“Up until I was about six, yeah.”
“Only six?”
I nodded.
She frowned but didn’t press. “My parents used to plan these ridiculously lavish parties that no child has any need for. They’d have caterers and bartenders—”
“Bartenders? What were they pouring, apple juice?”
She snickered. “Oh no, they were pouring the stiff stuff. It was for the parents more so than it was for me. Parties at my family estate were always opportunities to impress. It was never actually about me.”
“That sucks.”
She shrugged. “I always found a way to make the most of it. On my thirteenth birthday, me and my cousin swiped a drink off a table in the dining room and took it up to my room. We both pretended that it was delicious, but it was a martini, and we were twelve, so it was horrific. Easily the worst thing I’d ever tasted. But we drank it anyway, and twenty minutes later we came back downstairs a little tipsy. My brother was nineteen at the time and at the party, and he thought it was hilarious. I was sure he’d rat me out, but he brought my cousin and me into the kitchen and had the chef fill us up on carbs. It sobered us up enough that we didn’t get caught.” She frowned. “I don’t know if I ever thanked him properly for that.”
“My brother would have sold me out.”
She gave me an understanding smile. “Most brothers would. But Beck? I don’t know. He wasn’t jaded then. That was before everything went bad for him.”