SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  “I was trying to help her. Ever since that supermarket bakery opened up, she’s suffered some business loss. I said that she should get into contracts to help her survive the losses. That’s all,” she says innocently.

  Too innocently.

  I think that I smell a plot here, and I don’t like it. Yes, I miss Al, and I want her to talk to me again—and yeah, okay, I am a little peeved to discover that she’s pregnant and that she obviously didn’t consider our one night together as anything more. I won’t examine why that bugs me, but as for the rest, none of it is on me. All I want to do is make peace with her, somehow mend our friendship, and then go on with my life.

  “Well, then,” Rosetta murmurs, exchanging a look with Alex. “It seems that Chilli isn’t as guilty as—”

  “Guilty? He stopped taking my calls, he ignored me, and then, when he realized just what an ass he was being, he expected to just sweep it all under the rug,” Alex hisses, turning to give me a look so filled with malice that I catch my breath. “I will never, ever forgive you for this. Do you hear me? Never. I thought that Sin was being mean when she made that hard stand with Paris, but let me tell you, I’m starting to think that she was right. No offense, guys, but this Sweet is not a Hart fan, and I am making that clear now. You and me—we are nothing. Not friends, not family, not even acquaintances. You tossed me aside without once considering our friendship? Well, you got our wish, Chilli. We’re done.”

  Chapter Five

  Alex

  We’re done.

  I’ve been repeating those words in my head for the last week, and the more I say them, the less they hurt. As Sin keeps telling me, it will pass, and then, when I least expect it, I’ll stop having these panic attacks whenever I think of Chilli. And by the time that my flu is…over, I’ll finally be in a place where I can logically think about things again.

  According to Rosetta, who shows up at my apartment every morning at five, equipped with my “meds” and a box of double-glazed donuts, there will come a time when I’m thinking clearly enough to accept the fact that I can’t just be done with Chilli.

  Look, guys—logically, I know exactly what is happening to me, and what I need to be doing, but the other part of me, which has admittedly gone a little crazy, just doesn’t have what it takes to face these things right now. I think that…my grief must have made me a little nuts. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. Which is that I cracked a little.

  To understand why, I have to explain things from the beginning, in full. When I first met the Harts and started hanging out with them all, I wasn’t interested in love, sexual hook-ups, or anything else of the sort. I was focused on building a practice that I struggle to advertise, because I’ve had to hide it thoroughly enough that my family won’t ever find it. Basically, I was focused on making my life into something more than a few clients a week, eating ramen because my trust fund, as per my orders, pays out only a monthly stipend that goes to paying for my apartment.

  In that time of struggle and duplicity, I met Achilles and somehow, despite my best intentions, ended up liking him. He’s sweet and funny and fun to be with, and unless you’re looking for love and commitment, he’s the perfect guy to keep around. I wasn’t looking for anything else at the time, and while I did lust after him, I can honestly say that I had no intentions of taking that any further. We were friends, and since I don’t have any other friends besides my sibs, I was ecstatically happy to have that friendship with him.

  Fast forward to our night of sex, regrets, and consequences, and here I sit, not only mourning a loss that I never once contemplated experiencing, but also feeling…unworthy. I guess that’s the whole catalyst to this situation. I got screwed, and I got sad, and then my insane mind starting asking me just what was wrong with me that he would run the way he did.

  I started to look at myself through the lens of a microscope, and I started seeing things that I didn’t want to see. Is my hair too carroty, like Moses Barkhouse once told me when he broke up with me? Are my freckles ugly? Is my ass a little too skinny, since I used to work out religiously? Maybe I wasn’t any good at the sex? Was it my boobs? Are they sagging? My cooch? Didn’t he like it? Is there something wrong with it?

  All those insane and out-of-character questions started to fill my head, and the more I asked them, the harder I looked at myself, until one day, I saw someone that I didn’t like. Someone ugly and weird and…

  It didn’t last long, not with the sense of self that my parents and aunts and uncles instilled in me. I managed to slam my fist into the proverbial mirror and remind myself that I am beautiful and worthy, and that there is nothing wrong with me. We’re all flawed, and no one is perfect, but every human being, in his or her own way, is beautiful just the way God made us.

  That all took me a while, though, and while I was fighting to reclaim myself, I held on to the anger that had surfaced. I hated—and still sometimes do hate—Chilli, and part of me won’t ever fully trust him again. But while I was dealing with that, things started to change. The sickness. Fatigue. Weight gain—though God knows that with the sickness, I should be losing weight.

  Realization started dawning pretty early on, precipitating a midnight flight that, even now, shames me. The hard truth is, I freaked out and ran away and illogically refused to face the facts.

  I can’t disappear and leave my family, and I can’t just ignore what’s happening. I know this, and yet the moment that anyone mentions the P word, everything goes sideways. Cold sweats, dizziness, and nausea all hit me at once, and I go into a panic that isn’t easy to control. I don’t know why I can’t face it yet. All I can say is, I think that accepting it would mean that I accept the fact that the man I lo—liked as a friend, and now despise, will always be a part of my life. In light of that, it’s no wonder that I’ve lost my fucking marbles. I am never going to be with Chilli, and that’s okay, I guess, but what if he meets someone and…

  Well, that thought is unthinkable.

  I can’t see myself being okay with watching that commitment-phobe meet someone that he would marry. I can’t see myself being okay with having to let him share my life forever while I watch him from afar.

  Somewhere along the way, he became mine in my head, and now, no matter how I rail against it, I can’t shake that thought. It’s there all the time, and while I can go on living and be okay with it—and could even have been cool with pretending that we were still friends, and seeing him at family dinners—with this situation, that isn’t in the cards.

  It’ll be years of…unavoidable contact. I’ll have to find a way to move on and accept the way we are. That’s where I always get stuck, and that’s the point at which I start to think about reality and have my little meltdowns.

  Chilli and I are now irrevocably linked, and while I can accept that, I don’t know how he’ll react. Chilli is the epitome of the commitment-shy man, the guy who laughs about Cleo’s sabotaging her wedding plans, because to him, it’s natural to fight against that ultimate commitment. And so I can’t imagine telling him. I can’t imagine the expression that I’ll have to look at when I do—and worse, I don’t know how I will ever get over that ultimate betrayal, of having him reject not only me, but also…the flu.

  My lip trembling, I sniff loudly and turn back to my computer, checking my appointments and ticking off the messages that I need to send to the colleagues who helped me while I was…away. Being back at work isn’t easy. As a therapist who basically helps people face their sexuality, and who even coaches others through their fears, I have this whole reference point of psychology that should help me deal with…traumas. But today, this morning, I can honestly say that it has helped me not at all.

  Getting out of bed was hard. Getting dressed made me nearly frantic with the need to hide, as did coming in to the office only to find that I’d been moved to a higher floor, with a note reading, “You need to branch out,” from Margaret, the friend who’d rented the space to me in the first place. I now occupy
the upper floor, the plaque I once hid in my desk drawer proudly proclaiming me a licensed therapist.

  I suppose Margi is right. I need to tell people what I really do for a living, even if I don’t elaborate and just let them think that I’m a general shrink. In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. I could have just told everyone the truth: I’m a therapist. Though, to be fair, I did freelance for the ad agency while business was slow, and I do make a kick-ass ad campaign, even if my focus is sexy instead of profound.

  Whatever. The point is, I forced myself to go to work again, to get up and get back on track, because Cleo is right. I need to start somewhere, and it’s not like I have time to start small. My practice is growing, now that I’ve let a few old colleagues send me referrals, and that means that I’ll make more money. And I can use that money to look after…

  We’ll get there in small steps. I promise. Before long, I’ll say the P word, and then the B word, and then maybe even admit that I’m about to be the M word. For now, I am back at work, and that’s better than hiding in my apartment for the rest of my life.

  “Yo! Where you at?” I hear from the hallways, just before my office door bursts open and Rosetta falls in, her eyes going wide as she sees my office and lets out a whistle.

  Margi and the other execs did a great job of turning this space into my office, with several other offices nearby, off the floor’s main reception area. It’s not big, and it’s not fancy, but my new office is professional, painted a calm, cool mint green, and the couch is a comfortable addition that is a definite upgrade from the old beater that I had before.

  “Niiice! You got your own floor? What happened? Did Margaret and Brett have another argument about his getting an office, and so they tossed you up here?” Tee asks, her eyes going narrow when she spots the nameplate on my desk, proclaiming something that only Tee would understand.

  She picks it up, slowly looks it over, and then places it gently back on my desk before looking up at me. Not one word leaves her lips, but I can hear her unspoken thoughts all the same. She’s annoyed, and confused, and also a little proud of this ruse that I’ve been pulling off for close to four years now.

  “I should have told you,” I say, sighing and leaning back, completely ignoring the fact that my skirt isn’t zipped up in the back, and my stomach is just short of pressing into the desk’s edge.

  “Told us what? My God, you got your own water cooler? I want my own cooler! Tee, remind me to demand my own cooler and coffee maker from Adonis,” Rosetta barks, slowly perusing my office until she gets to the wall where my certificates hang.

  There she pauses, and I see the moment when she understands what they mean, because she goes stiff and then whips around, her eyes blazing with a fire that can only be called unholy.

  “What the fuck is this? You’re a shrink?” she spits, hissing out a curse when I swallow and try to stop my lip from trembling. “Don’t. Don’t you dare do that crying thing and make me aware of your condition. This is just…” she trails off, waving a hand at the wall.

  Sin, who up to this point has been strolling into my office and not paying any attention at all, suddenly looks up, narrows her eyes at the wall, and then shrugs.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me that none of you knew,” she laughs, her shoulders shaking so hard that she looks like she’s dancing.

  “You knew?” the three of us burst out, my own shock morphing into resignation because I should have known.

  Sin is perceptive, and while she is also messed up, she isn’t exactly stupid, either. She sees things that most people don’t, and, as she’s someone that I would say is most like Zeus Hart, the Hart family genius, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she’s known for a while.

  “Sure. Look, guys, who works on three ad campaigns a year and drives a beat-up old Honda?” Sin giggles, shaking her head when Rosetta huffs. “And who told us about sex?”

  “Jack.”

  “Oh, God, I don’t want to talk about that,” Rosetta says with a shudder, giving Tee a murderous look.

  “No, guys. It was Alex. The year that Cleo had sex, which she refused to believe was actual sex, and then kept insisting that she was still a virgin? Alex gave us the real talk. She was already in college, and she used all those fancy shrink terms about projecting your partner’s own insecurities onto yourself. And what about the fact that she would run to the wrong side of campus when she was late for class? Who takes digital design courses in the psych building?” she mutters, throwing her hands up in exasperation when the other two just shrug. “Jeezus. Don’t tell me that I was the only one who knew?”

  “Sex, Alex? You talk about sex all day?” Rosetta splutters. “The moms are going to have a fit!”

  “Which is why, according to everyone, I work for an ad agency,” I tell her, enunciating each word very clearly. “Understood?”

  That sets Sin off again, while Tee smirks and Rosetta falls into a nearby seat, shaking her head back and forth.

  “Cleo is gonna shit a brick.”

  “No one tells that narc! You hear me? The last time I told her anything, I ended up cleaning the church for two weeks because Honey said that ‘no girl of mine can possibly have a girlfriend if she’s cleaning God’s house and thinking about her choices,’” I sneer, the memory still alive and well in my subconscious, where all the other bad things live.

  I didn’t even have a girlfriend. I had this friend in college who mistakenly took a hug I gave her as a come-on. What Cleo saw was my gently but determinedly pushing Briony away and telling her that I am not gay. Not that I couldn’t be, if I met a really hot chick who did it for me, but yeah. That same day, I got dragged out of a lecture by my ear—the professor protested until he peered into Honey’s eyes and met evil—and thrown at Father O’Malley with instructions to “sort me out and make me fertile.”

  It sounded wrong then, and it sounds wrong now, but it all boils down to grandkids. That’s the whole point. Honey and my mom and my aunt want babies, and, by God, they are going to get them. I guess that’s why they’re all on board with my flu. They’re getting what they want, so why rock the boat?

  “She will have a fit if she finds out that we all kept her out of the loop,” Sin points out, grinning excitedly.

  I snort, throw them a grin, and shake my head.

  “She doesn’t have time to notice. What sabotage is she planning this week? I’d have thought that after the whole dress saga and finding the ink on her hands, Adonis would have put his foot down by now.”

  “He’s thinking that pushing Cleo will only make it worse. The fact that she didn’t bother to clean the ink off her hands tells me that she wants Adonis to catch her in the act,” Sin murmurs.

  “Why?” Rose and I both cry, the statement less a question than an exclamation, because I don’t know that I actually want the answer.

  “I think that she wants an argument and a reason to break things off. You know Cleo—she has issues, and those include ruining her chances like she did with CandyCane’s. That store should have thrived, and yet here she is, her store gone and not a worry in sight,” Tee muses, her own voice shaking. “My question is, what if Adonis does finally snap and break it off? Cleo loves that man, and he loves her.”

  “He won’t. That’s what she’s counting on. You guys don’t fully understand Cleo if you don’t know what she’s angling for. She thinks that Adonis will finally just say, ‘Whatever,’ about the wedding. What she doesn’t know is that he has no intention of not being married. By this time next year, it’ll be a done deal,” Rosetta informs us, her eyes sparkling. “I am really going to enjoy seeing her face when she realizes that he’s been managing her.”

  “Managing her?” I ask, my stomach growling when I smell Sin grabbing her favorite cinnamon-flavored gum from her purse.

  Need to eat soon. Before the sickness decides to descend.

  “He’s been letting her do these things because he’s busy planning their wedding, silly. You don�
��t think that Honey would be okay with the holdups and all the rescheduling if there wasn’t another plan in motion, do you?” she asks, giggling oddly when the three of us gape.

  “No way! Cleo’s gonna kill that man when she finds out,” I breathe, my awe overshadowed only by a slight sadness that I won’t ever see Adonis again.

  I like him. He smells nice, dresses well, and once offered to buy me a car. If I didn’t have to be offended, on principle, about the insults that he launched at me when he saw Louise, then I would have accepted. It’s one thing to be rich and just spread your money around like an asshole, but another to accept free, luxurious gifts. My greedy heart would have accepted, but, like I said, it was the principle of the thing. Poor Louise—she can’t help being ugly.

  “More like cut his ’nads off.”

  “Nah. She’ll deal. Remember when she was little, and she had to choose the theme for her fifth birthday party? She procrastinated so much that mom ended up throwing three different parties for her. I think that she just kind of got conditioned to letting other people make all the choices for her. She’s emotionally lazy and prefers to be led. That’s just Cleo,” Rosetta says, shrugging fondly.

  I shrug, too, and find myself smiling as memories fill me. Cleo wearing three different prom dresses in one night because she couldn’t decide which one she liked best. Those bathroom stall changes were brutal, and I definitely got more vag in my face than any cousin deserves. Shiver.

  I also recall that right before Cleo opened CandyCane’s she spent three weeks deciding on the color of the marble countertops in the kitchen. Rosetta may have a point. Maybe she needs all the choices to be taken out of her hands.

  “Well, I want to be there when she explodes, because you know she will. Now, about the reason we’re all here,” Tee says, smiling darkly when I scowl.

  “No fair! You can’t come in here, distract me, and then blindside me. I don’t want to talk about anything but superficial stuff. And you’d better make your goodbyes fast, because I have a patient coming in twenty,” I warn, knowing already that I am in for some serious talkage.