at me, like he can’t figure out why I would have said that that way. “Why don’t you want to go there with me? It won’t be perfect unless you go, so you have to. Mom, tell him he has to.” His voice gets extra whiny when he says that.
“ Damien ,” Mom says through gritted teeth, as if this is my fault.
Zach exchanges a look with me, like maybe now he can see why I’m not crazy about Xavier.
Xavier watches us, unable to interpret what’s going on. His eyes water and his chest starts heaving in and out as he takes deep breaths. “Stop it! Stop being mean! You’re my brother, and you have to come to my grandparents’ house with me if I tell you to!”
His grandparents’ house? Little flickers of lightning run along my back, but I keep it under control. And I think I keep my voice pretty calm when I say, “I don’t have to do anything.”
Mom puts an arm around Xavier and starts petting his hair, even though it’s so plastered down it’s basically a shell. She whispers something soothing to him, then glares at me from behind his back and says, “Damien. You promised . Tell your brother you’ll spend time with him.”
I promised I’d stay away from him, not have a sleepover. It’s kind of the opposite.
“Oh, look, someone I know,” I say, spotting Kat’s parents over at the refreshments table. Normally I wouldn’t go out of my way to talk to them—well, to her dad, anyway—but given the circumstances, I’d rather be talking to anyone except Mom and Xavier. “Come on, Zach.” I grab his arm and pull him along.
“Damien!” Mom scolds. “This isn’t what we talked about.”
I ignore her and walk away a little faster.
“So that’s your brother?” Zach says.
“Yeah. You want to trade?” As if I would ever do something that awful to Zach.
He makes a face. “You don’t really think my mom will have another kid, do you? Because, I mean, that’s what people do, isn’t it? They get married and have another kid.” He swallows, looking pretty disgusted with that idea.
Which is understandable, since Curtis is a douchebag and couldn’t help but have douchebag offspring. “I didn’t think my mom would. She wasn’t even going to tell me I had a new brother. But that doesn’t mean your mom will.”
We get to the refreshments table. Kat’s Mom sees me and smiles, waving us over. She has a small plate in one hand with carrot sticks and some tiny sandwiches on it. “Oh, Damien—there you are! Your mother told us you weren’t here.”
“She’s pretending I don’t exist.” I smile at them, as if I didn’t just say my own mom is purposely lying to everyone about me even being at her wedding.
Kat’s dad pulls his cell phone away from his ear, stuffing it in his pocket. “I was just calling Kat. To see how she’s doing on the trip.” He looks me up and down suspiciously.
And I think we both know he was calling her to see if I was there, holing up with her and sharing her bed for a week, because Mom said I wasn’t around. “This is my friend, Zach. He’s my date, since Kat couldn’t be here.”
“Hi,” Zach says.
Kat’s dad gets this self-satisfied smile on his face. “She said she’s having the time of her life.”
Great. “She’s just saying that so you won’t worry.” She’s probably devastated without me.
“She’s there with all her friends. Her villain friends. Having fun.” There’s an unspoken without you at the end of that sentence.
“It’s only a week. I could have gone, but I had to be here. For the wedding.”
He gives me a really skeptical look. “Did you? Your mother didn’t even know you were here.”
“ Tom .” Kat’s mom glares at him, like she can’t believe he said that.
I clench my jaw. “Kat and I are fine. I don’t need to go on vacation with her.”
“Right,” he says. “You keep telling yourself that.” He claps me on the shoulder.
I take a step back. “Well, this was so great , catching up with you, but I have