Page 199 of Tangled Like Us

She fights tears, eyes reddened, and her hands brace the top of the chair, still standing. “What are you doing here?” she asks Beckett. “I thought you had a performance.”

“Power outage at the theatre,” Beckett says. “Tonight’s was cancelled.” Wearing a simple leather jacket and white T-shirt, he pushes back his chair and stands to hug her.

She’s notorious for iron-stiff, but loving, hugs. When they break apart, she touches a tear in the crease of her eye.

Beckett gives our dad a hug before returning to his seat.

My mom shoots my dad a deadly look. “Did you know, Richard?” She often uses his first name in battle:RichardConnor Cobalt.

His grin burgeons. All-knowing. And his blue eyes flit to me, just briefly.

Enough to toss my stomach.

My dad cocks his head to my mom. “The power outage was in the news, darling.”

She rolls her eyes, trying not to smile at him, and then she looks to all of us. “What a wonderful surprise, and I will excuse all of your chicanery this once.” To our dad, she says, “Yours,never.You trick me, Richard, and I will roast your heart on an open fire.”

His grin only grows. “My heart is yours to do with as you please.”

“Stab it.” She picks up a steak knife. “Roast it.Eatit.”

My siblings explode in applause, drumming their feet to the floor. Palms to the table, the room beginning to rumble.

I pat my thighs, a peculiar feeling sinking inside me as I watch and look around at my dramatic family.

My smile flickers in and out.

And I wonder…

What would it feel like for Thatcher to be at the table next to me? There’s never been harm in just imagining, but the more I do, the more my stomach descends and my head droops.

He’s my bodyguard.

That’s all he’ll be soon—no fake boyfriend, no late-night sex—and I have no need for security when I’m at my childhood home in a gated neighborhood.

No need for him.

It hurts to think.

So I won’t think it. I won’t feel it.

“To eat my heart,” my dad says smoothly, “is to have me with you always.”

Thunderous noise escalates.

“Incorrect.” She zeroes in on him. “It is cannibalism. It is murder.”

“You love me,” he declares, his eyes fixed to hers in victory and affection.

Usually, she’ll deny. Tonight, my mom lifts her chin and restrains a smile.

She turns to the rest of us and taps her goblet with the knife. “As with every Wednesday, it is what you make it.”

“And someone will win,” my dad adds.

Someone will win.Most faces teem with some sort of excitement. I hope mine appears the same, but if not, the mask should do.

Every Wednesday night…it’s not just a dinner. The second half is a trivia game. Sometimes, depending on the night, we’ll even have different rules. Once only French was allowed at the dinner table, no one speaking a single word of English. Another Wednesday night, all cursing was banned and if someone slipped, they had to put money in a goblet—which would later be delivered to Uncle Ryke.