“Does your dad not like me or…”
“It’s time for grace.” The mayor’s proclamation cut my question off, his hands out. Ramses took one while Liam took the other, his wife Daisy across from me holding her husband’s hand. Evelyn sat on the opposite end of the table, and together, everyone sat quietly while the mayor said a few words. After, the staff came in, plating salads and assisting. I started to go for mine, but once again, I noticed the mayor. He was talking to Liam but kept looking over at me, and I assumed because Ramses really didn’t bring any girls around here. Eventually, the mayor noticed me noticing, and waving Liam off, he shifted complete focus to me.
“There’s always time for business, Liam,” he said to him, then folded his hands over his salad. “But it isn’t every day my son brings a girl home. Please, December. Tells us about yourself—”
“Dad, come on.” Ramses sat back. “When have you ever cared about who I’m dating?”
“Since now, and you don’t talk.” He directed a finger. “Not right now, and what you’ve been getting into. You’ve been disgracing this family, so it’s the least you can do to let me talk in my own house.”
Ramses’ nostrils flared, but his dad must have had something there, so he stopped talking. Ramses pulled his napkin off his lap, apparently no appetite when he placed it on the table. The room suddenly silent, everyone’s eyes averted. Everyone but the mayor’s.
He had his focus on me and continued to keep it. He opened his hands. “Now, December. Please. Tells us everything about you. Tell us what my son apparently wanted to keep quiet.”
Dishes clanked awkwardly around me, all but Ramses’, who had so much heat coming off him I thought he might punch a wall. I might just punch him after this was over.
So much for a night off faking.
Twenty-Three
Ramses
I pressed my head back to the seat of my Mercedes, barely able to look at December let alone talk to her. I folded a hand over my eyes. “God, I’m so sorry.”
My dad interrogated her tonight, asked her everything about herself short of her blood type. At one point, I thought he’d actually ask to get a test of that.
“Just want to know who you’ve been seeing, son,” he’d stated, all nonchalant about it like he wasn’t all up in her business. “Nothing wrong with knowing how our son is spending his time…”
Only except for the fact that he’d never given a shit about it before. But now, it seemed to be open season on, of all people, my fake girlfriend. The kicker had been when he had asked about December’s college plans—newsflash, she hadn’t had any. Nothing wrong with that, but when Dad had found that out, he’d asked if she would be staying in town, and once she’d said yes, he’d asked her why, why like that was any of his business at all. He seriously couldn’t grasp the concept why someone might want to take both a break from life and/or school and just be.
Especially someone who’d been through as much as December.
The whole thing had been a disaster, seriously messed up. I begged help from my mom and got zip, nada, and nothing. She wanted to know stuff too, like friggin’ everything, and was there along for it with my dad. By the end, I had to peel them away from her, the both of them completely out of line.
Maybe if I’d brought more girls over, things wouldn’t be that way. But after all that shit that went down with my last relationship, my girlfriend cheating on me in AZ, I’d been gun-shy to get invested in anything, let alone take someone home. December got to pay for that tonight, and I turned my head, looking at her. Her eyes were currently out the window, the pair of us parked in her dad’s driveway. We’d been sitting there for several minutes. I sighed. “He’s seriously never like that. I don’t know what got into him, my mom.”
Things had been getting into him since the fight. He laid into me after we got in the car, like seriously lost his shit. I hadn’t understood it. He never cared before.
I guess he did now, this stupid fucking ring on my finger. He was proud of me or some shit, invested. I guess, in the end, I’d done that to myself.
December didn’t say anything, playing with the necklace around her neck. It was the necklace I’d given her. She faced me. “It wasn’t so bad.”
She was being nice as hell right now and definitely not what she should be. I told her I’d have her back tonight. I frowned. “My dad was being an ass. He’s never leaned in so hard before. I think it’s this ring. It’s doing something to him.”
I held it up for emphasis, the influence of this, and that had to be what tonight was about. I existed to my dad now that I’d earned my way into the Court. I existed where I hadn’t before, legacy.
December continued to play with her necklace, and noticing me staring at her, she let it go. “I guess it’s a good thing I wore this, then. I don’t usually take it off.”
She didn’t? Never? I watched her play with it more. I’d had serious reservations when I gave it to her initially. I knew she agreed with the plan in the end, but giving her that necklace normally meant something.
And she never took it off?
I guess I was glad she’d thought to be prepared when I hadn’t. I let her go to the wolves tonight, and if it hadn’t been for my dad’s pushy-ass chief of staff, Liam, bugging him about politics from time to time during the interrogation, Dad would have been all over her all of the night and not just some of it. “I should have protected you. He’s ridiculous.”
She raised a shoulder, her dark hair sliding over her shoulder. The fact that she’d been so uneasy about the way she looked tonight blew me away. I’d told her once she was a bombshell, and I didn’t retract from those thoughts. December didn’t even have to try like most girls, just be herself.
Sitting back and away from those thoughts, I watched her face forward. She sighed. “At least with him you know what you’re getting into. My dad is just—” She paused, shaking her head. “My dad is so hot and cold. He asked me like a million questions tonight before you came to pick me up. Questioning me like he cares and so phony about it.”
“Phony?” I asked.