While You Were Creeping - Poppy Rhys Page 0,23

him to meet your family?” Mom’s eye narrowed farther, followed by the clasping of her hands at her front and my nerves rocketing to level one-hundred. “Sounds serious.”

Thank fuck.

I thought she’d for sure accuse it was a sham. ‘Serious’ I could work with. Better they think the relationship I had with Kye was more than less.

I shrugged, trying to play it off. “He’s nice. I like him.”

Aunt Gretta’s snort was so unladylike, my mother physically stiffened. “I’ll bet you do,” Gretta teased.

I was reminded of what Amelie and Dasha had said in the bathroom. About my family walking on eggshells around me. As I looked around the kitchen and dining area, filled with my family, it didn’t feel that way at all.

Perry was spinning lies. It didn’t surprise me. Still hurt, nonetheless, so seeing everyone acting normal was a relief.

“I’m stealing you for a few moments,” Gretta declared, grasping my hand. Her sparkling gray eyes glinted, making her wavy platinum blond hair seem more colorful than it was. “Meredith, stop squinting. You look like a shrew.”

Mom tossed her hands in the air and went to busy herself with rearranging the bouquet.

I smiled, allowing myself to be tugged away. Gretta was Mom’s oldest sibling. Mom was in the middle and her brother, Jer, was the youngest.

Gretta had been like a second mother to me and I always loved it when she came to stay. She only lived on the other side of Tinsel, but for some reason, that felt an entire world away.

Mainly because her husband, Eagan Thasher, came from an ultra-snobby family and they weren’t fun to be around. The last time we’d visited, Dad and Eagan’s brother had duked it out.

Not a pretty sight.

Needless to say, I never understood what Gretta saw in Eagan. Who was I to judge though? Clearly, I had terrible taste in men too.

The following week after George and Perry revealed their relationship, Gretta had shown up at my door and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Mouse,” she’d said, a seriousness foreign to my Aunt Gretta had entered her normally cheery eyes. “There are good people who do bad things, and bad people who do good things.”

I’d been preparing for her to defend Perry, hardening my heart so it wouldn’t hurt as bad.

“My daughter, though I believe she’s got some good in her somewhere, did a shameful, shameful thing. I do not support it, no I do not.” Her cheeks had reddened with her ardent conviction. “She’s always been her father’s daughter, a Thasher through and through. I’ve known it her whole life. I’m not making excuses, I’m just disappointed. And I hope you know that their behavior is not a reflection of you or anything you think you did or didn’t do—it’s a reflection of their own characters. You hear me, Mouse?”

Pretty sure I’d snot-cried for a good half hour while Gretta’d hugged me after that.

I swiped the memory away and frowned as Gretta led me into the great room. The fireplace was lit, its stone overmantel reaching up nearly two stories, just like the wall of windows overlooking the winter wonderland we called a backyard.

I spotted Dad in his favorite leather chair between the windows and fireplace. He didn’t bother raising his head, too focused on whittling another piece of wood.

“What are we doing?” Was this some kind of intervention? If so, Gretta and my dad were not the types. That seemed more like a Mom thing.

“Take a seat, Mouse.” Gretta shoved me down into a chair at a small table. “We’re doing a reading!”

I immediately shot up out of the chair. “No. Hell no. No-ho-ho-ho. No.”

“One little reading never hurt!”

I looked to my dad for help, but he pretended he couldn’t hear us. I saw that smirk on his face though! He was choosing to ignore me.

“You know I don’t believe in that stuff.” That and I still had issues I needed to work through after the last reading.

Gretta scowled, then feigned a pout. “Would you humor an old woman?”

“Old? Ha! I’ve seen your dance moves,” I accused. “Old women aren’t that limber.”

Dad suddenly started coughing.

Gretta glowed. “I will not apologize for my skills. Now, sit. The sooner you let me read you, the sooner you can get back to Kye.”

Dad’s head lifted. “Who’s Kye?”

“See what you miss when you hide from my sister?” Gretta tutted and then murmured, though I don’t blame you. “Holly’s brought her new boyfriend for third meal.”

Dad’s eyes slid my way as if gauging my reaction. My dad