“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” I said, but I couldn’t quite remove the sarcastic tone from my words and earned another glare from Peter.

“I warned you about drinking too much of that champagne,” his mother said, pointing her fork at Peter. “You always did like to indulge a little too much at the company party, but at least this year, you didn’t do anything embarrassing.”

She always reminded me of a bird. She had sharp features and then accentuated the look with her makeup. She had the same blue eye color as her son, but Peter received his handsome looks from his father. Mr. Cunningham had always been the nicer of the two, and he treated me like I was a person, but he couldn’t make it to brunch, leaving me alone with the wolves of the family.

“I’m not sure it was the champagne,” I said before I could stop myself.

Maybe I didn’t want to, and just maybe, it was great to see his smug face humiliated for a change, even if I was the only one that knew why.

Peter stood in a rush, his chair scraping along the tiled floor. He was trying hard to mask the pain he was in, but it genuinely looked like he had a pickle shoved up his ass, which wasn’t far off the mark.

“Kirby, can I speak to you in the hall, please?”

I dabbed at my mouth and stood from the overly extravagant table. The food, drinks, and place settings had been lined up like it was a king’s welcome-home meal. I followed Peter out of the arched dining room door and into the foyer. I had the urge not to walk under the hanging chandelier that was so large it looked like it could crush me and most certainly cost more than everything I owned.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing,” Peter asked as he turned to face me. His voice was a harsh whisper, but it still echoed in the cathedral-styled entrance.

“None of them knew what I was talking about. You could’ve easily made anything up.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“This isn’t funny. As if it wasn’t bad enough that you sodomized me with a fucking vegetable, then you have to try and humiliate me in front of my family?”

I was losing my cool quickly. We’d already been over this. I told him I didn’t do it, but he didn’t believe me. I had no explanation for what happened, but I knew I didn’t get up in the middle of the night to go to the fridge.

“For the last time, I didn’t do it,” I said.