Page 21 of The Art of Scandal

“Am I related?” Nathan chuckled and shook his head dismissively. “I mean, in this town, isn’t everybody?”

CHAPTER SIX

Nathan hadn’t seen the inside of his parents’ home in six months. Its imposing exterior, however, was inescapable. The Vasquez estate loomed over Oasis Springs—a Spanish tiled fortress that defied every restrictive covenant the neighborhood association had passed over the years. While his father would stop short of claiming his family was above the law, Beto Vasquez had no problem saying that they predated it. Vasquez Industries was one of the largest privately held corporations in the country and had been the economic center of the town for half a century. The sprawling fruit orchard and forty-five-foot saltwater pool that technically extended over his property line were things Beto felt entitled to.

Inside, Nathan sat opposite his brother, Joe, in an almost identical position—shoulders hunched, and heads bowed over their phones. The matching wing chairs were uncomfortable for both of them, but that never seemed to bother his brother as much as it did Nathan. Joe had been the chief operating officer at their family’s company for seven years, but still used the wobbly office chair left by his predecessor. That was his brother in a nutshell—impatient with comfort, ambivalent about ironing, and constantly annoyed that he was mentally three steps ahead on every project while everyone else was just showing up to the meeting.

Nathan took his time typing a response to the photo Rachel had sent, trying to avoid as many spelling errors as he could. It was one of those annoying things about living with dyslexia. When he was alone, he could use the speech-to-text function and clean it up. But he wasn’t about to dictate a reply to Rachel’s post-workout selfie, with his very nosy and opinionated brother sitting across from him.

In the photo, Rachel wore a baggy Up in Smoke tour tank top that was soaked with sweat. Her cheeks were flushed, and clumps of wet curls clung to her neck. Her smile was an endorphin-fueled sunbeam.

Rachel:No one ever sees me like this.

Nathan:It feels good to be no one.

He paused and then sent another message.

Nathan:You look beautiful.

Rachel had been messaging him for three days now. Her timing was random and the subject matter unpredictable. But every text seemed confessional, like things she’d never admit to anyone else. That tattoo story had opened the floodgates, and now he had the paparazzi’s favorite “ice queen” whispering secrets in his ear.

Nathan leaned his head back and stared at the decorative red plates lining the wall above his brother’s head. He should be confessing too. He should tell her that no one ever saw him likethis, waiting to be summoned to dinner like one of his father’s employees. He should tell her that while every other Vasquez was content to live on the estate that had been in their family for generations, being in his parents’ house for more than five minutes made him into a person he despised. The baby of the family. The troublemaker. The afterthought his parents tried to ignore.

Nathan dimmed his screen, but Joe kept typing, probably some multi-paragraph text with bullet points and footnotes. Abuelita had nicknamed his brother Apollo, because Joe was basically perfect. Grades. Sports. Table manners of the gods. He was twelve when Nathan was born, and instantly became the ideal older brother, helping with feedings, changing diapers, taking trips to the park. But at some point, Joe missed a step and brought home a B+ instead of all As. Their parents staged an intervention and took him off babysitting duty. While Joe became entrenched in high school and everything that came with it, Nathan’s favorite hobby was pushing Carla, his nanny, to the point of cursing him out in Spanish. She quit the day he hid in a toy chest for six hours and popped out like a giddy, deranged jack-in-the-box when the police started searching for ransom notes.

Joe finally stopped texting and dialed someone’s number. “It’s me,” he barked into the receiver. “Did you get my text?”

Nathan leaned forward and whispered, “Hey, Joe. That’s not how texting works.”

Joe ignored him and snapped, “It’s all in there!” at the poor bastard on the other end of the line. “Go read it.”

“The guy can’t read the text if you won’t let him off the phone.”

Joe angled away from Nathan and lowered his voice. “Hey, so uh… I’m gonna hang up now so you can read it.”

Nathan gave him a thumbs-up and mouthed, “Good job!” Joe responded with a middle finger and disconnected. The change in his brother’s demeanor was immediate. He relaxed his shoulders and unclenched his jaw, studying Nathan’s clothes with a bemused smirk.

“Do you even own a shirt with buttons?”

Nathan grinned. “Yes. Doyouown anything that isn’t from some tragic Arthur Miller play?”

Before Joe could respond, they were smothered by a cloud of perfume. Sofia was dressed casually for dinner, which meant a multicolored caftan with jewelry and no makeup. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a complicated swirl of thick braids that probably took half an hour to create. Her sense of fashion would only give so much in the name of casual comfort.

“Joseph! It’s been so long since we’ve seen you at dinner.” She pulled him down into a hug. “I’m going to have meals sent to your office. You’re too skinny.”

“You only say that because I’m vegan.”

She patted his face. “Please don’t talk about it like it’s an identity.”

Meat was their mother’s love language. Most of her family lived in Monterrey, and all Nathan remembered about their rare visits was eating his weight in machaca and carne asada. When Sofia learned Joe had switched to a vegan diet, they didn’t speak for days.

“How is my grandson?”

Joe beamed and quickly brought up photos on his phone. “Angel’s doing great. He got these new Nikes and only takes them off for bath time.” He tilted the phone so Nathan could see a photo of his six-year-old nephew wearing white Air Force 1s with a puffy-cheeked smile that flashed all five of his remaining baby teeth. It was a full-on cuteness assault that made Nathan feel guilty for not reaching out more. He made a mental note to hype Angel up over FaceTime later. “He keeps talking about showing them to Uncle Nate.” Joe paused, and added, “Zara’s fine too.”

Sofia’s smile slipped. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen Xiomara.”

Joe pretended he didn’t notice his mother’s obvious contempt for his wife. Over the years, he’d become adept at hearing only what he needed to when it came to their parents. But Zara wasn’t. She’d once admitted to Nathan that she could never eat in Sofia’s presence. “She watches me like a movie villain waiting for me to keel over because she’s secretly poisoned my food.”

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