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Momma bristles visibly. “This kid’s been clawing to get out of our family since he came to us.” She turns to me. “Well, I won’t stop you if you want to ruin your life. But I don’t have to stand here and pretend to be happy.”
“When have you ever been happy for another human being!?” I ask.
The Saint-Jacques family, and the outside observers, all go silent in shock. Bastien looks up at me. “Levi,” he says in a soft voice.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I continue. “Your sister slammed her finger in the car door once. You got a real kick out of that one, didn’t you?”
“Levi, please,” Bastien says, but I’m not listening.
Momma stands up and stares at me. “I found you a goddamned church so you didn’t have to get married next to a hooker. But that’s not good enough. When I took you in, your baby teeth hadn’t finished falling out yet. That’s not good enough. I drove across the mountains with no notice to be here for this day. But that’s not good enough.” She picks up her purse.
“Why are you always so fucking cruel?”
She slams her purse onto the table. “Because life is cruel.”
“But you didn’t have to be. That was a choice.”
“That may be. But it was the choice that made you what you are. And that’s not good enough, either.” She picks up her purse and wheels Daddy toward the door, April trailing behind her, looking like she wants to apologize.
“April,” I say. “Cricket.”
She stops in the doorway with her coat over her arm and looks back at me, and there is a second where I could say the right thing, and I do not have it.
“It’ll be okay,” I reassure her.
The door closes behind them and still nobody says anything for a beat.
“Eh bien,” Bastien says, clapping his hands. “I think this calls for wine and poutine and delivery pizza.” He extends a hand to me and smiles. “Can you help me to peel the potatoes, mon amour?”
“Yes. I can,” I say, and take his hand.
“Not before we find a better suit than this travesty!” Annette calls.
Chapter thirty-one
Bastien
“Come to bed,” Levi says, lifting the blanket so I get a tantalizing view of his broad chest.
“Not until you admit it.”
He grimaces. “Do I have to?”
I cross my arms. “The honor of my country is at stake.”
He sighs. “Fine. That poutine thing sounds totally gross. Like soggy French fries and gravy and who the fuck looks at that kind of hot mess and says, Yes, let’s put cheese curds on it.”
“There needs to be a but here. Because if there’s not, one of us is going downstairs to the couch.”
“But,” Levi says. “That poutine stuff is fucking delicious.”
“And you know this how?” I press.
He sighs. “I know it because I ate two huge plates of it,” he growls at me. “Now will you get into bed?”
I dive into the bed. He drops the covers over me. “Big spoon,” he announces, draping his arm around my chest.
“I’m always the little spoon.”
