Page 29 of Synced to Us

“Putting it off until the morning.” Brad smirks, melted cream curdling at the corners of his mouth. “Telling your girl about the debt you’ve put Ma and us in is way more entertaining.”

“Bradford,” May hisses at the same time Wyn’s fists slam into the table.

We all jump.

“I didn’t come here so an asswipe like you can see what it feels like to belittle a man four times his size,” Wyn speaks through his teeth.

“Why not?” Brad continues to shove cake through his thin lips. “You’re the big rock star with all the cash, telling us we could live pretty the rest of our lives. And then what happened? You mismanaged the crap out of it and left us to pick up the pieces.”

“That’s not at all true and you know it.”

“Boys.” May holds her hand out between them. Her fingers shake. “Quiet now. You’ll wake Scout and Daisy.”

Brad throws his hand up, too. “No, Ma, Winnie needs to hear this.”

“Do not call me that.”

“Hear me, anyway,” Brad continues. “Because it’s not like the kids’ll sleep all night with the fucking train station in our backyard. We used to have a nice house. We used to have it good. Until your boy here”—Brad looks at me—“made promises he couldn’t keep. Vows we relied on. I’ve done all I can to help with my paycheck, but still, my mother can barely put food that’s not from a can on the table—”

“Enough!” Wyn’s roar reverberates across the room.

“Well, now you’ve gone and done it.” May flails her hands in surrender, tears in her eyes.

“He’s a con man, honey,” Brad explains to me. “Don’t let what he says fool you. When it comes to money, Wyn Riley ain’t got none. If he does, he’s certainly not sharing it with his family.”

Wyn leaps over the table. Dishes go flying as May screams, and I jump on Wyn’s back, trying to pull him down.

“Wyn!” I shout, my fingers tangling in his shirt.

“Boys! Stop! Stop this instant!” May sobs. She’s backed herself into a corner, her arms folding over her body and her shoulders shaking.

But Wyn takes his brother by the neck and tosses him into the wall. Brad’s head dents the plaster.

“Dadddyyyyy!”

A child’s wail, aching in its panic, breaks the tension between the two brothers.

“Oh my God!” Lucy screams, running to her husband with one toddler in her arms while the other races to Brad crumpled on the floor. Lucy glares up at Wyn, her eyes shining with a stunned kind of anger. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Wyn retreats so fast, he backs into me, nearly running me over. “I’m sorry. I don’t know…there’s no excuse. Brad, I’m sorry.”

Shockingly, Brad grins up at him over the top of his son’s head. His teeth are blood-rimmed. “Just par for the course, eh, big man? Using muscle where you don’t have brains.”

Oh. That’s motherfucking it.

I move out from behind Wyn and stalk forward. “Listen, you little man. You may think you have all the knowledge with that professor brain of yours, but your grasp of Wyn’s finances is about how it would feel to hold your dick. He’s used his life savings to keep this house afloat, and I plan to—”

Wyn grips my wrist. Hard.

Dread surges in my belly, absorbing the red of my vision and clearing the fog of rage in my mind.

The realization I’ve again gone off-script hits harder than it should. I’m not supposed to react. A mouthy Dee isn’t what Wyn contracted for.

I take a breath. “I apologize. That was uncalled for.”

“Dang right it was.” Brad uses his wife as leverage as he slides up the wall and returns to a standing position. “And using the D-word around my kids. You clearly don’t have children of your own.”

I’m forced to internally recite my daily meditations as my hands curl into fists.

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