Page 42 of Faking Ever After

I shook hands with both while Benny cleared his throat and had some water surprisingly loudly.

“And let me introduce Benny, darlings,” Judith said.

“Percy-boy,” Benny said, getting up with a grunt. His smile was toothy and overly warm. He yanked Percy’s outstretched hand and clapped Percy’s shoulder with the other hand hard enough that my boyfriend gasped. “I’ve heard so much about you, young man. Judy here won’t shut up about her little Percy. And here we are, at long last, all gathered at the same place. I canfinally put some faces to all these names.” He continued shaking Percy’s hand throughout the impromptu speech.

“The pleasure is mine,” Percy said politely. “We’ve all been looking forward to meeting you, Mr…”

“Tupper. Benjamin Tupper,” he replied. “But don’t bother with all that. Benny sounds just fine to me. And you and I have a lot to talk about, Percy-boy.” He laughed like he’d said a fine joke.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Benny,” Percy said. His hand was released in a slippery sort of way and it flew back a couple of feet before Percy could stop it.

It was my turn to meet the man of the hour and I found that I was oddly excited. Benny’s hand was bigger than mine. He was all bigger, although in a proportionate way. He gripped my hand with what I could only describe as a much wetter grip than I had expected. “Finn Muffin, is that correct?” Benny asked. “What were your parents thinking?”

“Oh, er, no, it’s Connolly,” I said, distracted by the strangled laugh that almost left Emily’s throat.

“Of course,” Benny said in a tone that sounded as though he didn’t quite believe it, but it didn’t matter to him either. His attention slid off me like it was water and I was a particularly oily Finn. He turned to the table and raised his wine glass. “You have all been so wonderful today that I would like to make a little toast. You’ve welcomed me to this family like one of your own, and for that, I thank you. And now that we are all gathered here, I would only like to say that I am honored and humbled, privileged if you’d like, and very much…ah, honored to be here.”

“But do you think he’s honored?” Percy whispered into my ear, disguising it as leaning down to pull a chair out for me.

I bit my lip hard and poked Percy in the ribcage.

“To the family,” Benny Tupper finished.

A confused murmur of “here, here” rippled around the table, and glasses went up, although Percy and I hadn’t had glasses to lift yet.

Percy and I sat down so that Percy was between me and Benny, and for that silent sacrifice a whole new level of attraction to Percy opened up in me.

“How sweet,” Judith said, taking Benny’s hand into hers once he said down.

Benny Tupper put his other hand over Judith’s. “And, of course, to the queen of my heart,” he said, his voice dropping deeper.

Judith laughed like a schoolgirl and pulled her hand away, waving Benny away while squirming shyly in her seat. “Oh, you devil,” she said. “You and that silver tongue of yours.”

Benny laughed and turned to Percy, who was just serving me a place of orzo and chicken from Nektaria’s kitchen. I noticed that Nektaria was absent and Dimitrios never joined us after the drive. “Now, Percy-boy, let me tell you, I’ve been on this island for less than a day and I can’t help but wonder how you never invested here.”

Percy’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but he smoothed out his expression. “Oh, well, this is one of the rare places that hasn’t been completely gentrified with tourism. It’s why I like this island.”

“Of course, of course, but tourists are still here, and their pockets are full of this Monopoly money. Let me ask you this: what will they spend their cash on? Trinkets? Nonsense. We could provide some premium entertainment. Look here, I was thinking, rentable submarines. I don’t know how nobody’s thought of this already. It’s the quickest way to unimaginable profits.” He dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief. I wondered if he struggled with heat because this afternoon hadall the makings of a fine Mediterranean day, with the breeze lifting off the sea and the temperature never crossing eighty-six.

“Do you have submarines?” Percy asked.

“Details,” Benny said dismissively. “We will get the submarines once we negotiate where to park them. What we need are a few local officials getting an invitation to this party, Percy-boy. Think we can arrange that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Benny,” Percy said in a small, polite voice. “I’m not sure submarines are in my industry. I can’t imagine what it takes to keep them in shape.”

“I can’t imagine who would rent them,” I muttered.

“And what do you do, Finn?” Benny asked. It was a generous smile that dispelled my brief thought that he was asking me a very pointed question.

I smiled, holding a bite-sized piece of chicken on my fork. “I’m a stay-at-home boyfriend at the moment.”

“How fine,” Benny said without a trace of irony. Perhaps the lack of it made me feel like I was being mocked.

“And you, Benny?” I asked.

Too late, I realized I had walked into a trap. “Everything, my dear friend. Everything under the Sun. I am far too humble to recount all of my businesses, but the successes of my career have been thoroughly documented. See here, I started my career as a junior editor in a small, local paper in Nebraska, but the small-town life wasn’t for me. I always knew I was destined to do more. And for the best part of my life, I worked tirelessly to improve the human standing in this planetary community.”

I stuffed my mouth with chicken to keep it occupied. The question of whether we weren’t already at the top of the food chain was best swallowed on the man’s first evening. Perhaps he really couldn’t handle the heat. Perhaps he’d had too much wine.

---