Page 100 of Rules of Association

Before she could fully make it past me, I came shoulder to shoulder with my sister. Lowering my voice, I hissed, “No really, Tine. What the hell is she doing here?”

Tiney reared back to look at me, horrified. “Ox couldn’t make it so he suggested I take Ceci. Geez, Con. You guys are over there all the time, don’t be so rude!”

“Yeah,Connor,” Ceci said. Her instigating hat pulled down tight. “Don’t be such a hypocrite.”

I glared at her. Oh, she was in a mood alright and I did not have the patience for it today. Not when my mom was also agitated and I knew those two would go together like oil and a fucking lighter. And not while we had guests. Plus, if I had any doubts about Ox knowing something, they were all confirmed now. He might be grasping but he was grasping in the right direction. Whatever was bothering Ceci was blinding her to the fact.

Whatever.

I’d check on her later. For now, I turned away from my sister and my friend as they retreated up the stairs toward my two friends who were looking at me like I had two heads. Waving Malcolm and Ria over, I leaned in and lowered my voice. “Remember how I told you Ceci and I don’t talk about the fact that we’re friends?”

They nodded.

“That’s because it’s sort of a secret. She’s Tine’s sister-in-law and a family business connection. So on, so forth,” I explained.

Mal’s eyes lit up. His face working into an over-amused smirk while Ri simply shook her head and sighed, mumbling, “Oh Connor,why?”

“Her idea,” I shrugged.

“And you go along withallher ideas don’t you, mate?” Mal asked, the smirk growing into a grin.

I glared at him. “Just keep your mouth shut or I’m kicking you out, okay?”

To Ria, I clasped my hands together as I began to back away, mouthing, “Please?”

Making my way out of the main room, I searched for my next target. Hoping to find my mom and suss out her mood before Hurricane Ceci came back. Unfortunately for me, someone was hot on my heels.

“Mate…”

“Malcolm,” I groaned.

He slapped two hands over my shoulders and shook. “What’s going on? Why so stressed?”

I turned to him with nothing short of panic in my veins. “They’re going to kill each other.”

“Her and Clayton?”

I shook my head. “Not them.”

“Mum Ferguson, then?” he asked, and as he looked at me, he began to nod. “Ya, right. They won’t get on.”

“Yeah no shit. And I can’t jump in and stop it without it looking weird because of…”

Malcolm raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Lowering my voice I whispered, “Because of what I just told you.”

My dear friend of almost ten years cackled. Laughing and laughing at my expense like it was the funniest thing in the world. Malcolm and Ria had been coming to visit once a year since our college days. When we were young, we all used to stay here with my parents. Now that we were older and I’d since moved out of my parents’ place, they usually just spent their last night here. Mom loved him and Ria and insisted they come up to the house to see the family whenever they were in town. Sending them off with a dinner and a promise to visit again soon.

Now, I pushed his shoulder, saying, “Yeah, it’s so fucking funny, huh?”

He knew it wasn’t. He had been around my family enough to know that this would not bode over well. Mom was not one of those cool Moms around friends. She acted no differently around strangers than she did around us. She was tough, strict, and maybe a little terse. You would never know if she liked you unless she actually told you so. And Ceci was practically the same. Same but different.

While Mom was older and knew when to hold her tongue…sometimes, Ceci did not possess that skill. Wouldn’t use it even if she did. And she was already not a fan of my mother even though they’d yet to have an actual conversation outside of introductions.

I confided in Cee a lot about Mom. Told her things about how she made me feel unseen and unappreciated, sometimes even unwelcome. Things I didn’t even talk to my siblings about. That coupled with the mood she had shown up in, something told me that she would not be pulling her punches.

Beside me Malcolm held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. This is just sostupid. The secret friends part, not the part where your little girlfriend and your mom are going to tear each other apart.”

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