Page 199 of Trouble from Abroad
“There are, and you’re well within your rights to sue me, too.”
She stares at me, as if annoyed at my suggestion. Then she hurls the brush toward the bed. It bounces off the pillow, hits the wall, and lands on the floor with a sad little thud.
“It’s fine. I’ll be fine,” she says, as if the second time might make it true. “Let’s just shelve this under another thing we’ll never talk about.” Her gaze skitters across the room, dodging mine. “Dr. Preston, I might need bigger shelves in my closet. You know, for the things we’ll nevertalk about? It’s getting pretty crowded in there.” Words sprint past her teeth. “Or I can go. Damn it, I don’t want to go. I really like Lily. Canyougo?”
“Mia—”
“Yeah, I heard myself. Thanks. But can you just leave so it’s easier to pretend you didn’t hear me say shaggin?—”
“What’s shagging?” Lily chirps from the hallway.
I go completely still.
Mia flinches like she’s been shot. Then she throws herself on the grenade.
“Hugging!” she blurts. “Shagging is a British hug!”
“A word we don’t say in this house,” I add, then correct myself, “or anywhere else. We don’t use that word at all.” I’m doing my best to sound stern and not completely unhinged.
“Why not?” Lily challenges, hands on hips. “I want to shag Mia.”
Mia bursts into laughter.
I rake a hand through my hair. “And I want to rinse my ears with acid, but I’ll settle for making pancakes instead.” I make a show of flicking the monitor off and flee to the kitchen.
CHAPTER TWENTY
mia
We have breakfast,as normal as it can be, and I consider adding actress to my CV next. The poker face I keep up, as if no third-degree-burn-level embarrassment just happened upstairs, is nothing short of Oscar-nomination worthy.
Preston plates the promised pancakes like it’s another Sunday morning. Granted, these are banana-oat-egg pancake hybrids, but they’re still a far cry from what my Monday mornings typically look like.
They start with some doomed calorie restriction that will most likely fail midweek. Me slurping down a dubious-colored smoothie, trying not to gag from the taste of spirulina, or whatever’s trending as health’s new holy grail that week.
Breakfast and the school drop off go smoothly, but once the only living, breathing reason we’ve stayed strictly professional exits the car, the tension spikes.
I check my phone, and there are a couple of new messages from Callie.
Callie
Please tell me you listened to reason, aka me, and didn’t book a man-whore.
Mia
Stop saying man-whore!
Callie
OMG, you’ve booked one.
I need more hands on deck. I’m telling April.
Mia
CALISTA! Don’t you dare!
I haven’t. I swear.
