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“Your friends helped me.”
“Oh.” She sinks back into her seat, staring quietly at her nail. “They were probably happy to get rid of me. I’ve been usurping that bed for months. It’s the best one in the hostel. You should’ve seen the way I jumped on it before the last girl had even left the room. I just thought they might…” Her voice trails off into an introspective void.
My hand flexes on the steering wheel with an unfamiliar urge to reach out to give someone comfort. I grip the leather tighter to fight the instinct. Why does it always come out to play aroundher? “You know what? I think they would’ve preferred to have you stay. They kept asking if you were coming back.”
“Oh. Okay.” She quiets and stares out the window. “That’s nice.”
The melancholy tangles in my chest, tugging at dormant emotions. “Hey. We’re not going far. You can see them whenever you want.”
She nods. “Yup. Fine. I just… they’re the first friends I’ve had in a while. I’m not usually in one place for long. I’ll miss not seeing them every day. I was just worried they’d forget about me. I guess that’s silly.”
I leave her to her thoughts and don’t ask how someone like her isn’t surrounded by friends all the time. Or how anyone, after seeing her smile just once, could ever forget her.
“Where are we going?” she asks when I turn off a main road.
“We can sort out a place for you later, but for now we’re going home. My home.”
I turn onto the road off Regent’s Crescent, to the Baxter family home and my main residence. We all grew up in this house. There’s not a corner of this house that Kylian hasn’t hidden in during hide-and-seek, a room Matthias hasn’t been found in with a girl, a room Damien hasn’t sat staring at the walls, trying to understand the intricacies of its architecture and design.
Or a room I haven’t sat in, wondering what I have to do to make sure this house stays in my family until the end of time. How to make sure it’s always our home away from our other homes and offices. Where we remember the generations before us and how they did everything to put us in this position, with all the privileges we enjoy today.
I give Luna a quick tour, not wanting to overwhelm her too much right away. “You can choose from any of the rooms along here. There’s a guesthouse too, if you’d like to use that.”
She points to the closest door, pulling her arms close to her body, looking small but curious. “Is this one okay? I’m not fussed.”
“Yes. You can pick any of the others if you don’t like this one. Only my brothers and I stay here, and I don’t expect them here again for a few weeks. I warn you, though, when they do descend, you’ll need earbuds.”
Her face splits into a smile, warming the whole corridor.
“Theodore is bringing your things in from the car. Just let him know if you need anything else. He’ll be more than happy to run out and get them for you.”
“Is he your dudeservant?”
The idea that he might hear her call him that almost makes me chuckle.
“He probably prefers the term butler, but yes, essentially, he’s a dude and he serves me and whoever else comes to stay, because he can’t sit still.”
“Like Alfred.”
I nod. “Yes, but more in the way that he helps me with keeping my life running and less about keeping Gotham City safe.”
The soft smile breaks into a wolfish grin.
“Okay, just testing you. You didn’t say anything about Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, so I was seeing if you knew Batman at least.”
I shrug. “I know Cardi B and Nicki Minaj. I’ve met them both. Nice people.”
“What?” she shouts, almost bursting my eardrums.
But before she can shower me with the questions I can see forming on her tongue, Theodore joins us with her things.
“Is there anything I can get you, Miss Pham?” he asks, kind and warm.
She instantly turns shy and shakes her head. Endearing. Not shy with me, but shy with my “dudeservant.”
“Well, if there is anything you need, please let me know. You can dial 0 on any phone in the house and get me directly, or I’m always around.” The smile he gives her is soft and accommodating. A good butler is part of a dying breed, and when my grandfather was on his last days, he made me promise that no matter what, I would make sure Theodore would be taken care of.
Aside from the substantial inheritance my grandfather had left him, I offered him anything he wanted—early retirement with an estate anywhere in the world, cars, art, vacations—but the only thing he wanted was to continue working with the Baxter family. And he is the closest thing I’ve ever had to an older brother.
