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Valerie sighed. She couldn’t very well pretend Tim wasn’t there if Clay could see and hear him, too.
“There was no one on the roads,” Tim said. “I might have pushed the speed limit a little.”
Valerie scoffed.Un-fucking-real. She locked a glare on Clay, who now leaned on the kitchen island staring brazenly at her and not the bottle of wine he’d apparently meant to fetch.
“You called him, didn’t you?” she accused. “As soon as I got here.”
“Yep.”
“So much for privacy, huh?”
He shrugged. “You know, what happens here generally stays here. I don’t call folks and let them know if any particular person shows up. I always tell them to find out by seeing with their own eyes. But this was a special case.”
“That’s called tattling, Clay.”
“Yep, but I wasn’t tattling as host of this function. I was acting in my capacity as the brother of this guy.” He grabbed the bottle and shuffled toward the door. “Staying a while, Timmy?”
“I don’t see where I have a choice. A couple of those harpies out there have harangued me into doing a demonstration.”
“With who?”
Tim shrugged. “I’ll pick a volunteer.”
“Hot damn.” Clay practically skipped with glee. “I’ll go clear the stage.”
Valerie rolled her eyes as Tim sidled up to the island.
Saying nothing, he leaned his forearms onto the counter and locked that takes-no-shit glare on her.
“Don’t do this to me, Tim.”
“Don’t do what? Be pissed that you obviously don’t feel anything for me because if you did, you’d tell me things?”
“Don’tlookat me like that. It makes me feel like I’m in the wrong and need to be punished, and I don’t. I do what I need to do to solidify my career, and I told you upfront that nothing was going to come of our time together. I wasveryclear about that.”
“Mm-hmm. I’ll admit that you were, but I think you’re being unreasonable.”
“Why, because you can’t have your way? No wonder Kevin has such privileged thinking.”
At that stinging retort, Tim’s nostrils flared, and brow furrowed.
She sipped the last of her tea and set the class on the countertop. “Don’t tell me I’m being unreasonable, and I won’t tell you about…parenting, I guess you’d call it.”
Screw this.
She hitched her purse up to her shoulder and walked into the living room, scanning for Carine and Leah. She figured she’d return for them later when they were ready to go, or Valerie could wait in the car and ponder all the things that had gone wrong in her life up to that date.
It was bound to be a long list.
“You ready, Tim?” Clay called out from the little stage set up in front of the fireplace.
Tim slid around Valerie, staring down at her as he passed, and made his way through the crowd.
What’s he doing?
She hated that she was curious, but how could she not be.
Up on the stage, Tim rolled up his sleeves.
