The Cornerstone (18 page)

“The Castavechias went to Scotland over the summer,” Patrick said. “They visited castles.”

And now I was listening to my siblings talk about their projects, and I couldn’t form whole words. All I had were growls.

Riley frowned and nudged Matt’s shoulder. “Why is that an issue?”

“They’d like to redesign,” Andy said. “Again.”

I tuned out the conversation as my mind wandered back to last night, when Will called. It was long past midnight and he sounded painfully tired, and he told me the only thing in the world he wanted right then was to pull my hair and lick my clit, and somewhere in the middle of all that, I agreed to meet him in New Mexico next week.

But some dirty talk, a hand in my pajama pants, and a slightly above average orgasm wasn’t erasing any of my misery. It only took the edge off. There was an obscenity-laced monologue about my dissatisfaction with the weekend, too.

“Are they being charged the dicking-around fee? What is this? Version nineteen?” Matt asked.

“Yes,” Andy said. “But the bigger problem is that we’re already halfway through a Dutch Colonial restoration. The project shouldn’t become a Scottish castle, and…”

“And they want us to go to Scotland with them.” Patrick waved his hand dismissively, and I opened an instant messenger window. “Something about recovering stones and floorboards.”

Shannon:
If you go to Scotland, you are expensing every cent of that trip right back to the client. These people are crazypants…and I’m sort of expecting them to ask you to move in soon. Resident architect.

Patrick:
Yeah. I know.

Patrick:
Side note – you look awful

Shannon:
Do not doubt that I will throw this chair at you

Patrick:
I don’t but I thought you were unplugging for the weekend.

Patrick:
You know, getting back to neutral

Shannon:
Yeah, neutral was busy assassinating warlords

Patrick:
I don’t follow that reference

“They want us to go this weekend,” Andy said.

“Wait. Does that mean you’re actually going along with this? You’re stuffing a medieval castle into a Dutch Colonial?” Sam asked, dropping his uncharacteristically chipper vibe for the first time since sitting down. “Does no one care about concept anymore?”

Shannon:
You need to jump in there and calm his tits before we have another concept tantrum

Patrick:
We need to talk about the girl he had with him on Saturday night

Shannon:
Do I even want to know?

Patrick:
YES

Patrick texted me Sunday morning, mentioning something about Sam bringing a date to the ASNE event, and I assumed he was talking about Magnolia. All Sam ever talked about was Magnolia—who Riley had nicknamed Gigi—and how insightful, helpful, and wonderful she was with the Turlan project. Of course he brought her to the event. It wasn’t as if he did the relationship thing.

“It’s like a
turducken,” Riley said.

“We wouldn’t do that,” Patrick said while Matt laughed. “We can work with floorboards and stones, but we won’t be digging any moats.”

“So you’re going to Scotland,” Sam said. “This weekend.”

Patrick shrugged. “Possibly.”

Riley leaned to Sam, asking in a whisper that wasn’t especially quiet, “What are the odds they come back married?”

Patrick blushed—hard—as he glanced to Andy and then immediately back to his laptop screen.

Shannon:
Something you need to share?

Patrick:
No

Shannon:
You’re not allowed to get engaged unless I’m notified well in advance

Shannon:
Or married

Patrick:
Are you under the impression I’d be able to manage either of those things without you?

Shannon:
Just checking

Sam passed a twenty-dollar bill to Riley. “I’ll take that bet, and my money is on no,” Sam said, his gaze on Andy. “Princess Jasmine looks like she’s about to castrate you and Optimus might hold you down while she does it.”

“Yeah, Riley,” I said. “Not everyone needs to get married fourteen minutes after they meet.”

Growly. I was very, very growly. I ducked back to my screen, and my search for a direct flight to Albuquerque.

Matt leaned forward, his arms folded on the table, and he glanced at Riley and Sam. “Did she just insult me?”

“Sam, why don’t you tell us about Tiel?” Andy said. She waved at the table, and a smile that I could only describe as devious pulled at her lips. “I know everyone would love to hear about her.”

“Or maybe we should talk about Thanksgiving, Shannon. What’s the plan?” Sam asked.

He wasn’t going to like the plan. None of them were, and I was stuck dealing with that. Add it to misery’s tab.

Shannon:
Don’t hate me for this

Patrick:
What the fuck now?

Shannon:
Just go with it

“I’m not going to be in town for Thanksgiving. I have reservations at a spa in New Mexico, and considering the shit you all put me through on a daily basis, I don’t want to hear any whining about it either,” I said. For years, Thanksgiving had been my show. I didn’t cook, though it was one of our few family traditions, and I worked hard at keeping it going. A twinge of remorse tightened my shoulders. “I’ll order everything from the farm like I usually do, and I can have Tom pick it up, but I won’t be the one reheating it. You’re grown men. Figure it out for yourselves.”

Patrick:
The next time you do that, give me more than 3 seconds to prepare

Shannon:
Sorry

Patrick:
It’s okay but Jugger looks like he’s about to run through a wall headfirst

“So I’m hearing two things,” Matt said. He pointed to me. “One, it’s really shitty that you’re just now mentioning this a week before Thanksgiving. Lauren and I will have Thanksgiving at our place, and fuck you very much for waiting until Sam brought it up. It’s not like you’ve hosted for the past fifteen damn years or anything.”

“See? The newlyweds want to do it. Let them trot out their new crystal and china. Crisis averted.” I shrugged and turned my attention back to finding a direct flight because no, I was
not
interested in stopping at JFK.

Patrick:
What’s in New Mexico?

Shannon:
Neutral

Matt pointed to Sam. “Two, I think we’d all like to hear about Tiel.”

Sam was twisting the titanium ring on his thumb and shifting in his seat. Definitely uncomfortable. “I’m seeing someone,” he snapped. “Her name is Tiel.”

Patrick:
Listen up. You’ll want in on this story

Shannon:
What happened to Gigi?

Patrick:
Who’s Gigi?

Shannon:
Roof Garden Girl. Riley calls her Gigi, and I thought that was who Sam brought to the event

Patrick:
No

Shannon:
Shit. I really wanted it to be Gigi

Patrick:
She probably realized roof gardens are dumb and closed up shop

Shannon:
You have issues. I freaking love roof gardens.

“And she’s a
college professor
and a
violinist
,” Andy added. “She’s
very
pretty and wasn’t even wearing hooker heels. And I’ll go out on a limb and say they’ve known each other for a while.”

Riley snapped his fingers and pointed at Sam. “Is this the same chick you drunk dialed last week?”

Shannon:
What the fuck?

Shannon:
What is happening right now?

Patrick:
Fuck if I know but I’m telling you, he was WITH this lady.

Patrick:
I was ready to start buying some Cape Annes off Ciccannessi too

Shannon:
What’s Ciccannessi doing with Cape Annes?

Patrick:
Tearing them down and building condos

Shannon:
Motherfuck.

Patrick:
Yeah. But Sam was out of there. I’ve never seen him act like that. Even Andy thought it was fucking strange

There had to be a full moon to blame for this chaos.

“Oh.
Oh
,” Matt said, frowning at Sam. “So we’re talking about a real girl? An appropriate, adult, professional woman?”

Sam’s glare could have cut class. “She’s a couple months older than me.”

Patrick:
He’s either fit as a fiddle or lost his fucking mind, and I have no idea which one it is

Shannon:
It’s probably an unfortunate mix of the two, plus some passive aggression and quiet retaliation

Shannon:
At least we know she’s a real girl, no hallucination, and we don’t have to inventory Riley’s brownies again

Patrick:
For what it’s worth, she seemed nice

Patrick:
Polite. Maybe a little quiet.

Shannon:
That’s an improvement

Objectively, I knew this had nothing to do with me. There was no way in hell that Sam was dating a woman—he lived for the nameless, faceless hookup; the last time he dated, he was in his first year at Cornell—with the intent of proving to me that he was perfectly fine. It wasn’t about proving that he was so fucking fine, he could handle a relationship when I hadn’t made it past a second date in months.

Sneaky weekends didn’t count, obviously.

“She didn’t look anything like his usual syphilitic crew,” Patrick said to Matt and Riley.

I sat back in my chair, holding up my hand for quiet. “And how long has this been taking place?”

Sam sent me an impatient glance. “A little more than two months.”

“Is that why you’ve been so pleasant recently? I assumed it was some new meds or a colonic or a fucking juice cleanse or something, but this is great news,” Matt said. “Good for you.”

Shannon:
You’re telling me you knew nothing about this until Saturday night?

Patrick:
Not a word.

Patrick:
I’ve been watching him as close as you have, and I’ve been touching base with Riley every day.

Patrick:
This came out of nowhere

Patrick:
Or he’s getting good at being secretive.

“Oh no, no, no. We don’t do secret affairs in this office. Not after the shit these two”—I pointed to Patrick and Andy—“pulled last spring.”

Sam lifted his shoulder with a quick sneer. “I wouldn’t say there’s been any secret.”

“You’re saying this is a legitimate thing,” I said. “Dating and the whole normal relationship? Seriously?”

“Yeah, Shan. Pretty much.”

“The universe must really fucking hate me if
you’re
in a healthy relationship,” I mumbled. “Just wait, RISD will be next, and I’ll start hoarding cats and learning how to knit because what else is there to do with my time? Soon enough, you’ll all have kids but you won’t let me near them because all I’ll want to do is smell their little heads and make them promise not to let you assholes put Auntie Shannon in a home.”

“We already discussed this,” Andy said. “No one is letting you start a cat colony. Cool it with the end of days talk, or I’m cutting off your caffeine supply.”

“Bring her to Thanksgiving,” Matt said.

Patrick:
Everything ok over there?

Shannon:
I might be a little growly

Patrick:
Yeah. You are.

Patrick:
Don’t worry about Thanksgiving. Go to New Mexico, eat some fry bread and Hatch chiles for me, and get your neutral.

Patrick:
It sounds like you need it

Shannon:
Thank you

Patrick:
And when you’re ready, tell me what the hell neutral is

“Yeah,” Andy said. “Maybe she’ll like Lauren more than she liked me.”

“You can’t hold that against her,” Sam said. “She’s the friendliest person I know. We did not expect to run into you two. We were on our way out and Patrick was his usual jovial self, and she wasn’t wearing any—”

“Oh shit, son,” Riley yelled. He clapped Sam on the back before rolling away from the table, laughing. “I need to meet this girl. Anyone who goes commando at an Arch Society gathering is a keeper.”

Shannon:
I thought she was polite and quiet!

Patrick:
She can be polite and quiet and still walk around without underwear. Not mutually exclusive

Shannon:
Are you speaking from experience?

“She didn’t—no, I mean, I ripped her—fuck,” he groaned. “Never mind.”

“I’ve never had that much fun at any event put on by the Arch Society,” Matt said. “I might start attending more frequently.”

“Definitely a keeper. At the very least, she should come drinking on Black Friday,” Andy said. “We’ll see if she still hates me then.”

Shannon:
She hated Andy?

Patrick:
No…

Patrick:
Not really

Patrick:
Maybe a little

Shannon:
Outstanding…but it’s worth noting you have a consult in half an hour, and after ten this morning, I’m booked straight through until Friday night with no free time to eat or pee so maybe we should move this circus along