Page 33 of Level With Me
She picked up the menu. “Another one of his mysterious trips.”
“Like father like son, huh?” Eli’s voice was bitter.
“At least Dad calls us sometimes,” Chelsea said.
Cassandra looked up. “Yeah. To warn us about ghosts.”
Next to me, Lila raised an eyebrow. A moment later, while the siblings went off on their two absent family members, she whispered, “This family may be a whole mess, but this place is screaming potential.”
“Not everyone’s got a perfect family,” I said, for some reason feeling the need to defend the Kellys. There was something deeply appealing in their messiness. Something familiar, maybe.
Lila blinked. “It’s not so perfect.” She was wounded. But she had a point. While her family and her were tighter than a knit blanket, there was that one big lie, sitting like a fat albatross between them.
You’re being an ass, Harrington.
Besides, Lila was right, this place did have huge potential. In fact, L’Aubergine was nearly there. Like the lobby outside, that single massive sheet of glass behind us with a view of the valley was its main feature. But the rest of it looked in decent shape, too. There were around fifty candlelit tables scattered between here and the bar on the far wall, which was tastefully lit and scattered with a handful of people. The sound of a martini shaker from the bartender provided a percussive background to the clink of dinnerware and soft jazz music.
“Do you ever have live music?” I asked Eli, my eyes on the stage at the other end of the room, near the bar.
Eli scowled. “We used to.”
I wasn’t sure how that was a touchy subject, but then I saw the woman from the hallway—Eli’s ex—approaching our table.
“Hello, Kellys. And Harringtons.” She smiled. “Lovely to see all you fine-looking people here.” She took our drink orders without writing them down, barely looking at Eli when he mumbled his.
I would have wondered what happened between them, except Chelsea started chatting to me and Lila, this time asking us questions about some of the other businesses we’d worked with.
For a while, it seemed like the night might actually go okay. Eli brightened up after Reese left, and even told the story about how he met Lila in economics class.
“I gave you girlfriend advice,” Lila said.
“If only you’d stuck around,” he said. “I seemed to lose my touch after I married her.” He explained how he’d married that girlfriend—and gotten divorced just last year.
Reese must have been a rebound relationship.
Jude told a story about how he’d given girlfriend advice to one of his team members at the world open, and the girlfriend had dumped his opponent the next day.
“You threw the game!” Chelsea said.
“No way! It was good advice. She just liked me.”
He grinned, and Cassandra threw her napkin at him.
Even I warmed up enough to talk about the time I’d joined a lacrosse team in college. After Lila and I went public on our engagement—for her parents’ sake—I couldn’t stomach staying on in our co-ed soccer team, where everyone naturally expected us to act like an engaged couple. After that, I found I preferred solo sports. Track. Boxing. Swimming. Things where I could compete against myself.
Then a friend told me about lacrosse, and how it was a surprisingly violent sport.
“There was one small league, and they were extremely serious about it,” I said. “I got knocked out at our first practice. Never played again.”
Jude had howled at that one.
After Reese came back with our drinks, Lila cleared her throat. “I’d like to make a toast.”
Usually, this would be me, especially considering I’d invited everyone to dinner. But she must have thought I wasn’t up for it. It was fine. I held up the Bordeaux she’d ordered for both of us when I said I didn’t care what we drank, glancing over at Cassandra. I was on my second glass already. That dress of hers left far too little to my imagination, and with her arm up, she looked like some kind of sexy royal. Maybe Lila was right to have me sit down, in case I gave a toast to Cassandra’s cleavage.
“I’d like to raise a glass to this exciting new venture,” Lila said. “I see great things for this project, and I appreciate the Kelly family trusting us with this review. I know it’s not easy going under the microscope, but I promise, we’re going to have a lot of fun, too.”
When I looked at Cassandra next, her eyes were on mine. They quickly went back to Lila. She still didn’t trust me, I realized. Or maybe it was that she just didn’t like me.
