20

“Serves you right,” he mumbles under his breath, lifting brows and grinning at me. He looks back over his shoulder to see she hasn’t heard and gets back to downing his food like a starved dog. I wonder if he’s perfected the art of wolfing it down, so he doesn’t taste it.

“Here, drink slowly. Do you need me to pat your back?” Natasha appears at the side of me, flapping around me and sliding my glass in front of my face as though she really thinks she needs to manually make me drink it. I take it from her with a weird squint her way.

Yeah, calm yourself, Mom.

“Sure I can drink this just fine; it’s passed anyway; must have just gone down the wrong way.” I fake smile brightly and clear my throat, already feeling his judgy eyes on me in case I offend his stupid woman again and picking up on my sarcastic tone, even when veiled in super sweetness.

“She’s fine Tasha, sit and