Page 74 of The Hardest Hit

“Caffeine high,” said Jackson, nodding. “When you’re all jiggly, but your brain is tired.”

“Sounds right,” said Evan with a shrug. “I wouldn’t ever do it though.”

“Grandma would be pissed, for one thing.”

Evan shrugged again. “It’s Theo, really. He’d be heartbroken. That tree is his masterpiece.”

“It is kind of his art form,” agreed Jackson, glancing at him.

Evan started to feel nervous. He probably shouldn’t have said anything.

“I always avoid the tree,” said Jackson. “It’s so fancy that I have a fear that I am going to knock it over on accident. Like it will be the one Deveraux party that goes down in infamy because Jackson tripped over the model train set, went headfirst into boughs of holly, and took down the entire tree on top of the mayor.”

Evan laughed at the unexpected revelation.“Couldn’t be any more infamous than the time Uncle Randall peed on it.”

“Oh, Jesus! Why is it always my dad that did the horrible shit?”

“Because he didn’t give a shit about anyone. Plus, Dad liked to egg him on.”

“I don’t understand how Grandma produced two such sucktastic kids and then one nice one.”

“It was Grandpa,” said Evan. “By the time Genevieve came along he’d had his first run-in with cancer, so he’d slowed down a bit. And then Grandma was able to take Aunt Gen to live at the country house. Meanwhile, Owen and Randall stayed in town with Grandpa. I mean, they were in boarding school, but they still saw him a lot more. Then he got sick again and then he died. So, Genevieve never got the full Grandpa upbringing.”

“And Owen and Randall got extra helpings?”

“Something like that,” said Evan, staring out the window.

“Makes sense,” said Jackson. “Still sucks.”

“Dad always said that Genevieve was the only one in the family Grandma cared about.”

“That’s not true,” said Jackson.

“Sometimes I think he had a point,” said Evan.

“Sometimes, you save what you can when the house is burning down,” said Jackson.

“That’s great if you’re the one that gets saved,” said Evan. “Not so great if you’re the one burning.”

Jackson didn’t reply.

26

Evan – Leona Meade

“I think this one was the best one yet,” said Olivia, sitting on his desk in his office. “I think I’m finally getting the hang of these parties.” He grinned up at her. She looked so sexy perched on his desk in her little black dress. “It’s like you said if I just assume everyone is lying, all their behavior makes so much more sense!”

“I liked the Gen-Tech party the best,” said Evan, which was the truth. She scooted back a little and her dress rode up. It was giving him some very inappropriate-to-the-office thoughts regarding how to best utilize his desk.

“You’re just saying that because of the karaoke.”

“I have not laughed that much at a party in years,” he agreed. Although, that hadn’t been why he liked it. The only person in the room that was aware of the Deverauxes had been Olivia’s friend Alia, and Alia had made it clear with a subtly lifted eyebrow and a smile that she had no intention of telling Olivia anything about the Deverauxes. After that, he had just been Evan, Olivia’s boyfriend, and that had been fun. Because Olivia’s boyfriend could sing karaoke or talk about comic books or make dumb puns that made her coworkers laugh.

He stood up and leaned across the desk to nibble her ear lobe. “You look amazing tonight,” he murmured. Jewelry. He was going to have to figure out how to talk her into accepting jewelry next. It was Christmas. He was going to just buy her some and put it in a box. Problem solved.

“I do,” she agreed, sounding pleased. “Are you almost done? I want you to take me home and ravish me.”

“Almost,” he said. “The problem with having our office party, at the actual office is that I end up remembering six things I should email about and the computer is right here…”