'tis the season (to love you)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Never let it be said that Helen Lee Yang is not an opportunist.

Brett's only made it five steps into the room, absentmindedly outlining the curve of Eddy's shoulders under that coat with his gaze, when a weathered hand finds its way onto his arm, grasping tight in the manner he'd once come to associate with sudden vanishing acts on Halloween and quiet meetings behind his parent's backs, and oh no, oh god.

He knows what's coming. An interrogation is not what he needs nor wants right now, not with his head in a tizzy over—whatever had happened out on the ice rink today.

"I will borrow my grandson for a bit, if that is alright, Edward," Helen says serenely. Nothing to see here, nothing to worry about, says her countenance. Bullshit, Brett thinks, with a large amount of respect and yet no small hint of terror.

"Oh, uh," Eddy hesitates, looking over to him, but clearly, whatever softness that had befallen them just a while ago has already jumped off a cliff or something, because the next thing that the taller man does is smile and wave a hand in the other direction. Despite Brett's best constipated expression aimed directly at him, the traitor. "Sure, Nana. I'll just be upstairs."

And with that, his best friend's left him at the mercy of his grandmother. Great.

Several moments later, he's forced to admit that this sudden baking escapade with his grandmother isn't so bad, really. The kitchen's warm: a welcome change of temperature and scenery after the cold of the outside. Brett finds himself holding spatulas and baking pans, stirring bowls of batter and butter on the marble counter. Despite the cosy atmosphere and the gut-rumbling smell of almonds and chocolates in the air, it's pretty evident that the threat of interrogation is still there. He's probably hallucinating the strange twinkle in Helen's eyes, but still. He's not (that much of) an idiot; it's obvious there's something going on.

Fuck it. If he's going to die of mortification or something, then he might as well go with a stomach full of warm cookies and cinnamon on his tongue.

"Oh, do not look so tense, Little Yang." Helen smiles at him, remarkably angelic for someone he's heard chewing out rude grey-haired conductors right in front of entire orchestras back then. Brett's not scared shitless of his ancestor. He is not. "I am not going to scold you or anything."

"Psh, no, of course not, grandmamma. Why would I think that?"

"Your mouth is trembling like a little child," she points out, and Brett immediately bites down on his lip, which really has been shaking. Shit. "Ach. You think I do not know your tells."

Well, there goes any hope of making it through this thing unscathed. "You're thinking that I should be telling you something."

"I do not know what you mean." Helen puts her whisk down and pivots to face him, hands on hips. "Is there something you should be telling me?"

Eddy and I are lying to you because we aren't really a couple; we're only pretending for the manuscripts you promised me, but then I'm lying to Eddy by not telling him about the Strad that you've also promised to give me, and he might hate me if he ever finds out because I lied to him, and also I'm getting weird tingly feelings about Eddy that I'm still trying to process, but I can't catch a break to wrap my head around it because we're still keeping up this charade for you, full circle cycle kind of shit, and—

Yeah right. There is no fucking way he's saying any of that. Brett settles for the succinct, altogether deceitful route: "No."

"Then there is nothing to speak about, dear boy." She blinks at him for a few moments, eerily silent, before she turns back to her mixing bowl. "You have been restless ever since you came to the house. Is there something wrong?" Brett shakes his head, says no again. "Well then, let us keep baking. I do not like this skinny body; you look like a twig. Let Nana feed you while you're here."