I've got a feeling that Ibbie wants to hop in the car and drive straight back to the city, but there's no way we can do that without raising some red flags. Not knowing what else to do, I follow everyone else, tugging Ibbie along by the hand. I look back at her, desperately trying to convey with my eyes that I had no idea about this, about Aleix and Fauna. Because I never would have brought her here if I'd known that's what she'd be walking into. I'm not that much of a heartless bastard.
We move into the kitchen, my favorite room in this house. The yellow wallpaper is peeling at the edges, the worn wooden kitchen table is scratched and the pictures on the walls faded, but this is the room all my happy childhood memories are in; learning how to play cards with Grandpops, watching Grandma make dinner, doing my homework with Aleix on Friday nights. This place is home to me.
I greet Grandpops distractedly, then take Ibbie's hand again and lean back against one of the kitchen counters. She's doing a real good job of hiding it, but I've known Ibbie over a year now and I can tell she's crushed. It pokes at the fury flaming away inside my chest, because she doesn't deserve any of this. How the hell could my brother do something like this to her? To Fauna? The fucker must have gotten back together with Fauna while he was still dating Ibbie, and that's why he bailed on her without a word.
“I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.” Fauna smiles welcomingly at Ibbie. Clearly she knows nothing about Ibbie and Aleix. I'd once thought he and Fauna were perfect for one another, but now I'm starting to think the sleaze bag doesn't deserve her. He sure as fuck never deserved Ibbie. I should have done more to stop him from ever starting anything with her in the first place.
Ibbie clears her throat uncomfortably. Her hand squeezes mine. “I'm Ibbie. I'm. . .” She looks pleadingly at me, at a loss for words for the first time since we've met.
“She's my friend,” I fill in, not knowing what else to say.
“Nice to meet you, Ibbie,” Aleix says jovially. I want to break something, preferably his face.
Ibbie just nods politely. Most girls in her position probably would have scratched his eyeballs out by now. I imagine what would have happened if it had been Fábia standing here instead of Ibbie – Aleix sure as hell wouldn't be standing upright, that's for damned sure.
“It's so nice to meet you, dear,” Grandma says, moving over to the stove while she checks on dinner. “Why don't you tell us a little about yourself?”
Ibbie seems to shrink into herself at the attention. The girl I'm used to is usually only happy when she's the center of it. This isn't her.
I can't stand this. Aleix shouldn't be able to hurt Ibbie and lie to his fiancee and just be able to get away with it. “Actually,” I start, releasing Ibbie's hand and stepping forward. I stare at my brother coldly. “Ibbie-”
Her hand tugs lightly on the back of my shirt to stop me. When I glance back at her, she gives me a small, almost indiscernible shake of the head. It isn't until her eyes flicker to Fauna for the briefest of seconds that I realize she's trying to spare Fauna's feelings. After how Aleix treated her, she still wants to save his fiancee the heartbreak. She's so fucking awesome that it makes me want to kill my brother all over again.
“Ibbie what?” Aleix wants to know, throwing an arm around Fauna's shoulders like everything is hunky fucking dory. I love my brother and I always will, but I don't think I'll be able to look at him in the same way again after this. No longer is he a hero in my eyes, he's just a. . .man.
“Uh. . .” I stumble over what to say next.
But Grandma already seems to have come to her own conclusions. Turning away from the stove, she smiles deviously at the two of us, her eyes positively lighting up with glee and sheer mischief. “Our Walt has never brought a girl home to meet us before,” she tells Ibbie conspiratorially. Shuffling forwards, she takes Ibbie's hands in hers. “How lovely it is to meet you.”
“Thank you for having me, Mrs-”
“Oh no, honey, call me Grandma. I insist.”
Grandpops comes over and slaps me on the back. “She's a pretty one, son.”
“You guys, don't be getting any ideas,” I insert warningly before they can make this any more awkward for Ibbie than it already is. “Ibbie's just a friend. It isn't like that.”
But then, for just a moment, I allow myself to imagine that it is like that. That Ibbie doesn't hate me, and that I haven't spent the last year encouraging just that. That I wasn't so chicken shit that I could never tell her how I felt about her, and that I actually brought her here tonight as my date to introduce her to some of the most important people in my life instead of on a mission to find my brother. She'd charm my grandparents in minutes and we'd have dinner together and they'd fall in love with her, just like I did. I like the thought of that so much it makes something inside me ache.
“A friend you brought home for dinner,” Grandma muses smugly. “Dinner with your family.”
I purse my lips, because there's not much else I can say to that unless I want to tell them the truth. And I would in a heartbeat, if I didn't know that it would just upset Ibbie even more. She's been through enough.
It occurs to me that I need to get her alone, let her know that I had no idea about any of this. I'm used to her thinking badly of me, but I don't want her to feel like I set her up tonight. I may be an ass, but I'd never pull a stunt like this on purpose.
“I don't want to impose,” Ibbie says, obviously desperate to get away. “And I have to be up early tom-”
“Nonsense,” Grandma interrupts sternly. “As I said, my Walt has never brought a girl home to meet me before. I'm eager to find out more about you – you must be a special one.”
I shrug helplessly when Ibbie catches my eye, because Grandma is a force of fucking nature and there's no telling her otherwise when she gets an idea in that head of hers. She may look all sweet and innocent in that tiny little old lady body with all that silver candyfloss hair and those frail hands, but I know better than to mess with her.
“You should stay, Ibbie,” Fauna encourages. Next to her, Aleix smiles and bobs his head up and down like a nodding fucking dog. “It would be nice not to have the men outnumbering us for once.”
Backed into a corner, Ibbie eventually agrees, forcing out a smile. “Of course I'll stay. There's nowhere I'd rather be.”
Chapter 6
Walt
IBBIE IS THE quietest I've ever seen her over dinner, yet she still somehow manages to charm Grandma and Grandpops. Grandma makes her tell story after story about acting on stage, and has already vowed to travel to the city to see one of her performances. She'll do it, too. Even if she never meets Ibbie again she'll still go watch a show and she'll be the loudest cheerer in the audience at the end of the night. But Ibbie is absent that effervescence and that bubbly pep that drove me bat shit crazy when I first met her, and now I miss it so much my heart hurts. All I want to do is take care of her.
After dinner my grandparents and the girls move to the living room while Aleix and I take care of the dishes, just like we've done every dinner together since we were kids. Aleix washes, I dry. We do our thing in tense silence for almost two minutes before I can no longer hold my tongue.
“You're a son of a bitch, you know that?”
The plate he'd been washing drops from his hands into the soapy water, and he brings his damp fists to rest against the edge of the sink like he'd been waiting for exactly this. “You don't understand.”
“I don't understand what? That you fucked Ibbie over? 'Cause I think I understand that. Or that you lied to your fiancee? Yep, understand that one too.”
He sighs, shaking his head like I'm an exasperating little boy. “Look, Fauna and I have been back in contact this past month. We've been talking, testing the waters, but nothing was certain. I met Ibbie and she was gorgeous and a lot of fun, but the second Fauna and I decided to make things official again I knew I couldn't see her anymore.”