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I suck in a breath, my chest suddenly tight. “Why would you keep that from me?”
“One, because as a fellow anxious soul, I know that you’re a worrier,” Oliver says, “and you’d worry about Mom and Dad’s retirement.”
I am indeed worrying about Mom and Dad’s retirement.
“Two,” Viggo adds, “you have no student loan debt, because you’re an overachiever who got a full ride.”
“I still deserve to be included. Plus, I’m good with Dad. He listens to me. Have you ever seen me ask Dad for something and heard him say no?”
Viggo scratches his jaw. “Come to think of it, no. But you don’t ask for much.”
“That’s the key,” I tell them both.
“Wow.” Oliver sighs. “We’re brick heads for keeping you out of it.”
“I know. And guess what? I could have insinuated myself and helped out, despite your best efforts to keep me in the dark, had I not been stuck at the kids’ end of the table with my sippy cup and Pokémon coloring book.”
Viggo bites his lip. “I thought you liked it down there.”
Oliver gives me big sad puppy eyes. “Yeah, me too.”
“Well, I don’t. I’m a grown woman, and I’d like to be treated as such in our family, okay?”
Viggo slumps against the kitchen counter, scrubbing at his beard. “Sorry, Zigs. We’ll do better about that.”
“I’m sorry, too, and I promise I’ll do better,” Oliver says.
“I’ll own I could have stuck up for myself. I could have said, ‘Love ya, Linnie, but Aunt Ziggy’s going to join the adults for this one.’ I’m going to do that from now on, so just…yeah, don’t be weird about it when I do.”
“Ziggy.” Oliver sounds genuinely hurt. “We would never.”
“Really, Zigs.” Viggo steps closer, holding my eyes. “We’re always on your side. The three amigos, right?”
I smile and swallow against the lump that’s knotted in my throat. “Yeah. Three amigos.”
“Sandwich cookie hug?” Ollie throws open his arms.
“Sandwich cookie hug,” Viggo agrees.
Sighing, I step between them and let them squish me like filling in a sandwich cookie, how they always have. I pretend I hate it but secretly love this—the pressure of them, the comfort of their familiar scents and voices. I love my family, even when they’re annoying me. And right now, I feel a bit of the icy anger I’ve been harboring since that Sunday dinner thaw inside me.
“Nice as this has been,” I mumble. “Get off me, and get out of my apartment.”
“Fine,” Viggo sighs. “But first, how about you explain why you and Ren’s bad-boy bestie have been photographed rubbing shoulders the past week?”
“I mean, only if you want,” Oliver says diplomatically. “There’s no pressure. Tell us in your own time—”
Viggo swats him from the confines of our group hug. “Oliver, what did we talk about?”
Oliver swats him back. “And by ‘What did we talk about?’ you mean, ‘What did you tell me you were going to do that I firmly disagreed on?’”
“My dudes, I’m right here.”
I’m ignored.
“You have a better idea for getting to the bottom of this?” Viggo hisses.
I shove my way out of their building physical animosity and reach for the door. “Both of you, out!”
