by Amy Knupp
“Damn, that doesn’t help a bit, does it?” Kennedy asked.
All Sierra could do was shake her head, sniffle, and shove another bite of pie in her mouth. As she did, another round of tears ran down her face.
“Sometimes you just have to cry over pie,” her sister said with a sad half smile, reaching out again for her hand. “But I’m right here with you.”
Sierra nodded and sniffed again. With a pathetic laugh, she said, “You’re just here for the pie.”
“The pie doesn’t suck,” Kennedy said.
Sierra had told herself Monday night she could be sad for twelve hours, but that was before Cole had been added to the mix. She was on day three and tired of crying, tired of hurting, just plain tired.
“You’re going to get through this tough part,” Kennedy said. “It’s super hard, I know. But you’re going to be okay.”
Sierra nodded automatically.
“You’ll go back to work on Monday and get involved in your current project and lose yourself in the job that you love.” Kennedy said it without any kind of judgment, because she knew Sierra, knew how she was, how much she thrived on her work.
Sierra set her fork down and picked up her wineglass, held it in both hands, swirling the liquid around and watching it. Her sister was spot on in some ways, but Sierra was no longer sure that loving her job was enough.
Unfortunately, her job was the only thing she had now, so she’d have to figure out how to be happy with that.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Thanksgiving had never been Cole’s favorite holiday, but it turned out it was even worse when you couldn’t spend it with the person you loved. Oh, he’d put in his time with his family, and yes, he loved them, every single one of them, brothers, cousins, and all, with all their foibles and irritating tendencies. But as content as he was to be at peace with his family, he would’ve happily skipped out on time with them today if he could’ve spent it with Sierra.
Because, yes, he was pretty damn sure he loved her.
“Didn’t expect to see you tonight,” Winona called out as he sat on a stool in roughly the center of the counter at Sunshine’s for a change. “Thought you’d be spending it with your family.”
“I did. Stayed as long as I could stand it,” he said.
Winona narrowed her eyes at him in the middle of drawing his usual beer. She finished it off, slid it over to him, then knowingly went for the Johnnie Walker Double Black.
“Thanks,” he said when she set a full glass of the whiskey in front of him. “Guess you know me.”
“Going on eight years now,” she said. “I’m no dummy.”
“Did you get some time off earlier?”
“Don took me to Cadence for their Thanksgiving buffet. We ate way too much. Pretty much the perfect holiday.” Don was her longtime beau who she refused to marry. He helped her out at the bar sometimes on the weekends, filled in for her when she was under the weather, generally seemed to take good care of Winona.
“Want food?” she asked, and Cole shook his head.
The place wasn’t busy so far, only two tables full, but it would fill up later, Cole knew from experience, when people hit their limits with family time and relatives and gathered at the watering holes that made a point of opening on the holiday. Winona headed around the counter to check in on the customers.
Dinner for the North family had been at Liz’s this year, because they all recognized if they’d allowed his mother to host the holiday, there’d be no getting her to relax and let others do all the work. She was weeks post heart attack now and so much stronger, but she still tired easily and would’ve exhausted herself before the turkey was even in the oven.
Everyone had been there—Drake, Mason, Gabe, Miranda, Connor, Logan, Cole’s mom, his aunt, and of course, Geraldine—all but Zane, but they were hopeful he could make it home for a couple of days over Christmas. They’d had enough food for four armies and had gone through at least half of it at the early-afternoon meal. When they’d started pulling out the leftovers for round two this evening, though, Cole had slipped out. He’d had enough of the togetherness, the happy family, the warmth. He was lucky to have them, glad they were happy, but he himself was miserable inside, and hiding that was a lot of work.
He had no one to blame but himself for the miserableness, and that made it all the worse. He’d let Sierra down, no two ways about it. After going over everything she’d said the other night, sixty or seventy times or maybe a thousand, he couldn’t argue with any of it. He’d taken her bad news and made it about him instead of being the support she needed. Deserved. If he could punch himself in the face for that, he would.
Having gulped down half of the Johnnie already, he set down the glass, propped his elbows on the counter, and absently cracked the knuckles of each hand as he beat himself up mentally.
Winona appeared out of nowhere, reached across the bar, and grasped his hands in hers, stopping his knuckle cracking. “It’s been a while since you got in a fight. Maybe a record for you. Think you could keep it going a little longer?”
“I’m not gonna fight tonight,” he said, knowing full well it was a record and that he hadn’t fought since he’d gone to Kennedy’s wedding with Sierra. Knowing full well, also, that it wasn’t a coincidence. The truth was, he’d been walking around without the ongoing haze of anger that he hadn’t truly realized had been clinging to him for, shit, years. “Fact is, I’m tired of fighting.”
She released his hands, and he took another deep swallow of whiskey, thinking about how true that statement was, how encompassing.
He felt like he’d been fighting his whole life. Fighting being different when he was a kid. Fighting the need to belong. Fighting the need for friends. Fighting his family and his dad and his brothers and the family business. Fighting his feelings for Sierra.
Fighting the bad stuff as well as the good.
“Sometimes it feels like I’ve wasted most of my life fighting,” he said as Winona, more relaxed than usual tonight, leaned her elbows on her side of the counter and stopped tidying, pouring, stocking, fixing, and serving for once.
“Sounds like it’s time to stop fighting then.”
Cole laughed, a sound lacking any real mirth. “I think I’d like to do that. I’m not sure I know how.” He ran his hands over his face, feeling like he’d sprinted a marathon but found himself at the same place he’d started.
Winona’s gaze was locked to him; he could feel it. He made a point of not meeting it.
“Not just the fistfights,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to stop fighting what you feel for Sierra.”
He lowered his hands and blew out a breath. “It’s not that simple. I screwed up.”
“I know you did.”
There was so much matter-of-factness in her tone that Cole finally looked at her. “Did you talk to her?”
“Didn’t need to. I saw her speed-walk by the windows the other night early in the evening, the way a girl does when she wants to get to the car before she starts bawling her eyes out.”
“She was walking fast so you assumed she was going to cry?”
Winona nodded. “And then I peeked out the door and verified it. She was parked right down there”—she pointed to the left—“and when she pulled out of the parking spot, I could see tears running down her face. A few minutes later, you stormed in here in some kind of mood.”
The knowledge that Sierra had been crying hit him like a punch in the gut. He knew he’d hurt her, but the thought of Sierra in tears… That it was because of his dumb-assery made it worse.
“Well,” she said, straightening, eyeing something over his shoulder, “it looks like you’ve been found. I trust you won’t fight with this guy.”
Cole looked behind him to see Mason approaching and clamped his jaw down. No matter how much peace he and Mason had made, he wasn’t in the mood. There was a reason Cole had escaped the family gathering, or more like nine reasons, one per happy family member.
He frowned as Mason tossed his jacket on an empty stool, then sat on the one next to him. “What are you doing here?”
“I figured I’d find you here,” Mason said. “Hello, Winona. Nice to see you.”
“You too, handsome. Can I get you a drink? Sandwich?”
Mason checked out what Cole was drinking, saw both the beer and the whiskey, and pointed at the beer glass. “Just a draft.”
She pulled out a mug, filled it, slid it across the counter. Another group had come in, and she headed out to their table to help them.
“Did Aunt Liz run out of booze or something?” Cole asked.
“No, but the pie is just about gone, and that might be worse.”
“I don’t think Winona has any pie.”
“Mom’s worried about you. You didn’t say goodbye.”
“I’ll text her,” Cole said. “She could’ve texted me.”
“She did.”
Cole pulled out his phone, not surprised to find he had it silenced, and saw three messages from his mom, four from Gabe, and one from Miranda. “You drew the short straw?”
His brother shrugged and took a swallow of beer. “What happened with Sierra?” he asked, and Cole supposed cutting to the chase was part of the reason Mason was successful at business.
Cole thought about denying it, playing dumb, diverting the conversation, but all that took energy, and he was running low on it. “She got smart.”
Mason, still wearing khaki pants and a denim button-down shirt, still tucked in, said, “It seemed to me like you made her happy.”
The image of Sierra laughing, happy, filled Cole’s head and made his pulse pound in his throat. “Until I didn’t.”
Mason looked over at him, as if to check if he was serious. “Sorry to hear that. I thought you two might have something worth fighting for.”
There was that word again. All these years of fighting, probably for the wrong things and the wrong reasons, and now that there was something—someone—worthwhile, he didn’t know what to do. Because he wasn’t convinced, deep down, that he was worth fighting for.
If Mason had tried to pry then, insisted on knowing what had happened, Cole probably would’ve downed the rest of his whiskey and walked away. Gone out the door, up the stairs, and into his apartment where he’d… Hell. Stare at the walls? Throw shit around? Drive himself batshit with questions he couldn’t answer? Being alone had been his MO for most of his life, but if he chilled the fuck out, he had to admit that it wasn’t terrible to sit with his brother at his side. Especially when Mason didn’t talk.
Ten or fifteen minutes passed with them sitting there, watching as more people wandered in and Winona got busier but remained unbothered. She told them Don was coming in afterwhile to help, then scurried off with a full tray of drinks.
Maybe it was his third glass of whiskey that loosened his lips. Maybe it was because the growing noise around them felt like it insulated them. Maybe it was the thought of facing his empty apartment and Tito’s accusing eyes that seemed to say he’d ruined the best thing either of them had ever had. Cole wasn’t sure which, exactly, but he found words popping out of his mouth. “She said I need to let go of the past.”
“Sierra?” Mason asked, eyeing him from the side.
Cole didn’t answer, because who else would he be talking about? “I guess I don’t know how to do that. How the hell do you let past fuckups go?” Then he let out a half-assed laugh. “How would you know? You’ve never fucked up.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
Cole didn’t know any such thing, but he didn’t have a chance to say so before Mason said, “How do you not let things go? They eat away at you if you don’t.”
Shit. Cole realized he’d picked the wrong guy to try to talk to. Talking was stupid anyway. It wasn’t going to fix anything, as much as he was dying to fix things, fix himself. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said, resigned to getting another glass of Johnnie the next time Winona had a second.
“You talking about your fight with Dad the night before he died?” Mason asked, and Cole felt like the oxygen had been sucked right out of his lungs and all the blood froze in his veins.
“How do you know about that?” Nobody knew about it, except Sierra, of course. He’d never spoken a word of it to anyone else.
“I was there. I overheard it.”
The whole family had been out that night. Their mom had been somewhere with Zane and Drake, who were still in middle school, and Gabe and Mason had already moved out. When Cole had stormed out, he hadn’t run into anyone, had no idea Mason was close.
Cole eyed the whiskey bottle on the shelf, glanced around for Winona. She probably wouldn’t be mad at him for too long if he went behind the counter—
“Don’t you dare,” Winona said as she appeared in front of him. She reached up, took the bottle down, refilled his glass.
Cole, still shell-shocked as fuck, simply nodded his thanks and then took a healthy gulp as she disappeared into the kitchen.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You regret it?” Mason said. “Have regretted it for all these years?”
“It was ugly,” Cole admitted. “But then you know that if you heard it all.”
“You were a teenager, Cole. Teenagers fight with their parents. They say bad shit to their parents. Dad knew that.”
“When did you ever say anything contrary to Dad?” Cole distinctly remembered all the poison that had come out of his own mouth that night. Hateful words, things he wouldn’t allow himself to admit out loud today.
“I fought with Dad plenty. Gabe fought with Dad. I guarantee you if Dad had been alive when the twins hit high school, they would’ve fought with him too, probably an exponential amount, knowing those two.”
Cole tried to imagine the golden brother being cross with their dad. “What’d you argue about? Did you get a B on your report card?”
“Don’t be an ass. It’s not important what I did. Just know that Dad and I butted heads plenty of times. We all did.”
Cole could remember, back when he was in grade school and Mason and Gabe, seven and five years older than him, were in high school, hearing raised voices a time or two. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, probably so caught up in his own angst. He didn’t, for a minute, believe Mason could be as awful as he himself had been to their dad.
“We were shits, as kids are,” Mason continued. “And every single time, he forgave us for being shits. The thing is, he just wasn’t around long enough after your big fight for you to understand he forgave you.”
Somehow Mason might’ve just homed in on the heart of something significant. For all these years, Cole had been hung up on his dad dying while he was mad at Cole, disappointed in Cole. Before he’d been able to forgive Cole. But maybe he would have eventually. Cole had fucked up pretty majorly, more than his brothers ever had, and then been a big shithead about it, but their dad did eventually get over whatever he and his brothers pulled.
“Dad told me after one of your battles,” Mason said, “when I was home from college for a break, that you, out of all of us kids, were the most like him. He hated that and loved it at the same time.”
Cole frowned, trying to make sense of that. “How was I anything like him?”
“There were the obvious things you had in common, like pitching and reading and being wicked smart, but I think what he was really talking about was that Dad had some rebel in him just like you. He gave his parents hell growing up. So he understood you and thought that should’ve made it easier to get you through the hard stuff.”
Cole shook his head, knowing there’d been nothing easy for Harry North. Not where Cole was concerned.
“He loved you,” Mason said. “He knew you loved him. There’s not a doubt in my mind about that.”
The din around them disappeared from Cole’s awareness as he took in what his brother told him, pondered whether it could be true. Wondered if it could make a difference in his damn head. He remembered Sierra had
said something similar all those weeks ago in the hospital.
Several more minutes passed with the brothers sitting there in silence, Cole lost in his thoughts and barely registering that Don had arrived and jumped right in to help Winona, who had a nearly full house. Mason’s beer was empty, his mug pushed to the serving side of the counter, and when Don, who was doing behind-the-bar duty while Winona hit the tables, asked if he wanted more, Mason waved him off.
Eventually Mason asked, “Have you ever grieved for Dad?”
The question hit Cole like a broadside from a semi. He stared into his glass, turning the question over in his mind. “You mean, like, cried?”
Mason shrugged. “I don’t know. Cried, punched a wall, yelled, anything.”
Cole felt his brother’s eyes on him now, but he himself kept staring into the amber liquid in his glass.
“I’m no psychologist, so what the hell do I know, but maybe if you tried to get past your fight…let it go…”
“I don’t know how to do that,” Cole said, his voice sounding raw, making him thankful for all the background noise.
“What do you think about when you think of Dad?” Mason asked.
“I try not to think of Dad.”
That that was a grave problem didn’t need to be spoken between them. It hung in the air like a neon sign.
“When you do, what do you think about?”
“That last argument.” Which was why he did his best not to think about him at all.
“Maybe try remembering some of the good stuff. There was a lot of good stuff. Dad loved you. He loved all of us. He was a good father…”
Harry North was a good father. Those words registered as true now. Their dad had been a damn good father. He loved all of his sons. According to Mason, he’d loved Cole, had known Cole loved him, had understood Cole. That would take some time to absorb, especially the part about them being alike, and Cole intended to give it some thought, see if it would sink in.
“I don’t know how to tell you to get past it,” Mason said, “but I suspect it might have something to do with what Sierra was talking about. If you could get past that fight with Dad, maybe quit punishing yourself with a crappy apartment in a crappy part of town, let yourself accept what’s rightfully yours from the company, from Dad…maybe you could give yourself permission to be happy.”
