Page 133 of Under the Lies

My father is a handsome man who has been treated kind with age. Salt and pepper hair and soft worry lines that crease between his eyes from all the frowning he’s done over the years.

He’s one of the only adults in this town that hasn’t gotten some kind of injection to make them disappear. He doesn’t seem to mind them. I don’t either. They make him look more refined in a way.

Not tonight, though.

The deep scowling makes those worry lines more prominent, angry and harsh.

Together, with my mother’s hand resting in the crook of his elbow, they walk as a unit toward Noah and I. My hand squeezes Noah’s forearm warning him to let go.

Naturally, he doesn’t.

Bastard. I glare at him.

He winks back.

“Noah,” I plea under my breath. “Let go. You’re only going to make this worse. Please.”

Surprisingly, he does. His arm drops from my shoulders, but he doesn’t leave my side as he whispers back, “Don’t ask me to walk away because I won’t. I’m not leaving you alone with them.”

My chest warms with his declaration, but it quickly sours with where it came from. Noah remembers what I was like around my parents as a teenager. A coward, a shell. I let them control me, to make me who they wanted to be.

But not anymore. No longer will I allow them to have power over me.

“Mom, Dad!” I force a smile that hurts my cheeks as they stand in front of us. Entrapping us in a small, intimate circle of animosity.

My parents hardly acknowledge me. How could they? They’re too busy staring at Noah with enough hatred to melt a couple of icebergs.

I’ve never fully grasped why my parents hate him. Even before he and Harlow started dating, they had despised the Kincaid name. At first, I thought it was because Noah’s parents owned a majority of the city, places that now belong to Noah.

The one time I asked my mom about it, she brushed some hair out of my face while telling me people like Noah didn’t deserve to inherit the money he did, not when he didn’t have parents around to teach him how to act appropriately.

It was cold and harsh. How could she hate a boy that lost his parents?

But the more Noah came around in prep school, the more I got to see them interact. My parents’ loathing of Noah wasn’t just rooted in his inheritance and lack of propriety. It stemmed deeper than that. Almost like it came from a place of fear.

Fear of what?

I watch the three of them, feeling out of place, out of the loop. None of them so much as look my way and I can’t help but feel like there’s a conversation going on here, one I am not privy too.

I clear my throat, nudging Noah’s side with my elbow and he blinks, whatever was transpiring between the three of them is now over.

Noah’s hand finds a home on my lower back. “Want to introduce me to your folks?”

“They know who you are,” I hiss under my breath for only him to hear.

He looks highly amused at the situation.

So glad he’s having fun.

“What are you doing here, Sayer? With him?” My mother doesn’t sound amused.

“I didn’t know you two were back,” I say, sidestepping her question.

“Yes, well,” my mother draws out. “If you answered your phone when we called you, you would’ve.”

I don’t answer, not when she just called me out on exactly what I’ve been doing. Ignoring their calls.

Both parents look to me in silent question, waiting for an explanation on my date. An explanation they’ve been wanting since they left for Europe.

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