say?”
“I can!”
“Dearest niece, I understand how it is. Sometimes you just have to throw your own kin out into the cold night.”
“It’s summer,” Stevie bit out between clenched teeth, that left eye twitching again. “And it’s morning.” She glanced at her sister. “Could you stop doing that, please?”
She didn’t snap that request. But there was a tone there that Zé didn’t want to examine too closely. A tone that would make him aware he’d want to stop bouncing that ball.
But not Max. Not the crazy woman who took on ex-military like she was pranking a bunch of junior high nerds. No. She just smiled. That smile he remembered so well from the other night. She smiled and she just kept going.
“You don’t understand,” Stevie continued. “I have a lot of things going on right now. I’ve got a ballet to write—”
“Isn’t that cute?” her uncle said to the burly men with him. And there went that eye twitch again.
“—a lab to set up—”
“Oh, are you doing the science thing again? Good for you, lass. Good for you. Bet you could do well with that sort of thing . . . if you just tried. You know, put your mind to it. Focused on it.”
“—and my boyfriend’s parents to meet.”
“Is that the Oriental bloke we saw around here?”
Oooh. There went that nasty twitch again and now it was getting . . . intense.
“The word is not Oriental. It’s Asian or, if you want to be specific, Chinese. My boyfriend is Chinese American.”
“You can barely tell,” the uncle said. “His English is really good. Like he was born here.”
“He was—” She managed to cut herself off, but Stevie’s fingers had now curled into fists.
“Please stop dribbling that ball,” she asked Max again before she said to her uncle, “So what I’m saying is, I’m sure you’d be much more comfortable in a hotel—”
“A hotel? I don’t know about that. We’re so low on cash right now, ya know . . . after what your father did and all.”
Stevie slowly blew out a breath, then said, “I can pay to put you up in a hotel for a bit.”
“That’s real kind of ya, darlin’. Real kind indeed. But we can’t just go anywhere, now can we? After someone tried to kill us.”
“What hotel would you like?” she asked.
“For us? It would need to be the Kingston Arms, now wouldn’t it?’
The Kingston Arms? Was this asshole kidding? The Kingston Arms was expensive. Seriously, blindingly expensive. It made staying at the Ritz Carlton seem like hanging out at a Motel 6 off I-95.
“Well . . . that’s a problem,” Stevie said as she tried to slap the basketball away from a still-dribbling Max, “since—the last I heard—the Scottish MacKilligans have been banned from the Kingston Arms. All Kingston Arms. Even the ones in Africa and Asia.”
“Maybe because they kept calling the Asians ‘Orientals,’ ” Max suggested, making Zé snort just a little.
“That wasn’t what happened,” the uncle argued. “And Africa? How could we be banned from some African Kingston Arms? That’s not a country I’d even go to. Isn’t that right, lads?”
When the men agreed as if even suggesting such a thing was the real offense here, Stevie threw up her hands and snarled. “Africa is a continent, you dimwits! You’ve been banned from all the Kingston Arms that are in the many countries on the continent of Africa.”
“Country or continent—”
“Continent!”
“—being banned from Africa was not the fault of the MacKilligans.” His head bopped from side to side before he added, “But Asia . . . that was definitely our fault. But not Africa. It was our enemies who got us banned from Africa. That was other badgers who used our name.”
“I don’t care! You need to go! And you—” she suddenly bellowed, turning to face her sister, “—need to stop dribbling that goddamn ball!”
But Max didn’t stop; she simply began dribbling the ball back and forth between her legs. Zé had to admit, though, she had solid technique.
The uncle, however, didn’t seem to be aware of anything but getting what he wanted.
“Look, niece,” her uncle began again, “we’d go if we could. Truly we would. We don’t like being in your way. But where would we go? What would we do? So for now, at least, here we’ll stay. And I’m sure with a heart as big as yours, you’ll be happy to let us stay, now won’t she, lads?”
The burly men heartily agreed, their condescending smirks annoying Zé so much, he thought about