Homewrecker

24 - 𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓼𝓽

"Was this afternoon the last fitting you have for the dress?"

Even though she was speaking to Kimberly from across the dining room table, using the one side of her knife to spread melting white butter over the cooked green beans on her plate, Amy glanced out of the corner of her eye at me, or more specifically the bruise starting to dark the bridge of my nose.

She hadn't mentioned it since she called me out of the bedroom for dinner, hesitating as she held a stack of plates in her hand when I emerged into the dining room, but that was probably because Danny was in the room with us, setting glasses down in front of each chair and then she promptly handed me the stack of plates. She asked me to help him set the table, remarking that she hoped I brought my appetite because she got fresh produce from the farmer's market that morning.

Not surprisingly, David hadn't said anything either, but his gaze didn't keep flicking over to me like Amy's did; instead, he seemed focused on slicing his grilled chicken breast.

Kimberly smiled, nodding as she took the water pitcher from the center of the table and poured more into her glass, ice cubes splashing the water and clinking against the glass. "Yep. The alterations are finished and it's finally ready for next month."

"Good," Amy replied. "It's about time you're officially a member of the family."

I tried to keep my facial muscles smooth and unchanged as I stabbed my fork through the green beans.

"So, Bronwyn," Amy said after a moment of forks scratching against the plates, and I stifled a sigh as I realized what would come next. "What happened to your nose? It looks like you're getting a bruise there."

"Ryan Pembroke hit her in the face with a football," Andi explained from across the table before I had a chance to respond, glancing up from the phone I knew she was trying to look at underneath the tablecloth. She had come home from the beach a couple of hours after I did, her shoulders pink from the beginning of a sunburn, the waves in her blond hair from the braid she had shaken out since I last saw her. She also hadn't said anything to me since she came back, and I couldn't tell if that was her normally ignoring me or if she was upset that I had stumbled upon her and her friends, if maybe she thought I did it on purpose or something.

Now David looked up, his fork in midair as he paused, eyes wide. "Ryan Pembroke? Why would he hit you in the face with a football?" he asked, turning to me.

"I didn't know you even knew Ryan Pembroke," Amy added.

There was a look of thinly veiled annoyance that flickered across Andi's face. "She doesn't," she told her, flatly. "She was at the beach and Ryan hit her in the face with the ball on accident."

"Did you break your nose?" David asked, tilting his head.

"No. It's just sore."

Although there was a hint of concern around Amy's eyes, there was something else actually inside them when she looked at me. It was almost, maybe hopeful. "You went to the beach with Andi and her friends?" she inquired, glancing over at Andi, but she had gone back to staring at her phone under the table.

I shook my head. "I found the beach when I was walking Miles."

David chuckled around the mouthful of food he was chewing, and Natalie groaned at this, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling fan. "Dad, the joke's not that funny."

"So, did you all hang out after . . . Ryan hit you in the face?" Amy asked, tentatively.

"No," I told her, slowly, like it was obvious because it was. It wasn't like rich kids were interested in sharing beach towels and watermelon with trailer trash. The offers of lemonade and a ride back to the lake house weren't because they actually wanted to hang out with me. They just wanted to scrub the guilt they felt over hitting me in the face from their skin. And I wasn't desperate enough to take them up on it.