“How can he have disappeared like this? I feel so strange. It’s unkind, and that makes no sense because he was nothing but kind!”
It’s been a week since he dropped me off. Never even got a ‘that was fun’ text message. I figured he was playing it cool, but now I’m so confused I don’t know what to think.
“He’s ghosting me, isn’t he?”
“Someone’s ghosting you?” my younger brother Gabriel asks, his deep voice scaring the fuck out of us.
Emma and I both shout at him, “Don’t do that!”
I go back to looking at my phone and she mutters, “I’m sorry we gave you a key. You have to knock! Don’t just sneak in like some lunatic.”
He chuckles and picks up my forgotten sandwich, shoving it in his big mouth as his long legs take him to our refrigerator. “I get such a charge out of it,” he says with his mouth full.
As he digs around for something to drink, I lock eyes with Emma again. “He is though, isn’t he? He’s ghosting me.”
“There are too many ways to get ahold of someone. If he lost his phone he could always find you through social networks. And he knows where we live.”
“Maybe he forgot? Maybe he was so excited when he picked me up that he forgot which apartment building we live in.”
“Hannah,” she warns.
“There are four on this street alone! West Midtown is nothing but new apartment buildings that all look the same!”
“I thought you like it here.”
“I do,” I mutter, “That’s not the point. They’re cute but they look alike so maybe he forgot?” Glancing over I spy Gabriel watching me.
My brothers, identical twins, are strikingly handsome. They’re the best mix of my dad and his wife, Jaimie, with grey-green eyes and jet-black hair. But as he leans against the counter and makes my sandwich disappear, all I can think is that I hate his face. So smug.
“I’m hurting over here and you think it’s funny!”
On an amused chuckle his forehead crinkles up. “The ice queen has melted.”
There’s a small, spiky succulent plant we keep in the center of our table. I grab it and hurl it at his head. “It’s not funny!”
Gabriel ducks and glances back as the clay pot explodes against a wall, soil flying. “And you used to play softball?”
Emma reminds him, “She only played for one year. And she wasn’t very good,” running her hand through her hair and debating whether or not to go clean that mess.
I glare at her. “It wasn’t my sport.”
“I liked that plant.”
“Just stop,” I mumble, scrolling through my phone again as they talk about Ethan’s new house, because that’s where Gabriel just came from.
Emma’s younger brother Ethan just bought a house bigger than our grandparents’ because as of this year he is a millionaire, quickly rising to billionaire status after his software invention got snatched up. Highly intelligent guy that he is, he kept the patent. But I can’t even think of Ethan and his brilliant mind right now.
I can’t think of anything except someone has Casper’d me in a not-so-friendly way after I gave him all of my trust. I let the guy into my body and that’s no small thing. Especially since he needed a fucking breath mint!
I’m the one who’s supposed to do the ghosting in this scenario. Only thing is I wasn’t going to because I was trying to date a nice guy for once, and I wasn’t giving up that easy.
And look where that got me.
Staring at my social media and wondering if there’s anything I’ve posted that could have freaked him to the point of running. His disappearing act makes as much sense as…it doesn’t make any sense at all!
“Did you see his mansion?” Emma asks my brother with a knowing smile since she’s the one who brokered the real estate deal.
“It’s fucking amazing,” Gabriel says.
“When’s the party?” she grins the notoriously mischievous Cocker Family smile.
He mirrors it. “We all need to bug him to have one. I think he wants to keep it clean.”
Emma makes a noise at that impossibility. “Does he know this family?”
“Right?” Gabriel agrees on a snort, crossing to grab a forgotten potato chip off her plate. Before he pops it in his mouth he says, “I told him the cousins would make damn sure we christened that place into our own personal den of iniquity.”
“We’ll get a DJ, hire some bartenders.”
“Make sure they’re not too hot.”
“Why?”
“Because if they are, one of us will put them to work in other ways. Then who will pour the booze?”
Emma chuckles under her breath that it’s no lie. “Worth the risk. And people can get their own booze if it comes to that.” She leans back and tucks one fuzzy foot under her butt. “Ever since I showed him that home I have pictured this house warming party. It is our destiny. Oh my God! With that black-bottom pool? Just imagine the insanity.”
“Watch out or he’ll make you use your commission to fund it.”
Emma throws my brother a look. “You’re crazy. This time next year Ethan could have three more houses just like it. I’m lucky if I sell three tiny ones a year. Although that may change now. Cora might give me more slack. Or she might just write this off as nepotism. But fuck her. She needs to give me more credit.”
“What’s her deal?”
“Thinks I’m too soft,” Emma confesses, looking her usual sweet self. She’s got these beautiful chestnut brown eyes that resemble Bambi except when she’s into mischief or seducing some guy.
“Show her you’re not,” Gabriel shrugs, then mutters to himself, always including his twin, “If we have this party Elijah has to be here. We’ve gotta plan for a weekend when he can make it down from Yale.”
“Of course!” she says.
Out of conversation about the party that Ethan probably won’t allow, Gabriel and Emma turn to find me still staring at my damn phone.
She shouts, grabbing at it, “HANNAH!”
I clutch it to me like a druggie would his pipe. “No! Mine!”
Gabriel’s smile vanishes. “Sis, come on, let it go.”
“No.” I turn my body so he can’t take it from me.
“Not the phone. The guy. What the fuck!”
Emma confesses in a quiet voice as though I’m not in the room, “This one got to her.”
I’m too sad to argue, so I go back to scanning social media. “Maybe I posted something terrible that scared him off!”
Gabriel coughs, “Bullshit.” My eyelashes rise up and our eyes lock. “Hann, you toss guys off you like popcorn dropped in a movie. This one just did it first. That’s all.”
I shock everyone in the room, myself the most, when tears spring up and I leap off the chair, trying to hide them, mumbling in my wake, “You don’t understand! He was so nice I let my guard down. And now he’s turned out to be a liar! Another fucking liar!”
They’re dumbfounded as I rush into my bedroom and lock the door, sliding down onto the carpet and pulling my knees to my chest as sobs overtake me.
A quiet knock is at my back, but I don’t want to let them in.
I was duped.
Joe tricked me.
All I was trying to do was have fun and give the guy a chance and he fucked me, made me dinner, explored the forest AND my body, held me all night and made me believe something was happening when it wasn’t, just to disappear.
It’s so painful to not know what happened.
“Go away you guys! I don’t want to be made fun of!”
“Hannah, it’s just me. I sent Gabriel home.” After a few moments, she scratches her nails on the door and begs, “Open the door. Come on. Please? Let me in.”
“I’m sitting against the door,” I gurgle through tears.
“Can you move a little so I can open it?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No!”
“You want me to kick it down?” Gabr
iel asks.
I jump up, whip it open. “Are you fucking kidding me, Emma? You lied about sending him home just so I’d open the door?”
“I’m sorry. It was his idea.”
“Jeezus! This family! We’re too close! I can’t take it!”
They both stop me from slamming them out of my sanctuary, Gabriel’s hand high above hers since he’s got a full foot of height on her five-foot-four inches. She glances up at him. “You should go.”
“She’s my sister! C’mon Hannah, I’m sorry for making you so upset. But the guy’s a dick and you should just forget about it.”
Emma locks eyes with me, hers saying, men just don’t understand these things. “Go home, Gabriel.”
His lips purse and he stares at me a beat then storms off. “Fine!”
“Don’t call Elijah!” I shout after him.
He throws his arm up and disappears.
As the front door slams after my brother, Emma mutters, “He’ll call.”
“I know,” I groan plopping onto my reading chair.
Emma walks into my room and stands in front of me. “Talk to me.”
“Why should I? You just lied to me right after I said…”
“What I did was not really lying.”
“Yes it was.”
“Not like what Joe did. This one was to help you.”
“I don’t care, Emm. I want to be left alone.”
She patiently adjusts the messy bun on her head as she walks to my unmade bed and sits on it. “Talk to me anyway.”
I know it’s no use to resist her. She knows everything about me anyway, and vice versa. We’ve been inseparable ever since we were little. Nobody was surprised when she and I moved in together during college. We’ve scaled up since that first apartment, this one is much nicer with two bathrooms and a washer and dryer in the unit, but neither of us has entertained the idea of living on our own. Even though she’s my cousin, she’s the sister I always wanted.
Wiping my cheeks I struggle with how to explain this. “I get it how when you’re starting to date someone and it’s not working out you ghost them, but you never do that after you’ve had sex. An explanation is owed. I mean, not for one-night stands…”
“— of course, I know what you mean.”
“Right! When it’s gone to the next level and you start sleeping together, fucking, then you give someone an explanation if it’s ending. It’s called kindness. He was inside my body and then just acts like I don’t exist. Does he think I can’t feel pain? Is this because of our reputation?”
“I don’t know if it’s because of our family this time. I think maybe he got scared of getting close to you. You’re…” Her sentence trails, unfinished.
“I’m what?”
“You’re intimidatingly beautiful.”
All I can do is blink at her. “So are you! That’s never stopped you from having boyfriend after boyfriend. I thought looks are supposed to help us!”
“I’m not like you. You could have been a model!”
“Last thing I want to be,” I mutter, annoyed.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love that you’re not aware of how pretty you are, but to most men you aren’t the one they’ll marry.”
My heart shrivels.
I’m totally speechless.
She’s looking at me like this is a fact.
After my throat nearly closes up I gasp, “What?!”
“You’re a lot to live up to. You’re kind, smart, goofy when you’re happy. Stunningly pretty. It’s hard to keep up with that kind of perfection.”
“Stop it!” I croak, covering my face. “Don’t say that about me, Emma. Don’t say I’m untouchable. I don’t want to be some doll in a cage. I want love. Real honest to God love.”
“You’ll find it! I said most men, not all! Your guy is going to be special. He won’t be a Joe.”
“At least text and say, Hey, didn’t want you to wonder what happened…”
Emma quietly nods. “It’s the wondering that kills me.”
Hugging my knees, I bury my head into the pretzel of my crossed arms. “Yeah.”
She reaches for Lou, my tattered, pink alien doll I’ve kept close ever since my mother died when I was little. Rising from the bed, Emma comes to sit on my chair with me. “Scoot over, Hann.” When she settles into a comfy place, a soft arm envelops me, and Lou gets pressed into my hand before she kisses the side of my head. “I’m sorry he treated you this way.”
Leaning into her warm and gentle body I whisper, “I should have kept my heart closed.”
Ethan’s Success - Hannah
“God, I can’t wait for the party!” Emma grins into the high-ceilinged foyer, arms out wide as she spins.
Ethan mutters, “No party,” amused but firm. “I already told Gabriel no.”
“We’re totally having a party, Ethan.”
“No, we are not.”
“Are so,” she says with an impish smile.
“Don’t even go there,” he chuckles.
They both got their dad’s warm skin coloring and chestnut hair and eye color. Emma inherited Aunt Drew’s delicately pretty face-shape. There is nothing feminine about Ethan; he inherited Uncle Jake’s body – so much muscle. He barely goes to the gym yet looks addicted to one. Ironic since he spends most of his time coding software behind a computer.
He’s a big time introvert, and to me this place shows that.
Fortress of solitude.
That’s what I predict as I walk, inspecting the crown molding, the recessed lighting, the insulated windows that if they were any taller you’d think you were in a store.
Everything is top grade.
His bulky arms wrap in front of his chest as he watches me and jerks a chin to ask, “Not impressed?”
“Sure, it’s great.”
“Nice face, Hann.”
“It’s a five bedroom for just you. It’s kind of ridiculous.” I walk past him into a living room the size of our entire apartment. “When’s the furniture coming?”
Emma strolls in beside him, still patient with my moods even though it’s now been two weeks and no call.
I’m no longer sad. I’m pissed.
Clearly it’s over.
But my feelings of abandonment aren’t.
“Ridiculous?” he chuckles. “And I’ll get the furniture piece by piece.”
“This makes no sense.”
“What doesn’t?” he smirks. “I made 2.5 million dollars in the last six months. This will be paid off in no time. Why not buy it? In this city buying homes is a good investment. It never stops growing. Everyone wants to move here. If I decide to sell it will be at a profit, or so Emma tells me. I know nothing about real estate.”
Emma’s eyes trail across the modern chandelier high above the empty living room. “Thank God you have me.”
With amusement glittering, he says, “You’re still picturing the party.”
“It’s going to be fantastic.”
He just shakes his head. “In your head maybe.” He glances my way. “Hannah, if you’re nicer to me and tell me you like my new house, maybe I’ll buy you one someday.”
“No, thank you,” I whisper, slowly crossing to an enormous front window that faces a quiet street with houses competing for appeal and size. “Not my style.” I lean on the windowpane and gaze at the lawn. “You afraid Grandma and Grandpa are going to be popping in all the time? They’re only two streets away.”
“That’s part of the appeal,” he slowly explains, voice curious before turning to his sister. “What’s with her?”
Under her breath she says, “Breakup. Kind of.”
Ethan doesn’t bother to hush his voice. “What does kind of mean?”
In our family people talk about you when you’re in the room. Usually it’s to bring each other up to speed on what’s happened, because there are so many of us and you need to stay ‘in the know’. It’s our own viral grapevine that happens by phone or in person. Never email. That
would be too cold.
We’re the seventeen descendants of six brothers. Our fathers are all very close, love each other like crazy, give each other shit all the time, and would take a bullet if any of the others were in the line of fire. Somehow they’ve all remained happily married. Conflicts arise, don’t get me wrong, but they work through them and even help each other, the brothers calling to ask each other for advice when they’ve messed up. They’ve set the bar high in terms of happiness.
We cousins have inherited their closeness because our family demands it…as well as our social standing and the need to be careful of outsiders.
Grandpa Michael and Grandma Nance are the patriarch and matriarch, the only grandparents to live in Atlanta. My aunts’ parents all live outside and usually only spend time with their direct descendants.
Grams May Cocker has given up the throne of Matriarch to croon over us great grandkids from wherever she’s comfortably sitting. She’s pretty feeble now.
Anyway, the Cocker tribe?
Tight knit is an understatement.
I inherited my father’s impatience with everyone sticking their noses in my business, probably because for the first five years of my life I wasn’t a part of this grand tapestry. I lived a very quiet life in a small apartment with my mother, whose memory I still struggle to hold onto. I miss the lost memories almost as much as I long to have her in my life.
When she died, it was a big change to be thrust into an entirely new world, with a family that kept growing in numbers. They took me in, but I’ve always felt different.
Emma turns to explain to her brother, “We met this guy at a restaurant he worked at. He seemed different.”
“Oh, he was different alright,” I mutter.
Emma pauses. “They dated for a little while, then he took her away for this great night where everything was kind of perfect, and then he disappeared.”
“What do you mean, disappeared?”
“He ghosted her. Not one call. Not one text.”
I look over, totally expecting to see Ethan smirking at me, but he looks quietly surprised. “What the fuck? What’s his name?” His volume rises as embers crackle in his eyes. “I’ll kick his ass!”
Cocky Senator's Daughter: Hannah Cocker (Cocker Brothers of Atlanta Book 8) Page 2
