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I chuckled.
The screen door opened and shut.
“She’s in a tizzy.” Roger came up next to me and bent over to wash his hands in the sink. He swung his hips to bump mine gently. “Heyahowyadoing?” He always said it as one word.
“She’s in a tizzy? Like mad?” I’d not been expecting that. Maybe a stern reminder about the goodness of Travis or “What are you doing with a celebrity?” Something like that, but she’d let it go and tell me she would support me no matter who I picked. She had to.
“I think she’s hurt you didn’t say anything about seeing Brett Broudou again.”
Oh, no. A hurt Lo was another beast, and she’d been heading to me, to share, and I ran from her. That probably hurt her feelings because we all knew I’d not been helping Vicky this whole time. If Vicky needed help, she’d wrangle Howard to peel some potatoes. She liked to cook by herself otherwise, but the cleanup was always for the rest of us.
I sighed. I need to fix this. “It wasn’t like that. He rejected me—”
The door slammed shut, loud and abrupt enough that I jumped, and then came a low and barely controlled, “He did what?”
Lo stood in the doorway, her eyes locked on mine and her jaw tight.
I was really messing this up.
10
BILLIE
“It wasn’t like I was trying not to tell you about him. It’s just that our first meeting was a lot, and he was a lot, and then he thought something about me that made him not want to do the coffee, but he explained later that he’d messed up and he was sorry about it and he wanted…” I’d been rambling for the last twenty minutes about why I hadn’t told Lo about the coffee date with Brett initially.
In this family, getting rejected was something we shared. I should’ve told Lo about it. Or not that I got rejected, but that it hurt me. That’s what she cared about, and now I was trying to explain myself without giving her a bad first impression of Brett. Because let’s face it, rejecting me because he thought I was sent to con him wasn’t a stellar beginning.
Even as I scrambled to unhurt Lo’s feelings, it was in the back of my mind that Brett still hadn’t reached out. I snuck a peek at my phone before we sat down to dinner to make sure I hadn’t missed anything before I turned it to silent while we ate. I hadn’t. It went back in my pocket. As we ate, I was acutely aware of the vibrations of people shifting in their seats, but none of those movements came from my phone.
“Oh my God, stop,” Lo finally said, after several minutes of silent treatment. She gave in, holding up a hand. “You’re forgiven, but this guy—I don’t know about him, Billie.”
Great.
Crap. This was what I’d been worried about, though I still wondered if I needed to worry about it at all.
“I love you. I’m over it. You’re back in my bosom, okay?” She grinned, rolling her eyes. “But can we talk about Travis?”
Roger expelled a ragged breath, his big shoulders slumping. “Thank God. Now the rest of us can breathe easier, knowing we won’t get a spear between the eyes for making a sound.”
“I’m not that bad!”
He grinned. “Darling, I love you…” He let it hang.
She opened her mouth.
Vicky held up a hand. “He’s trying to rile you up to help give Billie a breather. You’ve been hammering at her since you got here.”
“I’ve not said a word.”
Vicky reached for her tea, raising one eyebrow. “Darling.”
Lo’s face got red. “She didn’t tell me about him,” she hissed. “She met someone she was excited about, and I didn’t know. I’m supposed to know. I’m borderline obsessed with my sister. I get to know these things. You probably heard about him before I did.” She studied her mom a moment. “You did! You heard about him before me. What the hell?”
“Lowie,” Howard had been quiet until now. “We’re sans the little ears tonight. Please.” He leaned in, a grin spreading. “It should be ‘what the fuck’ tonight, not ‘what the hell’.”
Roger burst out laughing.
Vicky sent her husband an admonishing look, but the corner of her mouth curved up.
