How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,39

to saving money, any idea is a good idea.”

Gloria cleared her throat. Not a scoff, really. But not…not a scoff.

“Here,” Sophie said and pushed the papers she’d been twisting her hands. “You can look at it. It’s probably nothing—”

“You lost money to breakage,” I said, unable to keep my mouth shut. Unable to watch Sophie shrink in her chair when she should be proud of her ideas. And maybe I wanted to give her mother the finger. “She has a plan to help.”

“Packaging,” W.B. said, like the word had just occurred to him.

“It…it costs a little more,” Sophie said. “But in the long run...”

“I do love the long run,” W.B. said as he started to look through the papers.

“W.B., have you met my mother?” Wes asked.

“I don’t think so,” Gloria said.

“A few times, actually,” W.B. said, and he stood and shook Gloria’s hand. I was happy to see she gave him the same limp-wristed shake she always gave me. At least that part wasn’t personal.

W.B. sat back down, his attention on the forms Sophie’d handed him.

Gloria turned my way. “You’re out of the army?”

“Marine Corps,” I corrected her for the hundredth time. “And yes.”

“And you’re working here now?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s convenient, isn’t it?” It was one of her questions that had a thousand different meanings, all of them with an edge of meanness, and I always wondered if it was because I was poor. Or because Wes and Sophie so clearly loved me when they weren’t always fond of her. Or perhaps it was just living in the shadow of her husband, who’d been cruel and suspicious. It had to get cold there. And lonely.

There were times I wondered what would have happened to me without Wes and Sophie. Without their affection and loyalty and trust. My father’s shadow was real cold and lonely, too.

It wasn’t always easy to have compassion for Gloria Kane, but sometimes I managed to muster some up.

“For us,” Sophie said. She had that look in her eye. Fight mode engaged. I loved that look. It was my second favorite of her looks. The first was fuck mode. But that was new and I wasn’t planning on seeing it again. I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder, tell her it was all right. Tell her I had thick skin and that I didn’t need her to battle for me. “Mom, it’s lucky for us,” she said, all prickly. Completely in my corner with her teeth bared.

Yeah, I couldn’t quite pull myself back from the urge to brush my fingers across the back of her hand where it sat on the arm of the chair. I did it and she glanced back at me in that painfully Sophie way, and that was what her mother saw.

“Lucky for you,” Gloria said to her daughter. “He’s why you suddenly have cost-saving ideas. Why you’re writing reports. Wearing dresses and doing something with your hair. This boy always went right to your head and—”

“Stop,” I said. My voice boomed in the office. I stood up from where I’d been leaning against the windowsill. The room went still and W.B. slowly closed his file. I could see him trying to shrink back into the shadows. “When you talk to Sophie like that all you do is prove how little you know her.”

I felt the attention of everyone in the room. Except Sophie. Sophie, who was decidedly not looking at me.

“Thanks for the drink,” Sophie said, draining the last of her beer and getting out of that office as fast as she could. While I stood there, paralyzed. Hating that I’d said that, but also knowing I would have hated it had I kept my mouth shut. I’d done it my whole life with Gloria Kane and if I was here now, well, I couldn’t keep doing it.

Sophie deserved better.

W.B. quietly left the room.

“You think you know my daughter better than me?” Gloria asked. She got to her feet. “You came to our house with nothing and my kids took care of you, and I know you all think that I’ve been cruel or mean towards you but it is because you have been rude in every single exchange we’ve ever had. You—”

“Mom!” Wes snapped getting to his feet.

Gloria, to my shock, got right in my face. “They loved you. My children. Sophie, especially. You’d have to be dumb or blind not to see that. And you joined the Marines like their love meant nothing. You could have died