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“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, young lady.” His voice sent a shiver through me. The last time I had heard that low rasp, honed from age and cigar smoke, it had been calling my family trash.
Not long enough,I thought.Eternity would be too soon.
“It has been,” I confirmed, looking around the table desperately for an escape. I would rather converse withSissythan with this bridge troll of a man. Max was laughing next to me, so she wasn’t coming to my rescue any time soon. I reached for my glass and took a very unladylike gulp.Sorry, Mama.
If I closed my eyes, I could still see the three of them standing in the gazebo, could almost feel the hot, sticky heat of that day. My gulp turned into a deep pull that nearly drained the glass. I hated how small this man could still make me feel using just his voice, and I was angry with myself for still giving him that power.
The room tilted a little as I sat my glass down. That should have been my warning sign to slow down, but the attentive servers were making that very difficult. As if summoned by the thought, a server appeared to refill my glass. After this evening, it would be back to boxed wine or the weekly special, so I might as well follow Max’s lead and enjoy the finer things.
“Sutton, did you and Maxine check out the auction?” Macon asked — my well-timed savior, rescuing me from more painful conversation with his grandfather. “Anything catch your eye?”
“Yes, we have our eye on the chalet in Aspen,” Max answered, smiling at Macon. I hadn’t even realized she’d been paying attention to the conversations happening around her while she was attempting to land herself a sugar daddy.
Greer smiled at Max before turning that megawatt smile on Holden.
“Shoot, Holden and I had our eye on that one too. I love to ski, and Holden tolerates it. Of course, he still manages to ski like an Olympian. He’s one of those people who is annoyingly good at everything.” She paused, eyes lighting up. “Ohh! Maybe we should combine our bidding power? I bet it’s big enough for the four of us, and a group ski trip would be so much fun!” She gave Holden a playful look that made me feel unusually violent. “Not that Holden would ever take an entire month off from the firm. We’d be lucky to convince him to take even a week.”
“I take time off,” Holden said, with an unmistakable edge to his voice.
“When was the last time you took a day off?” Greer countered. She raised an eyebrow questioningly, the movement creating not even a single wrinkle on her forehead.
“The weekend we spent in DC.”
“Are you referring to the time we were taking a deposition in DC and our flight was canceled due to weather?” Holden gave a quick nod. “We couldn’t get another flight out until Monday night, and you worked almost the entire weekend.”
Blessedly, the servers appeared at our table and put a stop to their adorably sickening banter. A dainty salad was placed in front of me, and I wanted to whimper in disappointment. It was garnished with beets and goat cheese. Beets made me physically ill; even their smell gave soft hints of wet dirt. My stomach gave a sad rumble at the sight.
And thus began the longest night of my life.
21
The next few courses of dinner were much more palatable — except for the chilled asparagus soup — and I was grateful that the servers seemed to have a sixth sense for when my glass was empty. Which was often.
Conversation around the table was reduced to a murmur while everyone ate. Much to my chagrin, Greer seemed like a genuinely nice person, making it very difficult to dislike her. And, based on overheard snippets of conversation between her and Sissy, I’d also been able to solve the question of whether she was a liar or just a bad judge of character. I’d had to resist the urge to shush Grandaddy St. James at one point, because I was much more interested in hearing Greer’s response to one of Sissy’s insults, which had been thinly disguised as a question. Going by the forced smile on Sissy’s face, Greer’s answer had not made her happy, which moved Greer up higher in my regard.
“Sutton, how did testing go for the new release?” Holden asked, jarring me out of my attempts at eavesdropping and avoiding conversation.
“We had to push it back until this weekend. One of our senior testers came down with the flu, and finding a qualified replacement isn’t easy.” I took a drink to keep the stress from this week from creeping into the evening. “It’s not ideal, but we’re still on track for the release day, which is all that matters.”
“At least, that’s what we tell ourselves,” Max chimed in, hand reaching for her own glass. “Denial is our best survival tactic. Well, denial and caffeine.”
“What do testers do?” Greer asked with genuine interest. “I admit I haven’t played any type of video game since N64 — and I’d prefer not to attach an age to that, either.”
I smiled, a small laugh slipping past my lips. “Testers do different things during different phases of development. This is sort of the final round, where they’re looking for overall enjoyability, continuity of the storyline, features, things like that.”
“It’s basically like pouring your heart and soul into something and then getting to watch other people tear it apart,” Maxine added, then scrunched up her nose. “That wasn’t the best analogy, but you get the idea.”
“So kind of like a really important court hearing, and then waiting for the judge to issue a ruling,” Greer suggested, her analogy demonstrating that she was really listening. Max and I both nodded our heads in affirmation. The mystery man next to Max was nodding his head like he, too, understood the concept — either that, or nodding gave him a better view of Max’s cleavage. Those chicken cutlets were doing their job.
“I imagine it’s exactly like that.” I was also imagining Holden in court, and it was making my ears ring, although that could have also been from the alcohol.
“Only with a much more fun subject,” Macon added, leaning around Sissy to join in.
“Contracts are fun,” Holden muttered, bringing his highball glass to his lips. I watched him swallow his drink and shifted in my seat.
“Bless your heart,” Greer responded in the saccharine-sweet tone that was reserved by all Southern ladies for that phrase only, eliciting laughter from Macon and Maxine’s future sugar daddy.
I begrudgingly admitted that Greer and I could have been friends if she wasn’t dating Holden. It wasn’t that I had a crush on Holden, per se — that would be absolute insanity — it was just that I didn’t necessarilynothave a crush on him, either. It was more of athing...a hormonal response beyond my control. And no one who had ever seen him in a tux could have blamed me.
