Page 14 of Reckless
The mood shifted when my mother moved behind Kelly’s chair and rested a hand on her shoulder.
It was a simple gesture.
Deadly.
“Kelly joon,” she said warmly, “you must come next weekend too.We’ll all be here.It will be nice.”
Kelly answered carefully, which told me she heard the trap too.
My mother smiled.Squeezed her shoulder.“And family should be together as much as possible.”
Silence didn’t fall.Not completely.But something tightened around the table.
And then, because my mother had decided that subtlety was no longer enough, she said, brightly, “I’ve invited the Azharis as well.Their daughter is finally back from London.She is lovely.”
I didn’t move.
My father looked at his plate in that careful way he did when choosing not to interfere with his wife’s campaigns.
My mother’s hand stayed on Kelly’s shoulder while she looked directly at me.
Not a request.A setup.
Kelly understood it too.I saw the exact second it registered.Saw her spine stiffen.Saw her mouth go flat around the edge of her tea glass.Saw, very clearly, the awful position my mother had managed to create in less than five seconds.
Kelly on one side of the moment.
Some faceless “lovely” woman on the other.
And my mother, in the middle, effectively reminding the whole table that Kelly was still the unattached friend while I was still the unattached and that the symmetry kept failing to solve itself.
I hated it instantly.I felt irritation move through me, hot.
Kelly laughed then.She lowered her glass and said something light about next weekend and dessert and probably dying from overfeeding before she got there.It was good.Fast.Skillful.
My mother was still looking at me.
I could have told Maman no again and let the thing die there.
Instead I heard myself say, in a voice so calm it might as well have belonged to someone else, “Kelly’s with me.”
The room stopped.
Everyone at the table knew what those words meant.
Across from me, Kelly froze.
My mother blinked once.
My father sat back and said nothing, which meant he was about to let me hang myself with expensive rope.
And Kelly.
Jesus.Her eyes locked on mine, wide and furious and startled enough that if I’d had even half a second to reconsider, I probably would have.
“Is she?”she asked.
Softly.Pleasantly.Like she was giving me a chance to either save myself or commit.
