Page 11 of Sigma
He freezes, except to turn to stare at with the nastiest stink eye I’ve ever seen. “Mom. You’re so embarrassing.”
“Only to you, kiddo.” She gestures around us. “Look at all these people, pointing and laughing at you, right now.”
Killian just huffs and leaves the table. “I’m going to the plane.”
Bryn and I hold in our laughter till he’s out of earshot.
Bryn bursts into gales of laughter. “You are so mean to him sometimes, Mom.”
Layla watches her son go, an affectionate look on her face. “He’s like his dad—he takes himself and just about everything way too seriously. It’s my job to loosen him up. It’s taken me twenty years, but your father isalmostable to take a joke. Almost.”
Bryn just snorts. “Or not. He was riding me about how I didn’t refill the gas in the ski boat, and I told him he was being a dick about it. He didn’t seem to find that as funny as I meant it.”
Layla just arches an eyebrow. “Kind of like how well it went when you called me a bitch?”
“I was teasing! You call me bitch all the time!”
“That’s different. You were not teasing, you were being rude and disrespectful. Me jokingly saying, ‘Bryn, c’mon, bitch, we’re getting mani-pedis’ is not the same as you saying to me, ‘god, Mom, you’re being such a bitch.’ Because I wouldn’t let you go tubing with your friends until you did the chores I’d assigned.”
Bryn rolls her eyes. “I’m twenty and still have chores. It’s lame.”
Layla’s eyebrow can’t arch any higher, so she opts for leaning toward her daughter. “You turned down a job. Therefore you do chores.”
“We own an island. Why do I have to do choresorhave a job?”
I answer. “Sheowns an island, Bryn. Not you. Just like my parents own that island, not me. I’m not rich, they are. It’s different.”
She frowns at me. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
I shrug and examine my nails—I’ve chewed on and picked at them until the ends are ragged and the nail polish I put on two weeks ago is more gone than there. Thus the mani-pedis we’re getting when we get back home—Mom’s nail lady is coming over later.
“I’ve been telling you for months you need to quit being a baby and ask your parents for a job. So, sorry, bestie, but I’m actually not on your side on this one.”
Layla points at me. “She gets it. Just because your father and I have been lucky enough to have a shit ton of money doesn’t mean we want you thinking you earned shit, that you deserve shit, and that we’re gonna give you everything in life. You haven’t, you don’t, and we’re not. We’ve given you the most comfortable upbringing imaginable, we expect very little of you, and give you a lot. But you’re twenty, Bryn. You have no college aspirations, but that’s fine because college is mostly a racket anyway and I wouldn’t let you go unless you had a business plan, a five-year schedule, and a specific goal in mind. But you need to do something with your life, Bryn, and social media isnota life. You don’t want to work for Dad and me? Fine. Get a job somewhere. We’ll let you take the boat or a car. If you don’t want to do that, well, we’ll coddle you a little longer, but you gotta do chores, at least.”
Bryn rolls her eyes. “What kind of job?”
“With us or elsewhere?”
Another shrug and an eye roll. “I don’t know, whatever.”
I laugh. “Careful, there, Bryn, or you’ll end up flipping burgers. Which, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t think that’s what you have in mind.”
Bryn points at her mom. “If you say anything like, ‘why can’t you be more like her,’ I swear I’m going to flip this table.”
Layla snorts. “I’d never say that. I don’t want you to be more like Rin, I want you to be more like you, just a more ambitious you.”
Bryn sighs. “I’ll figure something out. As long as it doesn’t involve cleaning toilets. Killian’s is dis-gus-ting.”
Layla just laughs. “If you ask him nicely, your father would probably help you decide what you would be good at and what you would enjoy. He’s got a knack for that sort of thing.”
Bryn shrugs. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Layla checks her phone. “Okay, well, we’d better head to the island. Kyrie is there alone, and she goes stir-crazy if she’s alone for too long.”
* * *
It’s a good day.Mom, Auntie Layla, Bryn, and I get our nails done and spend the afternoon chatting and gossiping. Killian, the only male on the island, seeks out the security guards just for someone with testicles to talk to. Around six or so, Duke and Temple show up, flown in by one of Uncle Harry’s pilots; Duke is a licensed pilot himself, but for longer hauls and water landings, he leaves it to the professionals.