Page 62 of The Bad Girl List

“We’re thrilled to have you,” Mom says. “Trevor, honey, are you going to introduce us?” She looks pointedly at Dom.

I scowl at my mother. “Dom, this is my mom, Megan. Mom, this is Dom. Did you meet Annika yet?”

She ignores my second question as she takes Dom’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Dom.”

“Hi, Megan.” Dom shakes her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Trevor, look what Dom’s family brought us.” Mom picks up a platter of Chinese dumplings sitting next to the wine bottles and hands it to me.

“Homemade,” Dee says. “We just made them before we got here.”

“We removed one winery from today’s schedule so we could have enough time to go home and whip those up,” Dom whispers in my ear.

“Wow, those look delicious,” I say, shooting Dom a What-do-I-do-with-these? look.

She rescues the platter from my hands. “Annika,” she says, “didn’t you promise to fry these up for appetizers?”

Annika looks like she’s watching a train wreck unfold and is loving every second of it. I notice Thomas is gone and wonder where he’s disappeared to.

“Annika.” Only a deaf person could miss the desperation in Dom’s voice.

Annika rolls her eyes and saunters over. “Sure, I’ll fry them up. Can someone point me in the direction of the kitchen?”

Thomas decides it’s the perfect time to make an appearance. He waltzes in, carrying something in his hands. From the look on his face, I know it’s not going to be good for me.

“Everyone, look at this.” Thomas holds up a plaque for Dom’s family to see. The logo for the Sonoma County Sustainability Stewardship Council flashes gold on the top. “This is an award Trevor received last year for our biodynamic farming practice.”

Dom’s family flutters around the plaque, sounding off with various epithets of appreciation. They’re nice enough to ignore the insanity of my family and act like they’re sincerely impressed.

“Thanks to Trevor, Moretti Winery is an industry leader in biodynamic farming,” Thomas says. “He’s even been asked to give lectures on it at UC Davis and Cal Poly.”

More excited exclamations follow this proclamation. If I had low self-esteem, my ego would be loving this. God, her family is so nice.

As I plot out ways to get my brother alone so I can strangle him, Dom leans over and whispers, “Well, it’s better than a Speedo picture.” She looks as helpless as I feel.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Gramps and the old-timers dealing out cards. Inspiration strikes. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner.

“Did you say something about your family liking to gamble?” I whisper.

“Yeah. Why?”

There isn’t time to explain my new plan. Thomas is having way too much fun embarrassing me, and Mom looks like she’s planning her next move.

Raising my voice to interrupt Thomas as he practically waxes poetic about the fertilizers I make from scratch–really?–I say, “Hey, does anyone like to play cards?”

Three black-haired heads turn in my direction. The sustainability farming award is instantly forgotten.

Wow. Dom hadn’t been exaggerating when she said her family likes to gamble.

“Gramps and his friends play a pretty mean hand of gin,” I say, gesturing to the old-timers.

Helen says, “Cards? We’re going to play cards?”

Dee says, “We love gin.”

Louise says, “Do they play blackjack?”

Dom’s smile of relief is palpable. “Come on,” she says, taking her mom by the arm. “I’ll introduce you to Gramps. He already let me draw his portrait so he can set up a Tinder profile.”

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