Page 46 of Her Billionaire Boss
“Once again, Bill, I am so sorry—” Matt began, but Dad cut him off with a raised hand.
“It could have happened to anybody.If you’d poisoned my wife on purpose, we’d be having words, but it would have been stupid to poison yourselfandCharlotte in the process.”Dad narrowed his eyes.“Unless that was part of the plan all along.”
“I-I—” Matt stuttered helplessly.
“He’s messing with you.”I tipped my head and gave my dad an eye roll.“Are you serious right now?After what we’ve been through?”
“All right, all right.”Dad held up his hands in surrender, then put them in the pockets of his dockers.“It sounds like you’re all going to have to take it easy for a few days.And eat something called a B.R.A.T.diet.”
“Oh, that’s anything Charlotte eats,” Matt quipped.
“Very funny.”I folded my arms across my chest.“I’m sorry, dad.This is a disaster.You were looking forward to this trip.The museums, the—”
“Oh, I’m still going to the museums,” he said cheerfully.
“You ate the sauce on the pasta.”That was the part that didn’t make sense to me.“Why didn’t you get poisoned, too?”
He shrugged.“I had a little bit of a gurgley tummy, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It doesn’t.”I elaborated, so as not to sound like a huge bitch.“I mean, because I wouldn’t want you to be sick in the first place.”
“Can I say again how extremely, extremely sorry I am?”Matt scratched his forehead with his thumb, his eyes squinched shut in mortification.“This was not the impression I wanted to make.”
“What impression?”Dad asked, and it shocked me how much his tone made it sound like he was talking to Scott.Which, I guess, made sense, since Matt and my brother were the same age.
“I appreciate you being understanding.”Matt probably still had about seven apologies on deck.
Dad scratched the back of his neck.“Yeah… I lied.I’m too high for this.”
Before that statement penetrated the fog of my brain, he kept going.“I found your stash, Matt.I was a little nauseated from you poisoning us, so I snuck out on the balcony and smoked one of your joints.I’m sorry.”
“Dad!”My head hurt too much for the way I jerked into fully-sitting-up position.
“I should have asked.”He sounded like he “wasn’t mad, just disappointed,” but at himself.
Which was a nice change.
“I’m not psyched with you describing this incident as me poisoning you,” Matt said cautiously.“However, I did tell you to make yourself at home, so smoking my weed?No harm, no foul.”
“Oh, good.”Dad scrubbed his hand over his face.“I haven’t smoked in a long time.The stuff they’ve got these days… man, it’s so much stronger.”
“Does Mom know?”I asked.
“Absolutely not.You know how she feels about weed.”The word was like an alien language coming out of his mouth.
“How does she feel about it?”Matt asked nervously.
“She thinks she can get a ‘contact high’ from the smell of it.”No matter how many times I’d tried to explain that THC was released via heat and that nobody was going to get high from the smell of it through a sandwich bag, she persisted in her delusion.“Like, when it’s not even burning.But the good thing is, she can’t readily identify the smell, either, so even particularly strong odors of cilantro can merit a call to the DEA.”
“Be nice to your mother,” Dad tried to scold me, but it didn’t come across effectively, now that I knew he was on drugs.“I’m going to go back and check on her.Text me if you hear anything about the two of you coming home tonight.”
“Will do,” Matt promised.“Oh, and by the way, I would never have known you were high.You played it off like a champ.”
Dad made a “hang loose” sign with his hand and, in the most cringe-worthy California dad voice possible, said, “Far out,” as he backed through the curtain.
I hoped he was playing that up and it wasn’t how he was when he was high.
When he had gone, I faced Matt again.He grinned at me and said, “Tubular.”
