Page 64 of Wicked & Wildflower

“Hi, bug.” Dal steps up to her other side, eyeing me with some expression I can’t decipher before turning to August. “Hi.”

“Auggie, this is Darby’s sister, Dahlia.”

He chuckles, a sound I haven’t heard in fucking years. “I can tell.” He extends his hand toward Dal. “You two look so alike.”

“Thank you,” the girls say together.

“And you look just like your mom too.” August looks down at Lou again.

She lifts her head, swiveling back and forth between me and Dahlia, as if she’s not sure how to respond.

I smile at her. “Your mother is the most beautiful person in the world, Luz. That was a compliment, so you can tell him thank you.”

Darby’s eyes widen, and my brother’s mouth drops open. I hear Dahlia’s breath hitch, but she doesn’t respond. Lou’s little cheeks pinken, and she can’t meet August’s face as she murmurs, “Thank you.”

I think she might have a fucking crush on the guy.

“You’re welcome,” August responds, seeming confused by the entire ordeal.

August hasn’t been close enough to any of us to understand the situation surrounding the girls’ dad and our ‘arrangement,’ but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear his clients have been talking about Leo and I during their appointments with him. It’s a small town, after all.

So he may very well be under the impression Dahlia and I are together, meaning that the shocked expressions everyone is giving me now are probably extremely confusing.

“Augustus?” my mom calls from the kitchen. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, Mama!” he shouts back.

“You better go see her before she blows a gasket.” Leo grins.

August nods. “Yep. You’re right.” He darts around me, waving at Lou and Dahlia. “Nice to meet you. I’ll, uh, I’ll be right back.”

As soon as he rounds the corner and disappears, Dahlia’s mouth drops open, and she turns to her sister. “He issofucking hot.”

Darby grins, nodding rapidly.

“Please,” I mutter at the same time my brother throws his head back and groans.

A half-hour later, the eight of us are sitting around the formal dining table. It was Dahlia and Darby’s grandmother’s, one of the few pieces of her furniture Darby and Leo kept in the house when they bought it.

My dad sits at one end of the table, flanked by my mom and August on either side. I sit beside my mother, with Lou between me and Dahlia. Darby is next to August, Leo on her other side. Darby whispers in August’s ear every so often, like she’s checking in on him.

“August, your parents are in Palm Springs for the holiday?” my mom asks.

He swallows hard before taking a sip of water. “Sounds like it.”

“That must be fun for them,” she murmurs quietly, and I can hear the hint of disgust in her voice that she’s trying to mask. None of us know the true details of where his relationship with them stand, but we know the blame that was placed on him, by his father in particular, after we lost Zach. My mother has a hard time hiding the way she feels about that.

Changing the subject, she looks back and forth between me and Leo. “Have either of you talked to your sister yet today?”

I shake my head at the same time Leo says, “I called her on my way back from the gym. She didn’t answer.”No surprise there.

“Maybe we can all video call her after dinner,” my dad suggests. “I’m sure she’d love to talk to you, Augustus.”

It’s at that moment August is tilting his glass of water against his lips, and when the words filter through his ears, the glass falls from his hand, clattering against the table as he begins coughing.

“God, are you okay?” my mom gasps.

Darby pats his back, concern on her face. My brother and I give each other looks across the table. There’s another piece of the puzzle we’ve never been able to fit together: something happened between our sister and August, something bad. Neither of them has ever opened up to us about it, won’t tell us a goddamn thing.

---