Thirty-Five
DALTON
E ssie is tipsy, which would normally be cute, but she’s tipsy because of me. Seated at the opposite end of the long table (and barely visible over the humungous Thanksgiving turkey), she’s on her second glass of wine and keeps looking over like she’s wondering if I miss her.
Sweetheart, all I do is miss you . All I’m ever going to do is miss you.
“I’m not eating the brussels sprouts,” Lander protests, pulling my attention from Essie.
Valeria releases a long sigh. “Stop being a baby. Losing a fight to Everett is a meaningless feat.”
“It’s like one dandelion spore floating higher than the other,” Cora chimes in. “The wind picks the winner.”
On my other side, Everett chuckles into his own glass of wine. “The wind would pick me every time.”
“For the last time, you’re not actually one with the Earth, Everett,” Lander snaps, dropping his fork onto his plate with a clatter.
Smirking, Everett faces Luis on Cora’s other side and gestures toward Lander. “He’s jealous of me.”
Luis nods without hesitation. “Yeah, I see that.”
Eyes narrowed, Lander cranes past Valeria to look at Tommy, “You’re on my side, right?”
Tommy is aggressively working through his second helping of mashed potatoes, but he bobs his head. “One hundred percent, Lan.”
Essie cranes her neck. “Can you two please stop trying to turn my brothers against each other? I don’t need you breaking up my family,” she calls down the table.
Right then, Christian, across from Essie, looks at me and snickers.
Essie’s jaw lowers slowly. “What was that?” she questions. “Did you just—”
“Whatever, Essie,” Christian mutters before rolling his eyes and looking at his dinner.
…and the room falls silent . Good. I’m not sure how everyone else heard Christian talk back to my girl, but I’m glad they did—
“Dalton, you’re bleeding,” Valeria gasps. She reaches over Lander to press her cloth napkin against a newly-formed gash on my palm, stopping a thin trail of blood before it drips onto my mom’s antique rug.
Shit . I didn’t even notice I broke my water glass, and now that I’m looking around, I realize everyone is staring at me, not Christian. Christian’s face has paled, and I’m confused until Everett clears his throat and gestures like he’s drawing a circle in the air around his own face.
…I’m death-staring this kid.
“Dalton is clumsy,” my mother comments, and it takes every bit of willpower I have left not to object because I know she’s covering for me. But for the record, I’m so not -clumsy that I can do “Thriller” while blackout drunk.
Nursing my injured hand, I go to the bar in the corner of the dining room where my mom keeps a small gold bucket of ice to remind everyone how extra she is. I’m not surprised when Essie joins me seconds later.
“Let me see.” She reaches for me.
Reluctantly, I unfurl my grip and pull the napkin away to reveal a shallow cut.
“ Dalton .”
But I don’t care about my hand. “If he makes one more weird sound in your general direction, it’s not my blood we’ll be seeing.”
“He is my little brother,” she hisses.
“He’s about to be our little brother.”
Essie sighs and places a piece of ice against my cut before laying a clean napkin over it. “He’s going through it. How would you feel if your sister were spending her time with a sex deviant?”
“Seeing as you’re going to be my sister in, oh—” I pretend to look at my watch, “—a hot forty-eight hours, I can confidently say I’d be in a maximum-security prison.”
“Let it blow over.” With one last meaningful look, Essie retreats to the table, and I finish cleaning my hand before I return to my seat too. Almost immediately, Porter rises at the other end.
“Well,” he begins, scanning the dining room, “I want to say how thrilled I am to have everyone together for the first of many family Thanksgivings.”
Gross.
He places his hand on Mom’s shoulder. “I’d like to start by thanking Alyssa and the girls for this lovely meal—”
Everett frowns and bobs his chin at Lander. “When he says the girls, he means us, yeah?”
“Prick,” Lander mutters before he swirls his wine glass and takes a long drink.
“Alyssa,” Porter continues, gazing at my mother, “in two days, we’re going to be standing in front of two hundred people and declaring our devoted—”
Bro.
“—unbreakable—”
Fucking come on .
“—unceasing—”
Is it patricide if I kill my stepfather?
“—undying—”
I’m about to bounce and hit the dive bar in town.
“—and eternal love.” He extends his hand and my mother takes it. “I adore you.”
“I love you too,” Mom responds, smiling at him with an annoyingly real twinkle in her eye.
Across the table from my mom, Essie is clutching her wine glass with two hands—cute and unpracticed. She looks as miserable as I feel, and the brutal nine feet between us tempts me to break another glass so she’ll come over and check on me again.
Porter tears his gaze from Mom. “I want to say how thankful I am that my boys took the train over for the holiday and the wedding,” he continues, “and for Essie, who’s doing great work at her internship. Your mother and I always knew you’d be successful, and it’s my pride as a father to see you achieve so much.”
Essie doesn’t say a damn word in response, and Porter doesn’t seem to notice.
He gestures at me. “And of course, I want to welcome my new son to the family. I’ll admit, when we met, I wasn’t sure what to think. After all, you were…” Porter clears his throat. “…well, you drank eight beers and ate an entire pizza we were all supposed to share.”
Typical. I eat one margherita pizza nobody seemed interested in because they were all fawning over the calabrese, and suddenly I’m persona non grata.
“Loving this toast, Porter,” I deadpan.
“Well, Alyssa tells me how great you are, and I’m excited to welcome you as my own son—”
“No. Nope,” Christian blurts out, shaking his head while he shoves his chair back from the antique table, sending glasses sloshing onto the tablecloth. “I can’t do this.”
“Christian,” Essie warns, “ sit down .”
“Get a grip,” he snaps back, making Essie’s eyes widen with surprise.
Right then, all the tension in my body surges into my arms. My hands ball into fists—the cut on my hand be damned—and decades of friendship instinctually send Lander and Everett lunging to keep me from rising out of my chair.
They can’t stop me from talking though.
“Don’t fucking speak to her like that, Christian,” I call across the table, and he glares, but I’m not done. “If you ever disrespect Essie again, our next family get-together is going to be your goddamn funeral.”
“A funeral?” Christian sneers. “How generous. I figured you’d bury me in the back with the women you’ve hurt.”
Oh shit.
My mother’s jaw drops. “Excuse me?”
“Him,” Christian reiterates, shoving his arm out and pointing at me. “Your son, Alyssa. He’s—”
“You need to stop right now .” Essie stands and stretches over Christian to force his arm down. “You don’t know what you saw.”
“Why are you defending him?” he demands, taking a step back from the table with his face contorted. “He’s a serial killer! Or a deviant, or a night prowler, or a psychopath, or—”
“Can you stop it?” Essie hisses, trying to move her brother to the door to the dining room, but he doesn’t budge.
“Dad,” he continues, facing Porter, “I can’t let you marry Alyssa and bring him into this family. He should be put away.”
Porter, who hasn’t said a damn word, shakes his head. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
Finally, I move to my feet. “Christian thinks he saw me doing something yesterday, and he’s misinterpreting it.” I look at Christian and dip my chin. “We should go talk.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” he snaps, looking disgusted.
“What was he doing?” Porter asks.
Essie pulls on Christian’s arm. “Let’s go talk.”
“This is an insane misunderstanding,” I declare.
“Just tell us—”
“Let’s go—”
“He was naked, in the library, wearing a ski mask, and assaulting some girl!” Christian blurts out—and the room goes silent.
“This sounds like the world’s worst game of Clue,” I comment, and when nobody laughs, I shake my head. “You can’t seriously believe what he’s saying.”
“A ski mask?” Luis questions, frowning deeply. “Like—”
“And he was filming it,” Christian continues, glancing around the room, “like a trophy .”
“Well,” Lander comments as he stands, “if I’m hearing you correctly, you’re saying you walked in on Dalton allegedly attacking someone in the library. What were you doing in the library?”
Confused, Christian draws his head back. “Why does that matter?”
Lander slides his hand into his pocket and raises a shoulder. “You felt a compulsion to read some James Joyce in the middle of the night and conveniently stumbled upon a crime scene?”
“Wait, are you cross-examining him?” Essie demands. “ Stop it .”
“It’s a simple question,” Lander replies, feigning innocence. “Why was he in the library?”
“I was stealing liquor from the stash behind the desk,” Christian admits, rolling his eyes.
“I knew someone was drinking it!” I exclaim. “I knew nobody was going to the library to read .”
“Jesus, Dalton,” Cora mutters.
“So, you were drinking ,” Lander remarks, shooting a quick, shut-up look in my direction before he faces Christian again, “and you expect us to believe a drunk twenty-year-old went to an unlocked library and encountered a heinous crime?” He runs his hand in a sweeping gesture toward Christian. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present a highly unreliable witness. He has no evidence for these accusations.”
“I have his phone,” Christian announces before he shoves his hand into his pocket and pulls out my phone—and my stomach free-falls. “I told you—he was filming it .”
The niceties have retired. “Give me that,” I demand, shoving back my chair and looping around the table.
“Give me the code,” Christian replies, backing away.
“Get fucked and give me back my phone,” I warn, sliding between Essie’s chair and the paneling to get to Christian.
“No—give me the code,” he repeats, glancing between the phone and me while he heads for the door.
“ You little shit .” I barely miss his arm on a lunge, but I’m close—until the twins block my path. Like their sister, these assholes are loyal .
Porter catches his son by the arm and holds out his hand. “Christian, give me that,” he demands. To my annoyance, Christian gives in.
Porter faces my mom. “Alyssa, unlock it.”
“No,” my mother replies without missing a beat. Her arms are folded over her chest, and she doesn’t even glance at the phone in her face. “I don’t need proof to know my son isn’t a deviant, let alone a killer. And frankly—fuck you for asking, Porter.”
Porter’s lips part, but before he can respond, Christian snatches the phone back and says, “When’s his birthday, Essie?”
Essie glances at me and our eyes lock before she faces her brother and holds out her hand. “I’ll put it in,” she volunteers.
Christian pauses. He stares at Essie hard before he looks over at me—and his eyes narrow. Without a word, he taps six numbers into my phone’s lock screen before he holds it up.
It’s unlocked.
The niceties are not only retired, but they’ve been replaced with pure bedlam. I break loose from Tommy and Luis and rush around the table, where Christian is already trying to outrun me. He’s headed for the door to the dining room, which leads to the hallway—
SLAM .
Christian collides with the wall so abruptly that the drywall creaks, and he cries out in pain before clutching his side.
“Christian!” Essie calls out before covering her mouth with her hand.
Triumphant, Valeria shakes out her fist, wiggling her freshly-manicured nails like she always does after she punches the dignity out of some poor bastard. “Problem solved,” she declares before she takes my phone from Christian’s weakening grasp and passes it to me.
“Why is Essie’s birthday your password?” Christian demands through stilted, strained inhalations.
Essie, who was weaving around the table to tend to her scumbag brother, stops in her tracks.
“Are you stalking her?” Christian continues, glaring at me. “Is she next?”
“You dramatic little weasel, I was the woman Dalton was murdering last night,” Essie finally announces, freezing the dining room for a third time tonight.
“Really?” I snap, shooting her a look. “ Murdering ?”
“You all know what I mean,” she replies, waving it off before she glances around the room. “There. Dalton and I were hooking up last night.”
Christian’s expression is equal parts horrified and confused. “No. No way.”
“Yes,” she states. “I was with him in the library.”
But he keeps shaking his head. “You let him do… that to you? You let him film you?”
“You did what to my daughter?” Porter shouts, finally putting the pieces together. “You filmed her? You’re a—”
“No,” Essie steps between her father and me. “You’re not going to say a damn word about Dalton and you’re not going to kink shame either. Everything Dalton and I have ever done has been consensual.”
I inhale through my teeth. “Well…”
Essie rolls her eyes. “Okay, ninety-nine percent has been consensual. Yes, we’ve been hooking up for the last four weeks, and yes, we film it.”
But even though the words couldn’t be clearer, Porter isn’t getting it. His face has paled, and his expression fluctuates between confusion and disgust. “That’s not you. No, Essie. That’s not—”
“Actually, it is me,” Essie interrupts. She looks back at me. I nod—and she nods too before she faces her father once again. “I’m a camgirl,” she announces.