Page 91 of The Homemaker

“Just semantics,” I say. “We should get out of their hair, Mom.”

“No rush,” Vera says. “How was your night off?”

“Yes,” Mom chimes in. “Where did you go?”

“I uh, watched a play at the playhouse.” I stare at the mesmerizing flames of the gas fire pit table, but I feel Murphy’s gaze on me.

“Alice used to love acting,” Mom said. “She played Hermia inA Midsummer Night’s Dreamin high school. But after graduation, she chose a more stable path like me and studied engineering.”

“You’re an engineer?” Hunter asks.

“Yes,” Mom answers. “A biomedical engineer.”

“Alice, you took this job but you’re an engineer?” Vera gawks at me, mouth agape.

“No.” I shake my head.

“She was in a car accident, and afterward she decided to go down a different life path.” Mom reaches toward me, resting her hand on my arm.

I lift my gaze to accept all the pity glances, and no one disappoints.

Thanks, Mom.

“Oh my gosh. I’m sorry to hear that.” Vera squeezes Hunter’s hand as if to remind him that later they will have to play a guessing game as to why I dropped out of school after a car accident.

“Were you hurt?” Blair asks.

Again, Murphy nudges her, and again she frowns like it’s a fair question.

I lift my arm and point to the scar on it. “Just a cut on my arm from escaping the vehicle that sank to the bottom of the river with my fiancé. The rest of the injuries were emotional.” I shrug. “Nothing a year in a psych ward couldn’t take care of.”

Silence.

Mom’s lips part, and she tries to form a smile with them, but her sudden uneasiness steals her ability to move. She started it.

I stand, holding out my hand to her while letting my gaze sweep across the balcony of spectators. “I’m kidding,” I say with a grin and a wink.

It was fourteen months, not a year.

Blair and her parents laugh and resume drinking their wine, but Murphy gives me a dead stare that makes my grinfalter for a beat before recovering. No one should be shocked. Surely, rich people know that nothing worth having in life comes without surviving a certain level of insanity. After all, Vera has me reading explicit romance to her husband and wearing dresses and shoes that make him horny. Hunter ordered her a new electric Porsche because the one he bought her two months ago isn’t the right shade of red in her opinion.

I’m not the crazy one on this balcony.

“Oh, Krista, I was going to show you my massage chair since you said the car did a number on your back,” Vera says, standing and setting her wine glass on the table.

“Massage chair? Where do you have a massage chair?” Blair asks. “How did I not know about this? I want to see.” She untangles her legs from Murphy’s and follows them.

“I’ll meet you at the guesthouse,” I say to my mom, but she’s too enthralled by Vera’s expensive chair to concern herself with my whereabouts.

“Mr. Morrison, I’m off the clock, so you’re not allowed to look at my ass.” I tease, squeezing past his outstretched legs.

He returns a hearty chuckle. “I wasn’t.”

I shoot him a flirty grin over my shoulder. “You were.”

“Did you really lose your mind?” he asks.

I hold my grin. “I’m yourhomemaker. I think that speaks volumes about my sanity. See you in the morning, Mr. Morrison.”