As I trailed off, I realised Beryl was wincing and my sister was staring at me with a flat expression. I felt a little sweaty, but I thought I’d done a pretty good job lying, hadn’t I? I’d offered lots of details. Details made lies believable.

“Uh-huh,” Kiti said without any inflection, sly gaze darting over to our mother. Thankfully, Mom was too busy frowning down at her phone to have listened to any of that.

“Kiti, how do you take your coffee?” Beryl asked brightly, turning to get mugs from the cabinet.

“Black with two sugars. Thanks, sweets. Mom will have cream and one sugar.”

“Kiti, how do I get to my photos?” Mom asked irritably. “These damn claws. Why did I let you talk me into this ridiculous manicure?”

“They look good.” Kiti wandered over to Mom and tapped on the screen with her own inch-long, bright pink claws.

I started shuffling over to Beryl to help her make the coffee—and apologise profusely—but then the doorbell rang again. Letting out a strangled groan, I reluctantly left the kitchen after glaring at Kiti in warning and power-walked to the front door. I didn’t trust my sister alone with Beryl. She’d tell her things. Embarrassing things.

“Hi, Greid!” Tim said cheerfully when I pulled open the door, his plastic basket of cleaning supplies dangling from one hand. “Oh wow, I like the hairdo. Very cool.”

I stepped back to let him in, gruffly saying, “Hi, Tim. Uh, thanks.”

“Is Beryl in?” he asked as he made his way to the kitchen.

“Uh, yeah, she’s in the—” I froze in place when I followed Tim into the kitchen and saw that Beryl had abandoned the coffee. She was standing with Kiti and Mom, and all three of them were staring eagerly down at my mom’s phone.

“This is Greid and his brothers all wrapped up in their towels after a bath,” Mom was saying, making me want to melt into the floor and start a new, easy existence as a puddle of mindless goo. “Look how tiny Greid is compared to the others!”

“He pooped in the bath,” Kiti supplied. I choked on a humiliated, indignant breath.

“That was Nuni!” I said furiously. “That was not me!”

“How would you know?” Kiti shot back with a smirk. “You were too young to remember it.”

“So were you, asswipe. We’re the same age.”

Kiti waved a hand. “Mom told me.”

“Mom!” I exploded. “Tell Kiti it was Nuni! It wasn’t me!”

“Oh, I can’t remember which one of you pooped,” Mom said dismissively. “It doesn’t matter anyway. That’s what babies do. Beryl, look at this one. Greid’s first tooth. He could not stop dribbling.”

Oh fuck, I felt faint. Suddenly hearing a throat being cleared behind me, I whirled around and stared at Tim. Oh god, I’d forgotten he was here too.

“Hi everyone!” He gave a cheerful wave. “I’m Tim, Greid’s cleaner. Beryl, how was your first week at work?”

I could’ve fucking kissed him, because he successfully distracted Beryl from any more embarrassing baby pictures. She looked up and grinned at him.

“Hi, Tim. Yeah, it’s going great.” She moved back over to the coffee pot. “Do you want some coffee?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Tim, do you want to look at Greid’s baby pictures?” Kiti asked, shooting me a wide smirk that I returned with a scowl.

He chuckled. “Best not get distracted, got to start work.”

I was giving him a raise. He looked entirely unfazed as he set his cleaning supplies down and went into the laundry room to grab the rest. The guy was unflappable, and perpetually cheerful in a way that creeped me out a little. But just for tearing Beryl away from the baby photos, he was getting a hefty raise.

If he could somehow get my sister and mother out of the house with minimal damage to my pride, I’d double it.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Twenty-Four

Greid

Once Beryl had left for work and Tim had finished for the day, I started the painful process of trying to get my mother and sister out of the house. I’d never been very good at it.

“So,” Mom said briskly, as soon as it was just the three of us. “Beryl.”

Kiti turned to me with an overexaggerated look of interest. “Yeah. Beryl.”

I glared at her and shifted in my slouched position on the floor under the window, my back against the radiator. We’d moved into the living room after Mom had complained that she was too old to stand up for so long—she wasn’t—and the two of them were lounging back on the couch.

“She seems very nice,” Mom commented when I said nothing.

“She is,” I muttered.

“Are you… involved, kushka?” Mom coughed delicately into her fist. “Because not to be crass, but I birthed you, Greid. I know you are a… fully formed biological male. I can’t imagine that’s particularly pleasant for a human.”

My ears fluttered wildly. “It’s not like that. We’re not involved. We’re friends.”

“Friends who live together,” Kiti said slyly.

I scowled at her. “Lots of friends live together. There’s literally a human show about it.”

“Don’t most of them end up fucking at some point though?”

“Kiti,” Mom admonished, but fixed me with an intent look. “So you’re not… romantically involved? Because you know I get a sense for these things, kushka, and it seemed like—”

“No,” I cut her off, my voice rough as my stomach squeezed into a little knot. “We’re not romantically involved.”

“He wishes they were though,” Kiti said to Mom. “Look at him. Like a sad little puppy.”

I glared at her. “Shut your face, asswipe.”

“Sex isn’t everything, kushka,” Mom said kindly, but I still cringed at hearing that word come out of my mother’s mouth. “I should know. I’ve gone long enough without it.”

“Ew,” Kiti and I said at the same time.

“I’m just saying.” Mom huffed. “If you and Beryl want to be together, you shouldn’t let that stop you. Or if you do want to be together in that… sense, there are ways around it. There’s a wonderful shop online I can show you that has all kinds of—”

“Mom, please.” I slid down fully onto the floor, the back of my head bumping over the radiator. “Please stop talking.”

“Fine,” she said snippily, lifting her coffee cup to her mouth. “Forgive me for wanting to make sure my baby is happy and fulfilled. I know that unpleasantness with Agma left you… out of sorts, and I’m just saying, Beryl seems like a lovely woman.”

“She does,” Kiti agreed, then smirked at me. “She’s pretty. Too pretty for you, buttface.”

I scowled at her before pulling my hood over my head. “Yeah, she’s… I know she is. But we’re not—It’s just—Look, next time you visit, can you maybe not show her all my embarrassing baby photos, please?”

“Why not?” Mom said defiantly, but her eyes grew teary. “They’re not embarrassing. You were a beautiful baby. My tiny little boy, all scrunched up with those big eyes and that shock of black hair.”

“At least she didn’t tell Beryl about that embarrassing phase you went through where you’d tug on your tail in public,” Kiti piped up, shooting me an evil grin. “Little weirdo.”

I straightened, glaring at her. “Oh, that’s real rich coming from you. You think we didn’t all hear the rumours after high school about you giving Gogi Jumin tailjobs behind the yoghurt place you worked at?”

Kiti’s ears fluttered. “Shut your face, dickbrain.”

“Kiti,” Mom gasped, then cocked her head. “I did like the frozen yoghurt from that place. What was it called?”

“Yogurgus,” Kiti and I said in unison, before she flung a pillow at my head.

I grunted, unsuccessfully trying to catch it before it smacked me in the face. “Look, I really have to get back to work.” Not that I’d been working before they got here. “This has been a fantastic unexpected visit and all, but…”