CHAPTER TEN
Daff watched Spencer approach her shop the following afternoon and wondered if he was bringing lunch. It seemed pointless, since it was Saturday and they would both be closing shop in half an hour. They could go to MJ’s or something instead. Like they had just a week ago. She shook her head, unable to believe how much things had changed, not just with Spencer but in her life over the last seven days.
“Hi, there,” she greeted with a small smile when he finally stepped into the shop. He wasn’t carrying any bags, so he definitely wasn’t bringing lunch. He looked a little green around the gills, and she laughed. “A bit hungover today, are we?”
“Hmm.” He sat down on his favorite chair and folded his arms on the counter, resting his head on them for a brief moment.
“I have some aspirin if you think that will help,” she offered, hoping she sounded sympathetic. She definitely didn’t feel sympathetic—she really just wanted to laugh. The man looked pathetic.
“Had some already,” he grunted, lifting his head with effort to look at her.
“How did you manage to get through the day like this?”
“Claude took care of everything,” he said succinctly. “I hid in my office all morning.”
“For the love of his thighs, give that man a raise. He sounds like a saint.”
“Oh, it’s in the cards. Raise and promotion.”
“Doesn’t he already hold the highest position you can give at your store?”
“I’ve got some stuff in the pipeline. Will tell you when I can think straight.”
“You done for the day?” Keeping her curiosity at bay. What stuff?
“Fuck yeah. I was just dead weight anyway.”
“Lunch?”
“Hmm. Later. Will you go somewhere with me first?”
“Where?”
“Just a place I want to show you. I want your opinion. Please?”
“Yes, of course. I’m closing in twenty-five minutes.” He snorted and looked around the empty shop pointedly.
“Close early. What’re they gonna do? Fire you?”
“I’ve never closed early,” she huffed. “Not once since I’ve been the manager here, and I’m not about to ruin my perfect record now.”
“Fine. Wake me up when you’re ready to go.”
“God, you’re such a baby. I drank last night, too, you know? You don’t see me whining about it.”
“Ten-minute nap. It’s all I need . . .” His voice trailed off and the last word was followed by a light snore. She gaped at him, unable to believe that he’d fallen asleep just like that. She’d pay money to have that talent.
She shook her head and went back to her seat next to the till, digging out her romance novel—which she’d made very little progress on since Monday—and tried to concentrate on her reading. It was a lost cause. All she did was contemplate the top of his head and marvel at how shiny and silky that mane looked. Her eyes trailed down to the side of his face, the only part visible to her. The way his narrow, neatly trimmed sideburns met the line of stubble that darkened the lower half of his face. All uniformly short except for the ever-so-slightly darker patch beneath the center of his bottom lip, where his razor hadn’t done as meticulous a job. Her eyes lingered on his mouth. He had the most beautifully shaped lips she’d ever seen on a man. Gorgeous, sulky curve on the bottom lip and the deep, shadowed groove of his pronounced philtrum with its accompanying thin Cupid’s bow upper lip. Her eyes moved up from his mouth over the sharp, straight blade of his nose, that dimpled, lean left cheek—the only one visible to her—to his closed eye. His thick lashes were so long they cast shadows over the blunt curve of his cheekbone.
For a man who looked half-savage most of the time, he had surprisingly refined features. His heavy brows and deep-set eyes were what gave him that intense, untamed look, and when his hair was longer it definitely added to the image.
His eye cracked open, and he pinned her with a penetrating look. His gorgeous green eye looked somewhat bloodshot.
“I can feel you staring at me,” he accused.
“Just wondering if you shaved this morning. This stubble is out of control.” His eye slid shut again.
“Hmm.” For a moment she thought that was all she would get, but he continued, “My five o’clock shadow tends to make an appearance at about nine thirty every morning. I should probably just embrace the beard.”
“No, don’t,” she said so quickly she nearly sprained her tongue, and his eyelid lifted with seemingly great difficulty.
“Why not?”
“You’ll look completely primitive with a beard, Spencer,” she began derogatively, before stopping herself and adding honestly, “and you have a great jawline. Why hide it?”
“You think so?”
“Definitely.”
“Stop interrupting my snooze.”
“You only have fifteen minutes left.”
“I’ll make it a power nap.”
“So where are we going?” she asked twenty minutes later. They were in his truck. He looked surprisingly refreshed after the short nap he’d taken at the boutique. Daff was still confounded by his ability to fall asleep seemingly on command. Who did that?
“I’ll tell you when we get there,” he said, and she huffed impatiently. Three minutes later they turned in to the woods just outside Riversend, and shortly after that, Spencer slid the truck to a stop outside a dilapidated old house. It was in the middle of a fairly large clearing in the woods, but the clearing was overgrown with weeds and long grass. The picket fence was rotted and falling apart, resembling crooked, broken, and yellowed teeth. The front yard was scattered with random debris: tractor tires, a rusty old mattress frame, a stack of rusted hubcaps piled in a heap. She could see glints of broken glass strewn all over. There was an old, rotten, and moldy sofa in the middle of the path leading up to the rickety porch.
Spencer stood at the crooked iron gate and simply stared at the house for a long moment before removing his sunglasses and meeting her questioning eyes.
“It’s in worse shape than I imagined,” he said, his voice wobbly and his eyes haunted.
“This is where you grew up, isn’t it?” she asked softly, and he swallowed a couple of times before nodding.
“I haven’t been back here in years. Not since I left for college.” Not for sixteen years, then. He stepped through the gate and stopped. His reluctance to proceed was palpable.
“I left him here to fend for himself,” he said, his voice virtually breaking.
“Who?”
“Mason. I left him alone in this fucking pit.” He sounded disgusted with himself, and Daff very carefully—as if handling a wild animal—took his hand in hers.
“It couldn’t have been this bad sixteen years ago, Spencer.”
“It was a cesspool. Most of the broken glass in this yard came from Dad’s rum bottles or Mom’s crack pipes. Malcolm, Anita”—his parents—“and their friends did so enjoy their creature comforts. Malcolm and his cronies would sit on that sofa all day, just drinking and shooting the breeze. All things considered, they were okay parents. Didn’t ever hit us or allow their friends to get handsy with us. Malcolm stuck around long enough after our mother died to give us a fighting chance at life. Left the day I turned eighteen. Happy fucking birthday to me, right?”
He ran his free hand roughly over his face and shuddered. Daff’s hand clenched around his, and she just ached for the boy he’d been. The kid who suddenly found himself sole guardian to his underage brother, who worked several jobs just to get by. The boy she—Daff—had treated like dirt just because his scrupulously clean clothes had been threadbare, his shoes had been scuffed, with worn-down soles, and his hair had never been touched by a barber’s scissors. While this was his home life, she’d made his school life hell of a different kind, and he’d never once had a bad word to say about her.
Her eyes flooded with tears, and she strove not to let him see them, knowing it would demolish his pride. He would misinterpret them as pity when all she felt was regret and shame.
“I’m sorry, this isn’t why I brought you here,” he said, his hand tightening around hers. “I wanted to see if the place was salvageable or if we’d be better off razing it to the ground.”
“Why?” she asked hoarsely.
“I’m considering donating the land and everything on it to the town, on the condition that it’s used to build a youth center. The main aim of the center should be to provide a safe haven for at-risk kids to come and play sports, learn skills, new hobbies. I was imagining a library, a gym, a sports field, tennis court, maybe a swimming pool and a cafeteria . . .”
“It’s ambitious,” she ventured cautiously.
“Unrealistic?”
“No, I just wonder where the funding would come from. Not just to build the place but to maintain it afterward.”
“I spoke with Mase last night—before the drinking started—since he co-owns the house. Both he and I are willing to donate enough to kick-start the project. But we agree that the community should chip in as well, as this is to the town’s benefit.”
“That’s where you’re going to run into obstacles—a lot of the townspeople would be happy to help, but there are always a few who will be vocal about using the town’s money to build something so expensive for kids from the poorer areas.”
“Assholes, you mean?”
“Yes, but some of those assholes are pretty powerful,” she reminded him, and he grimaced, acknowledging her point.
“This benefits everybody—if we make these kids feel valuable, give them something to do, keep them off the streets, there’ll be less petty crime. And petty crime can lead to much worse.”
“Did you ever . . .” Her voice trailed off; it wasn’t her business.
“Yes,” he said in answer to her incomplete question, and her throat went dry at the thought. Whatever he’d done was for survival, but she shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if he’d been caught. “After our mother died, our dad stuck around and sometimes threw money our way for food. Other times he used it for alcohol. At first we hung out behind MJ’s a lot. Like hungry dogs. Occasionally, Janice Cooper . . . remember her? Played the piano a lot and then married that dentist and moved to Durban? Anyway, she used to sneak a few bread rolls and leftovers out to us. But she was terrified of getting caught and losing her job. I didn’t want to put her in that position, she was nice. So I started shoplifting. I tried to keep Mase from figuring out where the food was coming from—I knew he’d follow my lead and I didn’t want him to get caught. But of course he worked it out and took it upon himself to ‘help’ me. We only took food, nothing else. We knew people already thought we were troublemakers, and if we were caught stealing—” He shook his head, no need to elaborate. “So, yeah, I know what I’m talking about. I know what desperation can drive a kid to and how lethal boredom can be as well.”
“So how do you start something like this?”
“Well, we’ll have a look through this dump to see if anything’s worth saving. Then I’m going to have to figure out how much it will cost to renovate this place versus just razing it completely and building from scratch. Once we know exactly how much everything will cost, we’ll have to figure out where the money will come from.”
“And you brought me because—”
“Because I value your opinion, and because—” He sighed before slanting her a quick look. “Mason bailed on me. Apparently Daisy’s completely useless today after you guys got her drunk last night, and that means Mason has to sort out the cooking for the dinner party tonight . . . and I didn’t want to come alone.”
Daff felt warm and gooey inside—okay, so she was his second choice, but she understood why Mason was his first choice. They had history with this place and maybe a few ghosts that needed to be laid to rest. But Spencer thought enough of her to bring her in his brother’s stead. And he valued her opinion. Nobody had ever said anything like that to her before.
“So let’s have a look at this place,” she said, and, still holding her hand, he tugged her toward the raised porch. He stopped at the steps and winced.
“I’m not sure how safe this is,” he muttered, assessing the broken slats in the steps.
“Just be careful,” she said and gingerly stepped onto the first step. It only barely held her weight. Spencer decided to skip the stairs completely and climbed straight onto the porch. The boards groaned beneath his weight, but held.
The front windows were all shattered, and the walls—which had once been white—were covered with mold and years’ worth of graffiti. The front door was nonexistent.
She watched him square his shoulders and take a deep, bracing breath before moving over the threshold into the gloomy interior.
Spencer was only dimly aware of Daff’s hand tightening as his childhood came flooding back. There, that was where he had once found his mother passed out in a puddle of her own vomit with a needle sticking out of her arm. All of six years old, he’d been terrified that she was dead. Over in the corner was where—when one of his parents remembered to feed them—he and Mason had eaten. Here’s where the TV had stood. Mason and Spencer had sat for hours just staring at the screen, flipping between only three channels and fantasizing about the glamorous lives those rich soap opera people led. Pretending to be them and learning from them. Of course, one day they’d come home to find the TV gone, sold for “Mommy’s medicine.”
It seemed like a lifetime ago, and yet he could still remember everything so vividly. The fear, the hunger, the sadness, and the uncertainty. It had been no way to grow up, and he wanted this place to become a symbol of hope rather than of poverty, desperation, and fear.
He clung to Daff’s hand, his only lifeline in this turbulent tsunami of memories, and continued to walk through the nightmare that was his childhood.
Daff trailed behind Spencer; she wasn’t sure he was aware that he was quietly narrating as he went along. Just little snippets of information, like finding his mother passed out with a needle in her arm when he was six. God. It was horrible to imagine him growing up like that, to imagine any child growing up like that, and she was beginning to understand his need to offer help and guidance to as many at-risk kids as he could.
It was a pretty big house, all on one floor, and when they reached the last room, he stopped before going inside and looked at her.
“Mason and I shared this room. Malcolm said we didn’t have to share, but I liked to keep Mase close to me. He was a scrawny kid, and while our parents kept their shadier friends away from us, I still didn’t trust them not to hurt my brother. So we shared a room until the day I left.”
“It must have been hard leaving him here when you went to college.”
“He was only sixteen. I was going to stay. Or try to figure out a way to take him with me. But he was stubborn. Insisted he’d be fine, said that me getting a degree would eventually improve both our lives. I would have lost the scholarship if I got caught sneaking him into student housing with me. It would never have worked.
“By then he was already working at MJ’s and had a few other jobs, so he’d have money for food and stuff. I sent extra money every month. It helped that the house was ours. And we both knew that nobody cared enough to check how Mason was getting along after I left. He just kept telling the teachers, when they bothered to ask, that Malcolm was back.”
“But why not ask for help?”
“They would have shoved him into foster care. We were taken into care for a time after my mom’s overdose when I was six, and it wasn’t ideal. The older kids were bullies; the adults were bigger bullies. He was two years away from being a legal adult. We figured we could make it work. I hated it, worried about him every single day, and then, when he was eighteen, the little asshole went and joined the fucking army. In another country.”
“Making you worry even more,” she said astutely, and he glowered at the memory.
“Hmm.”
They stepped into the room and gaped. It was reasonably clean, had cardboard shoved into the window to keep the wind out. A mattress had been dragged into the least drafty corner and was neatly covered in a flowered comforter. There were a few cans of tinned food, along with a can opener and a spoon, neatly stacked on a box at the foot of the mattress, a stack of romance paperbacks carefully arranged, in alphabetical order, on the floor at the head. A flashlight was placed on top of them.
“Somebody’s living here,” Daff whispered, and, grimly taking in every detail of the room, Spencer nodded.
“Hmm. I think I know who it is.”
“You do?”
“This kid, I think she’s new in town. I’ve seen her around a couple of times. Dresses like a boy to disguise the fact that she’s female. I was worried that she was in some kind of trouble.” He shook his head sadly as his eyes continued to sweep from one item to the next. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be this bad.”
“Should we wait for her?”
“She won’t come near the house with the truck parked outside. I’ll have to find another way to approach her. I hate the thought of her in this old place. It should have been condemned years ago, and who knows what other itinerants come through here. Girl or boy, they won’t care—she’s young, small, and pretty much defenseless despite her prickly attitude.”
“Will you call the police? Having her in custody is better than to risk leaving her here another night, isn’t it?”
“She won’t be here another night.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, confused by his statement. “You’re coming back here?”
“After the dinner party, yeah,” he confirmed. “I’ll park farther away and walk up to the house.”
“Won’t that scare her?”
“We have the cops pick her up and she’s lost to us. They’ll stick her in the system. Maybe Oom Herbert or Father O’Grady can help me find her a temporary home until we can figure something out.”
“You can’t do this for every lost child, Spencer. You have to use the system and make it work for you.”
“And I will, it’s just this one . . . it feels different.”
She considered his strong profile and felt the most overwhelming surge of admiration mixed in with tenderness for the man. He really was quite remarkable. More people should aspire to be like Spencer Carlisle. He had a genuine concern for others that—considering his background—was extraordinary. He could so easily have gone in another direction, could have made different choices, could have allowed his circumstances to engulf him and suck him into the same vicious circle as his parents. But he hadn’t—instead he’d learned empathy, had aimed higher, had taught old-fashioned values to his brother and had pushed them both to want more and be more.
Daff was starting to feel things for Spencer Carlisle she’d never felt for any man before, and she wasn’t entirely sure what those feelings meant. Or how to cope with them.
He led her back to the truck, and she remained silent and introspective until they were back on the road to town.
“So what’s the verdict on the house?” she asked.
“I don’t think it can be saved,” he said. “Do you?”
“No, you’re definitely going to have to demolish and rebuild it.” She paused before sighing deeply. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to meet some resistance from a few members on the town council over this, Spencer.”
“I know. Mason and I will work out a solid business model for the project before presenting it, have all our ducks in a row, so to speak.”
“You could raise money through charity drives and fund-raisers,” she suggested. “My mother and I are always having dinners and functions to raise money for the animal shelters. It’s small-scale, but we can find a way to do something similar for the youth center. Mom and Dad are in the country club—Dad hates it and rarely goes, but I could ask my mother if she could convince some of her friends to talk to their husbands. There are some very influential people at that club.”
“You’d do that?”
“No child should go through what you and Mason did growing up,” Daff said softly, her voice hitching on the words. “And no child should be so alone in the world that they’re forced to sleep on the floor of a condemned building. What you’re trying to do for these kids is amazing. I’m sorry I didn’t know exactly how amazing before today.”
He’d already parked his truck behind her car outside the boutique and was watching her gravely while she spoke.
“I don’t want you to pity me,” he growled.
“Oh, I don’t pity you, Spencer. I admire you.” He looked completely baffled by her words, and she smiled. This guy definitely wasn’t used to compliments.
“Uh . . . lunch?” he asked, changing the subject quickly, because he was clearly embarrassed by her words.
“It’s getting late; I think I’ll just grab something at home while I get ready for tonight.”
“Eat something decent,” he reminded her.
“Will do.” On sheer impulse, she breached the gap between them and dropped a quick, completely chaste kiss on his beautiful mouth.
“What was that for?” he asked after she moved away, his voice husky.
“I just wanted to thank you for today. It means a lot that you value my input.”
“You’re the smartest woman I know, Daff,” he said, and she laughed dismissively.
“Come on, you’ve met my baby sister, haven’t you? You know, the vet?”
“Daisy’s book-smart. You’re intuitive, witty, and street-smart. Exactly what I needed today.” Daff had had so many men compliment her on her looks, commenting on how cute she was, how pretty her eyes or how lovely her hair. None had ever shown any interest in her mind. Her opinion was neither sought after nor welcome. Spencer’s words meant the world to her, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or simply wrap herself around him and take comfort and shelter in his arms for days. In the end she did neither, but the warmth blossoming in her chest felt life altering.
“You don’t look too bad for someone who was at death’s door this morning,” Spencer observed when Daisy let him into the cabin later that evening. She looked cute in a short, flirty dress and with her brown curls allowed to riot around her head. She wrinkled her freckled nose at him before showing off the famous McGregor sister grin. She pushed her heavy, dark-framed glasses up the short bridge of her pert nose and inspected him carefully.
“You don’t look half bad yourself. Mason told me you were pretty wasted as well last night. I don’t imagine you had an easy time of it this morning.”
“Hmm,” he agreed, trying not to shudder as he remembered how perfectly awful he’d felt that morning.
“Not an experience I’d be keen to repeat any time soon,” he said as she led him into the dining and living area.
“Believe me, I can relate.” She laughed, then waved a hand at the assembled group of people who were milling around and chatting. “Well, as you can see, everybody else is here already. This is Chris.”
“Yes, of course, nice to finally meet you,” Spencer said, taking the man’s hand in a firm handshake. Even Spencer could appreciate the guy’s charisma and good looks. He was tall and lean, with a muscular physique and angular, dramatic features. Spencer could see how he would have been a sensation in the modeling world, where he’d been quite a big deal. Spencer was more interested in the guy’s cooking abilities. Apparently he was a brilliant chef, and Spencer had been meaning to visit his restaurant.
“Oui, I am happy to meet you, too. Mason speaks of you often,” Chris said. Congolese, he spoke with a thick French accent, which caused every woman in the room to sigh. Spencer could practically feel the breeze on his back from all the sighs and barely refrained from rolling his eyes. He looked at Daff, who was standing with Tilda; both of them were staring at Chris, practically with their tongues hanging out and then whispering to each other like giddy schoolgirls.
Seeing Daff moon over the guy made Spencer feel a little less charitable toward him, but Chris continued to talk and was so damned likable that it was hard to harbor ill feelings toward the man. After all, the guy couldn’t help it if he was a chick magnet.
Daff practically swooned when Chris smiled at her, and Spencer gave her another piercing look while reminding himself that he had no right to feel jealous. They were just friends. She could gush over whomever the hell she wanted to. Still, it was hard to convince himself of that when she’d come on his tongue only two nights ago.
“Hey, how’d it go this afternoon?” Mason asked, handing him a beer. Spencer took it without thinking—having no intention of drinking tonight—and tore his eyes from Daff with difficulty to focus on his brother. It brought his other immediate concern to the forefront.
“We have a problem.”
“That bad, huh?”
“What? Yeah, the house is a write-off, but that’s not the problem. That kid . . . the girl from the other night? She’s squatting there.”
“Shit.” Mason rubbed a hand over the nape of his neck and scowled into his beer. “You sure?”
“Pretty sure. Somebody’s living there, definitely female if the romance novels lying around are any indication. And it’s so neat and orderly, I don’t know why, but she immediately sprang to mind.”
“You call the cops?”
“I want to give her a chance, Mason. You know what will happen if the cops show up. She’ll either make a run for it and wind up God knows where, doing God knows what. Or she’ll get caught and lost in the system.” Mason was too young to remember when they were taken into care, but Spencer did, and while he knew foster care worked for a lot of kids, he and Mason hadn’t been so lucky. He’d spent nights clinging to his brother, terrified that the other kids would hurt them again. Or that an adult would punish them for being too loud, or too slow, or too fucking present. It had only been for a few months, but it was the first time in his life that he’d appreciated his parents and the fact that life could be a whole lot worse.
“Where do you intend to put her? Finding a place for her at this time of night will be almost impossible.”
“I’ll call Oom Herbert or Father O’Grady about finding shelter for her tonight, and then we can figure out something more permanent in the morning.”
“I don’t know, Spence, it seems crazy.”
“She deserves a chance, Mase.”
“Maybe the best chance we can give her is to let the system take care of her.”
“I’m not calling the police,” Spencer insisted. He refused to budge on this issue—the girl needed someone in her corner.
“Have it your way, but you’re not traipsing out there alone tonight. You know nothing about the girl, she could be part of some gang. There could be others with her.”
“She’s alone.”
“You’re irrational. I’m coming with you.”
“Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt this intense conversation.” Daisy looked at Mason questioningly, and he shook his head abruptly.
“Later,” he said curtly in response to her look, and she raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips, clearly displeased with Mason for the terse response.
“Anyway, as I was saying, sorry to disturb, but dinner will be served in just a minute, so if you don’t mind taking a seat, Spencer,” she said with a gracious smile, which disappeared when she looked at Mason. “Your brother and I will bring out the food.”
She flounced away, and Mason face-palmed.
“You shouldn’t have snapped at the little woman, there, brother,” Spencer said gleefully. Not in the least bit sympathetic, especially since he was a bit frustrated with his brother as well for not seeing his point of view on the situation with the girl.
He joined the rest at the long dining room table, making sure he grabbed the seat next to Daff before Chris could, which was stupid, since she had taken a center seat and the other man could easily have sat down on her left. Instead, Chris slanted Spencer a knowing smile and moved to the other side of the table, graciously seating himself between Tilda and Lia and directly opposite Daff, which was still not ideal.
Mason and Daisy returned from the kitchen, serving dishes in hand; they both looked relaxed and Daisy was smiling, so Spencer assumed that Mason had done some smooth talking in the kitchen.
“We had something fancier planned,” Mason explained and then directed an affectionate smile at his fiancée. “But Daisy wasn’t feeling too great today, so you can’t enjoy her awesome cooking and will have to be content with my meager offerings instead.”
“Stop,” Daisy begged, flustered, her cheeks flushed. “I was going to bore you all with a roast lamb. Mason’s beef goulash is so much better.”
“Your roasts are fuc . . . uh, freaking amazing, angel,” Mason complimented sincerely. Spencer knew he meant it—his brother couldn’t stop rhapsodizing about Daisy’s cooking and baking. Especially her baking. And Spencer had to admit, her breads were pretty good. Daisy looked like she was about to respond, but she was interrupted.
“Oh for God’s sake! Feed your guests instead of your egos, people,” Daff snarked, and Spencer bit back a chuckle. She was entirely irreverent and had no absolutely no patience with the mushy stuff.
Daisy shot her sister a look but said nothing in response to Daff’s outburst and merely placed a steaming dish of fragrant goulash in the center of the table, along with a basket of fresh, delicious-smelling bread. Mason added a green salad and a bowl of jasmine rice to the fare and uncorked a couple of bottles of pinot noir. He went around the table filling glasses as required, and after he and Daisy were seated at each end of the table, they smiled at each other like lovesick teens.
Spencer was reaching for the bowl of salad when Mason spoke, and he sat back with a sigh as he recognized that it was a speech of some sort.
Fuck.
“We’d like to thank you all for joining us at our very first dinner party as an engaged couple,” Mason said, his words sounding rehearsed. He tugged at the collar of his shirt and cleared his throat. “I’m no fucking—sorry—no good at this kind of stuff. But Daisy says we should let you all know how much you mean to us. But I think you all know, right? Else we wouldn’t fucking—fuck, sorry—uh, we wouldn’t have you in our wedding party, right? Anyway, just. Thanks.” He looked pained and glanced at Daisy, seeking her approval, and she grinned, throwing him a cheeky thumbs-up and a wink. Relieved that the touching speech had been short-lived, Spencer reached for the salad again. But, of course, Daisy started speaking and he sat back again, feeling like an idiot. He felt a kick against his shin and glowered at Daff, who sneaked a quick eye roll his way. He fought back a laugh.
“I’d also like to thank you all. I want this to be fun for everyone, and I hope that you all know that even if—when—I go a little crazy over the next few months, I absolutely adore each and every one of you. Just knowing you’ll all be a part of our big day means so much to both of us. We love you guys.”
Well, that was . . . kind of sweet, actually, and Spencer felt a swell of affection for the lovely woman who had stolen his brother’s heart. Chris lifted his glass.
“To Daisy and Mason. Your love for each other is truly wonderful to witness, and I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say that we wish you the happiest of marriages.”
Of course, perfect Chris would say the perfect thing. Spencer tried not to be exasperated by that. Nobody expected Spencer to make a spur-of-the-moment toast—it would be an abject failure. He already broke into cold sweats when he thought about the best man speech he’d have to make. So he lifted his glass and added his “hear, hear” to the chorus and touched glasses with everybody at the table.
Finally, they were able to eat.
“Don’t know about you, but I was genuinely worried that that would go on for hours,” Daff muttered into his ear after they’d both piled their plates, and Spencer chuckled.
The sound seemed to draw stares from around the table, and Spencer scowled back at them all uncomfortably.
What the fuck?
Gradually everybody went back to their chatter and he turned to Daff questioningly.
“They’re not used to hearing you laugh so freely, that’s all,” she informed him, and he felt his brow lower even farther.
“Does everybody think I’m some kind of monster?” he asked under his breath. She shook her head.
“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. They just think you’re serious, that’s all.”
“That’s not good. Serious people are assholes.”
“Not true. They’re just . . . serious.”
“You thought I was an asshole,” he reminded, and she huffed querulously.
“That’s because I was the real asshole. Trust me, nobody thinks you’re an asshole.”
“So you don’t think I’m an asshole?” he prompted, and she graced him with an affectionate smile.
“Shut up and eat your goulash.”
“You eat. What did you have for lunch today, anyway? Have some more rice, you barely have a thimbleful on your plate.” He reached for the rice and attempted to pile another spoonful onto her plate. She blocked his hand.
“Jesus, and you have the nerve to call me rude? You can’t just put more food on my—”
“Oh dear God,” Daisy chimed in dramatically. “Spencer’s the Dick, isn’t he? You’re the Dick?”
“Daisy, what the fuck?” Mason’s voice was laden with comical incredulity, and Daff and Spencer froze in midsquabble. They met each other’s eyes sheepishly, acknowledging that the jig was up.
“I’ve been called that on occasion,” Spencer admitted.
“You know?” Daff asked out of the corner of her mouth, and he smiled at her.
“That you have me down as the Dick on your phone? Word gets around. And seriously, a penis in a top hat? Can I see it?”
“Shut up,” she sulked, folding her arms over her chest and turning her focus on her truly horrified-looking sister. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in shit here.”
Spencer frowned, not sure how to deal with the situation other than to brazen it out—but that wasn’t something that was in his nature.
“Daff, how could you?” Daisy asked at the same time as Mason glared at Spencer.
“Seriously, bro?”
“What’s going on?” Tilda asked nervously while Chris sat back with a grin on his face, watching the drama unfold. Lia leaned over to whisper urgently in Tilda’s ear, clearly filling her in on the situation, if Tilda’s widening eyes and shocked gasps were anything to go by.
“Daffodil, a word, please,” Daisy said pointedly and then got up to stalk in the direction of the kitchen. Daff hesitated and then sighed in resignation.
“Wish me luck,” she said to the table at large and followed Daisy.
Spencer watched her retreat before turning to meet his brother’s furious regard.
Mason just nodded in the direction of the front door.
“Really? Outside? It’s fucking freezing, man.”
“The house is small.”
“Your fault, you could have built a bigger one, planned for a family.”
“Spence!” Mason hissed warningly, clearly not interested in his delay tactics, and Spencer put aside his napkin and headed toward the front door with Mason in tow.
“This is so much more exciting than we were expecting, non?” he heard Chris say as he left. “Well . . . no use letting this beautiful food go to waste, ladies. Let’s eat.”