by Flynn, Avery
I swallow. “Does ‘friend’ work?”
Wow, Mallory. You have Mr. Hot in a Suit and a T-Shirt flirting with you, and that’s what you come up with?
He drops his gaze for a second, and when he brings it back up, there’s an intensity shining in his eyes that takes my breath away.
“It will for now,” he says and then gets up and reaches down to help me stand. “I gotta get back home. The house plants are calling.”
I nod and walk him to the sliding glass patio door. We stand there, him on the outside of the open door and me on the inside, both leaning against the doorframe. Neither of us moves. The hint of chlorine from a nearby pool floats on the air, and somewhere a neighbor is barbecuing, sending the scent of mesquite into the atmosphere. All of it mixes with the feeling of promise and more than a little buzz of attraction, giving me thoughts I should not be having about my temporary boss and permanent neighbor.
“Mallory?” His gaze takes me in, from my usual messy topknot, to the stain on my shirt from dinner, to the dust clinging to the hem of my leggings. Instead of giving me a disapproving look like Karl would have, he gives me a look that could probably burn all my clothes off by sheer will if he wants. “Have fun on your date tomorrow night.”
Then he is gone, disappearing around the side of the house while I stand there blinking and wondering why in the hell a lingering disappointment has settled in my stomach. It has to be nerves. After all, Monday is my first day at my new job, which would make any woman feel a little off.
Yeah. That has to be it.
As I close the sliding glass door and lock it, I can’t help wondering what color suit and tie Nick will be wearing to work next. Good Lord. Am I developing a suit fetish?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I spend most of Friday cleaning out the rest of the clutter in my bedroom that Nick and I didn’t get to. It feels less sad today and more a celebration of my aunt’s life. And also, cathartic. I cry more than once as I pack her favorite hat or dress or earrings into boxes for charity to pick up.
But at the same time, no matter how sad it makes me to see her things and know she will never use them again—to know she is well and truly gone—it also feels like a proper goodbye in a way that the staid, boring funeral my father insisted on giving her never did. She left money for the funeral she’d wanted, along with plans about how to cremate her and what to do with her ashes—I’m pretty sure Bora Bora was involved.
Instead, my father ignored all her wishes and buried her in the ground in a plain black casket that was as different from her as she was from my father. At the time, I was too distraught to do more than put up a cursory argument, but now that a few weeks have passed and I’m more clearheaded, I’m ashamed.
Ashamed of my father for doing it, ashamed of my mother and myself for allowing it, and ashamed of everyone who stood around my parents’ house after the funeral talking about what a beautiful service it was.
There was nothing beautiful about that service, and as I fold her favorite shawl, her favorite dress, and her favorite gloves just to put them in a box, I can’t help thinking that she deserved more. And that maybe, just maybe, I can find a way to give it to her.
Around four o’clock, I stop cleaning and wolf down an apple and some water before jumping into the shower to wash the grime off me yet again. Mikey said he’d pick me up at seven for our date tonight, and while I’m looking forward to seeing him because he is a sweetheart of a guy, that’s about it. There isn’t even a hint of a zing that tells me I’m hot for this guy.
Instead, all I can muster is a pleasant anticipation—as if a friend were coming to visit—but that’s it. No spark. No excitement. Nothing.
It’s too bad, not because I want anything to happen with him, because I don’t—and I’m not lying to myself about him. Seriously, the last thing I’m ready for right now is a man in my life on a regular basis. But the spark would be fun. And exciting. And maybe even hot.
As soon as I think it, an image of Nick shirtless and mowing my lawn dances through my mind. He might be—okay, he totally is—a bit of a curmudgeon, but apparently it isn’t just assholes I’m attracted to anymore. I have to add eighty-year-old men trapped in thirtysomething-year-old bodies to that list as well.
After my shower, I take my time picking out what I want to wear and put on my makeup. Hey, there is nothing wrong with a little extra va-va-voom to make yourself feel good. Anyway, if I look like a million bucks—or at least as close to it as I can manage—maybe Mikey won’t notice that I’m glancing at my phone instead of hanging on his every word.
Guilt about that thought trips me up as I walk over to get another pair of Stella & Dot earrings. I had a great time with Mikey on our lunch date, but the truth is, there’s a part of me that wants to like him just to prove to myself that I can. But I don’t. I just don’t. And that sucks because the man really is adorable.
I’ve just slipped my new earrings into my ears and done a little fun and flirty headshake when there is a knock on my back door.
Mikey’s probably a few minutes early. After a quick spritz of perfume and a final look in the mirror, I head down the stairs.
But when I get to the family room, it isn’t Mikey on the other side of the sliding glass door. It’s a woman with her back to me, but from the way her shoulders are shaking, it’s obvious she’s crying.
I have no clue when my backyard became a gathering spot for the neighborhood—especially since I know, like, five people in the entire town—but it seems to be true.
As I get closer, though, I realize it isn’t a stranger on my patio. It’s Sarah, the woman I met at Christee’s party. I have no clue how she ended up on my doorstep, but she obviously needs a friend.
“Hey,” I say as I slide open my back door. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry.” She looks up at me with tear-soaked eyes. “I didn’t mean to just drop in on you like this. And I’m sorry I came to your back door. I saw the signs on your porch about it being unsafe and I started to leave, but I knew if I left without talking to you, I’d never come back again. And I really, really want to talk to you.”
There’s a lot to unpack there—in words and in emotions—but I try to do it anyway, even as I steer Sarah toward my aunt’s Victorian-style purple couch.
“It’s okay,” I say as we sit down a few feet apart. “Can I get you some water or some tissues?”
She holds up her right hand, and it’s filled with a clump of half-used tissues. “I’m okay.”
“No offense, but that’s a big ol’ lie.” I reach over and pat her back as softly as I can.
The contact only makes her cry harder, which is absolutely not what I intended. I pull my hand back, hoping it will calm her down. But it doesn’t. It’s as if the floodgates have opened and nothing is going to stop the onslaught. Seriously, she starts to sob like her world just ended.
And since I know very well what that feels like better than most, I don’t interfere. Instead, I walk to the kitchen and get her a glass of water and some more tissues.
I feel bad for her, this woman I barely know, but I’m also curious as to how exactly she ended up on my couch. Did Angela tell her where I live? And if so, why?
Her sobs wind down to occasional soft whimpers by the time I get back to the family room, so I silently extend the tissues and the glass of water.
She takes both with a murmured “thanks,” then doesn’t say anything else until I’m sitting next to her. “I’m sorry,” she finally whispers.
“It’s okay.” I offer an encouraging smile. “How can I help?”
She sniffs. “I didn’t want to tell you this way.”
Every nerve ending in my body goes on red alert, and if I had antennae, they’d be standing straight up, too. “Tell me what?”
“I’m—I’m—” Tears start to fill her eyes again.
Meanw
hile, my heart rate is so jacked up, I might start hovering over the couch. I stand, needing to do something, anything, at the moment as nausea climbs its way up my throat.
Please God, don’t let this be another one of Karl’s cast-offs. Please God, don’t let me have one of his ex-girlfriends sitting on my couch right now, about to pour her heart out to me. I can take a lot, but I’m pretty damn sure I can’t take that.
Sarah gets herself together enough to lift her chin and look me square in the eyes.
And my whole body goes cold in one of those moments when you know what’s going to come next will hurt—a lot.
“I’m your…your…your…sister.”
Chapter Thirty
And just like that, the already shaky foundation beneath my favorite pair of high-heeled boots dissolves, and I collapse onto the couch beside her.
“I’m sorry?” I must have misheard her. “What did you say? You’re my—”
“Sister.” She starts crying again. “I’m your sister. That’s how I knew where to find you, because Aunt Maggie was my aunt, too.”
And then the sobs start up all over again, but I’m too flummoxed to comfort her. To be honest, I’m too flummoxed to do anything but sit here with my mouth open and my head on the verge of exploding.
Because if she’s my sister and Aunt Maggie was her aunt, too—and that smarts, considering that means my aunt lied to me about something this hugely important—and it’s obvious that she’s younger than I am by at least five years and maybe even more…
Okay.
I take a deep breath.
Okay, okay, okay. I can deal with this. I can totally deal with the fact that my father is a dirty, lying cheat.
I blow out the breath, and that’s when it happens. A sob that I was totally unprepared for comes out right along with it. Because no matter how much I want to deny it, no matter how much I want to pretend that Sarah is just pulling a cruel, cruel trick—or worse, is some kind of con artist—there is one thing I can’t ignore.
From the moment I first saw her, I thought Sarah looked familiar. And now that I’m staring at her in the middle of my very bright family room, I realize why that was. From the tips of her streaked brown hair to her ocean-blue eyes to the tiny little cluster of birthmarks on the side of her neck, she looks exactly like my father did when he was young.
All those times he lectured me about the sanctity of marriage even during hardship… All the times my mother told me that I needed to go back to Karl because a woman belonged with her husband no matter what… They hadn’t been talking about me at all. They’d been talking about themselves.
They’d wanted me to stay with Karl so they could feel better about themselves—about what they’d done and the choices they’d made.
And all the time my father had been lecturing me on what a good man Karl was, about how adultery didn’t have to mean the end of a marriage—all the time my mother had told me to wear sexier underwear and more fucking makeup—they’d been carrying around this secret.
The secret that not only did my father cheat on my mother with at least one woman—though my very angry gut says there were probably a hell of a lot more through the years—but that he fathered a child with her. And he kept that child a secret for more than two decades.
What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Except, “Welcome to the family.”
The poor woman.
That only makes her bawl harder and—not going to lie—for a second, I think about bawling right along with her. I’ve never felt more betrayed in my life, and that is saying something, considering the way my last few months have gone. By my father, by my mother, by my favorite aunt. What the hell is even happening right now?
My phone buzzes with a text—Mikey messaging me to let me know he’s looking forward to seeing me in a little while. I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing because oh my God. Am I living in the middle of a farce right now? Or just a really intense episode of some practical-joke TikTok? Because how the hell am I supposed to go on a date when my long-lost baby sister has just shown up at my door?
“I’m really sorry,” Sarah says. “I wouldn’t have come here if I had anywhere else to go. I even tried to talk to Dad—”
She broke off when my gaze snaps to hers. I’ve been an only child all my life—or so I thought—and hearing someone else call my father “Dad” shakes me to my already trembling core.
“What do you mean you tried to talk to him?”
Sarah sighs. “I went to his house, but he shooed me off the porch, then texted me to go away. That he would see me on Tuesday evening, just like he has every Tuesday evening for my entire life. But that I’m not to contact him other than that. I tried to tell him that I need help, that I’m in trouble, but he just stopped answering my texts.”
Jesus. I close my eyes, and the horror washes over me. From the time I was eight years old, Tuesdays were poker nights for my father. Every Tuesday night, he would come home from work early. He’d change his clothes, check on my mother and me, and then leave for the rest of the night to hang out with his buddies from law school and play a ruthless night of poker.
Every Wednesday at breakfast, he would regale my mother and me with tales of the cutthroat games he’d played the night before. I looked forward to those stories every week, even when I was a teenager. I shake my head, so annoyed that I hadn’t been a sucker just with Karl. I’d been that way with everyone my whole life.
The lying son of a bitch. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to look him in the face again. Hell, I don’t know if I’ll ever even want to look him in the face again, because right now I am about ready to say good riddance to bad trash, as my aunt Maggie always said. And she was right about that, even if she was wrong to keep such an important secret from me.
“My mom was your babysitter, just barely in her twenties, when you were a kid,” Sarah continues in between sniffles. “She died last year. She said she regretted the affair but never regretted having me.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I mean, yeah, I want to know, but why now?
“History seems to have a way of repeating itself, at least in some ways.” Sarah lets out a shaky breath. “I’m pregnant and the baby’s father doesn’t care, doesn’t want to be a part of the baby’s life, doesn’t want to be a part of mine. I don’t have anywhere else to go. I lost my job and a place to live all in one fell swoop. You’re my last hope.”
This is a lot to process. A lot a lot.
My dad had an affair. I have a half sister. Does Mom know? Does it matter at this point?
“Sarah,” I start, prepared to say what, I have no fucking idea, but then I look at my sister and what I see is a woman alone, without someone like Aunt Maggie to pull her in and wrap her arms around her—without someone who will tell her they’ll figure everything out. Together.
So that’s what I do. I throw my arms around her shoulders and squeeze her tight. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure this out. Together.”
Sarah lets out another huge torrent of tears. “Really?” She presses the crumpled-up tissues to her face. “I don’t know what to say. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I get an apartment.”
“There’s no hurry. There’s plenty of room here, and she was your Aunt Maggie, too. I’d love to have you stay as long as you want—as long as you don’t mind a mess.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize just how much I mean them.
“I don’t mind at all,” Sarah says.
I laugh. I can’t help myself. “You haven’t seen the upstairs yet.”
We’re both still sniffling messes when Nick walks in through the patio door and comes to a dead stop. “Is everything okay? What happened?”
I look at Sarah. She looks at me. And we both burst out laughing at the thought of even trying to bring him up to speed.
Chapter Thirty-One
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nbsp; Nick looks from me to Sarah and back again and, going by the crinkles around his very serious eyes, he’s trying to figure out how we’re related. I have a feeling that’s going to be happening a lot.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, glancing down at the stack of papers in his hands that isn’t contained in a panic-inducing folder.
“Wow.” He shoves a hand in his jeans pocket. “Temper your excitement. I could be dropping off paperwork for Gina.”
I lift a brow at him. “Are you?”
“No,” he says with a crooked grin.
The second he smiles, Sarah let out a tiny squeak and, believe me, I get it. He looks hot as fuck when he’s doing his flirty-but-still-kind-of-grumbly face. When he smiles? Well, the only thing holding up my panties right now are my super-tight jeans. The man has game—even in a room full of women who are currently disgusted with the entire male species.
“So what brings you all the way across the street?” I ask.
And yes, I am aware that in some circles, my question—and the tone I am asking it in—might be considered flirtatious. Which I sorta, kinda meant, God help me.
I could be imagining this, but I’m pretty sure his eyes go a few shades darker as he looks at me, if that’s even possible. For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything and neither do I. We just kind of watch each other, and I have to admit that watching him is a lot better than dealing with the bombshells my sister just dropped on me. Even if it is just for a minute or two.
Sarah clears her throat. “Do I need to give you guys some space?”
Way to make it weird, Mallory.
“No,” we both say at the same time.
Nick holds up the papers. “I got the committee to fast-track the approvals for your dumpster. I figured I’d bring them by personally instead of making you wait to get them in the mail.”
He offers them to me. “They said yes.”
“Oh, that’s amazing.” I take the papers, ready to start crying again but this time out of happiness. “Thank you so much. I owe you.”