The breakfast table, however…
“A donor.” That sounded way more sexual than I intended. “Your brother donated freely and regularly when he was on vacation.” His fingers still, and the room goes deathly quiet. “Not like that,” I add quickly. “I didn’t mean professionally.”
A collective sigh seems to be released, and El pipes up, “Thank the Lord! The world can only take one of that bossy ba—bar steward.”
“I told you there was no swearing at the dinner table.” Primrose laughs.
“What I want to know is where you gathered this intel,” Heather says, sending me a sly look.
“Purely observational,” I answer. “I was just a kid.”
She looks disappointed when Whit says, “Let’s return to the topic of jobs. Brin had a job while he was at university, didn’t you?”
I angle my attention Brin’s way, and he nods. “I had a job in a sandwich place. I got fired for putting my finger in the pickle slicer.” He shrugs. “She got fired, too.”
A groan goes around the table, though Whit and El laugh. They also get bombarded with left over sprouts, much to their disgust.
“No phones at the table!” Polly protests. Brin looks up sheepishly from glancing at his phone under the tabletop, I guess. His attention doubles back comically, though.
“Mimi, aren’t you staying with an aunt in Edgeware?”
I nod. “Mm-hmm.”
“Did you hear about that World War 2 bomb they found?”
“Yeah. How crazy is that?” I’m not sure I’d make a very good actress.
“You know what’s even crazier? It’s just gone off.”
“Off?” I give my head a little shake. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just exploded in someone’s back garden.”
Oh man. This is not good.
30
MIMI
“I’m a big girl.I don’t have to stay here.”
I blow out a breath as I pause in my pacing the living room, catching my worried frown in the mirror above the modern, oversized fireplace. “And I can also talk to myself without feeling like a complete idiot.”
Or at least I can try.
I turn to the window and watch the sun’s rays dapple the blossoming treetops. It’s amazing what a difference a day or two can make. And I’m not just talking about spring. I've discovered that my life is becoming way too complicated, and after getting off the phone with Doreen, it’s not about to become any easier. I guess I know what the little pig in the straw house felt like. Not that a wolf has blown down Aunt Doreen’s house. It’s still standing, but half the street has been declared unsafe for the foreseeable future. Doreen mentioned something about structural engineers being called in by her home insurance company. Apparently, the streets around the garden with the EOD, or whatever it’s called, are still crawling with police and army personnel.
The good news is no one was hurt. But when I asked her if there was a timeline for when the street might be deemed habitable, she said no, before adding how lucky we both were to be staying in the homes of “our lovely men.”
Just a couple of weeks ago, she was cautioning me against getting involved with Whit, but now she thinks he’s “just gorgeous!”
And he is gorgeous. He’s sweet yet spicy and all the good kinds of wrong. And his family is so lovely, it’ll be so hard to keep lying to them. But I really feel like I shouldn’t be exposed to this lifestyle for too long. I might not want to stop and that’s just not feasible.
Whit didn’t understand when I said I’d have to ask Doreen not to mention to my parents what had happened or where I’d be staying.
“You’re twenty-four, Mimi. You can do what you want.”
And he’s right. But I haven’t given him the whole story.
