Page 17 of Riot Act

He purses his lips. “All right, then. Fine. But the offer stands. You can take me up on it anytime. Hell, you can even register at the public school instead if you like.”

This was an argument once upon a time. I’d so desperately wanted to stay in San Diego with my old friends and go to a regular, public school. Dad had considered it for a second, but not Mom. No, she nixed that idea in the blink of an eye, and when she made that kind of decision, there was no moving her on it. That was a long time ago, though.

“I’m settled where I am, Dad. Iwantto stay at the academy.” Am I being stupid, fighting him on this? If I did leave Wolf Hall and enroll at Edmondson, the local public school, then I wouldn’t have to worry about Pax making life difficult for me. But I also wouldn’t see him. Ever…

Dad’s brows bank together into a tight knot. “But if you change your mind…”

“I mean it, Dad.”

“All right, all right. Fine. I’ll shut up about it.”

“Thanks. Now how about you show me this amazing new kitchen, huh?”

His expression morphs. One second, he’s stressed out and pale, the next he’s beaming like a kid on Christmas morning, color flushing his cheeks.

“You’re not gonna believe the amount of countertop space we have now. There’s a pasta arm over the cooktop. A wine fridge.” He dashes down the hallway, abandoning his boxes, calling back over his shoulder. “When Jonah gets here, I’m gonna cook you both the best carbonara you’ve ever eaten.”

I was following behind him.

Was.

The moment I hear that name, I stumble to a halt. Dad’s disappeared into the bright, sun-soaked kitchen at the end of the hall, so he doesn’t see my stricken expression. “Jonah? He’s coming here?”

A loud clang comes from the kitchen. The sound of running water. “Of course. Won’t be long now. He texted about an hour ago. I told him I could pick him up, but he insisted on getting an Uber.”

Jonah, my half-brother. On his way here. I didn’t even consider that I might be seeing him while I was on break from the academy. He’s been living in San Diego for the past three years, working as a bartender while he finishes up his mechanical engineering degree. Jesus.I haven’t…

“Can you actually grab that box in the hall please, sweetheart? I think my good pasta pot’s in there.”

…seen him in three years.

“Presley?”

I stoop to grab the box, swallowing down the rising panic in my throat. “Sure thing, Dad. I’ll be right there.”

If I’d known Jonah was coming here, I wouldn’t have just left Mountain Lakes.

I would have fled the entire state of New Hampshire.

6

PRES

“Don’t kill me but where’s the Sriracha?”

Dad chokes on his mouthful of pasta. His cheeks turn purple, eyes bugging out of his head. Once he’s managed to swallow, he fixes Jonah with a horrified scowl. “What the hell is wrong with you? It’s a sin to drown everything in hot sauce.”

My half-brother grins. “Sriracha isn’t hot sauce. It’s—”

“I know what fucking Sriracha is! It’s blasphemy. You cannot put sriracha on spaghetti carbonara, okay? That’s just—I’ve never heard anything so—that’s criminal,” he sputters. “Criminal.”

Jonah’s hair used to be a warm dark brown, but it’s lightened during his time in Southern California. He’s tanned, and his eyes dance like they swallowed the Pacific Ocean. His teeth are a perfect, brilliant white. Dad doesn’t approve of the multicolored tattoos that track up his arms. Hedoesapprove of the fact that the son he had with his first wife, a marriage that lasted all of six months—not even long enough to see Jonah born—has taken up surfing and become quite proficient at it, apparently.

My half-brother nudges me with his foot under the table. “Come on, Pres. Tell him.” He tears off a hunk of garlic bread and tosses it into his mouth, talking around it as he chews. “Sriracha makes everything better.”

I’ve been winding the same few lengths of pasta around my fork for the past ten minutes. “I don’t like sriracha,” I mumble.

“Bullshit. You love hot sauce. Remember that summer we all went to Vancouver Island and I talked you into dumping a load on your ice cream cone? I convinced you it was raspberry sauce or something?” He laughs loud and long, cackling at his nine-year-old prank. I don’t laugh. Dad is silent, too. Neither of us remind him that I threw up into a trash can outside the old-fashioned ice cream shop because the huge amount of spicy sauce made me choke.