A Deal with the Bossy Devil by Kyra Parsi

27

I wasn'tproud of my decision to stay. Nor could I justify it.

All I knew was that by the time I managed to put on a sweater and jeans, the idea of going to the airport was even more unappealing than it had been yesterday. I kept staring at my bags, trying to convince myself to pick them up and leave. But I couldn't do it.

No, that wasn't true. I could do it, I just didn't want to.

What I wantedto do was join Adrien’s family for breakfast.

I was halfway down the stairs when I first heard the muffled laughter and teasing happening in the kitchen, and I found myself pausing just to listen. I’d always loved the idea of a big, loud, and lively family. My mom left when I was two, Dad worked night shifts for the majority of my childhood—right up until he got the gig at Abehill when I was fifteen—and our abuela was a big fan of naps.

But on Sundays when Dad was home and we had our big family dinners, the house felt alive. Like it was finally breathing after six long days of stillness. There was laughter and mayhem as Alba and I excitedly fought to tell our father about everything that had happened over the last week. We’d be chided by our abuela for bouncing in our seats, letting our food go cold, and signing over each other. All the while Dad encouraged our restless shenanigans, keeping us riled up and squealing. He’d make us laugh, feel heard, appreciated, and loved.

I used to think to myself, this is what I want when I grow up. I want it to be like this every night.

I loved it. I missed it. And I really missed them.

I swallowed the small lump forming in the back of my throat, blinked the memories from my mind, and trotted into the kitchen.

Adrien was the first to spot me. His eyebrows rose slowly as the corner of his mouth curved into the cockiest smirk I’d ever seen. He stood a little straighter, his chest puffing victoriously as he crossed his arms.

I did a poor job of concealing my smile as I glared at him.

“There she is,” Julie said, her voice light and teasing.

“Good morning,” I said.

“You must be exhausted,” Alice chimed in. She was in the middle of decorating her smoothie bowl with coconut shavings and blueberries.

Um... “What?”

“They heard us last night,” Adrien claimed, leaning a casual shoulder against the fridge. “Apparently the west wing isn’t as secluded as we were led to believe.”

Oh god.

“Not when you’re that loud,” his sister said. I could hear the eye roll in her voice.

My cheeks flamed, my body temperature spiking as my ears began to itch.

“Sorry. I’m a screamer,” Adrien said smoothly, offering me a comforting wink.

Anthony and Julie laughed, and Alice made a face.

I stood frozen and embarrassed, my hands tucked awkwardly at my sides. I should have left. This was karma biting me in the ass.

“At least Gampy had the option of turning his hearing aid off,” Alice went on, entirely unaware of how badly I wanted the ground to fall open and chew me whole.

“Alice, that’s enough,” Julie chided. She was still smiling.

“FYI, Mom spent over an hour this morning brainstorming nursery themes.”

“Alice.” Anthony this time. He was also smiling.

“Dad helped pick out a crib. It’s pine.” She stuck out her tongue and gagged.

Her father flicked her arm, and she snickered, plopping a blueberry into her mouth.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wasn’t sure what to say or where to look. And just as it felt like I might burst into flames, Adrien walked over to where I was standing, threaded his fingers through mine, and leaned down to whisper in my ear. “They’re just teasing, it’s not a big d—”

He cut off when the rubber end of a wooden cane shoved itself between our stomachs. Gampy—who’d appeared straight out of thin air—started to maneuver his walking cane back and forth, separating our bodies until a very confused Adrien and I were standing approximately three feet apart.

“Now, Lice,” he said.

And then, grinning evilly as though she’d been waiting her entire life for this exact moment, Alice whipped out a spray bottle and aimed it directly at Adrien’s frowning face.

“Don’t you dare,” he threatened, releasing my hand.

She dared. Four sprays of ice-cold water hit her brother’s tanned, shielding arm while I stood there with my mouth hanging open.

Maxwell hopped off Gampy’s shoulder, squawking gleefully as he flew right into the line of fire.

“New house rule,” Alice declared loudly, continuing to hold the bottle up as a weapon. She didn’t seem at all scared, even though Adrien looked like he was going to punt her right into the afterlife. “The two of you are to maintain four feet of distance at all times. You’ve lost all PDA privileges as a direct consequence of being disgusting and gross.”

“No,” Adrien responded easily, catching the small towel Anthony tossed him from across the kitchen. Maxwell had landed on his head and was eyeing the spray bottle like he was waiting for it to go off again. “And you barely even heard anything.”

“I heard enough!” More sprays.

Adrien squeezed his eyes shut, a laugh bursting out of him as Maxwell once again dove gleefully for the water.

“Stop blocking my aim, you little twat! It’s not your bath time!” Alice complained, trying to maneuver around his flapping wings.

I found my embarrassment slowly thawing until I was smiling and laughing along with them. Adrien kept trying to grab a hold of my hand again—probably to pull me into battle and use my body as a shield—but kept getting intercepted and blocked by swats of Gampy’s cane, excited flaps of Maxwell’s wings in his face, and sprays of Alice’s water.

Chaos.

“All right. Enough, enough, enough,” Julie interjected at one point, snatching the bottle from her daughter’s hands. “Mop this up. Now, please. Before someone slips and breaks something.”

“Worth it.” Alice smirked, smacking her grandfather’s raised palm on her way to grab the mop. Up high, down low, and in perfect sync. Maxwell flew after her.

“You need to stop encouraging her behavior,” Julie told her father pointedly.

“I can hear you!” Alice called from the other room.

“Why? She’s hilarious,” Gampy argued.

“Thanks, bestie!”

“Alice, stop yelling,” Julie yelled. “Dad, you only think that because she’s turning into you. Addy, go change before you catch a cold. And Ria, honey, take a seat. I’ll pour you some coffee.”

Instead of leaving the room to change, Adrien stripped out of his shirt right then and there, wiping his face and hair with what little dry fabric was left.

Muscles. So many corded muscles. His arms and shoulders bulged, his abs impossibly—

“Take a picture, Sanchez.” He winked at me, dimples popping.

“Lice!” Gampy called.

“On it!”

This time she flew at him with a wet mop.

* * *

“Where’s your ring?”

I stopped chewing, my eyes darting down to my naked ring finger in response to Alice’s question. “Um...”

“We’re getting it resized,” Adrien cut in before I could stumble over a much less reasonable excuse. “It’s too big. Keeps falling off.”

We were sitting at the kitchen table. He had one hand draped over the back of my chair, the other cradling a fresh cup of coffee. Half his body was turned in my direction, and his knee kept brushing my thigh.

The weird part? My body language wasn’t all that different. My torso was twisted toward him, my foot hooked behind his ankle. And every time I looked at him, it felt like either he’d moved closer, or I had.

I also felt a little on edge. My gaze kept cutting to the clock every few minutes, as if that would somehow make the handles move faster toward 9 p.m.

“Have you started looking for dresses yet?” Julie asked.

I stiffened slightly, swearing internally that if she even hinted at taking me dress shopping, I’d run. Hostage situations be damned. “No, I—um, haven’t really had a chance yet.”

“Okay, because if you’re interested, I can start to make some calls and set up appointments,” she offered kindly.

Uh oh. Divert, divert.

I could tell Adrien was struggling with this one, too. His knee jolted against mine in silent apology, and his mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but he shut it again.

“You’ll probably want to skip Kilarni, but if you’ve got any other designers in mind, I’m happy to make the arrangements.”

My palms were starting to clam, my heart pounding roughly against my eardrums. I was not—I was not—going to go wedding dress shopping with Adrien’s mother and sister. That was a firm, sacred line I wasn’t willing to cross.

“Wait, why would we skip Kilarni? Their bridal collection is amazing,” Alice said, buying me a few seconds to figure out how the fuck I was going to talk my way out of this. “That’s the first designer I thought of.”

Julie cleared her throat, her shoulders inching back. “Well, because it sounds like Mandy has her eyes set on a few of their pieces. And I thought we might not want a potential run-in or overlap. But it's, of course, up to Ria.”

Alice made a face, as though her mother had said something vile.

“Who’s Mandy?” I asked, taking advantage of the small opening. Let’s talk about her instead.

The question was meant to distract them, turn the attention away from me and the nonexistent wedding. But the only thing it did was suck all the air out of the room.

All eyes turned in my direction, wide and unblinking. Beside me, Adrien had stiffened to absolute stone.

Uh oh.I’d fucked up. I didn’t know why yet, but I’d fucked up.

Alice was the first to move. Her slimming gaze slipped to Adrien, and she quirked a brow.

“She’s joking, right?” Gampy said. He shoved at his glasses, as if that would help him see the humor in what I’d said.

Okay. See? This was what I’d meant when I’d asked Adrien if there was anything important I needed to know before we started this whole mess. To avoid situations like this one.

I licked at my lips, daring a glance in his direction. I half-expected him to look pissed or exasperated with my carelessness. What I didn’t expect was for him to look... shellshocked? Panicked?

“I...” he started, his voice thick and unsure. “It’s not like I talk about her a ton.”

The words were meant for his family, but his eyes were bolted to mine like he was trying to communicate a silent message I wasn’t getting.

“Your new fiancée doesn’t know about your ex-fiancée?” Alice asked, the judgment clear in her tone.

Wait. What?

Adrien rolled his lips, his knee brushing my leg underneath the table. “She knows,” he said.

“Yes, sorry,” I said, playing catchup. “I knew. I just didn’t… I’ve never been great with names, and he’s only mentioned hers once or twice.”

It was the best I could come up with. Especially since half my brain was preoccupied with dissecting the little bomb that had just been dropped. Adrien had been engaged? For real? Since when? Had she broken it off? Or had he? Was he still in love with her? Was that the real reason he’d brought me here?

I wiped my palms against my jeans. It was suddenly so hot in here. Like hot enough to make my stomach twist.

Or maybe it was the eggs. Did bad eggs make your heart palpitate? If so, then it was definitelythe eggs.

“Okay.” Alice sounded more than a little skeptical. She turned her attention back to her brother. “And you’re both aware that MJ’s coming to the party, right? Like both her and—”

“They can do whatever the fuck they want. We don’t have to talk about it.”

The anger was apparent in his voice, and the glare he shot his sister made it obvious she was overstepping. But Alice didn’t seem to want to back down. Her arms were crossed defiantly over her chest, and she was tapping a finger on her elbow, her jaw visibly set on edge.

“He’s right, that’s enough of that,” Anthony said calmly before Alice could go on the offensive again. He offered me a small smile. “What do you kids have planned for today? Anything exciting?”

“Ria and I are going sightseeing,” Adrien answered.

We were?

“Can I come?” Alice asked. Her tone was so dry it sounded almost sarcastic.

“No. But we’ll be taking your car, so it’ll be like you’re with us in spirit.”

“Why can’t I come?” She cocked a single brow, stretching out her sentence like it was synonymous with are you scared?

“Because I’d like to spend some quality alone time with my fiancée while we’re on vacation.”

She rolled her eyes. “It soundedlike you got plenty of that last—”

He chucked a bread roll at her face. She laughed, then chucked it right back at him. This caught Maxwell’s excited attention. He hopped across the table, bouncing on his little legs, his wings expanding as he danced, waiting for the bread roll to be tossed again.

I’d have found it adorable had my stomach not been twisting into knots. I took another sip of my plain black coffee, hoping it would help.

It didn’t.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us.” Adrien stood up, and I quickly followed suit. We grabbed our empty plates, thanked his parents for the breakfast, and just as we were about to make our exit, he turned to his dad again.

Anthony waved his hand dismissively before Adrien could speak. “Yeah, yeah. I said I’ll take care of it. It’ll be done by the evening.”

“Thank god,” Gampy and Alice said in perfect unison.

I had no idea what they were on about. And, to be honest, I didn’t have the mental capacity to care.

He’d been engaged?