Page 85 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

“Coming! One sec!” I threw the door open with a big, fat, nothing-to-see-here smile on my face. “Gampy! What, uh, I didn’t realize you were?—”

My sloppy greeting was cut short when the big, gray blob on his left shoulder raised to its full height, shrieked, and catapulted itself toward my face, claws-first, in what could only be interpreted as a hostile act of unwarranted physical aggression.

“Maxwell!” I screeched, swatting at the air and stumbling backward. “Getoffmeyoulittleshit!”

Gampytsk’d as his African gray parrot stopped flapping its giant wings, landed on the crown of my head, and folded forward, digging his claws into my hair and scalp for support. Next thing I knew, I was huffing and glaring right into his upside down, beady little eye.

It lasted all of three seconds. He’d underestimated how much he weighed and overestimated how much support he could get out of two clawfuls of my tangled hair.

He fell forward like an idiot, recovering just in time to grab a hold of my T-shirt and climb back up until his beak was practically pressed to my nose.

Then his wings spanned, his claws dug into the fabric covering my chest, and he shouted in my face. “GOOD MORNING, BEAUTIFUL BOY.”

My cheek spasmed. “Don’t be cute. You almost took out my eye.”

“YOU SHUT UP!”

“Bitch,excuse me?”

He nipped at my forehead and let out an alarming squawk-cackle sound. “Bad boy, Maxi. You want a mango treat?” Then he got to work, trying to preen my eyebrows.

“We told you he missed you,” Gampy said.

I tried to pull my head back an inch and was reprimanded by a whole lot of fluffed feathers and one very loud, very annoyed squawk.

A long, resigned breath slipped out of my chest. This was going to be an all-day thing. We could be hit with a tsunami, and he’d still be there, clinging onto my shirt and staring at me threateningly with his soulless little eye while I blindly attempted to swim us to safety.

Spitting out a rogue feather that had found its way into my mouth, I used my outstretched hands to guide my way to the fridge so I could fish out a strawberry and use it to bribe the little menace up onto my shoulder.

Meanwhile—and instead of helping—Gampy had started monologuing about how he was driven here, at the brittle age of sixty-seven (he waswellinto his eighties), by my parents, who wouldn’t stop weeping over “losing” their only daughter, because why else would I “only” call them once per week.

Apparently, it didn’t help that Adrien “only” called them twice a week, and “only” flew out to see them every threemonths. And “what was even the point of having children when they were just going to abandon you?”

“So I told them to shut up and just have another baby.”

My armpits clenched. “Youwhat?!”

“They were very taken with the idea, which is why I’m here. Remember the first time Adrien brought Ria home?” He shuddered, shoving the door closed with the rubber end of his walking cane. “It’s that, but worse.”

“Oh my god,Robert!”

“Yes, I’m aware that’s not how surrogacy works, but I wasn’t going to be the one to point out your mother’s age. You can see how I had no choice but to get on the jet. What’s for breakfast? I’m famished.”

I, on the other hand, was never going to be able to keep anything down ever again. “There’s a lovely little diner down the street namedYou Should’ve Called First, I’m Busy. Maybe try there? I have an appointment to get to.”

The one saving grace was that he didn’t have any bags with him, so he was either staying at our flagship hotel or with Ria and Adrien.

“Oh, yeah? What kind of appointment?” He strode into the living room, looking around. My entire upper body was now in one big knot.

I’d seen Dominic slip down the hallway toward the bedrooms, but I had no idea which door he’d chosen.

I scratched Maxwell’s neck as he stained my shoulder with pink strawberry juice, trying to think of what I could say to excuse myself for at least half the day. “Just spa stuff. It’s a full-day thing. I’m feeling a little under the weather, and sometimes the sauna helps, so…”

He opened the coat closet, stuck his head inside, and looked around. I froze.

That was not normal behavior, even for him.

“Is… everything okay?”