Page 9 of Big Baby
“Good,” I said with a smile, reaching for my glass of wine. “Really good. We’re just picking back up for the year. They’re getting into the swing of things. Experiments and such…”
“Right.” Mr Mason sank down next to me, breaking the awkward. He was returning from the bathroom, and looked neat as a pin as he filled the space between me and his wife. “When’s Zora arriving?”
“She’s late,” Mrs Mason noted, with that familiar pinch on her face.
Victoria chose that moment to return from the kitchen, two plates in hand. She’d slaved over this meal, creating beautiful salads for us to start while I just made a nuisance of myself trying to help. “Zora’ll be here,” Victoria said with a sniff. “She promised.”
“That’ll be the day she keeps a promise—” Mrs Mason started, but was interrupted by the door buzzer resonating through the apartment. Whoever was out there held it down for a beat too long, making me wince when it continued bouncing around my head. Maybe the fuck-up sister, already irritating everyone.
Save me, sister.
“I’ll get it!” I said, jumping up, needing a breather from how fucking awkward this whole thing was. Who did they think they were? I worked hard, loved their daughter; surely that was enough to appease their high standards. Trying to temper my anger like I always managed, I strode to the door.
The buzzer sounded again, louder, more insistent this time, and feeling irritated, I yanked open the door, ready to berate the person on the other side. Or at least scowl at them. Sister or not.
It took my brain a few seconds to catch up with what I was seeing. I blinked. A mirage, must be. Or I’d fallen and hit my head and was in a fucking fantasy land…
“What the fuck?” I blurted, taking in the woman before me. Her face was a picture of shock and disgust too, a slow-forming panic and surprise as she calculated what the fuck we were about to walk into.
Because she wasn’t a stranger. Well, not really. We’d met.
“Harry?” Rosa said, looking at me aghast. “What are you doing here?”
I opened my mouth to ask her the same, to zap her out of existence or some shit, because she couldn’t be here. These worlds couldn’t collide. What the fuck was happening? My heart pounded in my chest, and my ears went distant, like the world was leaving me.
We stared at each other, both clearly too shocked to move beyond the moment. To reconcile and figure out what the fuck was happening. Because there was only one proper explanation.
“Zora!” Victoria said with a cheerful smile, barging past me and wrapping her arms around the woman who’d… the woman I’d…
Zora, not Rosa.
“Harry,” Victoria said, turning around with her younger sister wrapped up in her arms. “This is Zora.”
Oh, shit the bed.
Chapter Five
Zora
Well,fuckingshitfuckme.
This was unexpected.
And all of a sudden, just like that, seeing my judgmental prick parents for the first time in two years wasn’t the worst thing to happen tonight. No. Not by a long shot. Because… Harry. She called him Harry. He hadn’t even given me a fake name.
Victoria hurried me into her apartment and introduced me to her fiancé better, then yammered on about his job, his hobbies and how they’d met, how he had proposed. She was nervous, always got chatty like this whenever something was bothering her. But I let her speak a mile a minute as my heart shattered for her.
He’d cheated. Big time cheated. And it was a million times worse because it was with her younger sister.
God damn.
“He’s handsome, isn’t he?” Victoria whispered to me like it was some cheeky little secret after he scurried off to hide from his shame.
Her fiancé, who was going around paying for sex. Kinky sex, too. Yes, he was handsome.
He looked at me with imploring eyes from across the room, his gaze wide and begging, pleading for me not to tell. To keep my mouth shut. And I would. For now. Because my brain couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening here. I never thought I would see him again. I needed… I needed time to process.
And I had bigger fish to fry.
