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I take the drinks he’s handing me, surprised to hear him say anything even vaguely negative about his mother. Then again, now that I look at him more closely, I can see Jack’s not totally at his ease either. He hates things like this.
“Hey,” I say softly. “Just a few hours, then this will all be over.”
“Can’t wait,” he says, rolling his eyes expressively. “Hey, did I really hear your dad calling you ‘Skin’?”
He grins wickedly, and for just a moment, things feel normal between us again. Just briefly, it’s me and him against the … well, the living room, I suppose. I smile back, relieved, then catch sight of the portrait of his grandfather on the opposite wall.
Oh yeah. That. How could I forget about the messages I’ve been getting claiming that good ol’ Grandpa Buchanan conned the McTavishes out of land, and that Jack knows about it, and doesn’t care?
My smile fades as I carry the drinks carefully over to the sofa, where my parents are perching nervously, as if they’re at a job interview. I’m not really helping make myself look less like a waitress right now, but I want to keep an eye on them and monitor what they’re saying.
“And then Emerald ran out of the town hall, and into the street in nothing but her underpants,” says Mum, who’s clearly decided that now is a good time to tell Jack’s parents the story of the time Lexie set my dress on fire at the town Gala Day.
“They were her luckyFlying Haggispants, too,” puts in Dad, chortling as he takes the glass of whisky from me and downs it in one. “And then the town hall burned down, and everyone blamed Emerald.”
“She couldn’t show her face in town for years,” says Mum. “One was mortified, wasn’t one, Archie?”
“One most certainly was,” agrees dad. “I’ll have another wee dram, Skin, while ye’re on yer feet.”
I take the empty glass and go to refill it, my cheeks burning with humiliation.
“Goodness,” I hear Jack’s mum say as I come back. “She has quite the, er,colorfulpast, your Emerald, doesn’t she?”
“Oh, aye… I mean, yes, indeed,” says Mum. “That was nothing to the time she lied to Jack about being someone else, though, was it, Archie?”
“Sheliedto Jack? But whatever for?”
Rose puts down her phone, which she’s been busily tapping away at (Doing what, though?), to stare at Mum, wide-eyed. Kathryn’s lips get even thinner. Rose leans forward, eager to hear the rest of the story, and I do the only thing I can think of under the circumstances; which is to lunge forward and throw the contents of the glass of whisky I’m holding at her.
I mean… in retrospect, it probably wasn’t theonlything I could have thought of doing. Desperation will make you do strange things, though, and I really, really don’t want Jack’s family — not to mention the rest of the guests — to get onto the subject of me hiding things from him. So I give a theatrical gasp of horror as Rose struggles to her feet, then rush over to her.
“Oh my God, Rose, I’msosorry,” I apologize, as everyone starts flapping around us both, offering hankies and paper tissues, and other, equally ineffective solutions to the mess I’ve just made of Rose’s dress. “I can’t believe how clumsy I can be, sometimes!”
“She did that to Jack, too,” observes Mum, referring to our first date, in which I inadvertently drenched Jack in whisky.
“Naw,” says Dad. “I’m sure shespatwhisky on Jack, didn’t she? She didnaethrowit?”
“Emeraldspatat my son?”
Kathryn looks up from the floor, where she’s been dabbing at the hem of Rose’s dress, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was trying to turn me to ice with her glare.
“I didn’tmeanto spit on him, obviously—” I begin, but before I can get any further, Rose is whirling around to face me, droplets of whisky flying from her hair as she goes.
“You did this on purpose, Emerald,” she hisses, gesturing to her soaked dress. It really is amazing just how much liquid you can get in one of those glasses. “Why do you hate me so much? I’ve never been anything but nice to you. I arranged the dress fitting today, I’ve put up with your weird friends, I got us tickets to the wedding fayre tomorrow…”
“My friends aren’t ‘weird’,” I say. “And don’t pretend you’ve been trying to help me when we both know you’ve been meddling with my life since you got here. What were you doing on your phone earlier? Who were you messaging?”
Rose freezes, her cheeks turning red, as if she’s been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
Aha! Gotchya!
“And I know you were at the library yesterday with Jack,” I go on, encouraged by the undeniable guilt on her face. “I saw you there. And then Jack lied to me and said he’d been here all day. So what were you doing? Why were you—?”
“Enough, Emerald.”
Jack’s voice cuts into my monologue like a knife through butter. Or a dagger through my heart, rather. Because when I turn to face him and see the way he’s looking at me — as if I’m only slightly less disappointing to him than season 8 ofThe Walking Dead— that’s exactly how I feel.
“Jack, I—”
