Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
“Not a job that will keep you out of trouble, which is all Rom and I want.” Dallas unlooped her scarf around her neck, taking her time to drink in the mansion. “I can’t believe you’ve never even let me in through the front door, Oliver.”
He hadn’t? Better question – why didn’t I?
“I let you get married here.” Oliver rested a hand on my lower back, guiding the crowd into the dining room. “And gave you a room to get ready in.”
“And you shoved me into it through the back door like an overstuffed burrito.” She pivoted to me, lacing our fingers together. “I’m Dallas.” She jerked her thumb to the broody, towering man behind her. “And that’s my husband, Romeo.”
Romeo nodded but didn’t say anything. He helped his wife out of her coat, hooked it on the rack, and pulled out a seat for her before claiming the one beside her. Frankie sat on Dallas’ other side. Across from them, the remaining couple settled into their chairs. Zach and Farrow.
“Farrow.” The girl offered a mini wave and a friendly smile. Tall, and slender, and golden, she could pass as a Victoria’s Secret model. “But you can call me Fae. Congrats on being alive.”
“Thanks.” I smiled back, turning to her husband. “And you’re Zach, right?”
The Zachary Sun I remembered from Ollie’s description as kids was a black-and-white painting. Intricate, mournful, stunning, and in desperate need of a splash of color. Seemed like he got it. He looped an arm around the back of his wife’s chair, the poster child for Xanax.
Oliver pulled out the seat for me at the head of the table. I sat, watching him stroll to the opposite head, expecting him to sit there. Instead, he dragged the chair over to me, squishing himself into the small gap between me and Zach.
I edged mine over to give him space, unable to help the frown that feathered across my face. He literally hadn’t left my side since the hospital.
I patted his thigh. “I’m not going to drown if you leave a two-foot radius.”
He shrugged, snapping his fingers until the catering staff began dishing out food. Laksa risotto, kare kare pork shank, soft shell crab, and vegetarian tom yum pasta for me.
I spiraled the bucatini noodles onto my fork, addressing the whole group. “Can you guys describe what it was like to meet me for the first time?”
“Sure,” Romeo drawled, surprising me. I didn’t expect him to volunteer first. “I remember it like it was today.”
“You mean yesterday?” I raised a brow, shocked by the American education system. “The phrase is: I remember it like it was yesterday.”
A ghost of a smile haunted his face. “Yeah. Sure.”
Dallas elbowed him in the gut. “What Romeo meant to say is, before you guys met face-to-face, he didn’t believe you existed.”
Farrow nodded. “Neither did Zach.”
Zach moved the carbs onto one side of his plate and started on the protein. “We thought you were an imaginary friend Oliver made up on occasion out of sheer loneliness.”
Oliver scowled, working his jaw back and forth, his knife still speared into his porkchop. “Why would you think that? I mentioned her often enough.”
“Seb told us she’s made up.”
“When did he do that?”
Farrow turned to Zach. “Who’s Seb?”
I straightened, shocked that I’d forgotten to ask about him in the chaos. “Where is Seb?”
Dallas spoke around an entire crab leg, “What’s a Seb?”
Frankie whistled. “Seb sounds hot.”
Zach answered first. “Sebastian von Bismarck is Oliver’s little brother.”
Dallas’ fork clattered to her plate, flinging laksa onto her blouse. “Oliver has a brother? How did I not know this?”
Good question. He was her husband’s best friend’s absurdly pretty, freakishly talented baby brother. They shared the same street. Surely, Seb visited all the time. I remembered Oliver saying back then that his parents made him promise to let Seb sleep over whenever he wanted.
Romeo dabbed the sauce off Dallas’ shirt with a cloth napkin. “Because Sebastian decided to throw his rowing talent in the trash in favor of living out of his backpack like a retired techbro in the midst of a midlife crisis.”
Seb? Quitting rowing? Living out of his backpack abroad? The same Sebastian von Bismarck that couldn’t eat a meal without turning it into a competition? What happened?
Beside me, Oliver paled. I knew better than to ask him in front of so many people, but I most definitely would the second everyone cleared the house.
Zach nodded. “Truly, I should thank him.”
Farrow arched a brow. “Oh?”
“For years, every time my mother would begin to lecture me, she’d always look across the street at this home and remember that it could always be worse. In hindsight, her horror could be directed at Oliver, too.”
Farrow sighed. “Oh, Constance.”
I stared at Oliver, who’d suddenly found his rosemary bread particularly interesting. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t updated me about Seb. After all, I’d just gotten discharged from the hospital with clear instructions to take it easy. What mattered was that he seemed deeply uncomfortable, and I wanted to help him.