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My aunt and I had the same hair and similarly feminine features, but you probably wouldn’t be able to pick us out of a crowd and call us relatives like you could with Nasir and my uncle. I guess my father’s—whoever he was—genes were just a little stronger in me. Where I was tall and sort of sporty in physique with some soft curves, my aunt—and my mom—were both barely pushing five-two with fuller figures. My aunt and mom’s eyes were both brown as well, leaving me to assume the hazel I had come from my biological father.
“I’m sure I didn’t,” I insisted. Hell, I hadn’t really been in close contact with anyone but Bellamy, so how could I? “You know how I struggle to get my system back on track after a trip.”
“Plus you had all the stress from losing your identification,” my aunt added, giving me a soft smile.
“Yeah, exactly. It’s been a lot.”
“Nasir was telling us that you have made a friend of that Bellamy—“
Even as she said his name, so did the woman standing on the small stage toward the back of the room, making my head whip over to watch as the man in question moved to do a half stand at his table, giving everyone a tight smile as they broke into applause.
“Why are we clapping?” I asked Nasir even though I absolutely was not clapping.
“Your friend donated a wing.”
Of course he had.
For the praise, no doubt.
“What’s the matter with you?” Nasir asked under his breath as Bellamy’s gaze slid toward our table. Noting my hands resting softly on the table, his brow quirked up.
“Nothing,” I said, gaze skittering away from Bellamy even if what I wanted to do was stare him down, wait for him to look away first.
Damnit, I’d had the upper hand.
Then I went and let him get it again.
When I got home, I was going to go online and place a giant order of vibrators. Clearly, I was more sexually frustrated than I’d realized if I was letting Bellamy get it again.
“You haven’t bitched about how over-the-top this all is fifty-thousand times yet, so something is clearly wrong,” Nasir insisted, keeping his voice low so his parents didn’t overhear.
I might not have grown up with Nasir, but we’d somehow fallen into the dynamic of siblings, always trying to keep things from the “adults,” even when they were seated at the same table.
“I told you, I’ve been feeling wonky.”
“Seems like you were feeling just fine until that Bellamy guy showed up.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You looked… cozy while dancing,” he said, brows raised.
“Oh, my God. No, we did not. I only danced with him because he’s the sort to make a scene if he doesn’t get his way. Like a toddler. I figured that would make you frown at me again, so I went along with it.”
“Like a toddler,” Nasir mumbled under his breath.
“What?” I barked.
“You seem to know him better than having just bumped into him in the Maldives,” Nasir said, always being just a little too smart for his own damn good. Or, in this case, for my own damn good.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, trying to keep my tone bored and dismissive, even if my heart was thudding at the idea that he could figure out the truth. I even rolled my eyes for good measure. “Oh, yay. Here comes the pretentious small servings of food that are going to make me have to stop and get Chinese on the way home,” I said, flicking my napkin into my lap, then quickly starting to engage my aunt and uncle in a conversation about their trip to Paris.
“And what about you?” my aunt asked half an hour later as I tried to make my itty bitty slices of food last longer and be more filling by finishing each bite with a long drink of water. “How was Maldives?”
“Beautiful,” I admitted, because there was no way over that.
“Did you stay at a resort or a private villa?” my uncle asked.
“A private villa,” I told them. Again, it was the truth, even if it wasn’t the full truth. “I wasn’t really there long enough to soak up much of what the area has to offer.” I swear my cousin mumbled something under his breath that must have had something to do with his belief that I’d had an affair with Bellamy, but I couldn’t make the words out. Still, on principle, I shot him a glare. “But, yeah, it was pretty. But there was way too much veg in the local diet,” I added, getting a chuckle out of my uncle.
“Everywhere else on Earth serves more veg than you’re used to,” he said, shaking his head at me.
It wasn’t my fault.
Before I’d met my aunt and uncle, I hadn’t even tasted broccoli before.
I was actually impressed with how many different vegetables I willingly ate without too much fuss. Even if I had to slather on butter or ranch dip to get them down.
