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Auggie laughs loudly. “Naked!” he shouts gleefully.
“Uh-uh,” his mom shuts him down.
The beautiful older woman flashes me a warm smile and shakes my hand, holding it extra long. “Madi, it’s so wonderful to meet you. I’m Catherine. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I’m going to have nightmares about wolves for the rest of my life, but other than that, I’m okay.”
Glances are exchanged across the table. Damn, this crowd really doesn’t like that I’m here.
“You saw the wolves?” April asks.
“Yes.” Because she said,the wolvesnotwolves, like she knows about them, I add, “Have you?”
“I wanted to see them, but they were already gone,” she complains.
“Hm-mm.” Ruby shuts her daughter down with a shake of her head although I don’t know why. Are the kids not supposed to speak at the table? Everyone digs into the food, picking up the plates and platters and passing them around.
“Are you a human?” April asks me.
“Of course, she's human,” Ruby says quickly. “What did you think, she's an alien?”
“Oh, I'm totally an alien,” I say. “I came from a small planet called… Polkadot.”
April looks at me with round eyes then looks to her mom.
“She's being silly, baby,” Ruby explains. “Do you want mashed potatoes?”
“How long have you been Brick’s assistant, Madi?” Catherine asks.
Again, the temperature in the room seems to drop. I have thick skin, but I’m starting to wish I hadn’t asked to eat Thanksgiving with them.
Brick’s nose twitches in a threatened snarl, but he says nothing.
“Going on four months now.” I take a huge helping of sweet potatoes–my favorite. “That's about three months longer than I expected to keep the job.”
Billy makes a judgmental sound in his throat, which I’d have to interpret to mean he thinks I should have been fired that first day I talked back to him.
“I'll bet he’s a bear to work for,” Ruby says. “I know he hasn’t kept any assistant for much longer than that.”
“Well, I rather enjoyed the challenge of it at first.”
“Don’t use the past tense,” Brick growls beside me. “I didn’t accept your resignation.”
His words produce a tiny flare of warmth to push back the chill from the rest of his team.
“Right, well, when you threatened to throw me to the wolves, I thought it was just a figure of speech.”
Brick’s smile is genuine, but the rest of the group’s responses seem forced. There’s an odd amount of attention on me, like I’m the focus of the table rather than Brick. Like my presence at their table is too jarring not to disrupt things.
Or maybe it’s not me. Maybe the tension and awkwardness are because of his mother’s presence?
If so, then no wonder Brick didn’t want me to witness it.
It must’ve killed him to admit to me he has this vulnerability.
Brick says very little during the dinner, except to speak to his niece or nephew, who obviously adore him. His mother hangs on my every word any time I speak. I realize she must be starved for connection with her son, and she perceives me as an avenue to him. Maybe she thinks we’re more than we are after helping us get stripped down and in bed together this afternoon.
I suppose everyone here thinks I’m screwing the boss now. Oh well. I am. Or I have. And I’ll do it again. Probably tonight.
