The me I had been years ago might have been thrown off by that comment. But this version of me, the one that had been an extended part of the Mallick family for so long, was accustomed to women who made comments like that. Hell, Fiona said worse than that over casual dinner conversation if the kids were out of earshot.
"Krissy, can you tell me when... oh," Reagan said, moving into the doorway of her office in wine-colored slacks and a white shirt, holding a flowing light yellow sundress by its hanger.
"When your date--that you didn't bother to tell me about even though I am your best friend, but it's okay, I'm not butt-hurt about it or anything--arrives?" Krissy finished for her with a smirk.
"I, ah, well, yes. When Nixon arrives. But he's here," she said, turning a smile in my direction, one that was tight at the sides. Like maybe she was nervous as well.
"He looks handsome in his suit, doesn't he?" Krissy asked, moving closer to me, running a hand down the front of my black shirt. It was flirtatious, but not personal, if that made any sense. It was like flirting was her default setting, so she didn't know how to turn it off. I was more waiting for Reagan's response to that since she so clumsily avoided answering me the other night about if she thought I was hot or not. Which pretty much confirmed that she did, but I had to admit, I wanted to hear it from her lips.
"You clean up nicely," Reagan told me, voice a throaty purr. "You didn't shave."
"I like scruffy men," Krissy chimed in. "You get that little burn on your inner thighs when they go down on your--"
"My ears!" another voice joined, higher, younger, belonging to a slip of a girl with long, wavy wheat-blonde hair and the cornflower blue eyes to go with it, all made even more wholesome-looking by the smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose.
Young.
She had to be in her mid-teens.
What the hell was she doing working at a whiskey company?
"That's not even the raunchiest thing she's said today," yet another voice chimed in. He was around the age of the girl, tall, thin but not gangly, with brown hair and mischievous green eyes.
"Nixon," Reagan offered, moving closer to make introductions. "This is Marley and Calvin. Our juvenile delinquents."
"Literally," Krissy chimed in.
"Literally?" I asked, shooting Reagan a look.
"It's a program we worked out with their school and the police station. Instead of going to juvie or getting kicked out of school, we have a couple kids work here as punishment."
"Yeah, this place seems like a fucking hellhole. With your thousand-dollar coffee machine and all," I drawled. "What'd they do?"
"Well, Calvin here got caught stealing," Marley volunteered.
"What'd you steal?"
"The cow off the top of the butcher's shop," she told me. "So he could put it on West's football field."
"I'm fucking lost," I admitted.
"It's an old school prank from the eighties," Krissy explained. "We have two rival high schools. West and East. Back in the day, they used to take this giant cow statue off of the butcher shop, and put it in the middle of their competitor's football field. The butcher shop thought they solved the problem when they bolted the goddamn thing to the roof. But, what can we say, our Calvin here is the determined sort."
"It was a stupid thing to get arrested for, Marley declared.
"Says the girl named after a fucking dog," Calvin shot back.
"Oh, please. Like it is cooler to be named after jeans." She added a pretty epic eye roll at that. They reminded me of the Mallick offspring, and I couldn't help but wonder if they went to school with any of them.
"What'd you do?" I asked, watching as the two kids shot daggers at each other.
"Marley was hauled in for inciting a riot," Krissy volunteered.
"It was hardly a riot. It was a peaceful protest. Until someone showed up with his friends and started pissing everyone off."
"Anyway, yeah," Reagan cut in. "We figure that getting some work experience and structure, mixed with a little more freedom than they are used to all day locked in class, will do more to rehabilitate them than anything else. Though, I mean, I hardly think they need to be rehabilitated. They're good kids. I think they just needed people who wouldn't look down on them for being pegged as 'delinquents.'"
"It's alright. I was a delinquent myself until a few years back," I admitted, not sure why I felt compelled to do so, feeling oddly interested in these people, in their dynamic, wanting to integrate myself into it in some small way.
"Yeah?" Calvin asked. "What'd you do?"
"I stole shit. A lot of shit." It was as close to the truth as I was willing to get.