Page 9 of Mr. Match

She hates me. But I don’t take it personally. I think she hates everyone but Weston and the new kid they’re adopting.

“As long as necessary,” she replies, narrowing her eyes. “If Weston’s parents, and I use that word to be polite, think they’re going to get their claws into my child, they’ve got another thing coming.”

“They just want to meet him, Tori. For fuck’s sake.”

“Why?”

“Why?” West asks. “Because I’m adopting him. We’re getting married. They’re my parents. They love me.”

I wait for an explosion from Tori. I do kind of agree with her on this. The Conrads are suspicious as hell. I’ve tried to look into their past, but it’s nothing but photographs in the society pages of the Boston Globe and board meetings on the long list of charities they fund.

Everyone has dirt. So when you can’t find it easily, red flags abound.

“I know they love you,” Tori says, playing it cool. Her beautiful face—and there’s no denying this woman’s beauty—lights up with a smile as she walks over to her man and entwines their arms together. “But I don’t love them. I don’t trust them, or like them, or want anything to do with them.” She blinks her violet eyes innocently as she gazes up at West. “Sweetie.”

“Whatever.” West sighs. “They’re not coming here, so no need to dwell.”

“Hey, you know what?” Ariel says, a devious glint of mischief flashing in her eyes. “There’s a house for sale on Mountain Avenue, right down the street from mine. You should go look at it, you guys.”

“No—”

“Oh, man. I love that street,” Tori pipes up.

“Houses never come up for sale,” Ariel continues, undeterred.

“No,” West repeats. “We’re not buying another house. I just paid off the one we have in Burbank, Tori. We don’t even have the money. And who the fuck needs a headhunter in Fort Collins, Colorado, anyway?”

“Oh, we have lots of million-dollar tech companies down in the metro area, Weston.” That’s Ariel. And now I see what West was talking about. These two are definitely up to something. “And FoCo airport isn’t far away. You guys have that jet, right? You don’t even have to drive down to Denver International to get out of here. You can fly anywhere you need to go.”

“Did you put her up to this?” West asks Tori.

Another innocent batting of her eyelashes from Miss Arias. “Me? Why, no. We’re just good friends. Don’t friends want to live close to each other? And besides, Ellie and Mac already live in Colorado too. I bet Cindy comes home.” Tori looks at me. “Don’t you think Cindy will move home, Oliver? And that Pax, he’s smitten with her. He’ll live anywhere she wants.”

“No,” West says, determined.

“We could sell the Burbank house. It’s worth a lot more than the houses here, for sure.”

“Tori, no.”

“What’s going on?” Every head turns towards the stairwell where Cindy and Paxton are walking into my office.

“Shit,” West and I say together.

“Look!” Tori says. “See! I told you!”

“Oh, my God,” Cindy says. “I feel like I haven’t been home in forever.” She runs over to Ariel and they hug, like they didn’t just see each other two weeks ago.

I glare at Pax. He glares back. “What the fuck happened to you?” I ask, motioning towards the black eye he’s sporting.

“Um—” Pax says.

“Dad got a little crazy this morning,” Cindy says, her shuffling feet giving away her apprehension about the encounter.

I can’t help it. I laugh. “Is that why he was outside waving his arms around like a maniac twenty minutes ago?”

“That would be correct,” Pax says, walking over to the little makeshift bar I have set up in a corner. He pulls down a glass, gets some ice from the mini fridge-freezer, and then drops it in with a clink. He reaches for the bourbon and pours.

“You do realize it’s not even nine AM?” I call out to Pax. He ignores me.