. They don’t even stay there. Human-trafficking ring or not, they’re up to some shady shit, and I’m gonna find out what.”
She let out a sigh, sounding defeated without much of a fight. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Fine,” Mr. Nolan grunted out. “What would you prefer?”
“Andrew promised earlier that we could talk about the wedding at some point,” Drew’s mom said. She sounded excited, which made me feel like shit.
“Yeah, can we please?” Courtney asked.
“You know we don’t have much money, so I thought my gift to you two could be that I can do the flower arrangements,” Drew’s mom told him.
Drew moved some peas around on his plate. “No, you don’t have to do that.”
I assumed that Drew was trying to dissuade her just because he didn’t want to have to discuss floral choices right now. Had it been a real wedding, I wondered if Mrs. Nolan would even have come through with the flowers she’d promised.
“Yes, I insist. It’s the least I can do.”
“No, it’s really fine. Sophia’s…allergic to flowers.”
I guessed Mrs. Nolan’s expression mirrored my own: one of complete surprise. “Really? That’s a shame. Which ones?” She directed her question at me, which meant I’d have to answer.
“Um, all of them actually.”
Mrs. Nolan looked like she was trying to make sense of my response, like she was trying to solve a Rubik’s cube and couldn’t figure out how to get even one side to be all the same color.
“Hmm, I’ve never heard of that.”
“Yeah. It’s rare” was all I had to offer.
Drew’s mom seemed disappointed, but she didn’t vocalize it. “Well, it’s the thought that counts, right?”
Drew and I nodded in appreciation and went back to our food.
“Let’s discuss the bridesmaids’ dresses, then,” Amber said. “Everyone needs those.”
“Did you pick your maid of honor yet?” Courtney added.
“Oh, no. Not yet. It’ll probably be my friend Taylor, but I haven’t formally asked her yet.”
Heather put her beer bottle down after taking a sip. I wasn’t sure if she was even old enough to drink, but my guess was the Nolans didn’t exactly abide by society’s norms anyway.
“Does she look good in warmer colors or cooler?” she asked.
“Both. She’s gorgeous.”
“Perfect,” Cody said. “She’ll look great on my arm, then.”
Drew shot a look of warning at him because he should know better than to contribute to the conversation about a fake wedding.
“What? I’ll be best man, I’m sure. So me and Taylor’ll be like a couple for the night.”
“Who do you think I’m gonna walk with?” Amber asked.
Drew placed his palms on the table, like he was preparing to stand in the event that we had to exit suddenly.
“Okay, I can’t do this anymore,” he said. “I’m sorry, everyone—Mom, especially—but Sophia and I aren’t getting married.”
“Oh God, what happened?” his mom asked, a hand on her heart like Drew might have just broken it.
“Nothing happened. We were never engaged. I just said that because I didn’t want to come back here to recover.” He sighed loudly as he looked at his plate. Then he brought his eyes up to meet his mother’s. “I’m sorry.”
Everything went silent. Forks stopped picking up food, knives ceased their cutting, and for a few seconds, I couldn’t even hear anyone breathe.
I’d pictured this moment, and in my version, I wasn’t here to witness it. Drew would just tell me about it after the fact and how it was tough for his mom at first, but she was fine after she’d accepted it. But now I wasn’t so sure.
She’d closed her eyes, and I wondered if she’d done that to stop herself from crying.
When she opened them, she said, “Okay.” She breathed deeply again, pulling in as much oxygen as she possibly could. “So you’re not getting married?”
“No,” Drew answered softly. “Are you gonna be okay? I’m sure one day I’ll get married. I just don’t know when that’ll be. But whenever it happens, you can do the flowers. I promise.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he assured her.
“Good,” Mr. Nolan said. “Now that that’s settled, we can go back to how I’m gonna blackmail the human traffickers.”
I’d never been so thankful for an old bastard in my whole life.
Chapter Twenty-One
D R E W
“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Sophia said as we made our way from the car to the small Italian restaurant that was close to campus.
I’d never been to Salvadore’s before, but Sophia had heard good things, and I was more than happy to go wherever she wanted.
I’d finally been freed from my cast the previous week, only having to wear a post-op brace. My physical therapist had also given me the all-clear to start using a cane as long as I wouldn’t be doing too much walking. I was still stiff and sore, though, made all the worse by the atrophied muscles in my leg, but I was getting stronger every day. My doctor also had high hopes that my nerves wouldn’t have permanent damage, even though pins and needles still raced up and down my thigh from time to time.
Despite having more mobility, I hadn’t ventured outside the house very often. It was daunting in some ways to be out on my own, and everyone had limited time to take me on field trips. I didn’t want to be a burden by asking them to take me for a walk like I was a family pet or some shit. But when, on a whim, I’d asked Sophia to go out to dinner with me, she’d beamed as she’d said yes, and I realized that I was maybe a dumbass. I mean, I knew I was, but I had thought I was getting better. Apparently not.
It hadn’t even occurred to me that people might want to hang out with me—that they weren’t doing it as some sort of penance but because they enjoyed my company. Especially Sophia.
I pulled open the door to Salvadore’s and held it for her. She cast me a small grin that told me she appreciated the gesture. Since I’d called and made a reservation, the hostess sat us almost immediately, which was a relief because I didn’t want to test my leg’s endurance. It was already starting to throb a bit. She directed us to a booth, and we slid in across from each other.
“Any idea what’s good?” I asked as I opened my menu.
She did the same as she replied, “Everything, from what I’ve heard.”
“That narrows it down.”
“It’s good to have options.” Her tone was overly light, and I got the sneaking suspicion that she was talking about more than the food.
I narrowed my eyes at her as I tried to figure out what she wasn’t sa
ying. She kept her focus on the menu, but I could tell she was intentionally avoiding making eye contact with me. I put down my menu and folded my arms on top of it as I stared at her.
It didn’t take her long to crack. “What?”
“What yourself.”
She sighed, putting her menu down as well. “I don’t know what that even means.”
I leveled an unimpressed look at her. “Start talking, Mason, or I’m going to fake a leg spasm and start flopping around on the floor.”
“Your threats don’t scare me.”
“No, but it sounded like options do.”
The look she gave me was not a nice one, but she followed it up with a groan and said, “Fine. This is a date, right?”
“Yes,” I replied, my tone unsure since she was confusing the fuck out of me. Didn’t she want it to be a date? The possibility that she didn’t made my stomach hurt.
“What kind of date?”
“I was unaware there were different kinds.”
“Like a casual date or a…date date?”
I rubbed a hand down my face because this conversation was frustrating. Why was everything between us always so damn complicated?
“I thought it was a date date. Like hey, wouldn’t it be nice to feed my girlfriend before I took her home and feasted on her body kind of date.”
She grimaced. “First of all, don’t ever use the word feasted like that again. Second, I’m being stupid. Let’s just drop it.” She moved to pick up her menu again, but I shot a hand out to cover hers.
The server chose that moment to come over, but I didn’t want our conversation interrupted. It felt important, despite the fact that I wasn’t sure what it was even about.
“Can we have another minute?” I asked, cutting her off as she opened her mouth to greet us.
“Uh, sure,” she said uncertainly as she backed away.
“She’s never coming back,” Sophia muttered, sounding forlorn.
“Please talk to me. What’s going on?”
“It’s dumb. We’ve said I love you. I’ve met your family as your girlfriend. My brain is just—” She waved a hand around her temple instead of finishing her sentence. When I didn’t attempt to fill the silence that followed, she seemed to deflate a little. “We didn’t talk about being exclusive.”
“We also didn’t talk about living together, but that didn’t stop us.”
“So we are?”
“Living together?”
“No, you dope. Exclusive.”
I smirked because I knew what she’d meant, but since she seemed hell-bent on making this as difficult as possible, I figured I’d return the favor. I took her hand in mine and pulled it closer so I could lean forward and kiss her knuckles.
“Sophia Mason,” I began, much more loudly than was warranted. “Will you do me the honor of being my exclusive girlfriend?”
“You’re so embarrassing,” she whispered harshly.
“Oh, my love, how you wound me,” I bellowed.
“Shut up.”
“What’s that, darling? I can’t hear you over my heartbreak.”
She yanked her hand from mine. “Okay, you made your point. I’m an idiot.”
I grinned as I regarded her fondly. “Not an idiot, just…come on, Soph. Deep down, you knew the answer to this, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then.” I picked up my menu and started to read it again, when she spoke.
“But sometimes it’s nice to get verbal confirmation.”
Moving my menu to the side so I could see her fully, I smiled. “Then consider this my confirmation that I have absolutely no interest in seeing anyone else ever. And the thought of sharing you with anyone else makes me homicidal, so I hope you’re on the same page.”
“I am.”
“Good.”
We shared a smile before returning to the task at hand. I sensed movement out of the corner of my eye and looked up to find the server hovering a few feet from our table.
“Oh, sorry. I had to talk some sense into my girlfriend here. Who I’m exclusive with, by the way.”
“Okay.” The server’s voice was full of trepidation, as if she was being forced to wait on John Wayne Gacy in full clown costume. “Would you like to hear the specials?”
“We’d love to,” Sophia said.
The server, whose name was Hannah, went through her spiel and then left to get our drinks.
“The lasagna sounds good,” I said.
“Hmm, I was looking at the chicken parm.”
“Also a solid choice.”
“Oh my God,” Sophia said a moment later.
“What? You see something even better?”
“No. Something much, much worse.”
I looked up at her words and followed her gaze to a table that was about twenty feet away. And sitting at it, giggling like smitten fools, were Brody and Aamee.
“Why is my life like this?” Sophia asked, but it didn’t sound like she wanted a response, so I kept quiet.
“Did you know they were dating?”
She looked at me like I’d asked if she wanted to shave her eyebrows after dinner.
“No. Did you?”
“No way.” And truth be told, I was a little salty about it. Brody was supposed to be my boy. I turned so I could gawk at them some more, but this time, Brody saw me in return.
His face lit up like a big, dumb puppy.
He said something to Aamee before he waved at us, his movement and expression animated.
Aamee slowly turned her head, looking wholly disinterested in our presence except for the slight smirk on her lips. She nodded her head in our direction before turning away.
“She should be in the Catty Girl Olympics,” I remarked, unable to keep the awe out of my voice. Because I knew what was coming. With that simple look, she’d likely caused Sophia’s blood to boil hotter than hell. And despite the fact it would put a damper on our evening, I couldn’t help but give credit where it was due.
Sophia gave me a withering look before hiding her face behind her menu.
“Maybe he’s just using her for sex and will leave her heartbroken and alone,” I offered, trying to make Sophia feel better.
“Great. She won’t have it in for me at all after that.”
“I thought you guys called a truce. Is she still making things difficult at the house?”
“No. She’s been fine in that regard. I mean, she still makes snide comments, but we both do that. I’m not sure our relationship has any other setting besides bitchy.” Sophia finally looked up at me. “It’s actually kind of freeing, being able to talk to someone without worrying about their feelings. We just say whatever and know not to take it personally. But fucking my brother—that’s a whole different story. It’s like she’s trying to breach my inner circle or something.”
I couldn’t help myself. “I actually think it’s Brody who’d be breaching—”
“You guys ready to order?” Hannah interrupted.
“Bless you,” Sophia said to her, I guess because she interrupted my comment.
Hannah looked confused again, the poor thing. She wrinkled her nose as if she were wondering if she’d sneezed.
“We’re ready,” I said, hoping to move this interaction along.
We ordered, and Hannah skedaddled.
“Let’s not even talk about them,” Sophia said resolutely.
“Deal.”
And that worked pretty well until Brody and Aamee appeared at our table when we were about halfway through dinner.
“Hey, guys. If I’d have known you were coming here, I’d have suggested we double,” Brody said, his smile wide.
“That sounds…nightmarish,” Sophia replied without sparing a glance at them while she continued eating her dinner.
“I know. That’s what would’ve made it awesome,” Brody replied, sounding like he genuinely meant it.
He was such a weird dude.
“I think we need to work on your defini
tion of awesome,” Aamee said to him as she let a hand drift down his button-down-clad chest.
“Come on. What could be better than spending an evening listening to my two favorite girls sniping at each other?” He slid an arm around Aamee and pulled her close.
Sophia instantly began choking on her chicken parm.
“Oh no, she’s choking,” Aamee said without any inflection in her voice.
I wondered if she might actually be a psychopath.
“Ooh, want me to slap you on the back?” she asked hopefully.
“Any part of your body that touches mine won’t be returned to you,” Sophia threatened in between sips of water.
“That’s probably a good thing, since touching you would likely leave me riddled with disease.”
Brody looked over at me. “Isn’t this great? We could’ve been watching this the whole night.”
Sophia scowled at him. “Don’t you have anything else to do?”
Aamee’s eyebrows rose in what seemed to be glee. “Now that you mention it—”
“Well, it was great seeing you guys,” I interrupted out of fear of what would happen if Aamee said anything about Brody doing her.
Aamee looked satisfied, even though she didn’t get to finish her sentence, probably because she knew our minds had gone there even without the words.
“Okay, I’ll see you guys later. Don’t wait up,” Brody said as he waggled his eyebrows.
Sophia pushed her plate away. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
Brody laughed as he led Aamee away.
Sophia turned to watch them go and then swung her head back to face me. “He was kidding, right? About the ‘favorite girl’ thing?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say yes because I doubted Sophia would top his list, but I held it in for the sake of self-preservation.
“Probably,” I said.
This seemed to make her feel better, because she pulled her plate closer and resumed eating again.
“If Aamee ends up becoming my sister-in-law and I have to flee the country and start a new life somewhere else, will you come with me?”
Truth or Dare You (The Love Game Book 2) Page 16
