Page 17 of Reckless
Her breath caught so slightly I almost missed it.Her gaze snapped to mine.For one second the whole room fell away.
I let go first.
She took the glass and drank half of it like she wanted to drown me.
The rest of dinner moved in fragments after that.Dessert appeared.More tea.More conversation.More forced calm.I answered what I needed to and no more.Kelly did the same.My mother looked near transcendently happy.My father looked amused in the contained, sharp way that meant he would speak to me later.
I wasn’t worried about him.
Kelly was the problem.She walked out of the room with enough purpose that only an idiot wouldn’t have known he was meant to follow.
I was many things.An idiot was not one of them.
I waited long enough not to be obvious, then set down my napkin and pushed back from the table.
“Where are you going?”Charlie asked.
“With your girlfriend?”he asked, grinning.
I searched him long to remove his will to keep talking.
Hope smacked his arm.“Stop.”
I crossed the foyer, passed the open doors, and stepped out onto the ocean-facing terrace.
Kelly stood with both hands braced on the terrace railing, her back to me.
Barefoot.Shoulders tense.Every line of her body said violence.
I stopped a few feet behind her.“You left before your mother-in-law could serve coffee.”
She whirled.Her eyes were bright with fury.Her mouth was pink from wine and tea and that she’d been biting it for most of dinner.
“Don’t.”She pointed at me.“Do not joke.”
“I’m not joking.”
“Then what are you doing out here?”
“Following you.”
“That’s worse.”
“Probably.”
“Definitely.”
I slid my hands into my pockets.“You seem upset.”
Her laugh was so sharp it almost cut.“That’s it?I seem upset?”
“Mm.”
She took two fast steps toward me.“What was that in there?”
“A solution.”
Her mouth fell open.“No.No not.You do not get to say insane things in front of your entire family and then call them solutions.”
