“I was wondering the exact same thing.”
We both began walking toward the desk in silence, and once we arrived, there was no doubt we wouldn’t be renting a car tonight. They’d closed at ten, and it was past eleven.
“Before you say anything, this is not my fault, and we’re not even.”
Taylor smiled as much as her exhaustion would probably let her. “I didn’t say anything.” She looked around. “You wanna just go outside and get a cab? I’m sure we can call in the morning and get the rental place to drop the car off to our hotel.”
“That’d be a good plan if it weren’t for the fact that the hotel is like an hour away. It’ll probably cost a fortune, and I’m not sure I feel like spending that long in a cab after the last twenty-four hours.”
“You sure? It would pretty much complete our reenactment of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” she joked. Even Taylor’s raised eyebrow, which she knew I thought was cute, couldn’t convince me. “I’m honestly fine with whatever gets us to a bed and a shower. Except walking. I have to draw the line somewhere.”
I was glad that was where she drew the line, because when she heard my next suggestion, she’d have to agree to it, even though I wasn’t a hundred percent on board with it myself.
Chapter Eleven
R A N S O M
Taylor shifted her weight from side to side nervously as we waited on the sidewalk outside the baggage claim area. I was nervous too, and I rubbed at a stain on the sidewalk with the toe of my boot. Rain pelted the areas of ground that weren’t covered, leaving puddles that reflected the overhead lights in the water.
I felt bad I’d called Matt and Melissa, but I also knew they wouldn’t want me taking a cab to a hotel an hour away when their house was only twenty minutes from the airport. It was late, but Matt and Melissa had always been night owls, even before Emily’s death. And the loss of their only child had meant that on most nights, sleep was difficult to come by at all.
“I wish I’d had time to prepare to meet your family.”
Looking up at Taylor, I took in her features—the long blond hair pulled back into a messy bun, a face absent of any makeup—not that she’d needed it—and eyelids that seemed heavy with the weariness of the past couple of days. Despite all that, she still looked beautiful, though I was sure she would’ve argued with me. But I understood why she wouldn’t feel she was in the best condition to meet the two people who’d helped me develop into the man I was today.
“Sorry,” I told her. “Nothing about this trip has been ideal, so in that regard, it’s kind of on par.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She was quiet for a moment before she asked, “Do I need to know anything?”
“Like what?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just…anything.”
“Not that I can think of. I mean, they aren’t running a Satanic cult out of their basement or anything.”
“Dammit, what will I have in common with them, then?”
I laughed, marveling at Taylor’s ability to keep her sense of humor about her during the most stressful of times. Even though she worried about meeting them, she still helped me find some levity in the situation.
We waited a few more minutes before I spotted a burgundy SUV in the distance. “That’s Melissa,” I said, thinking that Matt probably hadn’t driven because he’d been drinking tonight. As the truck got closer, I could see him in the passenger’s seat, though, and I was happy they’d both come.
Melissa put the hazards on and practically jumped out of the driver’s seat and ran around the front of the car to wrap me in a hug. I’d forgotten how tiny she was, how fragile. Her barely five-foot frame felt almost childlike in my arms, but somehow her embrace was still as comforting as it had always been.
“I’m so glad you called,” she said.
All I found myself able to say was “Me too.”
When Melissa and I finally let go and I looked to my side, Matt was standing beside the door he’d just gotten out of. We stared at each other for a few seconds before moving toward the other. Matt wrapped his arms around me and patted my back hard. He smelled like Acqua Di Gio and cheap bourbon—a scent I hadn’t known I’d missed until I smelled it again.
“This must be Taylor,” Melissa said. She walked over to her and took hold of both her hands, holding them in between her own, and looked at her. It wasn’t an intimidating stare like a mother might give her son’s new girlfriend. The opposite, actually. She looked happy, thankful. Like I’d surprised her with a gift she hadn’t known she wanted.
“Sorry, yes,” I said. “This is Taylor. Taylor, this is Melissa and Matt.”
“We met already,” Matt said. “I couldn’t leave this poor girl waiting awkwardly on the curb without introducing myself.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Melissa said.
“It’s nice to finally meet you too,” Taylor told her. “I’ve heard so much about you. Ransom speaks highly of you both.”
“Really?” Matt raised his eyebrows in clear disbelief. “I’m shocked he speaks about us at all.”
He’d presented the comment almost as a joke, but there was some truth to it, and we all knew it. I’d pulled away, and in response to that, they’d pulled away too until we all existed at a comfortable distance.
“Well, get in already,” Melissa told us. “It’s freezing out here.”
Wind stung our faces, but it was nothing compared to the Georgia of the North we’d experienced earlier.
Matt opened the door so Taylor could climb in, and once I put the bags in the trunk, I followed her, buckling myself in. I knew Melissa wouldn’t start driving until we were all safely strapped in, even Matt.
Brad Paisley’s voice came through the speakers, and I figured the choice in station had been Matt’s since Melissa couldn’t stand country. I wondered if she’d driven all the way to the airport with it on or if he’d just switched the station when she’d gotten out of the car just to annoy her. I figured the latter was more likely.
Shifting the Chevy Tahoe into drive, Melissa took one last look in the rearview mirror, no doubt to make sure we had our belts buckled, and then pulled out onto the main road. And a few minutes later, we were on the highway heading to the only house that had ever felt like home to me.
T A Y L O R
I’d thought that meeting Matt and Melissa would feel strange somehow, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized the idea of spending time with them caused me more anxiety than meeting his biological family would have. This was the family he’d loved, the family that had loved him. They were something to him. Important.
There was no way I could fuck up meeting his blood relatives, because that soup was already so salty no one wanted to taste it anyway. But this was different. The picture frames in this house held photos of Ransom as a boy: a few baby pictures and then one when he looked to be about four, lying on the ground in front of an old TV that was probably in his mother’s house. But there were also more recent ones—playing baseball, sitting cross-legged in front of a Christmas tree holding up a new Xbox.
He had a bedroom here, which was still completely intact from what I could tell. Trophies and awards lined the wooden shelves on the walls, and a small desk sat in the corner where I imagined a younger Ransom used to do his homework in high school.
After we’d fallen asleep in his bed, which was nowhere big enough for the both of us, I’d gotten up earlier than I’d expected to considering our late arrival. Then I’d taken a shower and wandered downstairs.
The house was quiet except for the fourteen-year-old chocolate lab, Buddy. His arthritis prevented him from walking upstairs at night, so he slept on the kitchen floor because he liked the feel of the cold tile. Ransom had said that even when Buddy slept upstairs, he’d chosen to make the bathroom floor his bed for the same reason.
Buddy woke right up when I got downstairs and stood to greet me, his long nails clicking and sliding on the hard floor as he fought to maintain h
is footing on the slick tile. His fur was rough with age, and his face now had more white than brown. But as I greeted him, kneeling to let him lick me, his tail didn’t seem to be affected by his years. It moved back and forth as quickly as I imagined it did when he’d been a puppy.
“Sorry I woke you, Buddy,” I whispered. “You wanna go out?”
He clearly knew what that meant because he immediately headed over to the door that led to the fenced yard. It wasn’t overly large and had little landscaping, but it definitely had enough grass for Buddy to run around.
While Buddy was outside, I quietly searched for coffee and filters so I could get a pot going before Ransom and his parents awoke. Once I found them, I scooped out the coffee, measured the correct amount of water, and switched the coffeemaker on. I took a seat at the oval table that sat in the kitchen as I waited for the coffee to brew. There really was nothing more comforting than the sound and smell of coffee brewing on a weekend morning.
I could see why Ransom had so easily felt like the Holt house was home to him even though he’d become a part of the family as a teen. The downstairs only had three rooms—a kitchen that served as the dining room as well; a living room that had two charcoal-colored couches, a few small tables, and a TV; and a room connecting the two, which had probably been meant as a dining room but seemed to serve as more of an office than anything else right now.
Though the home was considerably smaller than the one I’d grown up in, I could tell Matt and Melissa took pride in it. Everything had a place and a purpose, and even though the home was older, nothing about it seemed neglected. The paint was still pristine—even on the molding around the windows and doors, which in older homes often got neglected—and the wooden cabinets seemed like they’d recently gotten new hinges. I wondered if household projects were how Matt kept busy at home.
Once the coffee finished brewing, I poured myself a cup in a mug that had the logo of a local café on it. In the fridge, I found some creamer, and since there weren’t any dirty dishes in the sink, I washed and dried the spoon I’d used and returned it to its place in the drawer.
Buddy came to the door a few minutes later and, once inside, found a place on the couch that I could only assume was his spot since the pilling on the cushions was more pronounced there.
I sat down next to him, petting him with one hand and sipping my coffee with the other. Buddy fell back to sleep quickly, his white eyebrows twitching with dreams. Once I was done with my coffee and I didn’t think Buddy would notice if I got up, I washed my mug and headed back upstairs to snuggle up to Ransom.
When I entered the room, I was surprised to see he was already awake. His hair stuck up in different directions—messier than usual because of our two days of travel. His eyes were intense and pensive as he stared at his phone, and I didn’t think he noticed me when I entered.
He spoke without looking away from his phone. “Hudson wants to go to breakfast this morning. She said Kari’s helping set up for the reunion, but she’d like to get together beforehand so things aren’t so weird later.”
“You should go,” I told him, plopping down next to him on the bed.
“She asked if we’d both go.”
Well, that was…unexpected. Hudson’s reasoning did have its merits. It might be easier for both of us if we at least met with her before introducing—or in Ransom’s case, reintroducing—ourselves to the rest of his family. But it still felt like some sort of an intrusion for me to tag along. He didn’t talk to his sister much, and he hadn’t seen her in years. It made more sense, at least to me, for just the two of them to go.
“I mean…I’ll go. If you want me to. But if you wanna go by yourself, I totally get it. It might be easier to talk without an outsider there.”
“You’re not an outsider,” Ransom assured me, his head snapping toward me apologetically, even though he didn’t have anything to be sorry for.
“I know. I just meant—”
“Hudson should be the one who feels weird, not you.”
I understood what he was saying even though he hadn’t explicitly vocalized it, and it shouldn’t have made me feel as good as it did. That was his sister—his blood. But the connection Ransom and I had was stronger than the one he had with his own sibling. And while that made me feel sad for Ransom and Hudson because circumstances beyond their control had driven them apart, the realization that our bond was stronger than theirs didn’t feel all bad. I could be a pretty shitty person sometimes.
When I didn’t answer, he spoke again. “I don’t know what to tell her. I haven’t answered yet and I feel like I should go, but I don’t wanna go without you.”
“Okay, I’ll go,” I said, trying my best not to be nervous for the both of us.
“But I don’t want you to feel forced to go either.”
“I don’t feel forced.”
“Or not forced, necessarily. I know you don’t think I’m making you do something. More like you feel that—”
“Ransom, I get it. You don’t have to explain. I’d feel the same way if I were in your position.” Or I thought so, at least. There was no way I could know for sure.
He sighed heavily as he typed out a reply, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d taken the weight that had been on his shoulders and placed it on my own.
Chapter Twelve
T A Y L O R
Ransom was nearly vibrating with…something when we arrived at the diner where we were meeting his sister. I wasn’t sure if it was excitement, anxiety, or a combination of the two, but the grunts I’d received in response to my first attempts at conversation kept me from asking further. He seemed to want to be alone with his thoughts, and I was happy to let him work through whatever he needed to.
He clutched my hand in his as he scanned the fifties-themed diner for Hudson. “There she is,” he said breathily before giving me a soft tug and leading me to a booth along a wall of windows.
The nineteen-year-old girl brightened when she saw him, standing as we approached.
She looked as all-American girl as I’d expected, being related to Ransom. Her hair was a light brown, but she had the same gleaming blue eyes as her brother. She was willowy and pretty, with a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
As soon as Ransom was within reach, she jumped up and threw her arms around his neck. He returned the embrace, lifting her off the ground. They stayed like that for a long moment, and I tried to not seem too awkward as I stood there watching them.
When Ransom put her down, she dashed a hand over her eyes and sniffled before turning to me. “Hi,” she said with a wide smile. “You must be Taylor.”
I smiled back at her as I stepped forward and held out my hand, which she eagerly grasped. She was a bit shorter than me but had the same confident presence that Ransom did, as if her charisma was a tangible thing.
We shuffled around and slid into the booth, Hudson on one side, Ransom and me on the other. She beamed at him the way one would imagine an adoring younger sister would. It threw me a little because I knew the two seldom spoke. Not out of some kind of dislike, but more born out of the fact that they’d grown up as virtual strangers. Despite that distance, anyone with eyes could see the way Hudson marveled at her brother.
Not that I could blame her. I was pretty sure I often looked at him the same way.
“Jeez, Blink, I can’t even believe how grown up you look,” Ransom said.
Hudson rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, stop calling me that.”
Ransom shrugged, his lips tilted up in a smirk. “It’s your name.”
“No one calls me that anymore!”
Wait…anymore? “Your name is actually Blink?” The words escaped my mouth before I could process their level of tackiness.
“No,” she replied, looking alarmed that I would think she had such a comical name.
“It’s one-eighty-two,” Ransom supplied.
“One-eighty…what? I need to hear this story.”
Hudson cov
ered her face with her hands, which made me even more curious.
“Our mom had a little…trouble with the birth certificate paperwork,” Hudson explained, looking embarrassed. “She accidentally wrote our address on the line where my name was supposed to go.”
“Hence, One-eighty-two Hudson Lane Moxon. When I heard it, all I could think of was the band Blink-182, so that’s what I called her,” Ransom explained as if this was some cute family memory and not the tragic tale of a mother who couldn’t even name her kids without fucking it up. “At least Mom noticed her mistake and managed to put our last name in the right spot.”
“If she noticed, why didn’t she fix it?”
Hudson sighed. “I’ve asked her. Supposedly a nurse was looking over her shoulder and pointed out the error, but she said she was too embarrassed to admit she messed up, so she just left it.”
“That’s…wow.”
“I know. I keep meaning to get it changed now that I’m over eighteen, but I just…haven’t. I at least need to get the 182 off there.”
“She secretly likes it,” Ransom said.
“No. I do not.”
“Why wouldn’t your mom change it before?” I tried to imagine a mother who hadn’t bothered to change her child’s name so it didn’t match her address. That seemed even more sad than being named that in the first place. It was one thing to make a mistake, but to never try to correct it in nineteen years seemed especially harsh.
Hudson bit her lip. “I lived with my aunt Renee growing up, and she offered to help, but my mom always had legal custody, so we would’ve had to get her involved and that was difficult on a good day, so we just…left it.”
I’d never been more thankful for my overbearing father and flaky mother than now. “Elementary school must’ve been brutal,” I remarked.
“Eh, it wasn’t too bad. I just owned it, ya know. And I think people felt sort of sorry for me and told their kids not to hassle me about it.”
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