Chapter 29
I am awakened once again to the scent of bacon, and I wonder if my sisters are back, in my room, watching me and Adam sleep like a couple of creeps.
I open one eye to check, but the room is empty and beginning to fill with light.
This means the scent must be wafting all the way upstairs from the kitchen, and I can only assume that indicates that Nadia is home.
She must know Adam spent the night. I can’t think of any other reason why she’d be cooking breakfast. Certainly she wouldn’t think it was worth her while if it were just me alone.
I perform what feels like sneaky ninja moves to get out of bed without waking Adam, and in the bathroom I decide my hair definitely needs washing. Copious amounts of sex turned it into one big tangle.
When I get out, wearing my fuzzy robe, Adam’s sitting up in bed, furiously typing on his phone. He looks up at me with a big, lazy smile. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” I sit on the bed. “Sorry if this is weird, but I’m pretty sure Nadia is cooking us breakfast downstairs. She’s probably going to do some gloating and take credit for setting us up and all that.”
He laughs. “No worries. Trust me, I deal with my fair share of weirdness from a grandparent.”
He grabs a bag he had brought in from the night before. I was nosy and peeked in it. He’d packed a change of clothes, shaving stuff, things like that. He was prepared, which I appreciate.
After we’re dressed, and after we’ve made out enough that we have to take some time to readjust our hair, and for Adam, readjust elsewhere as well, we make our way downstairs.
We are chatting, joking, and giggling the two floors down, and when we get into the kitchen, we’re looking for all the world like…
what did William say? Lovebirds. Lovebirds who are maybe in love, in addition to all of the bonding hormones coursing through our veins.
And the first person to witness it isn’t Nadia.
It’s Amá Sonya.
I stop so fast, Adam nearly collides with my back.
He wraps an arm around me instead, keeping us both upright, and Amá stares at the point of contact with the most unimpressed expression on her face.
“Sky. You kept refusing my offer of brunch. So I had to bring brunch to you.” She opens her arms at the table, which is set as though we are fine dining at a fancy restaurant uptown.
After glaring at me some more, she glances at Adam. “Mr. Noemi, I take it?”
“Uh—” Adam furrows his brow, clearly trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Which. Same.
“Adam,” I say quickly. “This is Sonya. My grandmother. Nadia’s sister.”
She stands and holds her hand out to him as though she’s a queen and he’s supposed to kiss it. He takes it slowly, wrapping his other hand around it, and turns on the charm. He gives her his most disarming smile and says, “It’s great to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“No you haven’t,” Sonya says primly, pulling her hand away. “I need to speak with my granddaughter now. In private, if that wasn’t clear.”
My eyes about pop out of my head. What the fuck did I just hear? “Amá Sonya. Adam and I had plans—”
She raises her eyebrow at me, completely nonplussed. “Plans? Like the plans you and I had last week?”
I narrow my eyes. “Those weren’t plans for us! That was a blind date you lied to me about!”
“We all want what’s best for our children and grandchildren.” She makes a very discreet gesture toward Adam that I’m pretty sure only I see. I hope only I see, because she clearly means she doesn’t think Adam is what’s best for me.
“Sky.” Adam turns to me. “It’s okay. I’ve gotta check on Gramps, anyway. Make sure his night was okay, and that he gets his morning meds.”
I breathe out a sigh and finally nod. “Sure. I know. Tell William good morning for me.”
Adam kisses my forehead as he slings his bag over his shoulder. He turns to Amá Sonya and dips his head. “It was a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” She raises her eyebrow at him in response and doesn’t speak again until he’s out the door.
“Well?” She gestures to the table. “Shall we?”
I pull out the chair opposite her. “Did Nadia know you and I had brunch plans today?” I have to fully restrain myself from making air quotes around “brunch plans.”
“No. But I have an extra key she gave me about thirty years ago.”
I’ve seen Sonya here so infrequently that I wonder if this is her first time using her spare key ever.
Another thought occurs to me, though. She’s so in my business, so intrusive, that what if she comes in the house and tries to find out our secrets or something?
I smother a snort when I imagine her coming across my four enormous packs of condoms in my room.
“Is something funny?”
Oops. I guess I didn’t smother that laugh hard enough. I shake my head. “Of course not, Amá.”
She hmphs and opens up the lids of the serving bowls.
Inside is what looks like a breakfast pasta, with eggs, bacon, vegetables, and cheese.
It sounds like it could be a mess in theory, but it looks incredible, right down to the most perfect sprig of parsley on top for garnish.
There’s another bowl of sweet potato fries and one more of fresh fruit surrounding a porcelain bowl of thick whipped cream.
“Thank you for bringing brunch,” I say, because I am absolutely starving, and even though from the way she’s treating me, it’s possible she’s poisoned the food, that’s not going to stop me from digging in.
“You’re welcome.”
We both serve ourselves and eat in silence for a few moments. Finally, she says, “That man is no good for you.”
I swallow my bite. “You’ve said this, yes.”
“Do not give me sass, Sky Temple.”
I nod without speaking and focus on eating instead. I don’t know how to not give her sass right now. She’s been asking for far worse than sass for a long time, as far as I’m concerned.
She takes her cloth napkin from her lap and dabs at the corners of her mouth, even though she eats in such small bites, there’s no way for food to get anywhere but where it’s supposed to go. Finally, she gets to the point. “Adam Noemi has been questioning many people in this town about you.”
I blink and swallow. Has Adam been talking to more people than my sisters?
I can’t hide my immediate feelings. She notes this and her eyes flare as though she’s won the battle.
Anger rises in me but I take a page from her book and stay very calm on the outside.
“Yes. He told me he would. Because of the piece he’s writing about me. ”
“Right.” She cuts her pasta into tiny pieces and continues to take bite sizes suited for a mouse. “The piece.” She puts down her fork and her knife with a clatter. “Based on what these individuals said he’d asked, Sky, I regret to inform you that this piece does not paint you in the best of light.”
My stomach sinks. Adam asked people about me? People who are not my sisters? People who he had said I deserved better treatment from?
I refuse to allow my face to show my doubt. “And what is your evidence for this claim?”
“The questions he asked them.” She throws up a hand. “Had Ms. Flores disappeared before going missing? Did Ms. Flores have a boyfriend outside of town? Did Ms. Flores show signs of…” She shakes her head. “Psy…Psy…I cannot say this word.”
I furrow my brow. “Psycho? Psychopath? Psychic powers?”
She points. “Psychosis.” It comes out as a hiss. “The man thinks you’re not sane. And he’s trying to use your affections to get access to our family secrets.”
I laugh. “That is not…No.” I almost say He loves me, but then I realize that I will sound like a child, trying to convince her parental figure that her good-for-nothing boyfriend isn’t good-for-nothing.
Which will play right into the narrative she’s trying to create right now.
“Adam isn’t asking people if I’ve experienced psychosis. ”…Is he?
“It’s not a matter of is or isn’t. It’s already done, Sky.
He’s asked the questions. They’ve been answered.
” She raises her eyebrow and looks me up and down.
“Do not tell me he got you to tell him about our…” She looks around, as though anyone else could possibly have snuck into the kitchen. “Gifts.”
I say nothing.
She sighs and puts her hand on her head. “I think I’m getting a migraine, Sky; do not tell me that you told this man about these things!”
“He doesn’t know everything,” I tell her. Which is accurate.
“The last thing this family needs is another scandal!” She raises her voice. “First, your mother, and now you? No wonder my hair went gray in my thirties!”
“I wasn’t even alive when you were in your thirties,” I shout back, because yes, I guess we’re shouting now.
“And why the hell would you care if I was involved in a scandal, besides the way it would make you look?” I take a breath and look down.
“You don’t even want to be seen with me now.
Some new scandal wouldn’t change anything between us. ”
She crosses her arms. “What are you talking about, I don’t want to be seen with you?”
I shake my head. “You think I haven’t noticed that you never take me to the same brunch place you take Teal? That whenever you want to catch up, it’s always somewhere on the edge of town, or outside of town?”
Amá Sonya sighs. “People talk, mija.”
“People talk. They call me names. They play cruel pranks on me. And you know what would’ve been great?
To have my powerful, rich grandmother do something about it, instead of cowering in fear in her four-point-eight-million-dollar beachside mansion, only coming here because you think your reputation is at stake.
Not because you actually care about me.” I toss my own napkin on the table. “I’m going to the woods.”
I don’t stop to hear what she has to say to that. I just run out the door.