Page 24 of All Bets Are Off

I scratched my cheek. Nothing he was saying was technically wrong. It still felt wrong. “I don’t know.”

“People are going to be suspicious if you have your own place,” he argued. “I need my parents to fall for this. Are you really telling me that it’s going to be a hardship to live in this penthouse with me?”

I gave him some serious side eye. “It might be a hardship.”

“I promise not to make farting noises with my armpits.”

I groaned. I’d forgotten all about that. Zach and Rex had gone through a faze where they wanted to sing rap songs withtheir armpits when they were fourteen. That had been the three longest months of my life.

“I’m not sure you don’t still do that,” I said finally. “Rex still pretends to fart in my face when he wants to win an argument.”

Zach smirked. “You guys have the best relationship. I always wished I had that sort of relationship with my sisters. It wasn’t in the cards, though.”

He’d given me an opening—and I was still biding my time trying to figure things out on the living together front—so I walked through it. “Rex was older than me.” I sipped some of the soup broth. It was good, and surprisingly didn’t hurt my mouth now that it was cooler. “He was a typical big brother. Your sisters were all older than you. The roles were reversed. Although, I’ve always heard that older sisters dote on younger brothers. Was that not the case in your house?”

“My sisters loathed me.”

“I don’t think that’s true. I mean… I’m sure you got into mischief.”

“Yes, I once found Opal’s birth control pills and took them to my parents and told them she was on drugs. Turns out, drugs would’ve been better than my father finding out Opal was sexually active. He turned all cave man and grounded her from dating for six months. She’s still not over it.”

I frowned. “So, you were the tattletale in your house. That’s what Rex always accused me of being.”

“Youwerea tattletale.”

“Well, he should’ve included me more. I wouldn’t have had to tattle if I had skin in the game.”

“Or you could’ve just had his back occasionally.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like fun.”

Zach chuckled. Then he turned serious. “My sisters don’t hate me. They don’t love me, but they don’t hate me either. I think they want to, but they don’t. As they’ve gotten older,they’ve realized it was my father who rigged the game in my favor. It wasn’t me.”

I reached for my juice again. I was feeling much steadier. “What do you mean?” I was honestly curious. Zach was a lot more pensive than I remembered, and this was obviously a touchy subject.

“My father had three capable girls but he refused to stop having kids—even though my mother was over it after two—until he had a boy. He doesn’t believe my sisters can run the company simply because they have ovaries.”

My mouth fell open. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Yeah.” Zach was rueful. “He has a very antiquated belief system. According to him, the company was always destined to fall into my hands. His major problem right now is that he doesn’t think I’m taking things seriously when it comes to the business.”

“Ah, this is where the showgirls come in,” I guessed. “I knew they would make an appearance.”

He laughed, and it was quickly becoming my favorite sound. When he was unguarded, he was actually likable. That was something I would never have thought about him.

“I haven’t really been dating at all for months,” he replied. “I just haven’t had an interest.”

“That’s not what Rex says,” I argued. “I get to hear about all your exploits. He’s proud of them.”

“Your brother is a fling machine,” he agreed. “I was that way for a while. Lately, though, I’ve been feeling restless.” He squirmed as I continued to stare at him. “I don’t know what I want, Livvie. Part of medoeswant to take over the casino. My problem is that nothing I do is ever good enough. My father would always do it a different way, and he never lets me forget it.”

“It sounds like he’s given you a crisis of confidence.”

“Yeah. I need him off my back. I have no interest in dating right now. My past dating experience would suggest that I’m going to make the wrong choices when I go back, though.”

“Hence why you need a boring wife.” I spooned up more soup. “I get it.”

“You’re not boring.”

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