Good at Being Alive(37)

“Already a lover’s spat and they’re only a month in,” mutters Bryce. “Theo scoops up all the prettiest ones but doesn’t know how to treat them.”

There are looks exchanged and someone quietly tells Bryce to shut the fuck up before Peter gamely attempts to make a joke about it. “I hope Theo warned you what you were in for with the lot of us.”

I respond with a nervous laugh. “Not really. I know you all grew up together, and that’s about it.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” says Bryce. “He told you we grew up together?”

“Bryce, stop,” says Wendy before she turns to me. “Ignore him. He’s just jealous because Theo’s the only one of us who’s made millions. We did all grow up together. Theo and Kieran’s mother worked for our family for many years, and they lived on the grounds. That’s about as close as growing up with us as one can get.”

I blink at Theo in surprise. Everything about him reeks of privilege. I never envisioned him being from the other side of the tracks—the British version of it, anyway. But it explains some things, too—that hint of grittiness in him occasionally, like with Caden in Iceland. It wasn’t a refined response at all but a “you’ve got two seconds to back off or I’ll make you regret it” sort of response.

I liked it more than I should have.

“Yes, yes,” Bryce says. “No one can argue that Theo and Kieran didn’t make the most of the opportunities they were given. They went to the best schools—”

“And did far better afterward than you,” Ross says.

Bryce grimaces. “I was getting to that. Anyway, they both made the most of the little they started off with, and no one can fault them for it. But you know what’s implied when someone says they grew up with you.”

Theo’s face is carefully blank. He doesn’t look especially bothered by anything that’s been said but more…accustomed to it. “Ignore him,” he tells me. “He’s had too much to drink, which is something one generally assumes anytime Bryce is in public.”

“Which is what has always made me so much more fun than you,” Bryce replies. “Fat lot of good it did me.”

Wendy swats his arm, leaning toward me. “There’s a class system in England that you really don’t have in the States. And Bryce has had a lot to drink.”

She’s defending Theo, but he behaves as if she hasn’t spoken. As if she’s invisible to him. Why?

“I’m simply objecting to the phrasing!” Bryce shouts. “You know I’m right. Or did you not want your sweet young wife to realize how humble your origins are?”

Theo’s hand flexes. “I have no issue with my origins, though you may think a bit highly of your own.”

Bryce rolls his eyes. “He’s spent too much time in the States, clearly. I was just having a bit of fun.”

“Interesting,” I reply. “In the States we call that being a bit of a prick, but you do you.”

Peter laughs. “That’s what we call it here too. I’m beginning to see why you married her, Theo.”

“It would be refreshing if we could spend two minutes tonight not discussing how wonderful Theo is,” Bryce announces.

Ross jumps in, suggesting a game of billiards…and suddenly I find myself at the large table with only Wendy and Peter.

She raises her glass to me. “Well, we thought he couldn’t be reformed. You need to write a book on what magic you’ve used to make him commit.”

Peter frowns, as if she’s alluded to something she shouldn’t have.

I set my glass down. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Oh, don’t you know?” she asks. “Our Theo dated absolutely everyone until he met Fi, and after that debacle, he got a thousand times worse. We thought he’d never let himself get tied down again.”

She wants me to be needled by this. She wants me to admit I don’t know who Fi is, so she can reveal some sketchy story about my husband I’m obviously unaware of: an ex he’s not over, an underage girl he got caught with. Something that will make me doubt him or the depth of our relationship. Best case, she wants me to know I wasn’t his first choice, and if so, the joke’s on her: I know that better than anyone alive. And I’m never anyone’s first choice, anyway.

“I suppose he just hadn’t met the right girl,” I reply coolly.

Her smile flickers out for only half a second…but I catch it. Was she among the hordes of women who wanted Theo at one time? It’s hard to imagine that she didn’t succeed in getting him, at least briefly, if she tried.

Theo returns to my side with another round but seems even more stiff and unhappy than he was before. We’re not halfway through our drinks when his hand wraps around mine—the first hint of affection all night, or what would be affection if it was at all genuine.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks.

I turn and suddenly our faces are too close. Close enough that we could easily kiss, the way a new couple might, but I’m too irritated to fake things right now. I’m irritated by most of his dumb friends, by his reserve, by the fact that he has kept so much information to himself. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I specifically asked him what I needed to know on the way here. Fi never came up once. And I still have no idea what happened to all his supposed money.