“Do you know what you should do if nobody laughs at your chemistry jokes?” Marco asked me quietly. “Keep telling them until you get a reaction.”
That made me feel slightly better, and I reached under the table to hold his hand. He squeezed it in solidarity.
“Should I be spending this weekend trying to butter your dad up?” I asked.
“He’s not butterable. But I can help you if you want.”
I squeezed his hand in return. Thankfully the conversation turned to another topic, and I was able to eat the rest of my dinner in relative peace and didn’t mentally relive my dumb joke too often.
Marco’s phone rang, and he glanced at it. “Excuse me a moment. This is the office.”
He got up and walked out of the dining room. The last dish was served.
“This is a mango shrikhand,” Tracie said. “We had it on our last trip to India.”
They set a bowl in front of me, and I took a small taste. It was delicious—light, creamy, sweet. I started shoveling it into my mouth. The texture was amazing, the spices and nuts such a great contrast to the cool dish.
Marco came back in the room and sat next to me. He put his hand over mine and said, “What are you doing?”
“Eating?”
“That’s made with yogurt,” he told me. He glared across the table at Tracie. “I told you she was lactose intolerant. Why would you serve this?”
Lindy looked shocked, as if Marco didn’t usually speak this way to her mom.
The dish had yogurt in it? I couldn’t even tell. I kicked myself for not asking. I should have. I had just wanted to fit in so badly.
“I forgot,” Tracie said defensively, and even I could see it was a lie.
A server came over to take the mostly eaten dish from me, and I tried to hand it to him and I missed. The bowl fell to the floor and shattered.
There was a moment of thunderous silence, and then Tracie said, “My china!”
“My mother’s china,” Marco quickly corrected.
“Do you know how impossible it is to find a match for this set?” she asked, oblivious to Marco’s statement.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, turning toward Marco. “That was your mom’s? I feel terrible. I can pay for it.”
“It’s fine,” he said. Dinner was obviously over, and Marco took me by the hand and led me up to our room.
“Do you have something?” he asked. “Or should I send someone out?”
“I have medicine.” All of that was bad. So, so bad. How was I going to fit in with the Kimballs when I was ruining their things and getting sick during their vacation? I dug through my purse until I found my Digestive Advantage pills. Ken wasn’t going to want to meet with me now. I had wrecked everything. I took a couple of pills and lay down on the bed. “I certainly made tonight interesting, didn’t I?”
He sat on the bed next to me and took my hand. “You really stuck that crash landing.”
I smiled. “I didn’t even have time to return my seat and tray table to their upright positions. Your dad’s going to hate me, isn’t he?”
“He won’t care.”
“Won’t your stepmom make him care?”
“Money always trumps family.” He sounded so sad that it made me tear up.
I cleared my throat. “I’m like that china. Broken and difficult to match.”
“Broken things can be mended. And there’s more than one person out there who will be a match.”
But not him. He didn’t see himself as a match for me.
I looked up at the ceiling so that I wouldn’t cry. I’d wanted to impress Marco, for his family to like me. I’d wanted his dad to see me as a serious scientist and businesswoman. Instead, we were here. “This is the most predictable thing I’ve ever been a part of.”
“How?”
“I wore the wrong thing and broke something valuable and now I’m going to spend the rest of the night with gas pains and diarrhea because I ate something I shouldn’t have. On the bright side, the mango shrikhand didn’t kill me, so it’s only going to make me stronger, right?” I joked.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Pretend you don’t hear what’s happening in there?” I said, pointing at the bathroom door.
He smiled and then leaned down to kiss me on the forehead. His lips again felt like he was branding me, burning me.
“It’s a deal,” he said against my skin.
I spent most of the night in the bathroom. Marco brought me cold washcloths for my face and neck, but I was miserable. It took a few hours, but I finally started to feel human again.
I needed a drink of water, but I wanted it in a glass. I went into the bedroom, and Marco was passed out on the bed. He looked so boyish in his sleep, so carefree. I couldn’t help myself. I leaned over to kiss his cheek softly. He stirred in his sleep but didn’t wake up.
How different this night might have been if his stepmother hadn’t basically tried to poison me.
Closing the door quietly, I went out into the hallway. I was close to the stairs when I realized there was something under my feet. I blinked a couple of times. It was red rose petals. Everywhere.
Like someone had murdered the host of The Bachelor in the hall. I heard a noise, and I turned, expecting to see Marco.
But it was Craig, coming out of his bedroom.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said. “I heard you get up.”
“At three in the morning?” That seemed kind of creepy.
He came closer to me. “Let’s cut to the chase. I know that you have serious feelings for me. That you might even be in love with me.”
What? How? What?
“Had,” I corrected him. “And I was seriously mistaken.”
He tried to reach for my hand, but I pulled away from him. “Don’t you think we should explore this?” he asked.
“With your sweet fiancée in that room right there? In the middle of what I can only assume was a romantic gesture on your part?” I asked. “Catalina was right about you. You are the tooliest tool ever.” She was also right about him being a cheater. There would be no living with her after this.
“Leighton understands how things are.” He moved closer again.
I saw a shadow approach us. Marco.
Immediately, I thought of how this must look. Like I had some secret midnight rendezvous with his brother. That I was making out with Marco in the library and then meeting up with Craig late at night. Craig didn’t know that Marco and I weren’t really together. Craig was willing to cheat on Leighton, and it must have looked like I was willing to do that, too.
It was going to make Marco think less of me. My heart pounded hard as I realized how scared that made me. His opinion mattered so much to me.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Marco said in a neutral tone, and I was too afraid to offer to go with him. Because honestly? I felt a little like I had just cheated on him, even though nothing had happened.
And never would.
Marco silently walked past us. I wanted him to make eye contact with me so that I could show him nothing was going on, but he didn’t. He went downstairs, and when he was safely out of earshot, I said to Craig, “Leighton deserves better.”