Page 87 of The Prime-Time Experiment

“This isn’t your job,” Tyler snapped, the restraint in his voice slipping. “And it’s definitely not your place to start psychoanalysing my kid at a dinner table.”

The word hit wrong. Riley felt it. Dee didn’t do that, ever. The ringing sharpened.

Riley shifted in her seat, shoulders tightening instinctively as the noise around her became simultaneously too loud and too far away. Someone at the next table was laughing, the sudden volume making her flinch. A server squeezed between chairs nearby with a tray balanced over their shoulder, close enough that Riley could smell their cologne. Everything felt too close.

Dee’s expression sharpened, defensiveness flickering beneath the surface. “I’m not psychoanalysing her. I’m saying she was overstimulated and needed support, which you handled, but don’t act like it doesn’t matter—”

“I know my daughter,” Tyler cut in, lower now, edged. “I don’t need a stranger playing therapist and acting like they know better.”

Stranger. The word landed heavy and misplaced. Riley’s mind rejected it.

Dee let out a short breath, brittle underneath. “I’m not acting like I know better,” she said, though her voice had lost some of its earlier control.

Tyler didn’t let it settle. “Right,” he said with a humourless edge. “Because this is exactly what people want, isn’t it? Someone who’s known them five minutes deciding what’s wrong with them.” His gaze flicked over her dismissively. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Riley saw the shift happen in real time. Dee went still, too still.

The ringing in Riley’s ears was loud now, loud enough that she could feel it vibrating through her jaw. Declan’s hand tightened around hers again, grounding, but the pressure almost startled her because she’d become so hyper-aware of every point of contact around her.

“And what exactly do you think I do as a children’s psychologist?” Dee asked quietly.

“I think you’re overstepping,” Tyler said. “This feels less like helping and more like you needing to feel important.”

Riley’s chest constricted hard, her breath catching halfway in before she could steady it. Beside her, Dee didn’t move. But something in her expression changed completely.

Something raw breaking through before it could be contained. Her shoulders locked, her posture rigid in a way that didn’t match the conversation anymore. Tyler exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair, the frustration spilling over.

“I don’t need someone coming in here acting like they’ve got some kind of insight when they don’t even—” He cut himself off, jaw tightening further. Then, more bluntly, “It’s not helpful. It’s just crazy.”

Riley felt it, a jolt through her system. Her fingers tightened hard around Declan’s hand without conscious thought, her grip desperate. Her other hand shifted again against the table, then curled in on itself, like she needed to reposition the reaction somewhere.

Heat prickled beneath her skin while a chill still crawled up her arms, her body unable to settle on one sensation or the other. The ringing in her ears wouldn’t stop, sharp and relentless now. With every second she felt a stronger, almost instinctive urge to fold inward, to curl herself into something smaller and protected from all of it.

Across from her, Dee froze completely.

Riley saw it in the way her shoulders locked, the way her gaze hardened but unfocused at the same time, like she was looking through the moment rather than at it. Like something internal had overridden the present and dragged her somewhere else entirely.

“Crazy.”

Riley’s breathing faltered. The word looped once, twice. It was inherently wrong.

Dee moved before anyone else could respond. It was fast, decisive. Her hand reached for the glass in front of her, fingers closing around it with an intention that didn’t match the emotional charge behind it. And before Riley could process the full trajectory… Dee threw a full glass of Pinot Grigio.

The splash hit Tyler across the chest, sharp and sudden, the sound cutting through the contained noise of the room. Nearby conversations faltered, attention flickering toward them, but Riley barely registered it.

Because Dee was already standing.

“Fuck you,” she said, her voice tight, controlled in a way that meant she was holding something much larger beneath it. Contained rage, hurt.

“You don’t get to stand there and reduce me to something unstable because you don’t like what I said,” she continued, her voice low but unwavering. “You don’t get to throw that word around like it doesn’t mean anything.”

Tyler opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Whatever he expected, it hadn’t been that.

And Riley, Riley understood something no one else at that table did. This wasn’t about the conversation, not anymore. This was about something older. Something that had been reinforced enough times that one word, in the wrong tone from the wrong person was enough to cut straight through every layer Dee had built around it.

Dee didn’t wait for a response. She turned and walked.

Riley’s body moved before her mind caught up. Chair shifting back, breath catching. She stood immediately, her focus locking onto Dee as she moved through the room, the environment around her blurring into noise and movement that no longer held any relevance.