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Theo won’t set the panda down for a second, lugging him around on her hip like an extremely lazy, black-and-white toddler. Even when she waits in line for more frozen lemonade, she won’t let Reese hold Mr. Pipps.
“I can be trusted to babysit a panda,” Reese says crossly.
“Youjustlost your sunglasses in the arcade five minutes ago,” Theo points out.
“Fine,” Reese sulks. “I’ll win my own panda. Sully, lend me twenty bucks.”
“No way—you already wasted thirty on that game.”
“I’m right there! If I would have hit two more targets?—“
Theo takes the opportunity to sneak away to the lemonade line, panda still safely tucked under her arm.
Reese stops complaining to note, “She’s turned into quite the little spitfire, hasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she’s changed a lot since high school. We all have…except for you.” I give Reese his own elbow to the ribs.
But Reese turns and fixes me with a surprisingly serious look. “She likes you, Sully.”
“Yeah, I like her, too.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing?”
Heat rises up the back of my neck. “We already went over this last night.”
“Yeah, and the more time I spend around you two, the less I think of this so-called plan. This is going to blow up in your face spectacularly, take it from an expert in impulsive fuckups.”
“There’s nothing impulsive about this. I spent months planning?—“
“But did you really consider the consequences?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then I repeat, what the fuck are you doing?”
I’m starting to get annoyed with Reese, but I press down my anger. I know he has my best interests at heart even if he’s being a condescending fuck right now, not to mention a huge hypocrite.
“I told you,” I say through stiff lips. “I’ve got it under control.”
“You can’t control this shit. Not even close!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I don’t know, like number one, she falls in love with you and you ruin her life. Or number two, she makes all this delicious food for our dad and then he goes back to being a depressed alcoholic as soon as she leaves. Or Angus finds out and fires her and makes it his mission to ruin the rest of her life…do you want me to keep going?”
“No,” I say, but Reese continues anyway.
“Or how about, you somehow manage to pull off the impossible and actually get this deal done, only for Angus to find out what happened afterward, so he can sue you for fraud. There’s a lot of things that could go wrong—you’re playing Russian roulette with a litigious billionaire.”
“You can’t sue someone for pretending to date your assistant.”
“Well, I guess it’s okay, then.”
I glare at Reese, my heart thundering.
This might be the first time in our lives that my brother is lecturingmeon the right thing to do. The fact that evenReesethinks this is dangerous does have an effect on me.
When Theo returns, barely managing to balance three frozen lemonades along with her stuffed panda, the mood is unmistakably tense.
