“So, what happened with your boyfriend?” Lydia asked.
Trihn met her gaze and just wanted to call her out for being a heartless bitch. Clearly, Trihn was fucking upset. What the hell?
“Lydia,” Gabriel warned. Their father only butted in on rare occasions.
“What?” Lydia asked, acting all innocent. Loving, carefree Lydia would never be anything but a pleasant, caring, wonderfully meddlesome older sister who liked to stick her nose in other people’s business.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Trihn ground out.
“You’re just going to leave us hanging?”
“I said,” Trihn snapped, dropping her fork, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay. Fine.”
Linh cleared her throat and turned her attention away from the drama unfolding in front of her. “Ian, dear, you aren’t dating anyone at the moment, are you?”
“No, ma’am,” he said.
Trihn noticed how pink his ears were, and she just wanted to bury her face in her hands. This was even worse than she had expected, and Preston hadn’t said a fucking word.
“And you’ll be in Manhattan next year!”
Her mother’s pretend innocent routine wasn’t fooling anyone. It was clear what she was insinuating, and that was not going to happen.
“Mother!” she snapped. How embarrassing!
“Geez, Mom,” Lydia piped in. “She’s only been single a couple of hours, and already, you’re trying to hook her up with the neighbor.”
“I said nothing of the sort,” Linh responded.
“I can’t hear any more of this,” Trihn said. “I can’t even believe this is a topic of conversation.”
“Well, this lasagna is delicious,” Preston said, speaking up for the first time. All heads swiveled to him. “Thank you so much for the invitation, Mrs. Hamilton.”
Trihn saw red. Thanks for the invitation? Yeah. Thanks for the invitation to ruin my life.
“Please call me Linh,” her mother insisted.
“Mom, Preston is a marketing genius working for Glitz right now!”
“I didn’t know you worked for the magazine,” Linh said, clearly intrigued.
“Yeah. Well, I didn’t realize you were related until very recently.”
“Is that so?” Trihn asked. She leaned forward. “How recently?”
“What does it matter?” Lydia chimed in. “What matters is that he’s so amazing that he should be leading the marketing team down there.”
Trihn snorted. “He’s entry-level for the summer.”
“How do you know?” Lydia asked.
Trihn froze. Oh, yeah. “Some people can infer things, Ly. You’re both doing work study.”
“Well, I’m sure he’s doing a fine job in marketing,” Linh insisted.
“Anyone can be good at marketing,” Trihn snapped.
“I couldn’t,” Ian said with a short laugh.
“But you’re a genius at computers. See? This is what real skill looks like. Not just people who know how to twist words,” Trihn said. She knew she was upset and on the verge of losing it, but she couldn’t stop. “People will believe anything if you say it with enough conviction, isn’t that right?” she spat Preston’s words back at him.
His resulting smile only infuriated her more.
“God!” Lydia cried. “I know your boyfriend just broke up with you, but you are just being a bitch for no reason! You only dated him for a couple of weeks!”
Trihn’s mouth dropped open, and then she shoved her chair back. “Excuse me, but I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.”
“Trihn,” Lydia murmured, as if realizing she had gone too far.
But Trihn didn’t want to make up with Lydia. She didn’t even want to look at Lydia. She saw Preston stamped all over her. Jealousy was a fiery inferno in her gut, and she had to hold back the tears as she stormed out of the room.
“DO NOT OPEN THAT BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE,” Ian said, lunging for Trihn across the cellar.
Pop.
“What did you say?” she asked coyly.
“My mom is going to kill me.”
“Your mom won’t even notice,” Trihn insisted. She pressed the bottle to her lips and tipped it up in the air. “Oh my God, this is so good.”
“Well, enjoy it. It’s the last thing you’ll ever drink.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
“It’s her favorite!” He winced.
“Then, I guess we have to drink the whole bottle before the party and stash the evidence, huh?” she asked. The logic seemed sound to her.
Ian gave her a skeptical look but took the bottle when she passed it to him. There was no going back now. They couldn’t recork the bottle or anything at this point.
“You’re going to be the death of me.” But he drank from the bottle without another word.
At least she was getting him to drink.
The last three days Trihn had stayed over at Ian’s house to escape the insanity that was happening at her place. She couldn’t stand another second of Preston and Lydia being together or her mother trying to make her feel better by forcing her on Ian or really anything at the moment. Mostly, she had spent her days in a haze of inebriation by the pool. Margaritas, daiquiris, mojitos…vodka, rum, gin…and even a few Coronas for good measure—anything to keep her tipsy enough not to give a shit.
But she couldn’t avoid the Petersons’ party.
Ian’s parents would throw a huge party every year, and their friends from all over would come to the Hamptons to celebrate. It was one of the biggest events of the season. Trihn should be looking forward to seeing the friends that she and Ian had made over the years, but all she could think about was confronting Preston and Lydia.
“So, are you going to tell me why you’ve really been spending every minute over here this week?” Ian asked. He placed the expensive bottle of champagne on the bar next to him.
“I don’t know what you mean. I always spend time over here.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But it’s normally not this much, and some of the time, Lydia is usually here with whatever new guy she’s been seeing.”
“So?”
“So…I was there for that awkward dinner conversation. What’s with you and Ly? Do you just hate the new guy? Are you worried about sharing her time when you get to NYU? What’s up? I know something other than the breakup has been simmering,” he said intuitively.
Trihn grabbed the champagne back off the bar and took another swig. “Can we not talk about this? I’d rather just keep drinking and dancing.”
She took his hand in hers and forced him to twirl her around in place.
“You know I can’t dance.”
Trihn laughed. “You can when you’ve had a little bit more to drink. Here. Drink up.”
He retrieved the bottle that she’d practically launched at him. “I don’t consider that dancing.”
“What is it then, Ian?” she teased. “Sex on the dance floor?”
His whole face burned at the comment. “I know you’re just trying to change the subject.”
“What’s wrong with that?” she asked, turning away from him.
He set the bottle back down, grabbed her shoulders in his hands, and stopped her in place. “Because I know something is bothering you. I can’t fix it unless I know what it is, and I hate when I can’t fix a problem.”
“I’m not a computer, Ian. You can’t fix me,” she said calmly. But her heart was racing. No one could fix what had happened.
“I know, but you’re not the problem. Something is bothering you, and I can fix it. Why won’t you tell me what it is?” he demanded.
She saw a fire in Ian that he didn’t normally bring out. He must be really worried. Normally, he was so shy that he would never demand anything from her.