by Kira Barker
“Just drop it, they’re not worth it,” he whispered into my ear, and when I tried to tear free, he simply picked me up and started carrying me bodily toward the property next door. My scream of protest was muffled somewhat, and he didn’t let go even when I sank my teeth—softly—into his fingers. Simon was quick to follow, only halting for a moment to let Malory precede him, ignoring the profanities hurled at our backs.
The last thing I saw before Simon closed the door to Malory’s house behind us was my father, shaking his head as he turned away, a lost but also disgusted look on his face.
My will to struggle went out of me as soon as we were safely out of sight, but Jack still didn’t let go of me until he’d dropped me on the sofa. I glared up at him more for good measure than anything else, then quickly looked away when I felt one of those fucking tears run down my cheek. Jack sagged down next to me with a loud sigh, Simon following suit on my other side, leaving the three of us sitting there, distraught and furious.
Malory remained hovering at the door, wringing her hands for a moment, but then she heaved the sigh I knew that was coming. She’d never been one to flounder for long.
“Anyone want some coffee? Although I’m taking mine with a shot of whiskey, if no one objects.”
The guys offered some affirmative murmurs, while I felt prompted to say more.
“Why don’t you pass me that bottle when you’re done? I’m sure that by now I’m personally responsible for turning my sister into a teenage alcoholic.”
Always one to take the high road when I got like that, Jack’s mom just sighed and gave me that look before she bustled off into the kitchen, leaving us to our quiet stewing.
More than two minutes passed before Jack angled for the remote and turned on the TV, switching channels until he found one that showed one of today’s college football games. We’d always watch that after the usual grass wrestling match of our own, but today I really couldn’t concentrate on what was going on there.
Malory soon reappeared with a huge pot of coffee and mugs balanced precariously in her grip, prompting Simon to jump up and help. It was kind of comical to watch him at peak socializing performance, particularly after his little introvert confession the other night.
“Who are you, and what have you done to my favorite Grumpy Cat impersonator?” I asked as I accepted a filled mug from him, not caring how the hot liquid scalded the inside of my mouth. Although, judging from how strong the non-caffeine-or-water ingredient tasted, it should have been moderately cooled off by now.
Simon gave me a small, private smile for that. “Just because I often don’t like being sociable doesn’t mean that I can’t be.”
He sat back down next to me after the coffee was distributed, leaving Malory to perch on the love seat, watching us with a slightly worried look that was quite different than the one she’d been wearing before.
“Honey, are you okay?” she asked when I just kept staring off into space, letting the warmth of the coffee seep into my cold, dead heart.
Her words made me look up, though. “You mean because of the remark about my mom? Sure I’m okay. I just couldn’t let her—“ I had to stop there, pretty much belying my own claim, and tried again. “I really am okay. Just angry. And annoyed. Mostly at my dad, but also at myself. It was a stupid idea to even think that he’d understand any of this.”
I could feel Simon tense beside me, but it was Jack who spoke up.
“It wasn’t a stupid idea, even if the execution is kind of lacking something.”
“Acceptance?” I proposed.
“I would have gone with flair,” he replied, smirking. “But sooner or later we had to tell everyone, and now at least it’s out in the open. They’ll likely get used to it by Thanksgiving, and by Christmas they’ll have learned to either go with it, or work around it. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think this once, Emily really isn’t to blame.”
“They are her family. Of course she’s to blame!” I protested.
Simon cleared his throat. “That would make you responsible for your dad. Are you sure you want to run with this?”
I glared at him but didn’t reply, but then he already knew that he had scored a point.
“Whatever.”
We continued to drink coffee in silence, until there was a suspiciously loud crash coming from the kitchen. Suppressed cursing followed, then Jenny staggered into the living room, rubbing her elbow where she must have bumped it as she’d climbed in through the window.
“There’s a door over there,” Malory remarked in that long-suffering, gentle chiding that had never worked on Jack or me, either.
Looking up, Jenny flashed her a triumphant grin. “Yeah, but then I would have had to go across the yard, and someone might have seen me. Sneaking around back through the woods worked much better.”
Her remark made me smile and Jack snort. “If there ever was a question whether she really is your sister, here’s your evidence,” he said.
“I think it was mostly you who wore that track into the ground, not me,” I corrected his assumption. “I usually just snuck over to avoid Emily enforcing that stupid curfew. You also used it whenever you went out to bang a cheerleader, or something.”
Unlike my stepmother, Malory was used to that level of profanity in her house, even though she shot a pointed look at Jenny—that Jack and I ignored, of course.
“Yeah? You’re just jealous,” Jack shot back, his smile widening.
I made a disbelieving noise low in my throat. “Me, jealous? Don’t you think I could have banged a cheerleader if I’d wanted to?”
Jack gave that some thought. “I’m not sure, and all those years and my geriatric memory could be leading me wrong there, but I think with Suzie you might have had a chance.”
My first assumption was that he was just yanking my chain, but when his smile took on a twist, I couldn’t help but stare for a moment.
“Seriously? She didn’t really strike me as…”
“Into girls?” Jack offered.
“Into me,” I corrected, still a little bewildered.
“I have it on good authority that at least the girls part was true.”
“Whose authority?” I questioned.
“Well,” he started, then stalled with a cheesy smile spreading across his face. “Rumor had it—“
“That’s not confirmation.”
He sighed, but then caved. “Bobbie Miller told the football team after practice that Suzie and some other chick had let him watch them getting it on.”
“When was that?” I asked, feeling irritation rise that should have long been buried and forgotten.
“About two weeks after, you know,” Jack offered, trying to evade again.
“After what?”
He sent a long look in Jenny’s direction—or maybe his mother’s, seeing as Jenny was now perched on the armrest of the love seat. When I just kept staring at him challengingly, he relented.
“About two weeks after I busted his nose. You know, for bragging about being your first?”
Seventeen-year-old me would have been mortally offended. And even fifteen years later, I was kind of pissed.
“That was fast,” I quipped, ignoring Jack’s grin.
Jenny had so far listened avidly to our conversation, but at that she had to jump. “Wait, like that Robert Miller, who works at the bank? I sometimes babysit his kids!”
If I was maybe a little more like Emily would have preferred me to turn out, I would have defused the situation, but as that wasn’t the case, I left it at a, “Then don’t be a naughty babysitter, because if Jack has to go and bust his nose again, this time I think the consequences will be a little more dire than actually gaining street cred.”
Malory clicked her tongue in what sounded more like token disapproval than earnest misgivings, making Jenny’s grin widen.
“He seems like such a decent guy. And his wife is really nice, too.”
“See, looks can be so deceiving,” I gripe
d. “Or do we look like the deviants that we obviously are, according to your mother’s family? And you don’t even know the half of it. And are never going to, because you’re my kid sister, and there are some things you simply don’t need to know.”
Jenny looked disappointed for a moment, but, like before, her sunny disposition broke through again, bolstered by the fact that she felt treated like an adult now rather than a child—mostly.
“Like I care,” she chuffed, then added a loud, “Ew!” for emphasis—but the curious gleam remained to her eyes. “But, seriously, you and Robert Miller? I always kind of thought that you and Jack…” She trailed off there, doing a really bad impression of shifty eyes between us.
I couldn’t help but laugh, while Jack used the moment to ship out his sleazy grin. “Yeah, apparently we really were the last two to jump to the conclusion that this might actually be a good idea.”
“You definitely were,” Simon piped up, breaking his silence. When I raised my brows at him, he snorted. “Seriously, it took me like three years to find out that you actually hadn’t had anything going before we met. And I’m not sure that Kara ever bought your insistence.”
Jenny looked mightily proud of herself for jumping to the wrong conclusions, and even Malory had a faint smile on her face.
“What, you too?” I cried, now really kind of offended.
“You were awfully close, and when Emily moved in, you practically became a permanent installment over here.”
“But didn’t you think I’d tell you?”
She shrugged. “Not necessarily. We always had a very open relationship, but I figured that in this you thought me too biased to confide in me. I was waiting for that conversation to happen, but when it didn’t, I figured you’d agreed to keep it covered up as something casual only. After all, you had that pact thing going on—“
“How the hell did you know about that?” I practically howled, feeling my face flush.
Malory’s smile suddenly reminded me a lot of her son and made me think again about the housewife-and-mother image she liked to portray to the world.
“A mother has her ways,” she replied, making it plain that she wouldn’t let me look into her cards.
“What pact?” Jenny asked, way too observant for her own good.
“None of your business,” I told her, but Jack seemed to have a different idea of what was age appropriate for my sister to know. Stretching one arm out on the couch behind me in a not-quite embrace, he snorted.
“We swore to take each other’s virginity if we made it to college without taking care of that with someone else first.”
“People actually do that?” Jenny asked, way too interested.
“You don’t,” I clarified.
“You’re such a hypocrite!” she accused—rightly so, but I wasn’t going to admit that to her.
“I think what your sister is trying to say with that is that you should not merely bow to social conventions because you think they put pressure on you,” Malory said, smiling softly.
“Yeah, because she’s always so big about conventions,” Jenny shot back, and because she was gifted with the same subtlety as I was, she pointedly looked at the three of us.
“And look where that got me,” I replied, feeling the humor of the past minutes deflate.
To my surprise, Jenny looked like she really didn’t agree with me, earning her a heap of brownie points.
“Seriously, you’re letting those idiots get you down? You know that Mom and Dad just want you happy, and they’ll get used to it eventually. Mom’s really been stressed out about Aunt Gina visiting. She and Dad argued all night about it. They really don’t get along, you know? Just last week I heard them fight on the phone, and Mom called her a despicable woman and a liar. I’m sure you mightily impressed her by saying that to Auntie’s face.”
I certainly didn’t agree with that, and when I just grunted in reply, Jenny grinned.
“And why do you even care? You live hundreds of miles away in another city, and maybe come to visit three times a year? If that was me, I wouldn’t give a shit about what my parents thought.”
“Language,” Malory chided her gently, making Jenny flash her a brief apologetic grin.
“Still true,” she added.
“It gets a little more complicated once you get out of the teenage emo phase,” I replied.
Now my sister looked practically pissed. “I’m not—“
“You’re sixteen, you’re hungover right now. You have absolutely no ground to protest,” I said.
“Do, too,” she insisted, but when I just kept smiling at her, she rolled her eyes. “Whatever. But it’s kind of cool, you know? Having a big sister who lives with two guys? Finally something that I can say in Talia Bennett’s face when she brags about her lesbian aunt again. Because her family is so much better because they are so open and accepting. She never mentions that her mom unfriended her aunt on Facebook when she got married.” Then she scrunched up her nose, studying us. “Can you do that, actually? Get married. I mean, all three of you, like, together?”
I really didn’t know what to reply to that—of all the questions I’d expected, that wasn’t one of them—and Jack didn’t seem any better prepared than I. But, lo and behold, Simon was ready to rescue the day.
“Legally, no, but I think it’s way too soon to talk about that, anyway. Just living together is challenge enough right now as it is.”
Jenny nodded sagely, then broke out into a quick grin. “Yeah, I get that. I wouldn’t want to live with my sister all the time, either. She’s way too bossy.”
“And you are way too opinionated for your own good,” I replied, smiling myself. “Just wait until you move in with someone. Particularly someone who thinks it’s positively ordinary to use a fresh cup for every coffee refill he gets.”
“Seriously, that again?” Simon groaned, then grabbed me, hugging me hard enough to force the air out of my lungs.
“Yes, seriously, it bothers the fuck out of me!”
Jack watched us for a moment, then leaned toward his mother. “Did you ever think that I’d end up the mature one in any relationship?”
“You so are not!” I complained, but didn’t get any further because Simon started tickling me, making me shriek. I still didn’t miss the happy smile on Malory’s face, lacking the doubt and reservation of before. Looked like of the four people here who I wanted to have in my corner, two were already firm supporters.
Chapter 24
We left the following morning after a delicious breakfast, my heart both heavy and light at the same time. Heavy because neither Emily nor my dad found it worth the effort to come over and talk to us—or even just me. Try as I might to pretend that I didn’t care, it hurt on a visceral level. But also light because Malory was smiling at us nonstop by the time she wished us a good night the evening before, and feeling a lot closer to my sister helped, too.
Things weren’t ideal, but they could have been worse. No one had outright, to-my-face disinherited me, or told me never to come back or even call. Jenny kept insisting that they would come around eventually, and while it was so easy to dismiss her, she really knew her parents better than I did. And, for now, I could live with our silent cease-fire if I had to.
We made good progress on the way back and hit the city limits in the late afternoon. Simon was driving, and when his phone kept chirping incessantly, he briefly checked it, then handed it over for me to reply. The action stunned me a little—even though we might read messages to each other that we got from friends, our phones and computers were strictly confidential. I couldn’t help but feel like it was a step in the right direction.
The texts—seven already, with message number eight coming in as I scrolled through them—were from Kara, a quick recount of her weekend so far. It read closer to a twenty-one-year-old’s bucket list.
“Guess who broke up with the dreamy barista?” I chirped, then whistled at the second bottle of heavy liquor finished off in her re
count. “Looks like someone else is having a stellar weekend.”
“It could have been worse,” Jack offered.
“How? Like someone could actually have gotten shot or something?” I asked.
“Probably,” he replied. “Or you could have gone to Kara in the first place instead of Beth, gotten shitfaced with her, never resolved your issues with Simon, and had to face the music with a hangover that more than just rivaled your sister’s. Tell me how that would have been better?”
He had a point there, but I didn’t feel quite like admitting that. The small smile playing across Simon’s face let me know what he thought of that, at least, and seeing that made me happy that things hadn’t taken quite the worst turn possible.
I texted Kara back that we were on the way home and dutifully refrained from scanning Simon’s inbox for any other potentially interesting messages before I handed his phone back.
By the time we pulled into the carport next to the house, Kara was already sitting on the porch in the glaring sunlight—of course wearing a white dress—only her oversized glasses and straw hat giving away the fact that she probably felt like death warmed over after her two-day self-pity bender. Seeing her like that made me wonder for a moment why she hadn’t called on Friday already, but as I helped the guys get our stuff into the house, I had to admit that I could see her point—when you’re all alone, you maybe don’t want to hang out with the people who were walking on clouds right now. Even if they weren’t, actually, but the fact that she seemed to see us like that gave me a strange kind of deep-seated satisfaction that I hadn’t felt before.
After all, she was our closest friend, and if she thought that we were on the right track, we couldn’t be that far off, right?
So it came that we spent the last hours of Sunday evening sitting in our lawn chairs with Kara, she and I sipping Virgin Margaritas—she to save her liver, I because I had to get up at the ass-crack of dawn for work as nobody in the entire hospital had gotten the whole weekend off—while the guys were decimating a six-pack of beers between them. While things were a long shot from perfect, they were good. Great, even. We might have our bad days—and Friday had proven again just how fragile our established balance still was—but the good days outnumbered them by far. And as I kept smiling at the two most important people in my life, I couldn’t deny that, deep down, I just knew that we’d make it.
