It was more than common sense. As Cole soon learned, it was a battle tactic. The parlor was a war zone. By the appetizers, Amy faced the wall, still talking on her phone. Instead of pigs in a blanket or cheese and crackers, the appetizers were little open-faced sandwiches with smoked salmon, cucumber swirls, and sprigs of dill. Trying to get Amy's attention was her husband, Ezra.

He was dressed in his customary track suit, which was probably helpful since he was signaling her with all the enthusiasm of a castaway stranded on an island trying to get the attention of a passing plane. She ignored him. An unfamiliar man stood beside Ezra, completely ignoring his strange signaling as he pontificated about a topic that was apparently awful enough to inspire the emphatic SOSing.

Beside the unfamiliar man was an unfamiliar woman decked out in pearls. She was speaking to a much more familiar couple, Rani and Robbie. As soon as Cole stepped foot into the room, he locked eyes with Robbie. This poor guy must have really been into Rani to stick around. But here he was, hand around her waist. Then again, Cole was the same. Here he was, Gideon's arm around his waist.

Less than ten other unfamiliar people mingled around, plucking appetizers and chilled spritzers off trays spread across the room. Gideon ignored them all, heading straight for Rani.

The woman in pearls was in the middle of asking after Robbie and Rani's new restaurant that they would be opening soon. After Rani vaguely complained about how much red tape there was when opening a restaurant, Robbie jumped in and changed the subject to a buddy of his who was starting a food truck. Between the two of them, they were discussing fish tacos instead of the restaurant opening in under thirty seconds flat.

"Gideon!" Rani exclaimed with much more enthusiasm than her mother had shown.

Gideon's hand slipped from Cole's back as he opened his arms to catch her in a hug. In meeting Gideon, Rani passed between the pearl lady and Robbie, cutting their circle of conversation in two. Even when she stepped back to grin up at her brother, she kept her back to the woman. It would be an effective dismissal for Cole if he were standing in her place.

But the pearl woman obviously felt entitled to their little reunion. She looked over the top of Rani's head and smiled. "Gideon. What an unexpected pleasure. We never see you at family gatherings anymore."

A little shudder rippled down Cole's spine. He had to check in with his expression to make sure he wasn't making a face at the passive-aggressive tone of her voice. Pleasant enough, but all with a certain coldness to her eyes and lift of her chin that undercut it. That kind of tone was the nightmare of customer service representatives all over the globe. And it reminded him of Logan.

Except this lady was a Barta, and had the backing to talk down to people like that.

Well, maybe she shouldn't talk down to another Barta like that, but Cole wasn't surprised to see yet another family member disrespect Gideon.

"I'm busy running the business," Gideon said curtly, accepting a drink from Rani. It looked completely different from his usual whisky straight. The curved glass was chock full of ice, leaving barely any room for the bright yellow beverage and a tiny straw. An incredibly thin orange slice sat on the rim.

Rani winked at Cole, who started at having someone acknowledge him. Then she mouthed lemon with a smirk. Cole's cheeks warmed when he remembered she'd seen Gideon licking lemon juice off his fingers. Stuff like that was probably why the guy couldn't get any respect around here.

Gideon turned his full attention to the drink, swirling the ice around with the little straw and picking up the orange slice to bite the middle out.

The pearl lady pursed her lips. "I heard it was because you recently got married."

The orange skin remaining after Gideon's bite dropped into his drink.

"And I heard you recently got a divorce," he said back. "Is that why you have so much time for gossiping?"

Cole nearly swallowed his tongue and let out a choked cough. Weren't they supposed to be behaving? Getting through the night as smoothly and quickly as possible? It seemed Gideon did not use the tactics that his mother had advised, instead pulling out the big guns, loading them with cannonballs, and daring everyone to set him off.

Hadn't he ever read The Art of War? It was on one of the bookshelves in his study. That was the only reason Cole had read it. The greatest victory in war was when no battle had to be fought, or something like that.

"Hi," Cole stuck his hand out. "I'm Cole. I'm the husband. Nice to meet you."

The pearl lady's eyes slid from Gideon to Cole, then narrowed as she gave him a thin smile. "Ioana. Gideon's aunt," she introduced while shaking his hand. "On his father's side. So tell me how you two met?"

"Oh," Cole glanced at the rest of his audience, from Rani to Robbie to Gideon. Rani looked amused, Robbie blank, and Gideon was opening his mouth to intervene, which Cole should definitely prevent. He turned back with his polite, customer service smile, reserved for only the most smarmy of his clients back in the day.

"At my work. I used to be in the entertainment industry. Gideon and I hit it off when he saw my performance one night," Cole said smoothly. Thinking back on it now, he had no idea if Gideon had first seen him dancing or not before requesting their private evening. He would have to ask him later.

"The entertainment industry," Rani echoed.

Cole heard Gideon's sharp inhale and scrambled to think of something else to say to distract everyone with a more mundane topic, but Ioana helpfully stuck her nose right in his business again.

"And do you still work in…the entertainment industry?"

Cole smiled. This was a vastly safer topic. "No, I'm just a house husband at the moment. Catching up on some reading. Painting a bit. I've been going to the Manor Hill Country Club to take tennis lessons."

Maybe she also went to the Manor Hill Country Club, and they could talk about its wonderful amenities. Or the resident white geese.

But tennis lessons were too run-of-the-mill to be a good distraction for her.

Instead, she said to him, "Marriage sounds like it's working out for you. I suppose it must be nice to find someone willing to take you out of that life. I hope you are grateful for the comfort he provides."

Jumping to the conclusion that he was a gold digger also seemed to be genetic.

But it was not like he was going to volunteer the fact that they'd been forced to marry at gunpoint. And nobody else seemed willing to jump into the conversation. He glanced at Robbie, hoping he might bring up his friend's food truck again, but got a blank look in response.

Since little distractions didn't seem to work, he decided to switch tactics to something else. In The Art of War, knowing one's enemy was of utmost importance. All he knew about this lady was that she was Gideon's Aunt and that she had supposedly gotten a divorce.

"Your marriage isn't working out?" he asked, not meanly like Gideon had, but with some hopefully genuine-sounding sympathy. "I'm sorry to hear that."

She huffed and turned her nose up. "It's my third divorce. You'd think I would have learned by now that they are all just out for my money. But…" she sighed, "now I have to deal with another deadbeat crying because I closed his credit accounts."

"Oh," Cole made a vaguely sympathetic and encouraging sound.

"If he just wanted my money," she continued, "that would be fine. Like, I said, I know that's all they ever want. But to spend it on another woman!"

Cole sneaked a glance at Gideon, who was wearing a blank expression as he sipped his drink through that ridiculous tiny straw. It looked more like a coffee stirrer than a straw. Ioana did not seem to even notice the break in Cole's attention. She kept pontificating about her terrible, soon-to-be, ex-husband. Joke was on him, apparently, because she did make him sign a prenup.

The key to getting this lady to back off was to get her to talk about herself, it seemed. Cole made vaguely encouraging noises to keep her going. At one point, Rani handed him a drink. It was just straight-up champagne in a flute, tawny, bubbly, and lovely. She raised her own flute as if in a toast and mouthed, welcome to the family. All the while, Ioana kept ranting and raging.

Ezra was no longer signaling at his wife because Amy had put down the phone. Now she was talking to the unfamiliar gentleman who'd been talking at Ezra earlier. Across the room, Gideon's mother was already watching Cole when his eyes landed on her.

She smirked, and suddenly Cole knew which side of the family Gideon had gotten that signature expression from. Then he hated that he knew that now. When she raised her martini to him, he lifted his champagne flute back.

Abruptly, his arm was pushed down by a familiar hand.

He frowned at Gideon.

"Behaving doesn't mean you have to be so nice," Gideon growled. Then his fingers wrapped around Cole's wrist, and he began to drag him away without another word to his aunt.

Behind them, Cole could hear her making vindictive noises and predicting that their passion wouldn't last. Robbie finally brought his friend's food truck back up. And then Gideon led him completely out of the room into a hallway.

"You all right?" Cole asked, switching his champagne out of the hand currently being squeezed by Gideon. "Things seemed to be going pretty well. What's wrong?"

"It's just…" the muscle in Gideon's jaw ticked as he paused to gather his words. "It's just strange to see you fitting in with them."

"Why is that strange?" Cole frowned. "I'm good at working with clients…figuring out how to give them what they need to feel satisfied while leaving me with as little emotional damage as possible. Why not use that skill here? Besides, her situation is, objectively sucky."

"Don't sympathize with any of them," Gideon instructed darkly.

"What? I'm just making conversation. What do you usually do when you come to these dinners? Stand in a corner and glare and drink and insult people so they will leave you alone?"

Gideon was silent for a moment. His jaw ticked. Then he sniffed. "I don't come to these dinners."

That was not an answer, which meant he definitely sulked sullenly in a corner. Cole couldn't blame him though. He didn't have the years and years of dealing with these people's nonsense weighing on his shoulders like Gideon did. But now was not the time to talk about that.

Better to keep it light.

Distractions.

Tennis lessons and new dogs.

"What's your drink?" he asked.

"Limoncello spritzer." Gideon held it out.

Cole leaned forward to lick the straw into his mouth with a deliberate curl of his tongue and glance up through the fan on his lashes. Then he hollowed his cheeks and sucked. The drink was extraordinarily lemony and tart.

He spit the straw out and squeezed his eyes shut as the cold sourness overwhelmed him. Eventually, it left a little bit of lingering sweetness, but still it was too tart. By god, how had Gideon been sucking that down so nonchalantly? By the same mysterious powers that granted him the ability to sip whiskey with a straight face.

"Bleh," Cole stuck out his tongue.

Then he popped his eyes open when it was pinched. Gideon held his tongue between his thumb and forefinger with a dangerously contemplative expression on his face. Then he let go and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his fingers.

One time Cole made fun of Gideon for carrying around handkerchiefs, and ended up getting sat down for a lecture about their versatility and usefulness.

Seeing Gideon whip it out and carefully clean the spit from his thumb was not a good sign. Not after all the gears in his head had been churning out a new idea that had to do with lemons and pinching Cole's tongue. A shiver of anticipation crawled up his spine, equal parts nervous and excited. He was going to be in trouble later, probably months after this, when Gideon finally polished up whatever idea he'd had and presented it to him.

A peal of laughter burst out of the parlor door behind him. His body jolted as he remembered where he was, in his terrifying mother-in-law's house. Definitely not the place to lose his focus. It was just that when Gideon looked at him that way, he had a Pavlovian response of letting his mind go a little blank, his thoughts blurring.

He cleared his throat. "Well, now with me here, you don't have to stand in a corner and glare at everyone, I suppose. You can drag me off to steal a few kisses instead."

"Steal?" Gideon tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket while taking a step forward, crowding Cole back against the wall. "You wouldn't give them to me willingly?"

Cole's mouth parted in surprise, which was a tactical error because Gideon's eyes dropped to his lips. And that made his body flood with heat. A little breathlessly, he said, "You aren't stealing them from me. You are stealing them from the time we should be participating in family dinner."

"Hmm," Gideon hummed in disagreement.

Then he tilted his head down and captured Cole's lips.