Page 96 of Masks and Mishaps

“Scared?” Lander questions, moving like he’s about to roll up his sleeves, but he pauses. His sweater is super nice. Clearing his throat, he wipes his hands on a dishtowel andthenshoves up his sleeves.

“God, I get so dry when they do this,” Cora mutters, rolling her eyes.

“Same,” Valeria agrees. She downs the rest of her seltzer and grabs Cora’s hand.

Lander lunges and gets Everett into a headlock, which he quickly releases when Everett winces and says, “Easy. The pillows here are too firm, and I have a crick in my neck.”

“Go,” I say to Essie, who removes her apron as Cora and Valeria come around the island and usher her out of the kitchen.

“Stop that,” my mother warns, rushing over to Lander and Everett. “And don’t lie, Everett. Those pillows are down-filled.”

“I wouldneveruse goose down,” Everett blurts out, looking horrified.

“Stop insulting Alyssa,” Lander warns, shoving Everett’s shoulder. “You know she bought cruelty-free ones for you.”

“Stop shoving me,” Everett snaps. “I would have slept better if Pierre hadn’t been pawing at the door to my room because he likes me more.”

The insult makes Lander stagger backwards. “You’re dead, Logan,” he hisses before…tickling Everett? I don’t know. The secondhand embarrassment keeps me from watching too closely to be sure, but whatever it is, it works.

My mom is still trying to pull Lander away from Everett, so I slip out. I have to find Essie and get our story straight, but she’s long gone when I enter the hallway, andshit—I must have left my phone.

I’m heading for the stairs when four words stop me in my tracks: “You messy little slut.”

“Mom!” I spin around. “You can’t say that to me.”

My mother closes the gap between us and locks her hand around my forearm to pull me, moving alarmingly fast for a woman in high heels. “I can say whatever I want to you.I made you.”

“You shouldn’t be calling anyone a slut…”

“You are theonlyperson I’ve ever called a slut,” she replies, shoving me into an empty room, and she has a point because I definitely had a threesome here the summer before college.

She slams the door behind us and pushes me toward one of the couches in the center.

“I can explain,” I declare, plopping onto the upholstery.

She folds her arms and glares at me.

Oh shit, she really wants an explanation.

“Okay, I can’t actually explain,” I admit. “I just thought it was a saying, you know, like, ‘so the tides have turned,’ or ‘that’s the way the cookie crumbles.’”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I should have had you neutered,” she murmurs.

“Please,” I counter. “As if you raised Lander, Everett, and me to be sex positive without considering the possibility that we could end up being a tiny bit slutty.”

“A tiny bit slutty?Tiny? Did I not catch you getting a blow job on the day of your grandfather’s funeral?”

…Okay, fair. “I like to think Grandpa Franklin would have wanted me to honor him that way.”

“Shut up, Dalton.”

“Point taken.”

Mom starts to pace. “Come on, Alyssa,” she murmurs before she faces me—but looking at me seems to make her angrier. “Well, I shouldn’t be surprised you seduced your stepsister. After I caught you seducing your Spanish tutor, I should have known you had no impulse control.” Her eyes narrow. “Did you ever learn Spanish?”

“I’m learning now,” I reply in lieu of admitting the truth: Unless she wants to know where the biblioteca is, I didn’t learn Spanish.

She exhales and lowers into the armchair adjacent to the couch. “How long have you and Essie been…” Her eyes tick over me. “…Did she call youDaddy?”

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