Chapter 5 #2
“This is my jam!” Archie says, grabbing Abi by the hand.
“Come on, Abs. You too, K-dawg. Abigail’s gonna need a dance partner while I find one of my own!
Unless you’re volunteering to be the meat in the sandwich tonight?
” He laughs, not remotely serious, but he is pulling Abigail and Kaede out of the booth.
Kaede gives me a raised eyebrow, but I give him a slight tilt of my chin. He’s a good guy, and I know he’ll be polite enough with my sister that I can trust him. Besides, while he’s out on the dance floor, he’ll probably be scanning the crowd looking for potential candidates for me.
Knowing him, he’ll probably come back upstairs with at least two or three.
The three of them head downstairs, Archie using an intimidating glare and his long arms to make room on the dance floor before breaking out moves that just might put Simone Biles to shame.
“Look at him go.”
The quiet words, barely audible over the music, pull my attention back to the person next to me, and I turn to look Violet in the face. I can’t decipher her expression . . . shy? Nervous? Pissed? Maybe all of the above at the same time, for some reason?
“He’s . . . flexible,” I admit. Violet’s eyes narrow some, and she looks angrier for some reason. “What’s up?”
“Why are you here?” she suddenly asks, and it feels like she’s changing the subject. “Did Abi tell you?”
I find myself off-kilter almost instantly. She’s the only one who’s ever been able to set me off with so few words.
And tonight, firstly, I don’t know what Violet’s talking about.
Secondly, though . . . she’s hot when she’s angry.
I never noticed that before. Hot like fire might shoot from her eyes at any moment and burn me up, her frenetic energy surrounding us in a bubble of her making.
“Tell me what?” I ask, sipping my drink to try and regain my composure. I’m starting to wonder if Abi is up to something. But what?
“Don’t play stupid,” Violet hisses. “She told you, didn’t she?”
“I have no idea,” I answer honestly. “As in no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” I can’t help the smirk that crosses my face at seeing Violet so worked up. I really don’t know what’s got her riled up, but I like it. I always do.
But she misreads my smile, thinking I have some insight to whatever she’s upset about. “Yeah, she did,” Violet says, her fists clenching in her lap. “Goddammit, I’m gonna kick her perky little ass!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I reply, holding up a hand. “First, I don’t want to know anyone’s opinion of my sister’s ass. Second, I swear to you, I really don’t know what’s going on. Look, here’s what Abi sent me.”
I reach into my coat pocket and pull out my phone, showing her the text from Abi. “As you can see, I didn’t have time after that to hear anything. So, what’s going on?”
“You swear?” Violet asks, her lips trembling, and there’s a glitter of tears in her eyes. Jesus, she’s really shaken up. What’s happened to spin her from mad to sad in a blink? “She didn’t say anything at her boutique?”
“I don’t know anything,” I swear. “Vi, I came into the shop to sign the card for my parents’ anniversary flowers and told Abi about the old man being an ass lately and making some demands of me that I don’t like. That’s it. She barely got a word in edgewise about anything else.”
“So, you’ve got problems?” Violet asks, a bit bitchy. “I’m surprised Mr. Perfect does anything but shit gold nuggets.”
Ouch. But this Violet I know. Cutting, funny, ready to battle and put me in my place.
I know this one, like this one. The upset, crying version of Violet does odd things to my gut, and I don’t like that.
But if any time has been the right time to have an actual conversation with Vi, it’s now when she’s obviously hiding behind our usual status quo.
“Okay, I’ve done some shit, Vi. But right now, it seems that you’ve got more on your mind. Come on, what’s going on?”
Violet purses her lips for a moment, studying me with an intensity that is actually a little intimidating. Has she always been this way, this . . . intensely magnetic?
Have I not been paying attention at all?
“It’s . . . it’s about Colin,” she finally says, and it takes me a minute to place the name. Oh, yeah . . . Colin Radcliffe. We run in the same circles. His family’s got enough money that we don’t even really need to measure bank accounts.
When you reach a certain level of wealth, the dollars don’t really matter compared to other yardsticks. And the Radcliffe name carries weight.
Still, the little I know about Colin, he’s always struck me as a bit of a prick. I guess all young businessmen need to have a healthy dose of asshole in them to be successful, but Colin always seemed to have a bit too much, in my opinion.
“What about him?” I ask, my eyes cutting to Violet’s hands. Her fingers are empty, and even before she answers, I know what she’s going to say. “Oh, shit. Who broke it off with whom?”
“He . . . he did,” Violet says quietly. “This morning.”
I snort, shaking my head. “What a dick. I’m sorry, Violet.”
Maybe it’s the sincerity in my words, or maybe it’s that I called her by her given name, something I don’t do all that frequently, I realize. But a torrent of words unleashes from Violet.
In a stumbling, somewhat confusing stream of consciousness rant that lasts all the way through two club remixes, she tells me everything.
Her Papa.
His health.
Her going into a relationship with blinders on because of it.
Her family going just a little insane.
Everything.
“So . . . I know it’s crazy, my wanting to get married just for Papa,” she says finally, tossing back the last of my Rum and Rockstar to wet her throat, “but it wasn’t until Colin was breaking it off that I realized that’s all I was doing.
Colin was waiting for this big breakdown and I was just ‘meh’ about it.
” She shrugs like getting dumped was no big deal, but I know it had to sting a bit.
“I was ‘meh’ about him.” She sounds sincere, not like a woman bereft after a painful loss.
Not that Colin is much of a catch, anyway.
“But it would have meant so much to Papa. And then, when I told Abi, she said that I should have a fake wedding, a fake husband . . . at least until after Papa’s passed away.”
Violet rolls her eyes so hard I’m surprised she doesn’t see her own brain on the top of the roll, and it hits me.
Abi planned this. She didn’t tell Vi anything about my problem, and vice versa.
But Abi’s smart, and she put two and two together.
“She even said I should ask you,” Violet says, laughing lightly. “How insane is that? We’d kill each other. Probably literally.”
I take a deep breath and catch the attention of a passing waitress. “You aren’t going to believe this,” I tell her, leaning back, “but not all that insane at all.”
“What?”
I nod, swallowing. “Order yourself another drink. You just might need it.”