Page 23 of Everything You Hate
“Six o’clock, and you bring this girl with you,” she says, then warns, “Don’t make me come get you, Dean Sprout.”
Then she’s gone—boots on the boards, jacket creaking, curls bouncing—back out the door the same way she came.
Hurricane Mimi.
Scarlett’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite place. Something between amusement and bewilderment and curiosity. “Did she just call you… Dean Sprout?”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “Don’t ask.”
She’s biting her lip, and I can see the laugh building behind her eyes like a wave about to break. “Is it a family nickname?”
“It’s a family curse.” I rub the back of my neck where the tension has taken up permanent residence. “She’s called me that since I was twelve. I was tall and skinny and—” I stop myself. I’mnot explaining my childhood to a reporter who’s about to sit at my brother’s dinner table. “Just don’t repeat it.”
“I make no promises.”
The laugh she’s been holding back finally breaks free. It’s not the camera-ready laugh I expected—the bright, performative one from the dock this morning. This one’s quieter, warmer. It crinkles the corners of her eyes and I don’t like it. I don’t like how it sounds. I don’t like that I noticed.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.” She tucks a strand of wind-blown hair behind her ear, still smiling. It’s a good look on her. I wish it weren’t.
I must be scowling again because her smile freezes, then slowly fades.
“I don’t have to come to dinner,” she says. “Make some excuse for me.”
I should agree.Yes, I’ll make an excuse so you can go back to the Tidewater Resort, write your fluff piece, and leave my family the hell out of it.
That’s supposed to be the plan. That’s the arm’s length I promised Bodhi in his office a few hours ago.
“You don’t give Mimi excuses,” I hear myself say instead. “She’ll turn up at the Tidewater and drag you out by the ear. Save yourself the drama.”
Scarlett’s shoulders relax, tension draining out of her.
Huh. Interesting.
Does she not want to go back to the resort?
“So that’s a yes to dinner,” she says. “For both of us.”
“It’s a yes because neither of us has a choice—” A low grumble rises from my dog, and I cut myself off. “Jesus, now you’ve done it.”
“Done what?”
“You said the D word in front of Doug.”
Doug hauls himself up off the life jackets and shakes himself, jowls swinging, then fixes me with the first fully conscious look he’s managed all day.
Her expression tells me she’s searching back through what she’d said. “Wait, you mean dinner?”
“No—”
Too late.
Doug’s ears perk forward, and his whole body goes rigid. His jowls quiver. His stubby tail starts wagging so hard his entire back half swings with it.
“Dinner,” Scarlett repeats, testing the word, and Doug lets out a sound that’s half bark, half war cry.
He launches.
