Page 48 of I Think He Knows
My leg is jiggling a million miles a minute and I can physically feel my face pale in anticipation.
And then, a warm, strong hand is on my thigh, gently but firmly stilling my anxious movements.
“Hey Lan, look at me.” His voice is the same as his touch—gentle, but commanding. Reassuring.
I do as he says, and he holds eye contact in a way that further melts away my nerves. His hand is still on my thigh.
“What’s the plan?” he asks, eyes capturing mine. “Keep up the pretense for your dad and Constance and find a quiet moment to tell the others what’s really going on?”
Once again, Carter proves that he knows me better than I know myself. Knows how my father wouldn’t approve, and is likely to give endless lectures and derisive comments that are sure to break down my confidence more than they should after all these years…
I nod. “That’s a perfect plan. We’ll placate my dad first, then divide and conquer to tell everyone else the truth. You take my brothers, and I’ll tackle Annie and Mindy.”
“Will do.”
“I can do this.” I give myself a little pep talk as my family gets closer. “I’ve got this.”
“No.” Carter gives my leg a tiny squeeze, but the miniscule motion feels more reassuring than a huge gesture would from anyone else. “We’vegot this.”
16
CARTER
Our fake engagement party is turning into quite the rager.
And by “rager”, I mean that, since arriving not five minutes ago, Luke has carted in an entire crate of champagne, cranked up the music, and is doing a strange, thrusty dance around the yard, a bottle in each hand.
Lana snags his sleeve as he dances by. “You look like you’re auditioning for a two-bit traveling stage production ofTragic Mike.”
Luke momentarily stops hip-thrusting and wrinkles his forehead. “You meanMagic Mike?”
“Nope, said it right the first time.”
“Relax, little sis,” Luke drawls with an eye roll. “This is a party.”
“A party with dad in attendance,” Lan hisses back. Luke, Liam and Lana’s dad is known to be a bit of, well, a dick. To put it nicely.
“I don’t care what dad thinks.” Luke shrugs, takes a huge swig of champagne, then resumes his hip gyrations. “I’m a grown-ass man.”
“Could have fooled me,” Liam mutters darkly as he drinks his beer, looking vaguely horrified by his brother’s dance moves.
Before Luke can respond to that, his wife, Mindy, starts prancing across the yard, all smiles. She’s still holding the cake she brought, but now it’s covered in sparklers that flash and twinkle. “Okay now, everybody, on the count of three:Happy engagement to youuuuuuu, happy engagement tooo youuuuu….”
“Where was the count of three?” Liam demands as everyone else obediently breaks into song.
I peer at the cake, which seems to be in the shape of a bare butt for some unbeknownst reason. On the right cheek, there’s a heart with an arrow through it and the letters “CJC + LMD”. It looks like a cross between a tattoo and something that’s been hack-carved into a tree by a madman.
Mindy sees me eyeing the cake and holds it out towards me. “Do you like it? I bought it at the adult cake store and added the little love heart myself.”
That explains the madman hack job. But not the existence of an adult cake store.
I glance at Lana, my brows raised, but she’s just shaking her head and smirking. I’d love her even if she’d been raised by a pack of wolves, but her awesome, completely crazy family are just an awesome, completely crazy bonus to hanging out with her.
Well, they’re all a bonus except her dad and his wife, who are currently standing nearby, tight-lipped and not joining in on the raucous round of singing.
When the song ends and the sparklers fizzle out, Allegra claps with glee and Annie tops up the champagne glasses. Meanwhile, Constance peers at the cake in Mindy’s hands with puckered sour-lemon lips. “Melinda, that cake is vile. And entirely inappropriate!”
Mindy—whose full name is Mindy and not Melinda, to Constance’s perpetual disbelief—looks right at me and smirks. “Oh, no. Trust me, it’sveryappropriate.”