Chapter Seventeen #3
Too late, David noticed that Meredith’s unbuttoned shirt had slipped aside, leaving one edge of a tattooed bat wing just visible at his collarbone—and so had Lisl. She tugged his collar aside as he tried to back away.
“More tattoos, huh?”
“Oh, st-st—don’t.” He brushed her hand away, and her expression darkened with such suddenness it was as though a switch had been flipped.
“You just watch it,” she said, jabbing a finger at him, and Meredith flinched.
“Mere, quit being a brat,” scolded Genevieve. To David, she added, with fond exasperation, “He’s the baby of the family, you know.”
Meredith smiled then, a jagged smile filled with broken glass.
No, David told himself, it contained nothing of the sort, nothing but slightly crooked and coffee-stained teeth.
The two of them really were spending too much time together lately, with the way Meredith’s flights of fancy had begun to creep into his own thoughts.
“Oh, dear me,” said Meredith, and the brightness in his voice rang false. “I’ve left the sugar out. Best go put it away before it goes off.” He turned and hurried past David into the house.
David wasn’t sure he understood the interaction he’d just witnessed, but still glanced around to assure himself that it hadn’t attracted undue attention from Adalynn or any of her relatives.
When Genevieve caught his eye, he felt himself compelled to offer an apology. “Sorry about that. I think he’s just a bit—er—”
“Oh, trust me, I know,” she said. “Me and him and Florian grew up together, and we’re more siblings than cousins, but I’ll be the first to admit the cupboard is a few teacups short there.”
Privately, David agreed, even if it would be disloyal to say so aloud, then gave himself pause.
It felt, in fact, rather disloyal to have thought it to begin with, and he was not so sure that he did think it anymore.
Swallowing down his guilt, he said, “Well, I’ll just be getting back to that other fruit plate, shall I? ”
This time, he did find Meredith in the kitchen, slicing strawberries at a rather manic pace.
“Perhaps you ought—” David began.
“I can handle it, David.”
He took a step back, palms raised. “As you like, then.” Far be it from him to take over if Meredith felt the need to get involved in the proceedings after all.
At that moment, Todd Billion entered the room, yawning. “Morning, guys. Guess the party’s already started, huh?”
He wound his way between David, Meredith, and the kitchen cabinets, and poured himself a cup of coffee. Circling back to the opposite side of the kitchen island, he leaned against it and took a long drink.
Outside, Genevieve had taken on the role of emcee, and directed Adalynn to a ribbon-adorned chair at one end of the deck.
“Okay! Everybody knows the Newlywed Game, right? Florian couldn’t be here today, so it’s going to be a little one-sided, but I have his answers right here.
” She held up a stack of index cards. “So, let’s see how well you know your future husband. ”
There was a smattering of applause and giggles from the seated guests.
“First off, an easy one: What is Florian’s favorite color?”
“Red,” said Adalynn confidently.
The audience looked raptly to Genevieve.
“Right!” She held up her index card in confirmation. “Okay, now that we’re warmed up, let’s make it tougher. How did you and Florian first meet?”
Adalynn smiled. “When we both went to your birthday party at Put-in-Bay the summer before last.”
“Hey,” said Todd, bringing David’s attention back to his immediate surroundings. “You guys have lived together like twice that long, right?”
David shot him a glare across the counter. He’d had quite enough of Todd’s insinuating looks ever since having had to correct his initial misconception, and didn’t like where he seemed to be going with this.
Todd raised his free hand in a gesture of concession as he took another drink of coffee.
“Nah, I just mean, I bet you two know all the same stuff about each other, right? Only I barely know anything about you guys.” Jerking a thumb in Meredith’s direction, he asked David, “What’s his favorite color? ”
David retrieved the spare serving platter from where Genevieve had left it on the kitchen table and set it next to the cutting board. “That’s easy,” he said. “Black, of course.”
“It’s green,” said Meredith quietly, not looking up as he continued to rapidly quarter strawberries.
Outside, Genevieve boomed, “Okay, let’s try a harder one. Who’s his favorite music artist?”
Adalynn’s answer was drowned out as Todd spoke up again, this time addressing Meredith. “Who’s his?”
David breathed a sigh of relief. Meredith was going to go for the obvious, just as he had done, and say Edith Piaf. He’d be wrong, and then it would be all right again, because they’d be even.
“Nina Simone.”
Heart sinking, David nodded in confirmation. No matter, he could redeem himself. Before Todd could throw another question at him, he said, “Yours is—it’s the Damned, isn’t it? No, wait,” he interrupted himself. “Sisters of Mercy? One of those old ones.”
“The Soft Boys,” said Meredith, quieter still.
“Oh, yes. That song you always try getting everyone to play at the Rat Cellar.”
Meredith was silent.
“Give me another,” demanded David.
Todd hesitated. “Hey, chill, I just thought—”
“Another,” David insisted.
Todd’s eyes darted uneasily between the two of them. “Okay, uh, when’s his birthday?”
“It’s in, er—November. No, December.” Damn Todd and damn his questions. Why couldn’t he have picked something easier? “Isn’t it?”
At that, Meredith finally looked up, glaring at David with raw fury as he chopped the strawberries into tiny bits.
“Your favorite color’s gray, your birthday’s January the twenty-third, you drink your bourbon straight but only like rye in an old-fashioned, your left ankle aches when the weather’s bad even though you pretend it doesn’t, and I don’t like this game anymore. ”
“Look, I’m—” began David.
“And what’s more—oh!” Meredith’s erratic chopping finally caught up with him, and the knife clattered to the countertop as blood flowed from the cut across his index finger.
David tried again. “Meredith—”
“Don’t bother,” he snapped, and stormed past David, out of the kitchen, and up the stairs.