Page 17 of The Do-Over

Dad’s eyebrow hitched. “Brent?”

“On the radio.” Mom tossed a cloth napkin over her half-eaten dinner. “Just embarrassing.” She waved a hand at my father. “You’ll talk to him, Craig. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding.”

Dad nodded and stuffed a roll in his mouth. “I’ll talk to him. We’ll get it straightened out.”

My stomach dropped. No, no, no. Absolutely not. “Please don’t. It’s fine.”

“Fine?” My mother pushed up from her chair. “You two were perfectly suited. What do you think went wrong? Is it the weight, or…?”

Joel Allen cut in. “He said she wasn’t any fun and he couldn’t imagine spending his life with her.”

I eyed the gravy boat with longing. Could a person drown another person in gravy? Maybe if they were really, really motivated.

“What does that even mean?” Mom threw her hands in the air. “Wasn’t any fun? Well, you can change that. You’ll have to work a little harder, of course, but we’ll come up with a plan…”

I cut her off, my voice wobbling. “Mother, he broke up with me to win concert tickets. Leave it alone. Please?”

She stared at me for a long moment and her face softened. Rounding the table, she stopped at my chair and leaned over to hug me. For a second, tears gathered behind my eyes as I clung to her. All too quickly, it was over.

“All right.” Straightening, she smoothed her dress and snatched my plate and Mimi’s, even though we weren’t finished, and stalked into the kitchen. “Let’s get the table cleared. We’ll have dessert in the living room.”

Joel Allen smiled at me across the table—the same fake, awful television smile he’d use on some poor soul whose house burned down in a freak toaster fire. Pity smile. “Never know, Perci. Maybe Brent’ll invite you to that concert.”

My sister smacked his shoulder. “Shut up.”

That’s when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it.”

I hustled down the hallway. Mathias was dressed to kill in a tailored navy suit. With a glance behind my shoulder, I pushed him onto the porch and closed the door behind us. “What are you doing?”

“I need to do this. I was on a date tonight with… I can’t even remember her name. I should remember her name, right? But I didn’t care because I was thinking about Phee, and then I thought about Phee with Joel. And I thought, why am I waiting to tell her? This is it. I’m doing it.” He leaned in, his eyes full of both yearning and nerves. “Tell me this is the right thing to do.”

I opened my mouth to reply at the same time the door opened behind me. “Mathias, I didn’t know you were stopping by. Don’t you look handsome,” my mother said and nudged me aside to give him a hug. “Come in. You’re just in time for dessert. It’s been too long since we’ve seen you.”

“Of course, Mrs. Mayfield.”

She giggled and swatted his shoulder. “Roberta, dear.”

I rolled my eyes at their backs. Mathias knew exactly how to charm her. Why had I never mastered that trick? She pulled Mathias into the living room, and I marched back to the kitchen to help with dessert.

It was there Phee caught me alone. “Mathias is here?”

“He sure is,” I said, nerves bubbling in my stomach. Should I tell her? What would a good sister do?

But Phee had other things on her mind. “I’m so sorry. Joel doesn’t think sometimes before he speaks.” She hugged me, but it felt awkward. “He really is a good guy.”

I couldn’t imagine she truly believed that. But it turns out, she did. Because forty minutes later, in front of our entire family, and the guy who had come to lay his heart at Phee’s feet, Joel Allen proposed to my sister.

She said yes.

As soon as I dropped a tipsy Mimi off at her apartment, I called Mathias. He’d smiled and nodded and congratulated the happy couple with everyone else. He’d complimented Phee on her ring—a pretentious princess-cut diamond that must have cost more than my four years in college. I hated it. Mathias had been great at lying his way through the rest of the evening, but I knew it had to have been killing him and it was killing me too.

I was going to be related to Joel Allen. Gross.

“Are you okay?” I asked when he answered.

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?” Mathias said. In the background, I heard music and the indistinct murmur of voices.

“Things didn’t go exactly as you hoped tonight.”