Page 80 of These Summer Storms

“I mean, it’s not a vibe I personally search for in friends,” Emily allowed. “But I’ll admit it’s handy now and then.”

“Jack should handle it. And you, Greta,” Elisabeth interjected, not noticing the storm clouds on Sam’s face as he registered his exclusion from the sentence. “I’m not interested in meetings today.”

Alice and Emily shared an amused look. “If you’re sure, Mom.”

“No.” Sam cut in, his thumbs tapping furiously, the manual equivalent of raising his voice to the decibel level of Man Vying for Control. “Jack. Shouldn’t. Meet. The. Secret. Service. This. Is. Storm. Family. Business.”

Everyone looked to him.

“There will be a Storm with them, you jag,” Emily spoke first. “Greta.We’re all Storms.Why don’t you say what you really mean?”

He watched her for a moment, anger clear. And then typed, “It. Should. Be. Me.”

The girls all laughed, the way only siblings could.

“Sam,” Greta said. “You’re the least reliable of all of us, and Emily just dosed Mom. Come on.”

Elisabeth, who had been watching the volley between the group, took that moment to speak, as though a vital thought had just occurred to her (drugs were excellent at convincing people they should say things they absolutely should not say). “You know, listening to the four of you, if I could do it all over again—”

The opening was a trigger. Greta stiffened. Sam rolled his eyes. Emily looked away.

Alice faced her head-on. “Yes, Mom. We know.”

“Know what?” Jack asked.

“If she could do it all over again, she wouldn’t have children.”

“It’s her favorite thing to tell us,” Alice said. “That if not for us, she might have…what is it, Mom? Been more?”

“I’m not sure what more there is, considering her influence,” Emily added.

“It was your father’s influence,” Elisabeth said. “No one ever noticed that I was the one who made him who he was. I made all of you who you are.”

For better or worse, she wasn’t wrong.

Their mother had been vocally regretting their existence for decades, and there’d never been anything to say before, so why should there be something now? For all the ways he’d been a controlling ass, at least their father had never seemed to regret them.

Except for that one time he exiled Alice. She felt a pang of something she didn’t want to inspect, and she ignored it.

Sam broke the silence, knowing he was outmatched. “Fine. I’m. Going. To. Oil. The. Fog. Bell. With. My. Kids.” He straightened hisspine and met Jack’s gaze, something there reminding Alice of an old nature documentary. Sam jockeying for position over a man who had absolutely no doubt of his own strength. Embarrassing really.

Alice looked to Greta, then Jack, registering the cool irritation on his face, and wondering to whom it was directed. And then he spoke. “Elisabeth, may I suggest—”

“You never call me Mrs. Storm.” When he tilted his head, his silent question an echo of everyone else’s, she went on. “Everyone else at the company calls me Mrs. Storm. Even Tony calls me Mrs. Storm, and he’s sleeping with Greta.”

“Oh god.” Greta sounded like she might shrivel into a husk, but no one was paying attention to her. Instead, they were all waiting for Jack to formulate an answer.

He didn’t need time. His response came quick and honest. “Would you prefer I call you Mrs. Storm?”

“No,” she said, after thinking about it for longer than anyone should. “No.”

He nodded. “I didn’t think so.”

“I suppose you’d like me to say something nice about Franklin.” She paused. “As per the rules.”

“If you’d like,” he said, again, a sliver of frustration in his reply, as though he, too, was growing tired of the game. As though he’d like to be more serious.

Alice couldn’t blame him. Who knew what her mother would say at this point? The older woman looked as though she was considering her words very carefully.