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Frankie’s silent again for a beat, before she nods slowly. “Good.”
Suddenly there’s noise around us beyond the hum of folks filling the stadium to an impressive degree. They have damn good attendance for what I know to be a sport the country’s lagged in supporting, especially when it’s come to the women’s league. I glance up and feel my stomach drop. “Oh, Jesus.”
A stream of very tall, very Bergman-looking people stroll toward us.
Frankie grins. “Baptism by fire, Gauthier. Brace yourself.”
“Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me.” Viggo, who I recognize as he comes closer, with his rangy limbs, thick brown beard, and messy hair curling up beneath his ball cap, steps nimbly over Frankie and her cane, but manages to knee me in the thigh, then step right on my recovering foot.
I groan, shutting my eyes as he plops beside me and offers a hand. “Seb, pleasure to see you again.”
I offer my hand, knowing what’s coming. A hard, bone-crushing squeeze.
“Likewise.” I squeeze back to offset the very real chance that he’s about to break my dominant hand.
Viggo’s smile switches to a grimace as he registers what I’m doing.
“We good?” I ask.
“Excellent,” he says, as we mutually, silently agree to stop trying to break each other’s fingers and let go. One of Ziggy’s other brothers, Oliver, and the man I remember is his partner and retired soccer icon, Gavin Hayes, step past us next. Oliver smiles politely; Gavin gives me a curt nod behind dark Ray-Bans.
“Hayes.”
He grunts, “Gauthier.”
They drop beside Viggo before Oliver leans in, offering his hand. “There were a lot of us at the wedding, so I’m just going to reintroduce myself. Oliver Bergman.”
“Don’t worry,” Frankie mutters from my other side. “Ollie’s too nice to try to break your hand.”
“Good to see you again, Oliver.” I shake Oliver’s hand, relieved to discover Frankie was telling the truth.
“That shouldn’t be an issue in the first place,” Ren chimes in, giving Viggo a meaningful look. “No one has any reason to break my friend’s hand.”
Viggo slumps down in his seat sulkily and tugs his ball cap low. “Except apparently he’s Ziggy’s friend, now, too.”
“And?” I ask.
Viggo throws me a quick side eye. “It doesn’t add up. What would someone like you want with someone like her?”
On the other side of him, Oliver groans as his head falls back.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I tell him.
Viggo rolls his eyes. “Come on. You’re a classic rake. And she’s a classic wallflower. A rake always has an angle when they rub shoulders with a wallflower.”
“How am I a garden tool? And what the hell’s a wallflower? Some kind of plant? If this is a metaphor, it’s a bad one.”
He sighs wearily. “Someone doesn’t read historical romance.”
I stare at him, a little stunned he even has to say it. “Obviously.”
“It is absolutely obvious. Dubious reading habits aside, I’m here to let you know I’m onto you. She’s innocent and kind, and you’re debaucherous and tortured, and while that trope’s cute in fiction, it’s not at all cute in reality, when my sister’s heart is on the line, when she’s too naïve to see what’s really going on.”
Fierce, reflexive anger pulses through me. How dare he think about Ziggy that way, talk about her that way? It’s condescending and infantilizing. It’s everything she’s trying so damn hard to move beyond and leave behind. And here he is, just…reveling in it.
“What you just said,” I tell him, setting my elbows on my knees and leaning in, my voice cold and hard, “how you characterized her, it’s like you don’t even see her. In fact, that’s exactly your problem. You don’t trust her to be a grown-ass woman. Ziggy isn’t ‘innocent,’ though she is kind. She’s got a level head on her shoulders and a big heart. She’s no blithe, pie-eyed optimist. She chooses to see the best in people, knowing full well they could disappoint her or prove her wrong. But she believes in them anyway; she takes a chance on them. She’s empathic and gracious toward people who frankly don’t deserve it, and yes, I count myself as one of those lucky people, but don’t for a damn minute condescendingly misrepresent that as naïveté. She knows what the hell she’s doing. And I do, too. She’s my fucking friend, and that’s that, do you hear me?”
Oliver’s mouth drops open.
