Page 107 of Riot Reunion
“It wasn’t my fault!”
“Millions. Elevenmillion!How?”
Mercy snorts. “Come on. Like I didn’tinvest. I doubled my money in three months after the old guy kicked the bucket.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from wincing. Wren doesn’t hide his reaction as well as me. “That’s even worse!”
“Imayhave tied up my funds in something…unstable,” Mercy says briskly. “I’ll be getting it back. It might just take a couple of months. In the meantime, I’ve been forced to rely on my allowance from our father. You know he’ll do anything to manipulate us—”
“What did you do?” Wren returns to his task, dashing bitters into the mixing glass. He must have planned this earlier, because the silver ice bucket to his right is already full; he dumps a bunch of cubes into the mixing glass, then free-pour bourbon on top of the ice, bitters, and sugar.
“I…may have…not…uhhhh…”
“Hell’s teeth, Mercy. Spit it out,” I snap. These two have bickered since the dawn of time, but this is getting out of hand. I earn myself a glower from the Jacobi of the female variety.
“I didn’t graduate,” she snaps. “All right.There. Are you happy now?”
Wren drops the bar spoon he was holding with a clatter. He doesn’t say anything at first. Shoulders inched up around his ears, he pours the golden liquid into the five glasses he laid out on the bar cart. Once he’s done, he spears a couple of cherries onto toothpicks and drops them into two of the glasses. He takes these Old Fashioneds and hands one to Elodie and one to Carrie. He hands me one, and then one to Pax, who takes it with a grunt and downs it in one.
“Why the hell dotheyall get drinks?” Mercy gripes.
“I’m in love with Elodie. Carrie and Dash own this place. And Paxdidn’tput his fist through your face, even though you deserved it. Owing to the lack of medals lying around the place, I’m rewarding his restraint with alcohol instead. Explain, please. How thehelldid you not graduate?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that my best friend went missing. And then my brother was fucking our English Professor and got himself caught up in the very same friend’s murder scandal!”
“Best friend? Please. You didn’t give a shit about Mara. You bailed on Wolf Hall so many times before any of that, you gave everyone whiplash. You were in and out of the place like a whore in a VD clinic—”
“Sex worker.” Mercy corrects him tartly. “We don’t call people whores anymore. And we don’t shame people for working in the sex industry.”
“I wasn’t shaming anyone for being a sex worker! I was shaming them for being stupid enough to keep catching venereal dis—urgh, fucking never mind! What the hell is thematterwith you?”
“Look. I won’t have access to my money until certainassetshave been sold by parties outside of my control. I can’t get my allowance from our father until I graduate. Which means that I need thirty thousand dollars to enroll in a disgusting, low class high school up in Washington State—”
“Why do you need to pay them thirty grand? I thought public schools were free,” Elodie asks.
“Eww! I said low class, not pedestrian. The place is stillprivate.”
I watch the back-and-forth take place with mild amusement, thoughts swirling around in the forefront of my mind. This is how things were so often, when the three of us lived at Riot House. Peace was a foreign concept. If Wren wasn’t fighting with Mercy, Pax and I were brawling over something stupid. Or Pax and Wren were going at it. Wren and I never really fought, but there were times when I wanted to strangle the fucker. I’m sure there were times when he wanted to do the same to me. No matter what, though, Riot House was home. It’s only now that we’re here, in the UK, that I’ve realized that it wasn’t the house that was home. It was these people.
“I’ll give you thirty grand to get that bracelet back, Merce,” I say quietly.
Everyone stops talking. My friends look horrified that I’m giving in to her, but the thought of her sauntering around with my grandmother’s tennis bracelet on her wrist has my hackles up. If anyone should be wearing that bracelet, it should be Carrie. And the sooner Mercy gets her fees paid and back up to Washington, the better for everyone.
“But I like it.” Mercy pouts. “It’s so shiny.”
“Your call. Take it or leave it.” Sipping on the Old Fashioned, I feign nonchalance…which does the trick with Mercy every time.
“Fine. Transfer the money and I’ll give it back.”
I hold out my hand.
“Money first, Lord Lovett.”
I arch an eyebrow at her.
“All right, fine.” She unfastens the bracelet and slaps it into my palm. She watches me like a hawk as I initiate an instant transfer from my phone, and then squeaks when she checks her banking app and sees the money hit her account. “How much is that thing worth anyway,” she asks.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand.”
