Like Rapunzel, but Not Really ✔

Chapter 9

“So when did you arrive here?” I set the china carefully on the coffee table in front of the woman dressed in blood red sitting haughtily on the crimson sofa.

She crinkled her nose slightly – slightly because I was guessing she had only had her botox done quite recently – and looked at the contents of the cup.

“What is this?” Grand’Mere stared at me with her hawk-like blue eyes.

My heart started palpitating unevenly as I diverted my eyes away from hers nervously, unable to meet her gaze – partly because she had never failed to make anyone feel incompetent and worthless with her stare, but also because I could never seem to take my eyes off of her horrible tattooed eyebrows.

I squirmed in my seat. “Erm… Erm…,” I stuttered. “It’s… uhh… It’s – It’s tea?”

Grand’Mere sniffed the cup suspiciously. “It doesn’t smell like tea,” she criticized before taking a small sip like the stuck up little – I mean, like the completely well mannered and elegant lady that she was.

She made a face.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure why I even bothered being hopeful that she would finally acknowledge me as somewhat worthy of something. Nobody was good enough for her.

“You really need to learn how to make better tea with Angelique.”

Well, except for perfect little Angelique.

Ugh.

Hunter and I simultaneously rolled our eyes.

Ugh.

Angelique was our cousin. For me, she was my cousin from both sides of the family. That is weird, yes. But it gets even weirder. Our fathers were brothers and our mothers were twins. It wasn’t really incest but somehow, someway, it just felt… wrong.

“This is too minty,” she chided, placing the barely drank cup of tea onto the table like it was garbage.

I didn’t even know how to reply to that. It was Earl Grey tea with two spoons of sugar. Where – or how – she got that minty taste from, I didn’t know. So wisely, I just kept quiet.

But being wise was not Hunter’s forte.

“Well, get “Angelique”,” he made air quotes, “to make it for you then,” he scoffed from the corner, a distance too far for her to tazer him but near enough for him to insult her.

Grand’Mere didn’t even deign to look at him when she replied. “I would but unlike you who live off my money while wasting oxygen, she’s busy looking for a cure for cancer. For humanity’s sake, I’d rather not prevent her from saving the world. But of course you wouldn’t know anything about being humane, would you?”

The jab slapped Hunter like a bitch but Grand’Mere didn’t stop there. She may be on Forke’s 100 Most Influential People but damn did she break men’s balls like bubbles.

“Can’t you be useless somewhere away from here? I am allergic to idiocy,” she said with a blasé tone while inspecting her equally blood red nails, as if they worth more to her than the grandson who had set her pet vulture on fire.

I wouldn’t actually be surprised if they were. Off the record, I had heard whispers saying she tried to trade Hunter for a Channel No. 21 perfume when her credit card got rejected in Florence once upon a time.

I surreptitiously glanced at Hunter from the corner of my eyes. From the fuming look he was sporting, I knew what Hunter and I were doing tonight. Angelique-bashing was something we would do every time Grand’Mere came over. It was bad because she was possibly the sweetest person on the earth. But it was worse that there really was nothing to badmouth about except for how perfect, pretty, smart and friggin’ nice she was.