Page 20 of Betting on the Brainiac

“My family is rich,” I begin. This is the part of the story I hate, the part I never elaborate on, but Sami snorts as if it’s an understatement. They all stayed at my house over New Year’s our freshman year of college because my parents wanted to do Christmas in the Swiss Alps and I didn’t. I was eighteen, and it hadn’t even been a full year since I’d had all my illusions about them ripped away, and I wasn’t taking a dime of their tainted money—including vacations.

“My family is very rich,” I revise, “but no more editorializing or I don’t tell the story.”

Joey levers himself up and claps his hand over Sami’s mouth, then yelps and yanks it back. “She licked me. Gross.”

Josh smirks at him. “Then you’re a broken man.”

“He likes it when I do it,” Ava says.

We all pause to look at her with various degrees of respect.

“It’s always the quiet ones,” I say.

Ava waves off our attention, unfazed. “Continue, Madi.”

“It’s generational,” I tell them. “My grandfather’s great-grandfather started Copperhead Boots.”

Josh gives a low whistle. It’sthename in cowboy boots, respected from the rodeo circuit to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. Ranch workers wear regular Copperheads, but wealthypeople from celebrities to drug cartel bosses wear the couture boots as a sign of status. The waiting list is years long, and the only thing comparable is a Birkin bag. But even those are easier to get.

“Yeah. My grandfather grew the company and started acquiring subsidiaries in related fields, then my dad came along and went even bigger. He met my mom when he was judging the Miss Texas Rose pageant because Copperhead Boots was a sponsor. She won. He decided to marry the queen. And do you know what daughters of a queen are called, Josh?”

“Princesses.”

“Correct. The king, the queen, and their two princesses lived happily in their castle on the lake.” I don’t get into the specifics. No one feels sorry for the poor little rich girl who takes way too long to realize that she’s earned none of her “specialness” and that, in fact, she’s trapped by it. “Each princess would marry only the worthiest prince deserving of her hand.”

“What is a worthy prince?” Joey asks, settled back at the foot of the bed. “Is he supposed to slay a metaphorical dragon?”

I shake my head. “Don’t be silly. You can’t earn a princess on merit. He only needs equal or greater social status and equal or more money.”

“Totally reasonable,” Ava says, dryly.

“One day, the elder princess discovered that the monarchs were more cunning than wise, decided that the monarchy is stupid, and decided to pull a Prince Harry.” This is the part I hate digging into, so I don’t. “It was me. I decided the story didn’t make sense anymore, and I left. When I’m occasionally dragged back to the royal court, I play the jester and flip everything on its head.”

“And this relates to Oliver . . . how?” Josh asks.

“When my parents try to throw one of their princelings at me, I always tell them that I’m the princess with the frog, and I’msuper committed to doing right by the kingdom, and I need to kiss all the frogs. So I do.” Here I break into a big smile. It gets under my parents’ skin, and I love it.

“Uh, Madison?” Joey says. “That is a downright evil grin.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Sami says. “Our senior year we were tailgating before the Texas Tech game. Madison and I were hanging out with one of the fraternities, and her sister sees us. She was a freshman, and she comes by in time to find Madi evaluating the skills of the fraternity president.” Sami gives a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows.

“Not his grilling skills,” Ava adds.

“Got that,” Joey says.

“So her sister hauls Madi over to a tree for a royal reprimand.” Sami squishes the sides of her face and makes her eyes big. “She’s over there with her baby face, hollering about who is that and why is she kissing him out in public and—” Sami makes her voice shrill—“what does Madison mean she’snot even dating him?”

Her imitation is so spot on that I bust up laughing.

“To be honest,” Sami says, “it wasn’t that funny. She was going on and on about how that was a stain on their family reputation, and how could Madi treat it so lightly.”

“What did you do?” Josh asks me. “Because there’s no chance you just took it.”

I point at myself. “Jester, remember? I inform her of my frog-kissing Texas princess responsibilities. She says she’s tattling to the monarchs and stomps off, and I tell her to make sure they know I’m taking it seriously and working hard.”

“What Madison actually did,” Sami interrupts, “is yell after Kaitlyn to tell their parents that she’s grinding.”

Joey and Josh lose it, and I give them an innocent smile. “I meant at work. Guess she thought I meant something else because she got even stompier.”

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