Page 17 of Avalanche (Endless Winter #3)

Eddie

“Your parents are not normal. You know that, right?”

Seth huffs a laugh as he stares at the blank screen of his phone, like he’s hoping those two overly friendly Canadians will reappear.

“Yeah. I know.” There’s a quiet sort of pride in the way he says it. Like he takes their weirdness as a compliment. He pockets the phone and gives me a wry smile. “Wait till you meet them in person.”

He says it with so much hopeful certainty, like he’s positive there is some future where the six of us will be together and meeting each other’s parents. Which is… hard to imagine, to be honest.

My parents, sure. If we all find a flat in Wanaka, they’ll make a trip down from the station to visit.

Mum will bring a bottle of her wine as a flat-warming gift.

Dad will bring his yappy Jack Russell that he insists is a working dog, when we all know it’s his unofficial emotional support dog for when he leaves the safety of his sheep and cattle and perfectly tended fences.

But Seth’s parents live in Canada. And I don’t see any of us going to Canada anytime soon.

“I think they seem really nice,” Lily says, shooting me a warning look. “I’d love to meet them in person one day.” She beams at Seth, that wide smile that always has my breath catching, my stomach flipping like I’ve just dropped off a cornice in backcountry.

Seth wraps one arm around her shoulder, squeezing her to him in reply.

I catch Liam’s eye, expecting to see him sharing in some of my amusement, hoping for a derisive smirk at the very least. His forehead only dips, gaze going distant as if in thought, then tracking between Lily and Seth with an unreadable expression.

“Um…” Antoine clears his throat, his spine straightening as he perches on the armrest of the couch.

He licks his lips, then reaches up to nervously tug at his collar.

I follow the movement, noting a fresh mark on his throat.

I’m pretty sure that wasn’t there yesterday.

“There’s something I need to talk to you guys about. Since we’re all here.”

A frisson of dread rushes through me at his words.

I remember the way Matty, Antoine, Liam and Lily were when Seth and I got home this afternoon.

The four of them, stretched out like cats in Lily’s bed, completely naked and oblivious to the world.

Condoms had been littered across every surface—most of them in their wrappers, to be fair, but some of them used—and the entire condo had smelled like sex.

And not in the ‘ I’ve just had a fantastic time’ way, but in the ‘ three guys just railed my girlfriend without me’ way.

At least I presume that’s what they’d been doing.

I swallow and stare down at the carpet from where I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor. I’m going to get cut out. The four of them will have realized that I’m just dead weight in this six-person relationship. That Lily doesn’t need me. Doesn’t want me. That I’m?—

“You know my grandfather passed away a few weeks ago,” Antoine begins, and that has my head snapping up. Because that doesn’t sound like the start of a polyamorous break up speech.

“Well…” Another cleared throat. Antoine rubs the palms of his hands on his jeans. “I don’t know if… did I ever tell you what my family does? About our business?”

I sit up straighter, a shiver of interested curiosity rushing through me.

I’ve always been interested in how people make their money. In what they do for work. It’s hard to explain it. Maybe it comes from my mum—a woman who looked at a paddock of cattle trodden soil and turned it into an award-winning vineyard with nothing but vision and hard work.

My brother had tried to get me to go to business school, back when he was finishing up his law degree at university and I was graduating high school. Said I had the mind for it. I’d just scowled at him and told him I would rather jump off a cliff than spend another minute in a classroom.

“No,” I say bluntly. “You’ve never really said.”

Antoine grimaces, as if hoping that he’d somehow be spared from having to explain this.

“So…”

His eyes dart to Liam, to Lily, as if expecting them to answer for him. He heaves out a sigh when they just stare patiently back. Either they’re as ignorant as I am about his family, or they’re leaving it for him to explain.

“They own a pharmaceutical company. Sort of.” Antoine gives an embarrassed shrug, his skin darkening as he stares at the carpet.

“Well, my grandfather did, at least. A majority stake. A few other companies too, but the pharmaceutical company is the family business, so to speak. I was supposed to work there once I’d finished studying. Just like my dad did, obviously.”

I give a slow nod, my mind racing as all the pieces come flying into place. Antoine’s constant look of confusion in the kitchen, his complete inability to clean. The slightly horrified look he seemed to give to our condo each time he came home, at least at first. Until Lily and Liam moved in.

It all makes so much sense now.

“Well, he left it all to me.” Antoine’s voice is a quiet crackle, but I feel his words like electricity across my skin. Can practically see it, the burst of potential, what having that sort of money could mean. What could be done with it. Created.

It must be how an artist feels, staring at a blank canvas.

“Conditionally,” he adds, and there’s a weight to that word that’s impossible to miss.

He looks up, giving Lily a beseeching look.

An apology. A prayer. “I have to be married to accept it.” This time, the words are whisper soft.

He licks his lips, fingers digging into his denim clad thighs as if he means to anchor himself in place. “To a woman.”

I don’t miss the way that Liam’s expression shutters, or the hurt that flashes in his grey eyes when he thinks no one will see it.

Something twinges behind my ribs, an unpleasant rush of sympathy alongside anger.

I latch onto the anger, that familiar emotion.

The natural consequence of an unfair hand.

“That’s fucked, mate,” I say, unfolding my legs, stretching them out in front of me on the carpet. “I’m sorry, but it is.”

I wrinkle my nose, thinking inexplicably of my own family.

Of my parents’ surprise at my sister going to med school.

It had been no more than a passing emotion.

An ‘oh’ exclaimed between dinner and dessert.

And then they’d given her what she needed, even though mum had always hoped she’d study viticulture and help out with the family business.

They’d never conditioned their support on anything.

Antoine’s green eyes flash with surprise at my outburst.

“I mean, who cares whether you’re married or not? And it has to be a woman? I’m sorry, this isn’t the eighties or whatever.”

“The eighties?” Seth interjects weakly. “That’s your benchmark?”

I shrug. It seems right. I don’t know. “It’s an asshole move,” I repeat.

Seth hums in agreement, looking between Liam and Antoine with quiet sympathy.

“And if you don’t?” Liam’s voice is brittle as ice. “If you aren’t married?”

Antoine swallows, even features contorting with pain. “Then it reverts to my father.”

My hands ball into fists, knuckles pressing on the threadbare carpet as anger prickles like needles across my skin. Theft. That’s what it is. No, worse than that.

“Your father,” Liam echoes, and there is some meaning in those words that I don’t grasp. A heaviness that settles in the room between us all, like some sort of an ancient malediction.

“Yes,” Antoine agrees. The color has drained from his face now, leaving him almost ashen. “Exactly.”

A woman.

I look at Lily. The girl currently squeezed between Seth and Liam on the couch, her cheeks still flushed from that awkward call with Seth’s mum, from a day spent wrapped up with Liam and Antoine and Matty.

The girl whose lips are parted on a silent exhale, whose eyes are round as she takes in the full meaning of Antoine’s words.

The girl I’ve been falling in love with.

She looks like a girl who has been handed a burden she was never meant to carry.

He needs to marry her.

The thought bursts through me with the weight of a mallet driving in a fence post, cracking like the avalanche that ripped that mountain out below us. He’d be an idiot not to marry her. To let the opportunity he’s been given slip through his fingers. An idiot.

“Shit man.” The words gust out of me on an exhale. “I’d marry you if that would work.”

I shake my head, huffing out a laugh of disbelief. Because I would, in a heartbeat. I might be straight as shit, but I can’t imagine a reality in which I’d let an empire like that escape my grasp. I press my palms into the carpet to stop my hands from shaking.

“Thanks?” Antoine blinks at me in surprise, lips curling as he fights a confused smile.

Liam narrows his eyes at me, like maybe he thinks I’m going to try and steal his boyfriend from him or something. Which, maybe I will.

“You’re not a chick, mate,” Liam bites out. There’s a bitterness in his voice that has my antagonistic intentions softening, the twisting discomfort of pity taking its place. “His lawyer said it has to be a woman.”

I look at Lily automatically. She’s leaning forward, elbows on her knees, her chin resting in the palms of her hands, fingers latticed over parted lips. She stares at the carpet, at my outstretched legs, at the shoes scattered in front of the door. At anything but us.

Later, I would think that maybe I should have looked at Matty. Matty, who has made no secret of his complete adoration for Lily since almost the day he met her. Matty, who hasn’t breathed a word since Antoine started talking.

“I can do it.” Lily’s answer is barely more than a thready breath, but it cuts through the waiting silence like a knife. She gives the floor a determined nod, then turns to face Antoine. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll marry you.”