Page 43 of House Rules
Rachel is dead. Someone else could be next.
And I can’t let it be me.
14
Atticus
There’sa reason I don’t do family reunions. Or feelings. Or Phoenix Jones.
When Maverick said all the parents, I had no idea he meantallthe parents.
Apparently, everyone has forgotten that my parents should never be in a room together. Regardless of whether or not they’re in mixed company, it’s going to end up being a complete and total shit show.
I’m fine with doing my duty. Going down, making the requisite appearance with the fam, and doing whatever was needed—which usually involved playing a couple rounds of blackjack and pretending it was all the luck of the draw. That Iwas one of the Midas-touched Titans of Savannah and that luck had nothing to do with my ability to count cards.
If that’s the only penance I have to pay for the lifestyle I get to live, I’m happy to pay it…as long as I can deal solely with my mother or my father. Never both at the same time.
Someone failed to get that memo.
As I walk into the crowded casino, my eyes land on them immediately. My mother’s dyed-blonde hair is curled into an updo that I’m sure she thinks is elegant. As she speaks to my father, her hands are clenched at her side. My father wears a serene expression on his face, but his hand is gripping my mother’s elbow with far more pressure than either of them willingly let on.
To a casual observer, the two of them look like anyone having a quiet conversation, but the second you start looking at the details—that hand on her elbow, the tightening of his lips, the tension in her shoulders— the subtext becomes clear.
Another fight, probably about money. My mother is upset that her allowance was cut again; my father’supset that she was photographed half-naked by the paparazzi at some old man’s pool again. It’s always the same bullshit, and I don’t have the patience for it today.
The girl I took to my room last night safe-worded far too quickly. I let her try to make it up to me with her mouth, but it just wasn’t working. She wasn’t working, and while I could blame her for that fact—I did so repeatedly—I know that really her failure was that she wasn’t Phoenix Jones.
I grab Con’s arm to get his attention. At his raised eyebrow, I motion toward my parents. His expression falls as hard as mine did when I saw them.
“Tell my parents I have one of my migraines, and I’m staying upstairs.”
“You know they’re just going to accuse you of being hungover.”
“Tell them I spent the night reviewing security footage, trying to see if we had any card counters, and the blue light from the screens gave me a migraine.”
“Can you even do that?” Maverick asks.
“Review the footage, or get a migraine from the blue light? Either way, yes.” I swear I’ve told him this a dozen times. He knows I used to get exactly that type of migraine all the time when we were younger. I was always watching the cameras, believing if I was useful enough, my parents might stop fighting.
Clearly I was misguided.
“But you don’t actually review the footage anymore, right?” Storm asks, twirling his knife between his middle and ring fingers.
“Correct, because I wrote a program to do it for me. Now I just have to go in weekly and review any footage the algorithm flags.”
Also because I realized I’m not the one with anything to prove.The thought settles over me, a blanketing of awareness, as I look at my parents. I don’t crave their approval the way I once did. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I’m going upstairs. You guys make whatever excuse you want. I’ll see you later.”
I turn and walk away fast, not wanting any of them to keep me there talking or worse, for one of my parents to catch sight of me and try to drag me into whatever ridiculous argument they’re having.
I’d much rather be tucked away in our suite. And maybe when I get there, I should take a turn playing with our new toy.
We have all become more than a little obsessed with Phoenix of late.
Con and Maverick won’t stop staring. Storm pretends not to. And every time she looks at one of them, I feel the low scrape of something in my chest I don’t want to name.
Anticipation zings through me as the elevator doors slide open, and I step into the suite. Now they’re all downstairs, and I have her all to myself.
The common areas are empty of her presence, so I stalk forward and twist the doorknob to her room without bothering to knock. Part of me wants to catch her by surprise for some reason. Maybe because I like seeing her unsettled, devoid of that careful caution she keeps wrapped around her so tightly.
