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I catch up to her on the next floor, reaching for her hand. “Sweetheart.”
She opens the door to the guest room, easing away from me. I walk in after her and shut the door behind us. She sets her bag on the bed, which has a cheery yellow throw blanket folded over the end and matching throw pillows at the head, and pulls the dress right over her head.
“What happened? Did your mom find out about your major?”
She rips the clip out of her hair and reaches down for the shoes. “I saw you talking to Dad.”
“Yeah. He’s… well, honestly, I didn’t love the way he was talking about you. Or your brother, he was rude.”
She snorts. “Fantastic.”
“I tried to shut it down, but they seemed pretty determined to ignore me.”
She yanks a t-shirt over her head, then pulls up a pair of cutoff jean shorts. “Don’t worry about it. It’s… it’s the way they are.”
I grimace, but I know I shouldn’t get into it. Not now, and not here. If I had my way, she’d never have to talk to any of them ever again. “I totally get if you need a minute to—”
“Sebastian?” she interrupts sharply. “I’m good. I’m fine. Give me five seconds alone.”
55
SEBASTIAN
“Is everything okay?”Penny asks when I sit back down, thanking James for the cocktail he just gave me. Judging by the copper mug, it’s a Moscow mule.
I hide my grimace with a sip. It’s a little heavy on the ginger beer, but that’s forgivable. “I’m honestly not sure.”
“Should I go up?”
“She said she wanted to be alone.”
“She seems stressed out,” Bex says. She scoots a little closer to James on the loveseat, wrapping her arm around his.
“Her family is full of assholes,” Cooper says darkly. “It explains so much.”
“Hey,” I snap.
“Not about her,” he says. “Jesus. About why she’s kept her distance. The thing with her brother and that idiot cousin of hers? I’m impressed you handled it so well.”
“Believe me, I wanted to punch them,” I say. “I just figured it wouldn’t be a good look for my first meeting with my future in-laws.”
Bex clasps her hands together. “It’s that serious?”
“I sure as hell hope so,” I say, scrubbing my hand through my hair. “I love her.”
“I’m going to tear up,” she says. She actually sniffles. “That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I won’t get into it, but things didn’t go well with her mom,” Penny says. She swirls her drink around, biting her lip. “The whole thing was just—hi, Mia.”
Mia, the makeup wiped away from her face entirely, her hair in a messy bun, sits next to me. I hold out my arm. She gives me a look, something that I can’t quite catch flickering in her expression, and curls against my side. Kiwi, realizing there’s someone new in the room to terrorize, takes a running leap into her lap. She startles, but hugs him tightly.
“He’s the cutest,” she says into the silence. “Why did you get him?”
If she cares that we’re all staring at her with concern, she doesn’t show it. I wish she wouldn’t put that armor in place right now, but I get it, too. I’m sure she wants James and Bex to like her as much as I wanted her family to like me. Well, at least until I met them.
Whenever I think about her father, I have to take a deep breath to calm myself. If he thinks I’m going to clip Mia’s wings just because we’re involved with each other, he’s delusional. What the hell was it like for her, growing up in that house? No wonder the death of her grandfather hit her so hard. If he was the only one who cared to listen to what she wanted, and she lost that at fifteen, she had years of their bullshit to endure before she made her way to McKee.
“What do you mean?” James says.
