by Alexis Anne
She frowned. “I know full well this is a big deal, but I also know you of all the Daniels would be the calm one.”
I stomped my foot in frustration. “Marie! Roman St. James works for you. You are in a Daniels house. You are basically a member of the Daniels family. What are you thinking?” I realized a little too late that I was shouting.
She waved her hands at me. “Keep your voice down. Eve doesn’t know and I have no intention of telling her until I have to.”
“But why?”
Silence hung between us for several beats, then she let out an exasperated sigh. “Will you sit and let me explain?” She pulled out a bright pink foam chair from the corner of the room and plunked it down beside me.
I stared at the pink chair, her outstretched hand, and the strangely hopeful look on her face, and felt my resolve slip. The only way I was going to get an explanation out of Marie was to let her tell me in her own way. So I sat, crossed my arms and looked up at her expectantly.
She didn’t move at first. Instead she stared past me, chewing on her lip. Her hands balled up into fists and her right toe tapped the carpet. She was nervous.
“About eighteen months ago we hired Roman for our New York offices.” She started pacing off her nervous energy in a line between me and the wall. “I didn’t think much of it at first since he was so far away and I felt it would be a rather remote possibility that your paths would cross. He’s very good.” She stole a glance my way, as if she hoped that explanation was enough. “He’s excellent at contract negotiations, he works well with recruiters and management, and, most importantly to me, he’s good to his athletes.” She stopped in front of the far wall and sighed, her shoulders sagging. “He’s too good to ignore, June,” she said to the wall. “And with a growing client list based here in Florida, it made a hell of a lot more sense to pull him down here to work under me.”
But why keep it a secret? If he was so damn good at his job she couldn’t ignore him, why not tell us she’d hire him? Blunt honesty was appreciated in the Daniels family. We might have been mad but we’d have accepted her decision in the end.
“So he’s good at what he does. I can understand that. What I still fail to see is why you’ve kept it a secret.”
She spun on her heel and looked me dead in the eye. “Because we’ve become friends. Good friends. I respect Roman as a colleague but I’ve grown to like him very much as a friend.” She said that last part very slowly. “And as his friend I’ve come to know his story.”
And there it was. The answer I didn’t see coming. Not in a million years did I consider the idea that Marie had become friends with Roman, or that in the process she’d learn about our connection. I felt sick.
Sick, and scared, and on the verge of a panic attack.
“You know.”
She nodded. “I know. Trust me, it was not an easy story to get out of him—I don’t want you thinking he goes around telling just anyone about you.” She said it so softly. Delicately. As if I were some sort of special case.
“Wes didn’t even know until yesterday,” I whispered.
She sank onto the fuzzy purple beanbag in front of a pile of action figures. “He didn’t?”
I shook my head. “But he does now.”
“Oh.” She looked around the room, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to force your hand like that.”
Honestly, I was shocked that Wes didn’t know. They were best friends. They worked together. How was it possible Marie knew more than Wes? And why had Roman told her? “I still don’t understand.” I heard what she was saying but the pieces didn’t line up.
“My staff hired someone I knew in name only,” she cut to the chase. “I was shocked how easily we got along when I finally met him so I decided to forget everything I’d heard about his family. I thought he deserved that, you know?”
I nodded. I got it. I’d done exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons.
“Well,” she shrugged, “the more time I spent with him the more I realized the things I’d heard from your family didn’t line up with the man I knew. And I really liked him.” She leaned forward and took my hand. “I can see why you fell for him.”
I jerked my hand back. “Let’s skip the sisterly advice part and get back to you explaining the lying part.”
She looked hurt but didn’t protest. Instead she cleared her throat and straightened her back like she was going to war. Maybe she was. I was a hostile enemy in friendly territory. “I thought maybe I was being blind or something, and you know Greg. There is no bullshitting the bullshitter. I figured if Roman were hiding something, Greg would be able to sniff it out. I had Roman over for dinner one night when he was down visiting a client.”
I knew what she was going to say before she said it. Greg loved him. And if Greg loved him he had to be a good guy. And while I hated the idea, I knew it was true. Greg did not like many people and he hated lies. He wouldn’t be friends with Roman if he thought there was even the smallest chance Roman was anything less than a good guy.
My heart ached even thinking about it. I knew all of this. My first instinct in meeting Roman was exactly the same and despite all the reasons I left him, I knew deep down inside that he was a good man, all he had to do was let that part out.
I knew in the locker room with Wes that Roman had changed and now Marie was sitting in front of me saying it to my face. It was too much to take in all at once.
“Stop.” I threw up my hands. “I don’t want to hear anything except why you lied.” I think my heart was cracking inside my chest.
“I didn’t lie. I simply didn’t explain.”
“Lie by omission,” I blurted out.
“I was giving him a chance.”
I shot up out of the tiny chair and started pacing. I wanted to escape my feelings. I didn’t want to feel anything and yet things like hope and desire were starting to manifest. “A chance to what?” Were the walls getting closer? Why couldn’t I breathe?
“To see you,” she said simply.
I spun around. “What does that mean?”
“I thought it would be better for everyone if you and Roman had as much time as you needed to figure things out before the weight of the world fell on your shoulders.”
Weight of the world? More like disapproving stare of utter disappointment. “There’s nothing to figure out. We dated once, a long time ago, and it ended. Period.” Except that wasn’t true, was it? If I learned anything in that locker room it was that things between us were most definitely not over.
“Is it? Because when Roman says your name I get the distinct impression he’s in love with you.”
The room started to spin and I plunked back down on the silly pink chair. “No.”
“Yes.” Then she sighed. “Would it really be so bad if the two of you did a little growing up and tried again?”
I couldn’t draw a full breath. Full-scale meltdown was taking place between my head and my heart and there was nothing I could do to stop the panic. “Yes. We tried and we failed.”
“No one knows what they’re doing in college,” Marie said. “In college you’re young, naïve, and stupid. You don’t know who you are and or that the world is a complicated, unforgiving bitch.”
Oh, so very true. “I really thought hope and willpower was enough to accomplish anything.”
“It is, when you’re ready.”
“I was ready,” I whispered. It was a confession I hadn’t genuinely offered to anyone and being so honest was like ripping a bandage off of my poor heart. It let out all the pain and hurt in a rush. “And I can’t do it again.” I stood back up, this time with determination. “It’s not worth it.”
“You’re wrong.”
“You don’t get it.” I batted tears away from my eyes. “This isn’t something I decided on a whim. There was nothing easy about my decision. But believe me, Marie. This is my decision. Yes, I had feelings for Roman and yes, I know he’s a good man, but it’s
not enough. There are other people I love just as much, if not more, and I can’t hurt them.”
“The feud is between your parents. It’s absolutely ridiculous that you’re using it as an excuse to hide from a man who is clearly in love with you.”
I wanted to scream until she understood, but instead I took a steadying breath and broke it down to the simplest part of why the feud mattered to me. “And what about those women downstairs? What do you think happens with my relationship with my mother and sister when they find out I had an affair with the family that ruined mine?”
“You didn’t have an affair with George and he didn’t ruin your family. You’re all happy and successful—”
I cut her off before she said another word. “You didn’t know my mom before the fight with Cecil. It changed her. It broke her. Why do you think Dad hated George so much? It wasn’t just because he was a jerk who liked to play dirty. It was because my mom didn’t leave the house for six months after Cecil betrayed her. And for years afterward she was afraid to make new friends.” I barely remembered those days but it was the kind of sadness that lodges itself in your memories. I could still feel the sheets in her bed. The curtains that never opened. The way her hand would run through my hair for hours while she lay there barely moving. “And then George intentionally took the game from my dad. They changed my parents and they changed my life with it.”
I looked up at the ceiling feeling shame and disgust that I’d let lust lead me so far astray all those years ago. I was a traitor. “If they find out what happened,” I swallowed down a wave of panic. “I can’t be the reason they hurt again. I can’t.”
When I looked back, Marie had the most horrified expression on her face. “Oh June.” She stood and walked slowly over to me. “I didn’t realize. I’m sorry, Bug.”
I burst into tears at the pet name from my childhood. She pulled me into a hug and patted my back.
“I don’t know why I’m crying.”
She shushed me and rubbed my back some more. Then she dropped a truth bomb I couldn’t ignore even with my massive denial-sized blinders. “You’re crying because it hurts, and it hurts because you want something you can’t have.”
“Out of the pool!” Jake boomed. Two tiny girls shot out of the water and onto the deck as fast as lightning in summer.
“But Dad!” Max, the younger of my nieces, stamped her foot, her long curly ponytail flicking water as her head moved. “It’s still light out. Can’t we eat in the pool?”
To Jake’s credit he didn’t flinch. He kept moving, tossing pool noodles and dive sticks under the covered part of the porch. “And miss dinner with Grams?”
Her slim shoulders sagged. “Maybe?”
“Do you really think that’s what will make your grandmother happy?”
“No . . . ” she grumbled. “C’mon Sam. Let’s go get changed.”
“Shower first!” Jake called as they slipped into the wooden pool shower door. “With soap!”
“We know, Dad,” they yelled back in unison.
I collected an armful of towels and checked the darkening sky. “You’re really good with them, Jake.” I could barely remember a time when he wasn’t a part of our family. I was all of six when he and Eve started dating, nine when he left. And even though he was gone for ten years in the middle, it felt a lot like he’d never left when he slid back into our lives.
Now I couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t my brother. The “in law” part wasn’t even an option.
“Thanks. They usually make it pretty easy, but I’ll take the credit.” He grinned over his shoulder. Jake was one of those guys who could be terrifyingly imposing when he wanted to be, but usually he was more of a quiet, gentle giant—especially around my sister and nieces. “I noticed you were upstairs with Marie for quite a while. Everything okay?”
I glanced up at the windows. “You noticed?”
He shrugged. “Greg noticed.”
Of course he did. I stood frozen on the pool deck, looking through the kitchen window as the lovable lug in question kissed his wife’s cheek. Marie smiled up at him, then whispered in his ear. His shoulders tensed and then he looked out the window straight at me. I held my breath while the seconds ticked by, only letting it out when he smiled sadly and looked away.
“Obviously something’s going on,” Jake said gently, “and if Greg is keeping his giant trap shut and being kind I can only assume it’s big and you don’t want Eve to know about it.”
I flopped onto the porch step. “Yes on all counts.”
He sat down next to me and bumped his shoulder against mine. “Are you leaving?”
I jerked up. “No. Why would you say that?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “It’s you, June. You have a wandering soul. We know your time here is limited.”
He was right but he was also wrong. Maybe one day I’d figure out my heart and my head and my family. Being the youngest was hard sometimes—obligations and expectations, but also coddling far longer than was necessary. “I don’t wander. I travel.”
“You’re talking to the expert.”
True enough. “You think I’m like you?” I had a wonderful, amazing family that never mistreated me. I had serious doubts Jake and I had anything in common.
“You don’t have to have a sad story to need to find yourself.”
Okay, so maybe he understood me perfectly after all. “You’re really smart.”
He chuckled. “I think what you’re trying to say is I’m old.”
“Wise,” I corrected.
He laughed harder. “That is not better.”
“I don’t want to take ten years to figure this out.”
He grew silent and I hoped that I hadn’t brought up demons better left alone. “The journey takes longer when you fight it.”
“You fought it?” I didn’t know (and didn’t want to know) the details of their relationship. But in my mind Jake had been working his tail off every minute of those ten years to get back to us.
“Fought it kicking and screaming. I went through the full stages of grief before it even occurred to me to stop fighting with the past, forget what I thought I knew, and start over clean.”
“The past isn’t something I can let go.”
He furrowed his brow. “Well that’s a bullshit statement.” He looked closer and then blinked, almost as if he’d seen some answer in my expression. Then he let out a whistle. “Well, damn.”
I liked to think I had a poker face that kept all my secrets and doubts safely hidden from everyone else, but in that moment I knew Jake saw right through me. “I really can’t talk to you about this.”
I could see the worry he felt for me in his eyes and the softness of his frown. I wanted to throw my arms around him and let my big brother blot out all my problems, but I held my ground.
“Okay,” he finally said slowly. “I respect that. I’m glad you have Greg and Marie in your corner. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to talk to people you aren’t related to by blood.”
“It’s so much more than that.”
His frown deepened. “I’m here if you ever need to talk. About anything. It will stay between us.”
“Ha! You and Eve are practically one person. Name one secret you’ve kept from her.”
“I never told her you broke the bookshelf in the library.”
I cringed. Even the memory of seeing Eve’s precious bookshelf snap in my hands was painful. My sister seriously loved the library that was now mine. “And I appreciate that, but it’s hardly in the same hemisphere—no it’s not even on the same planet—as this.”
“I never told her about the letters you sent me.”
I froze, only my eyes moving until they met his. “You got them?”
He nodded slowly. “Tom eventually gave me the stack of them—once I decided to start my life over.”
It’s hard to understand how someone can disappear from your life when you’re barely fourteen. I was old enough to know my sister was heartbroke
n and that Jake’s life had been horrifically hard, but I wasn’t old enough to comprehend that someone can be in your life one day and gone the next. It was inconceivable to me at the time. I loved him and the fact that he was just . . . gone . . . had broken my heart too, just in a very different way.
So to cope I wrote letters. Some angry, some sad, some pleading, but mostly just rambling about myself and why he needed to come home. I posted them all to Jake’s Uncle Tom in the hopes that they’d get to Jake.
He’d never mentioned them so I had assumed he’d never seen them.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
He stared down at his feet, his head hanging from his shoulders, his elbows resting on his knees with this hands clasped between. “Because . . . well, at first because I was only focused on Eve. You were away at college when I came back.”
I was in the middle of epically pissing my parents off by wasting another very expensive year at Yale by switching majors for the third time. “And then?” Not long after their wedding I realized I hated being so far away from my family and I transferred to the University of Florida and moved to Gainesville. I was home for every holiday, every break. They came up for games and long weekends. Our lives had merged back together.
“And then life was good. You were growing up and finding yourself. Eve and I were happily married. What was the point? The past was in the past.”
“And yet it doesn’t sound like you’ve let it go. It sounds like this is something you know you shouldn’t have kept from us.” Was everyone hiding secrets?
He nodded, still not looking up. “I didn’t bring it up with you because it was part of the past that I was over and done with. And I didn’t tell Eve because those letters were from you to me. My relationship with my wife is special and sacred, but my relationship with you is, too.”
My jaw hung open in shock.
He took a breath and continued. “So I want you to hear two things right now, June. Number one: no matter how huge and insurmountable you think this secret is, there is a solution. The past is set but it does not have the supreme power to control the rest of your life. It doesn’t.” He shook his head and glared at me, daring me to oppose him. “And number two: anything you say to me in confidence will remain that way unless you tell me otherwise. Period.”
