Page 6 of The Usual Family Mayhem

As predicted, he continued talking even though no one had asked him to explain. “You tend to breeze into town, cause chaos, then run.”

“I see your interpersonal skills are as stellar as ever.” No surprise there. People had to want to change, and he didn’t. “And ‘chaos’ is a strong word.”

“Is it, though?”

That voice carried a hint of a smooth Southern drawl. The tone wrapped around me like a hug. “I was here last time because it was Christmas and—”

“Oh, I remember. You insulted that bigwig at the tennis club. A client of your grandmother and Celia’s at the time. Thanks to you, they lost a contract for a New Year’s Day brunch and a lot of money.”

Yeah, that. “That’s not how I remember it.”

This twenty-something club jerk had lurked around a girl who couldn’t have been out of high school yet. He followed her down the hall toward the club’s bathrooms then moved in front of her and blocked her attempt to get around him. I stepped in and would do it again because that’s what women did for each other. I also had a generalnot on my watchrule to uphold.

“I think I showed amazing restraint in only telling that loser off.”

“I agree. If I had known about his amateur stalking, I would have told him off, too. But his father didn’t see the situation the same way we did.”

“That man had no sense of humor and a complete inability to see his son for the entitled walking disaster that he was. Not my fault.” No one warned me about the harasser being the spoiled son of some rich dude who owned a company that sold rich dude things and didn’t hesitate to throw around his rich dude influence in the form of threats.

Time for a subject change. One that put the spotlight on Jackson. “Where’s... Lucy, Suzy, Dolly?” I followed the question with a nonchalant shrug meant to telegraph how little I cared about his love life even though I sort of did. “Whatever you girlfriend’s name is.”

“Anna, and we broke up.”

Funny how Gram and Celia forgot to share that juicy piece of information during our weekly FaceTime calls. “She found someone else?”

“She moved to Atlanta.”

“So, your personality is driving them out of the state these days.”

His exhale drowned out the sound of the birds chirping in the trees behind us. “I seem to remember you asking Anna at Christmas if something crawled up her ass.”

That totally happened. “Did I?”

“It was basically a direct quote.”

“And a fair question on my part. She was very... clenched. I thought the poor woman might hurt herself doing that puckered-lip dismissal thing.”

It wasn’t my fault his ex-girlfriend lacked anything approaching a personality. Pretty but dull and her dullness turned out to be contagious. Jackson became positively humorless around her. She’d sucked what little charm he possessed right out of him.

“Your taste in women is weird.” Since that seemed like a safe word to land on, I went with it.

He rolled his eyes this time.

“No. Don’t. I should be the one making dramatic gestures, not you. Did you forget she ate a muffin with a fork?” He tried to respond but I talked over him because I had more. “If that wasn’t odd enough, she didn’t even finish it. A homemade applesauce muffin.”

“Your point?”

Oh, come on. “Who does that? It’s like opening a bag of chipsand only eating one. I think she might have been a sociopath. Be happy I shooed her away.”

“You didn’t...” He stared at my almost empty glass of water as if wrestling for control before continuing. “What are you really doing here?”

Apparently we were done talking about his fork-using ex. That didn’t mean I wanted to dance my way into a dangerous new subject. One that made me look bad. “A visit.”

“I know you. Stop bullshitting.” He leaned in closer. “Are you planning on pitching Mags and Celia a wild business idea?”

What the hell was that scent? Cologne? Shampoo? He always smelled like he stepped out of a shower of citrus and sandalwood. It was sexy in a concentration-zapping way.

“Of course not.” I switched to a whisper just in case. “How do you know about pitching?”

---