Free The Fire and the Veil (Veronica Barry Book 2) by Sophia Martin

large branch in his jaws and come racing over to her, splattering the jeans she wore with wet sand. Veronica laughed. She always caught Harry’s joy. She managed to wrangle the stick away from him and she hurled it as hard as she could. Harry charged into the water, switching to a doggy paddle when it got too deep to run.
    “So, I wanted to ask you…” Daniel paused.
    She turned to him and raised her eyebrows.
    “Well, you know how I was talking about you coming over to my aunt Eun Hee’s for dinner one of these days?”
    Veronica gave a little gasp. So soon?
    “I was thinking, maybe next Sunday night? There’s a baseball game on TV, and my dad likes to go over there anyway because Samchon Jung-Hwa has a big screen. So you could meet my mom and dad and Sukmo Eun Hee—‘sukmo’ is like ‘aunt’ in Korean. And you’ve already met Samchon Jung-Hwa—my uncle Jung-Hwa, who has the pet store. And maybe Sunny and Jae will be there too. They’re my cousins, Sukmo Eun Hee and Samchon Jung-Hwa’s kids. They’re about our age.”
    “That’s a lot of family,” Veronica said weakly.
    “Yeah, but it would be less stressful because there’d be so many people. In fact, I bet I could convince Jae to come, for sure, and he could bring his girlfriend, and if Sunny brought a guy over—I don’t know if she’s even dating, but maybe I could set her up with someone from the station—then the focus wouldn’t even be on you at all.”
    She could tell he was really hoping she’d say yes. Why not get the uncomfortable family presentation over with? He’d already met Cybele, and that had gone as well as could be hoped. Mainly Cybele had looked him up and down with her heavily made-up eyes and asked him a few really inappropriate questions—when was the last time he’d had an HIV test? Was his sperm viable? Did he think it was a woman’s responsibility to take care of the contraception?—which Daniel had answered in a deadpan, unsurprised tone (last August; yes, as far as he knew; and no, he thought it was a shared responsibility) that Veronica was deeply grateful for. If she could survive that horror show, she could make it through one Sunday night where with any luck everyone would be watching the baseball game on TV and no one would pay much attention to her at all.
    “Okay,” she said. Daniel beamed at her.
    “Awesome. This will be great. You’re going to love Sukmo Eun Hee’s cooking.”
    “You never talk about your mom’s cooking,” Veronica observed as Harry emerged from the lake and dropped the stick on the shore, shaking himself and spraying water everywhere.
    Daniel laughed and turned away from the dog defensively. “My mom doesn’t cook,” he said as he did.
    “Really?” Veronica said, realizing she didn’t know anything about her. “What does she do?”
    “She’s a lawyer,” Daniel said, his face going neutral. “She works a lot.”
    “Well, I’ll look forward to meeting her on Sunday.”
    Daniel nodded, and smiled a bit again. “Yeah, it’s going to be great.”

Chapter 7
    Veronica was still writing the names for this weeks’ new pairs on the board when her French II students started coming in. She hesitated for a moment when she got to Angie and Lola Hekili—would it be better to put Angie back with Clarissa or Felicity, instead? But it was too late to give that the thought it required. Angie would manage for a week with Lola, even if Lola was still as hostile as she had been from the beginning. “Welcome to public school,” Veronica muttered to Angie’s name on the board.
    “Bonjour la classe,” she called out as she wrote the last two names on the board.
    “Bonjour Mademoiselle Barry,” several students responded.
    That wouldn’t do. Everyone had to respond. “J’ai dit, ‘Bonjour la classe!’”
    “Bonjour Mademoiselle Barry!” more than half the class cried.
    Well, close enough, Veronica decided. “Maintenant on trouve son partenaire,” she said, pointing to the