Grandma levels a finger at Kaia, dark eyes fastened intensely on her. “You remember what I said.”

“What’d she tell you?” Dad glances between them, circumspect.

Kaia peers at him over her iPad. “When I was six, Grandma yanked me into a closet and told me to wait for my career to be established before popping them out.” She uses air quotes.

“Oh, for God’s sakes.” Dad throws his head back in exasperation. “Bettie!”

I jump. “What?”

“Not you!”

“Not her, what?” Mom is halfway listening. “What did Bettie do?”

“I’ll tell you what Bettie did,” Felix says mutinously. “She sprang some guy on us out of the blue, telling us they’re engaged even though none of us had heard of him before.”

“Well, now you’ve heard of him,” I retort.

“You all knew Marilou for months before I proposed,” he prattles on, refusing to let this go. “Why don’t you have any pictures of Hall on your Instagram? It isn’t you at all, to not put a thousand pictures of your boyfriends online.”

I’m beginning to sweat. “So what if I don’t? My relationship is nobody’s business.”

“What are you suggesting?” Kaia asks our brother. “Are you trying to say that Bettie and Hall aren’t a real couple?” I’m grateful for the expression she throws my way, like, can you believe this nonsense? But since it isn’t actually nonsense, my stomach tightens.

“No,” Felix replies defensively. “But I think the engagement was obviously rushed. It just seems like something she’d do to get a reaction out of us.”

I stand up. “I didn’t get engaged for attention.”

I absolutely did, but you’d never know it from the impassioned flames being ignited in me right now. Felix is feeling bad about himself because he didn’t give Marilou her dream wedding, so he’s poking holes in my love life, and I don’t want to hear it. I’ve rapidly grown protective of my sham relationship and our future sham marriage. “Leave me alone, Felix. You thought the sun and the moon were the same size until you were thirty years old.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” He stands up, too. “You launched a perfume that made people’s hair fall out! And you melted the face off Athena’s Celine Dion Barbies when we were kids.” An entirely irrelevant cheap shot.

Athena gasps, eyes narrowing viciously. “Those were limited edition.”

“Bettie, be honest,” Felix interrupts, loud enough to steamroll Athena as she mutters to everyone that I pretend my eyes are green on social media and nobody ever calls me out on it. Which is throwing stones, if you ask me. I saw her in a commercial last week pretending she dyes her hair at home with Nice ’N Easy when I know for a fact that her platinum tresses are the work of a dedicated stylist. “Did you convince him to get engaged right before you came here?”

Someone else responds “Excuse me?” before I get the chance. There’s a loud thwick, and quite suddenly, Felix can no longer argue.