Page 19 of The Spare
Never ask questions you don’t want the answers to.
“Hmm?” She perked up. I had pulled her from her thoughts. She smiled and looked over at me. “Oh, those. It’s calling in an I-owe-you. We name them after where the incident in question happened,” she explained casually, as though it hadn’t been a burning question in my mind for years. “I owed Xander a favor after an undisclosed incident in Barcelona.”
I heaved a quiet, relieved, sigh. Henry and I used to guess what some of their shorthands meant. After so many years of friendship, they developed their own language. The location shorthand was particularly grating to me. I finally realized why.
“I’m surprised you never figured it out; you’re always looking for a puzzle you can’t solve.” She took in my expression, and her eyes went wide. "What did you guys think it meant?"
I didn’t answer. A wild smile grew on her face, and crimson spread along her cheekbones.
“Oh my god.” A hand covered her mouth momentarily. “You guys thought that was something sexual? And we would scream it at each other in mixed company?” She giggled in delight at the thought.
I didn't find it funny.
I still didn’t answer, unsure of how to. "What you and my brother do is none of my business." It came out more harshly than I intended. It was supposed to be light, but the tone helped serve as a reminder. One I needed.
My eyes drifted to her for a second. She looked taken aback. She opened her mouth to deliver what I was sure would have been a scathing retort. Instead, she closed it and leaned back into her seat.
CHAPTER10
Sloan
Pulling up to the family compound in the country was like driving up to the best parts of my childhood. The beautiful French Renaissance-style home was nestled on a couple of acres of rolling hills in upstate New York. It was our own personal Versailles.
My favorite time of year at the house was autumn, when my grandfather threw our annual Diwali parties here. It was when the house was the most beautiful. The trees around the property were adorned with colorful leaves that checkered the perfectly manicured lawn.
The crisp autumn air was a refreshing change from the strained air in the car. Part of me wished I’d driven up earlier that day with Xander and Penelope.
Marcus was hard to read. One minute he was delightful and endearing. The next, he was back to cold and closed off. I couldn't figure out what to make of him these days. A part of me wondered if the Marcus I used to know was fading away. It was like he was closing himself off again, as he had when his parents died.
He was never warm and gregarious like Xander. Marcus picked his moments to be wonderful, and the rest of the time, he was just a little…serious.
We walked in to find the whole family seated in the salon. Xander and Penelope had arrived from Manhattan earlier that day, an hour or so before Henry. Xander made himself quite comfortable, seated on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table. To this day, he was the only person allowed to do it. My mom had the biggest soft spot for him.
My mother was on the couch, and my father nowhere to be found—a common occurrence over the last couple of years. The pressure of taking over once our grandfather decided to step down was getting to my dad. It was beginning to strain his relationships.
By now, everyone assumed it would be Henry taking over entirely whenever our grandfather did step down.
Marcus sat next to Xander on the couch, leaving only one spot for me—right next to him. I leaned against the arm of the couch, putting as much space between my body and his as I could. He was wearing a coat earlier, so I hadn’t noticed the navy crew neck sweater he was wearing.
I tried not to notice the way it fit his broad shoulders and muscular arms. It left me to imagine what hid beneath the less snug parts.
“I told your family I’d never been to a proper American Thanksgiving.” Penelope pulled me from my now R-rated thoughts. She sat on a plush armchair, Henry on the floor next to her. “What’s on the schedule?”
“Games, overeating, fighting.” Henry counted on his hand. “The big three. Speaking of fighting, Taboo is on the banned list of games now.”
“Why can’t we play Taboo?” Xander smiled widely, tilted his head, and turned from Penelope to me. “Sloan?”
I rolled my eyes. “Someonemay havebeen injured last year.”
Henry laughed. “Sloan threw the buzzer at Xander for missing Casablanca.”
“It barely grazed him.” In my defense, he was hardly trying and making a mockery of the competition.
“It flew past me and hit an 18th-century candy dish.” Xander beamed in regaling the story. Penelope's eyes were wide. Never having seen a true American Thanksgiving, our family may not have been the best one to start with. They were always a departure from anything Norman Rockwell would have painted.
“As I said that day, I was under duress at the time.” I defended. The duress was a terrible mood from an entire night with my family that I treated with a glass of wine. The glass turned into a bottle.
“I say we lean into it.” Xander leaned forward, running his hands through his hair. “Let’s do football on the lawn again. Sloan can get all her aggression out.” He and Henry laughed, only to be joined by Marcus a few moments later.
