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“Uhhh…” The floating glasses looked between them, pencil poised over his paper but unsure whether to really write that down.
“We’re fine, Cornelius,” Rowan said with a forced chuckle. “She’s just joking.”
Cornelius looked back at Raina’s serious face, her piercing stare driving daggers through Rowan’s forehead. He laughed uneasily as he gathered up his things. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
His tie, pencil and glasses scurried from the room.
Rowan closed the door behind him firmly and turned on her. “That was unnecessary. Poor Cornelius was about to have a heart attack.”
“What are you really up to?” she demanded, getting up and bracing her clawed hands on the table. “And why are you sending my husband spiraling?”
“I’m not up to anything.”
“You’ve always been a terrible liar.”
“I’m fixing our problem.” That wasn’t a lie and he could tell she saw it. “Haven’t you been encouraging me to do things my way and stop doing everything Dad wants?”
“Don’t flip this around and use my own words against me, you little shit,” she grumbled, but there was no heat in it. She sank back into her chair and looked at him. “Do you know what you’re doing? If this goes wrong, there’ll be no hiding it from Dad, and then you’ll really need to have that talk. No more hiding.”
“It won’t go wrong,” Rowan said with a confidence he didn’t feel. But he also couldn’t turn back, something in his chest wouldn’t let him. He’d committed to the insanity that was helping Milo Tobitt.
“Well you better prepare what you’re going to say to him and Mom later about the whole thing. And maybe make it more convincing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Our family dinner? Don’t tell me you forgot.”
Rowan slowly filled with horror. “Cover for me. Say I’m sick. Say I’m blowing up the toilet bowl. Say I died. Cornelius can be a witness!”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Am I?” he demanded. “All they want to talk to you about is the twins. The rest of us aren’t so lucky.”
“Maybe it’ll be different this time.”
“It’s never different! And I’ll have to sit there and listen to Dad dictate my future and agree over shrimp tartare.”
“Get the beef, then. Mix it up.”
“I hate you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know, the way to fix this problem is actually in your hands. If you’d actually talk to the man…”
“You know I can’t.” Rowan looked away.
Raina sighed. “Just come for a little while. I’ll help you beg off early. I’ll even field some questions for you. I have a whole folder of kid videos to distract them with.”
Rowan’s face softened. “Really?”
She got up and socked him in the arm. Hard. “What are big sisters for, huh?”
“Torture?” he grumbled, cupping his stinging bicep.
“Exactly!” She grinned with all her teeth before ruffling his hair. “You’ll survive until you buck up your courage, little dragon.”
And then she swept out of the room.
The end of the day and the impending Dinner of Doom rolled around too fast.
