The List (The List #1)

by Tawna Fenske

  “Which of those T-shirts over there looks like one you’d wear?” I ask.

  Junie frowns at the T-shirts, then looks back at me. “They’re all exactly the same.”

  Right. That they are.

  I give up my attempt to distract my sister and turn back to Cassie. She and her sisters are walking toward me now, and I know I need to do a better job looking excited instead of petrified.

  Since excitement is my normal state around Cassie, that part’s not hard. But the circumstances are less than ideal.

  “Hey, Cassie,” I croak out. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Simon. I didn’t realize you’d be in Newport, too.”

  “Who are you?” Junie blurts. She doesn’t give Cassie a chance to respond before she sticks out her right hand the way she’s learned in the business class we teach in the WorkAbility program. “I’m Junie. I’m Simon’s sister.”

  I watch Cassie’s face for a reaction. It’s usually pretty obvious to anyone meeting my sister that she has Down syndrome. The facial features are recognizable, and Junie’s speech patterns are different from most people’s.

  But if Cassie is surprised—either that I have a sister, or that she has a disability—her expression doesn’t show it.

  “Hi, Junie.” Cassie’s expression is warm and open as she shakes Junie’s hand with friendly enthusiasm. “I’m Cassie. It’s nice to meet you. These are my sisters, Missy and Lisa.”

  All the sisters shake hands, and I say a silent prayer the conversation will end here. Maybe I can hustle Junie out of here and tell her the three women are just friends. Maybe—

  “Simon?” Missy cocks her head at me before turning to Cassie. “This is the Simon? The guy you’re dating?”

  Dating? I wonder if that’s Cassie’s word or Missy’s. Is that how Cassie described our arrangement? I watch Cassie’s face go bright pink, and she opens her mouth to answer. I have no idea what she’s going to say, and part of me wants to cut her off.

  “You’re Simon’s girlfriend?”

  My sister’s voice is much too loud, and I can see joy written on her face like I’ve just given her a kitten for Christmas. She bounces on her heels and looks from me to Cassie and back to me again. “I like when you have girlfriends.”

  Christ. I know she does. This is what I was hoping to avoid.

  “Right,” I say, neither confirming nor denying the whole girlfriend thing. “It’s great running into you, Cassie. We were actually just headed out, so—”

  “No, we weren’t,” Junie says. “You said we could order hot chocolate.”

  Dammit. She’s right, of course. I fish my wallet out of my pocket, thinking maybe I can hand Junie the cash and send her up to the counter for the cocoa. That’ll buy me some time.

  “Wait, so your name is Simon Glass?”

  This time it’s Lisa, the younger sister, who’s looking at me with deep suspicion. Then again, I’m the one who should be suspicious. Why the hell is she calling me Simon Glass?

  “I—uh—” I’m honestly not sure how to answer. I look to Cassie for help, but she’s just standing there with her face frozen somewhere between horror and embarrassment.

  “Your last name’s not Glass!” Lisa snaps her fingers like she’s just figured out twenty-four down in the New York Times crossword puzzle. “It’s Traxel, right?”

  Junie laughs beside me, not reading the awkwardness of the situation at all. “Simon Glass!” she hoots. “That’s a good name. Simon Glass!”

  Cassie’s looking like she wants the floor to open up and swallow her. I can relate. But I need to extract myself as carefully as possible from this situation. Both sisters are zoomed in on me, and I suspect there’s no graceful exit available.

  “You’re definitely Simon Traxel,” Lisa says. “I never forget a face.”

  “Who’s Simon Traxel?” Missy is frowning, studying me like she’s wondering if I’m someone she ought to know.

  “Simon Traxel.” Lisa puts a heavy emphasis on the last name, like that’s supposed to jog her sister’s memory. It doesn’t seem to be jogging Cassie’s which is interesting. I’ve gone out of my way to avoid giving my last name whenever possible, putting dinner reservations under silly pseudonyms in case my real last name were to tip her off to the fact that she’s been sleeping with the wealthiest asshole in the Pacific Northwest.

  From the look on Cassie’s face, the name’s not ringing a bell.

  But it is for Lisa. “Don’t you remember?” she says to Missy. “We just read that article about him in Forbes.”

  “That’s him?” Missy blinks. “Oh my God, you’re right. He’s that Simon Traxel.”

  “He’s famous,” Junie supplies, clearly enjoying the conversation. “He’s a gazillionaire.”

  I grit my teeth and hope for the floor to swallow me up. “Technically, I don’t think gazillion is a number.” I attempt to execute a smile that doesn’t quite work. “Look, my sister and I were just heading out to—

  “My goodness,” Missy says. “I remember seeing you in Business Insider. In their roundup of the top five hundred wealthiest people in America.”

  “He’s number one!” Junie adds, though I’m certain she’s never seen the article. She just likes contributing to the discussion, and I can hardly blame her for that.

  “I’m not number one,” is my feeble reply. “I was pretty far down the list, actually. Near the bottom.”

  I glance at Cassie, hoping she sees the humor in the situation. Hoping she doesn’t hate my guts.

  But she’s staring at me like she’s never seen me before in her life. “I don’t understand,” she says.

  Neither do I. She deserves an explanation, but at the moment, I have nothing. I open my mouth anyway, hoping something helpful will come tumbling out.

  But Missy beats me to the punch.

  “Nice going, Cass!” She gives me an approving once-over. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Oh, I’ve had it in me, all right,” Cassie mutters. But she’s not smiling. In fact, she’s starting to look pissed.

  But that seems to sail right over her sisters’ heads.

  “You have our approval,” Lisa says. “He’s a very upstanding citizen. We’ve read all about him.”

  “Better marry this one,” Missy adds.

  Beside me, Junie gasps. “You’re getting married?” She beams up at me. Before I can say anything, she turns to Cassie and engulfs her in a huge hug. “You’re marrying my brother!”

  Oh, God. Oh, God, no.

  “No one’s getting married.” I bark the words a lot more loudly than I mean to. Everyone jumps. Even Junie bolts backward, breaking the hug like Cassie just bit her.

  This is so not how I saw today going.

  “Look, Cassie and I are friends,” I tell Junie in my best calm-brother voice. “That’s it. Just friends.”

  “Friends,” Missy repeats, scowling. “Didn’t you just take her on a romantic getaway to Cascara Springs Resort?”

  “And didn’t you take her on a special road trip to that wilderness area she loves so much near—”

  “Okay,” I interrupt, raking my fingers through my hair. I shoot Cassie an imploring look, hoping she’ll have my back on this. Hoping I haven’t fucked everything up.

  But Cassie’s expression is blank.

  “Sure,” she says slowly. “We’re just friends.”

  Beside her, Missy rolls her eyes. Lisa is busy glaring. But Cassie just stares at me like she’s seeing me for the first time.

  Like she can’t stand what she sees.

  “Actually, more like acquaintances,” she says, her voice a little louder now. “We hardly know each other at all.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Cassie

  I’m such an idiot.

  “Here.” Lisa hands me a glass, then plunks down on the hotel bed beside me. “It’s homemade elderflower liqueur mixed with fresh-squeezed orange juice.”

  “And vodka,” Missy adds, dropping
onto the bed on my other side. “Lots of vodka.”

  I take the drink, but I don’t sip it. I rest it on the knee of my faded gray yoga pants and try not to cry. “How did I not know he was a gazillionaire?”

  “Because he didn’t want you to know?” Missy suggests. She’s holding a plate of cookies on her lap, and offers one to me. “Homemade gingersnap?”

  “Obviously.” I take a cookie and bite savagely into it. “I mean the part about Simon not wanting me to know. Not the cookie. Though I should have figured it out.”

  Both the cookie and the man. How did I not catch on that I was sleeping with some famous gazillionaire? The evasive answers to personal questions. The fancy spa experience. The glimpse I caught of our dinner bill at Cascara Springs with a tip so huge I felt certain it was a mistake.

  It wasn’t a mistake. Or rather, it was. This whole damn thing was a mistake.

  I take a slow sip of the cocktail, and it burns pleasantly down my throat. Not for the first time, I feel grateful for my sisters’ craftiness. And for the fact that they’re both being pretty cool about this. They even cancelled our pedicure appointment, which they’d never dream of doing for anything less than a crisis.

  “What a jerk,” Missy mutters. She takes her own cookie and shoves the whole thing in her mouth, something I haven’t seen her do since we were in grade school and Lisa had the habit of licking things to claim them. “And the way he pretended not to know you?”

  “I kinda get that part,” I tell her. “He was trying not to upset his sister.”

  “By having a girlfriend?” She shakes her head. “Trust me, honey. You don’t want to get involved with a guy who hides you from his family.”

  This is true. Then again, I’m guilty of hiding a few details from mine.

  Maybe it’s time to stop. I look at my sisters, one on each side of me like sturdy, well-polished bookends. We may not have much in common, but we’re family. That counts for something.

  I clear my throat. “Did I tell you how Simon and I met?”

  My sisters shake their heads in unison, which I knew they would. Because obviously, I haven’t told them anything. That’s when I realize I’m just as bad as Simon. Maybe worse. Because I’ve been lying to my family for years.

  It’s time I come clean.

  And so I do, starting from the beginning. The waaaay beginning, back before I even thought of The List. Back when I first decided it would be easier to play the saucy vixen sister than to admit who I really am.

  I tell them all of it. The way Career Cassie struggled to be a girl in a man’s world, and how she also struggled with being not-so-girly in her sisters’ world. They listen, not saying a word, while I explain that my exploits—all those crazy sex stories—weren’t true at all.

  Not until Simon, anyway.

  By the time I’m done with the story, both sisters are frowning.

  “I don’t understand,” Lisa says. “You made up this wild and crazy sex life to one-up us somehow?”

  I shake my head and clutch my drink a little tighter. “Not to one-up you, exactly. Just to be different. I knew I couldn’t be you guys, and I didn’t want to be.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I glance at Missy, expecting to see defensiveness, but all I see is sympathy. She pats my knee and offers a small smile. “I get it. I think. You’re not like us.”

  “But that’s okay,” Lisa adds. “No one says all the sisters in a family have to be the same.”

  I sigh and rest my glass on my knee. “I didn’t want to be you, but I didn’t want to be just the girl in work boots with dirty fingernails, either,” I said. “So, I made myself more interesting.”

  “Oh, Cassie.” Lisa puts her hand on my knee. “You were already interesting.”

  “No matter what,” Missy agrees.

  “Even without the kinky sex stories.”

  Lisa grins. “Though I did sort of enjoy those.”

  I snort-laugh in a very unladylike way. “Me, too. Though I enjoyed it a lot more when things started happening for real.”

  Missy puts an arm around me, then reaches out and breaks the last cookie into smaller bites. I take one of them, while Lisa reaches for the other. We chew in silence, none of us quite sure where to go from here.

  “Wanna tell us the sexy details?” Lisa grins and sips her cocktail.

  “Actually, no,” I say. “For once, I think I prefer to keep those private.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Missy lifts her glass and I follow suit, along with Lisa. We clink them together, sloshing a little liquid on the bedspread. Neither sister rushes to clean it up, which I find oddly touching.

  Things are over with Simon. That much is clear. He may have lied about some things, but he never lied about what he wanted from me. Just sex. That’s what we agreed. I’m the one who went and deviated from the plan. I’m the one who thought we were building something bigger, getting to know each other in between all the sexy exploits.

  It’s clear now that I never knew the man at all.

  But at least I know my sisters a little better than before. That’s something. I take another sip of my drink and lean into Missy’s shoulder as Lisa puts an arm around me and squeezes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Simon

  I’ve read the text message so many times in the last five days that the words are practically tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.

  Hope you had fun at the beach. I’m ditching the rest of The List, so we don’t need to meet anymore, but thanks for your help. It was fun getting to know you!

  I don’t know what stings more. The breezy, carefree tone, or those final words. It was fun getting to know you!

  But she didn’t get to know me at all. Not the real me, anyway.

  Sure, she knows what I’m like on a road trip to the mountains or an afternoon at a fancy spa. She knows what I’m like in bed, and that I prefer red wine to white.

  But my family? My career? My life? I never let her in at all.

  Which was on purpose, of course. There was no sense getting attached if we’d both agreed it was just a temporary thing for fun. I should be grateful she’s letting me off easy, cutting me loose before anyone gets attached or gets hurt.

  It’s better this way.

  That’s what I keep telling myself as I storm through my work week in a shitty mood. I’m grumpy and out-of-sorts, and I take to working alone at the headquarters so I won’t be a dick to any of my employees. I double up on gym time, hoping to burn off some of the self-loathing that’s eating at me. I take Junie to dinner and cross my fingers she doesn’t notice my lousy attitude.

  By the time I drop her off, my cheeks hurt from forcing myself to smile.

  “Why are you so sad, Simon?”

  So much for that.

  I lean against the porch railing of Junie’s group home, aware this is going to be a longer drop-off than I expected. “I’m just busy at work.”

  She frowns. I can’t tell if she doesn’t believe me or if something else is puzzling about my response. “You need love.”

  “Good idea.” I spread my arms wide and offer a half-hearted smile. “You can give me an extra-big hug, then.”

  She laughs and gives my arm a playful swat. “Not that kind of love. The other kind.”

  Junie gives me a meaningful look, and I try not to grimace. My sister has been known to watch soap operas on her days off, and last year she had a crush on a guy here at the residence. I’m pretty sure she knows more than I wish she did about other kinds of love.

  “I have all the love I need,” I assure her. “You’ve got me covered.”

  “I don’t think so. You’re sad.”

  “I’m not,” I insist.

  “You’re a very bad liar.”

  Her words sting more than she means them to. My lies are what made this whole thing with Cassie so much worse.

  “Yeah,” I mutter. “That’s probably true.”

  She shakes her head and gives me a pitying look. Then she wraps her a
rms around me. “I love you, Simon.”

  “Love you, too, Junebug.”

  She lets go of me and turns to go inside the house. “Maybe you should get a girlfriend.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  “That one at the beach was nice. I like her.”

  See? This is why I can’t have girlfriends. Junie met Cassie for two minutes, and she’s already attached. Another reminder why this could never work.

  “Bye, Junie.” I step off the porch and head to my car. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  “See you Sunday!”

  She’s still waving from the porch as I pull away from the curb and head down the street. I glance at the clock on the dash and wonder if I should squeeze in another workout. It seems better than going home and noticing how big and empty my house is. It’s felt empty all week, which is stupid. I’ve lived alone my whole adult life, never once inviting a woman to move in with me. Why would I just now start feeling alone?

  Because she got under your skin. Even though you didn’t let her in, she got in anyway.

  Which is probably true, but I certainly fucked it up good now. There’s no way Cassie would want to talk to me again, even if I could have a more meaningful relationship.

  Which I can’t. I can’t, right?

  As I pull up the long driveway, I see my house is not as empty as I expected. At least the front porch isn’t. Two women sit on the wrought-iron bench my decorator put there because she said it made the house look more “homey.”

  If the bench made it homey, the women themselves make it look like a fucking Pottery Barn catalog. One of them is knitting something out of navy blue yarn, and the other is reading a magazine. As I pull up, I see it’s Better Homes and Gardens.

  Both of them look up as I pull the car to a halt, and I see it’s Cassie’s sisters. They’re both here, and for a second, I think Cassie’s with them, too. My dumbass heart starts bouncing around like a superball in my chest, and it takes me a good thirty seconds to realize she’s nowhere in sight.

  The sisters watch me get out of the car. Neither stands up, and I wonder what I’m about to walk into.

  “Ladies,” I say. “What brings you here?”