Page 6 of The Prodigal

He cocks his head to the side, his eyes narrowing on my mouth. “I hope you’re not eating those mints.”

“What?” I inhale a bite of potato and choke, covering my mouth with one hand and shoving the bag of ribs at him with the other.

He takes the bag and opens it like he knows something is up. “Where are my fries?”

At least he isn’t stupid.

I finally get my cough under control and level him with an exasperated look. “How should I know? Do I look like I work for Benny’s BBQ?”

His fingers twitch against the paper bag before he smiles, reaching in and pulling something out of the bag and tossing it at my chest. “What the—”

The cardboard container hits me in the chest before I realize what it is: the box the fries came in. “I can explain,” I almost plead, but it just makes Remington laugh.

“And you will,” he says, walking backward to the door. “Tomorrow. With my fries.”

Then he leaves.

He doesn’t sit in his chair.

He doesn’t call and complain.

He just disappears behind the door to Room 101.

Remington

“Where the fuck have you been?”

With an apple midway to my mouth, I pause and grin. “In a delectable young college gir—”

Halle slaps my hand away from my mouth before I can answer Duke. “Don’t even think of finishing that lie.” She holds up a finger in warning, as if I’ll listen.

“How do you know it’s a lie?” I bite into the apple and chew, thoroughly amused by just how shitty the attitudes in this room are for so early in the day.

“Because,” Halle laughs, “you barely tolerate us, and we’re your family. There’s no way you willingly spent the evening with some girl—no matter how pretty she was.”

She’s not wrong.

I don’t like people.

Nor do I date or have friends.

Except for Halle. I suppose she’s the closest I have to a friend, even if she’s several years older than me and is engaged to Vance—the grumpiest of my two uncles.

“Fine,” I admit, flashing my father, the famous plastic surgeon, Dr. Duke Potter, an almost apology, “I overslept.”

His eyes narrow. “You never oversleep.”

Technically, he can’t be sure of that fact, seeing as how I’ve only lived with him for a little while, and even then, I still stay with Vance and Halle most of the time, so he and Ramsey, my mother, can have privacy—okay fine, it’s soIcan have some privacy. Duke is a nosy bastard. The point is, the three couples gathered in this kitchen don’t actually know if I oversleep because they don’t know if I even sleep. They only assume I’m out of bed in a timely manner because I was never late to the office when I worked there.

“What can I say?” I lie effortlessly. “I’ve embraced the lazy college life.”

“You’ve embraced the lying life, you mean.” Vance leans against the kitchen counter and cocks a brow, daring me to lie—which, obviously, I have no problem doing, since I wasn’t banging some college girl, nor did I sleep through my alarm.

“You caught me.” I frown. “I was trying to give you all enough time to decorate for my birthday party.”

Vance rolls his eyes. “The party celebrating yourfake birthday.” I can tell he’d rather be buried in Halle than standing here with his two brothers, their women, and his niece, celebrating a bullshit birthday I made up all because Ramsey is sentimental and will use any excuse to see me.

I flash him a grin. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you boys, that pussy, no matter how sweet it is, should not control you.”

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