Ari glares over her shoulder, her thick blonde hair fallingdown her back. “I’m sorry, did I miss the NDA I was supposed to sign when I entered the house? Do you want to take my phone, Mr. Celebrity?”
“It’s annoying!” Carter barks.
“It’s a phone,” she snaps back, pale blue eyes narrowing. “Are you on drugs?”
“Oh my god,” Carter grumbles, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. I hold my laughter, snuggling in closer to him, treasuring the fingers that brush along my arm.
Ari’s eyes slide to mine. “Is he? We have everyone here who we would need for an intervention.”
I smile, hiding my mouth in the fabric of Carter’s shirt.
Her phone buzzes again. And again. And again.
Carter slowly lowers his hand, glaring at her. She’s already staring right back, hand covering her screen.
“Are youdealingdrugs?” he asks, gesturing to her phone. “Have a couple of orders coming through right now?”
She rolls her eyes, falling onto her back. She holds her phone in front of her face and opens up a text chain. From here, I can see the paragraphs being sent her way. I just can’t read them. “I’ll put a halt on my social life so that my brother can hear the movie he’s seen four hundred times with his geriatric ears.”
“Who could possibly be texting you that much? It’s Christmas.”
“It’s ChristmasEve,” she corrects. “And Jared.”
Carter goes rigid against me. I risk a glance up at him, feeling the change in the air. His eyes are glued to the back of his sister’s head. That familiar look washes across his face, and I don’t like it. It doesn’t fit here. It can’t show up tonight.
“Jared?”
Marco lets out a long sigh, getting to his feet. “Here we go. Refill anyone? Quick trip to thekitchen?”
Every single person besides Carter and Ariana stands up. I catch Claudia’s eyes as she passes. She nods toward the kitchen, signalling that I should separate myself from whatever this is and let the Forkerro siblings duke it out.
I slide out from Carter’s arm, but he’s too busy glaring at Ariana to care.
“I’m going to grab another glass.”
Neither of them acknowledges I’ve spoken.
“Jared?” Carter barks out again, and Ariana throws her phone down and whirls on him. “Tell me you’ve met another Jared, and we’re not talking about the criminal.”
Ariana tilts her head back and laughs. “Rich, coming from Convict Forkerro over there.”
Yeah, Claudia was right. This is not my fight.
I rush into the kitchen, and my fear must be written all over my face because both sets of Carter’s parents laugh at the sight of me. Claudia already has a new glass of red poured, and she pushes it toward me.
Marco wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me inward. “Don’t worry. They’re fine. It’s the fight that never stops.”
“Who is Jared?” I ask, looking around the kitchen with wide eyes.
“Ariana’s ex-boyfriend,” Claudia answers. I gathered that much. She shakes her head. “She has an interesting taste in companions, but there’s no stopping her. My daughter will do what she wants.”
“Jared was a particularly bad one,” Gemma mutters.
“How bad?”
Claudia lets out a long sigh. “Bad enough that their car got stopped on the highway, and her boyfriend got both him and her arrested because he was hiding a trunkload of illegal substances in thefloorboards.”
I blink. “You’re kidding.”
