"Well, when no one's there except us and Loretta, he's either giving me and Josh a hard time or kissing Loretta's butt."
"Who's Loretta?"
"My stepmother, who totally hates me, by the way."
"Oh yeah? Why?"
"Mostly, she hates everyone, well, except for her own daughter." I paused. "And my dad. Sometimes."
"What about your brother?"
"That's the worst part," I said. "She doesn't loathe him quite as much as she does me, but she still has this way of tormenting him, even when she's pretending to be nice."
Lawton said nothing as he down-shifted to pass an oversized pickup truck. We blew past him like he was standing still.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking," I said. "You think I'm exaggerating, right?"
"I never said that."
"Uh-huh." I felt my stomach churn at the memory of my last holiday there. "You'll see. It doesn't take anything to set her off."
"Like what? Gimme an example."
"Well, a couple of Easters ago, it was oyster gravy."
I glanced in his direction. The look on his face said it all. Disgusted. And he was right.
Our shared loathing of seafood was just one of the many reasons I loved him. Correction – one of the many reasons Iusedto love him, before everything had gotten so messed up.
Before he locked me in his basement. Or assumed I was a hooker.
He shook his head. "That's just wrong."
No kidding. If I were willing to have sex for money, my life would've been a whole lot simpler.
"So," he said in a prompting tone. "The gravy?"
Oh, right. Loretta. Gravy.
I nodded. "Supposedly, it's a delicacy. Or at least, that's what Loretta keeping telling us."
Lawton's tires squealed around the next turn. "I've got this friend from Texas," he said. "Know what he'd say to that?"
"What?"
Lawton assumed a Western drawl. "You can call it Nancy and put a dress on it. But I'm still not gonna eat it."
"Say that to Loretta, and you're a dead man." I felt the corners of my mouth lift just a fraction. "As much as I'd totally love to see that."
"So about Easter?" Lawton said. "What happened?"
"Anyway, Loretta made this special batch of oyster gravy, and then flipped out when we didn't want any."
"You and your brother?"
"Yeah. And Lauren Jane too, except she didn't get in trouble for it."
"Who's Lauren Jane?"
