Everything but the Truth

by Mandy Hubbard

  His eyes narrow, and his gaze drifts over me. And I feel like we are the ones in the board room, and he’s appraising his opponent. “She may do that. The real estate branch has grown to the point that it warrants a position on the board. I’m proud of what she’s done.”

  “Malik wants you to be proud of him, too, you know,” I say. “But he also needs space to figure out what he wants to do.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out. He’ll make an excellent CEO.”

  “Did you enjoy it?” I ask. “Sitting at that desk?”

  “Of course I did,” he says, scoffing like it’s a stupid question.

  “What did you love about it?”

  “A thousand things. I was good at it. What I did mattered. I watched it come together, brick by brick, year by year.”

  I turn away from the railing and lean my hip against the steel and glass. “But all those things . . . they’re your reasons. What reason does Malik have to want to become you?”

  “He doesn’t need to become me,” Charles says. But there’s no bite to his tone. He’s actually open to having this conversation, with is enough to throw me off. Somehow I’ve won him over, been accepted into his small circle of trusted people. He’s talking to me like this conversation matters . . . like maybe my opinion matters.

  “But that’s what you want from him.”

  “No, what I mean is . . . he doesn’t need to become me, because we’re already the same.”

  I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean . . .” The edge of his lip curls up. “He’s exactly like me. Exactly like his mom. He wants to create something himself. He wants to build it from scratch and watch it grow. And that’s something I understand.”

  “So why is it not okay with you?” Malik’s voice comes from behind me. I startle and blush. I don’t know how much he heard, but it feels like I’ve overstepped my bounds, talking to his grandfather like this.

  Malik stops a few feet shy of his grandfather, and studies him, staring into his eyes. “Why can’t I start something myself? Watch it grow, brick by brick?”

  Okay, then. He definitely overheard more than the last few words of my conversation with Charles.

  Charles stares at Malik for a long moment, one that stretches on and on. And then, finally, he says, “Just tell me what you want to build. And I’ll give you the bricks.”

  A lump grows in my throat, caused by the mixture of joy and shock and . . . a little bit of worry, because even with his grandfather’s blessing, Malik doesn’t know what it is he wants to build.

  But then I see Malik’s megawatt smile.

  And the first hug I’ve ever witnessed between the Buchannan boys, the most beautiful thing in the world.

  And all I can do is hope that he figures it out.

  Because Charles isn’t the roadblock we thought he was.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The next day, my phone chirps.

  We have a problem.

  That’s all that’s in the text Alex sends me. I sit down at my desk, my stomach twisting as I grip my phone tightly in my hand.

  What? Call me.

  Can’t. In the car with my mom. She’s talking on Bluetooth to a client and it’s going on forever.

  Okay . . . elaborate on the problem, I say, my fingers flying across the keyboard. Oh god, what if they, like, just left the grocery store after running into Malik and now he’s wondering why my BFF hangs out with my “mom” when I’m not around?

  Hunter.

  I scrunch my brow. What now? I start to type a response, but another text comes in.

  He’s blasting stuff all over Facebook about how he met Malik. They’re not, like, BFFs now, are they?

  I blow out a calming breath. It doesn’t matter what Hunter’s saying. We’re not going to hang out with him, and he’s not in my life.

  Ugh, no. They met for a minute.

  He’s acting like they’re totally bros or something.

  I reply, Okay, but that’s not that big of a deal, right?

  WELLLLLL, she says.

  My heart drops. Something is clearly up. I want to go to my laptop and look it up myself, but I can’t. Why, oh why did I block him on Facebook?

  Oh, right, because I didn’t want to see pictures of him and Finley, that’s why.

  His friends were all impressed and Hunter was kind of soaking it up, and . . .

  WHY IS SHE TYPING SO SLOWLY?

  . . . He must’ve been trying to piece together how you met Malik, because I think he figured out Charles Buchannan lives at Sunrise House.

  I swallow, then reply, It’s not like he’s going to show up and ask to meet Charles, right? And if he did, no one is going to let him in. We have protocols for crap like that.

  Right? I mean, he can’t do anything.

  Except he found out you also live there.

  WHO TOLD HIM??????

  Oh crap. This is not good.

  Brynn Michaels.

  Rena’s friend. So Alex clearly told Rena where I live, and Rena told Brynn.

  Ugh. It’s not like I was specifically keeping it a secret, but it also kind of never comes up. It was sort of lying by omission, not mentioning that, hey, I live in a retirement home. We just moved here in April.

  But now, everyone I went to school with knows I live in a retirement home. And so does the third-richest person in the freakin’ country. Oh god, what if people from school come over and, like, want to meet Malik? This cannot become some kind of circus. It could risk my mom’s job.

  So, uh, yeah, don’t be surprised if Hunter shows up on your doorstop and tries to talk to you. Something tells me he wants an in with Malik.

  I rub my face. Hunter . . . he just can’t get in the middle of this. He’s going to give me away to Malik.

  What do I do?

  I don’t know.

  I stare at my phone for a long second, pondering my options, when suddenly the text convo is replaced on the screen by an incoming call.

  When I see the name, I freak out and toss the phone down on my bed. I step back. Hunter cannot be calling me.

  After three rings, I regain my senses.

  I can contain this. Like an oil spill. It’s not lethal or anything. I just need to make it clear that I’m over him and want nothing to do with him. Or whatever. He’ll move on.

  I grab the phone and click Accept Call, bringing the phone to my ear as I try to calm my racing heart and level my voice. “Um, hello?”

  “Holly,” he says, and it sounds fake—way too sunny, like he’s a cheerleader and not a football player.

  I grip the phone harder. “Since when do you call me by my first name?”

  “Don’t be silly,” he says, still sounding like he woke up on a rainbow. “We’re on a first-name basis.”

  “But I don’t like it,” I snap. “I prefer you call me Mathews, like you always did.”

  Ugh, now I’m implying I want him to call me at all. Or like I’m . . . nostalgic. Gross.

  “Okay, then, Mathews,” he says, a little bit of the peppiness leaking from his voice. “Better?”

  “Yes,” I say. Because at least this way, if he does encounter me and Malik, he’ll use my last name. “What’s up?”

  I grab the bottle of water off my nightstand, taking a swig.

  “I thought we could hang out.”

  I choke and sputter out the water, slapping my chest and holding the phone away from my face. When I regain my composure, I rest the phone against my ear again. I knew he’d try to see Malik again, but I thought he’d at least be more subtle or beat around the bush or something. “Um, what?”

  “Yeah, I thought maybe I could come over and we could chill.”

  “Come over here?”

  “Yeah, to Sunrise House?”

  “Hunter, we broke up.”

  “I know, but lots of people stay friends after breakups. I’m not trying to get back together or anything. I mean, you have a new boyfriend. Oh!” he says, his voice bright
ening again. “You know, to prove my intentions are pure, why not invite him over, too? You’ll see I’m just being friendly.”

  I suppress a groan. “Not happening, Hunter.”

  “What?” He sounds so surprised, I almost believe it’s genuine. “Why not?”

  “I’m not stupid.” Seriously, he thinks I’m this dense? That I can’t see through his smarmy approach? I don’t know what I ever saw in this guy.

  “Of course you’re not. I always trusted your calculus answers, didn’t I?”

  “Don’t remind me,” I grumble. I can’t believe Alex never flicked me in the head and told me to open my eyes while I was dating this jerk.

  “What?” he says.

  I blow out a sigh. “Hunter, you just want to hang out with Malik.”

  There’s a long pause, and I can tell he’s battling the urge to deny it. “He seemed cool, okay? I think we have a lot in common.”

  “You don’t even know him!”

  “Yeah, but you do,” he says. “I don’t see why it’s such a big deal.”

  “Because you’re only doing this because of who he is.”

  The line goes quiet, and a million thoughts race through my head, solidifying into hope that he’s going to back off and won’t screw this up for me.

  “Come on, Holiday . . .”

  “Mathews,” I correct. Now he starts calling me by my first name? Not when I was his girlfriend and was desperate to be treated as something other than one of the guys?

  “Mathews,” he says, sounding desperate. “Malik is a cool dude. You know he flew to the Super Bowl with the Seahawks? Like, on the actual team plane. His grandpa is partial owner, and—”

  If I don’t get off the phone right now, I’m going to end up hurling it out the window.

  “HUNTER. I’m serious. You’re not going to just magically get a BFF who flies you around to exotic locations and introduces you to famous people and football players.”

  By his silence, I know I nailed it.

  Wow, is this seriously the crap Malik deals with? I can’t even imagine.

  “Just think about it, okay? I really think he’d like me if we hung out.”

  “Good-bye, Hunter,” I say, ending the call and going back to the text message box.

  You’re right, I type. We do have a problem. Call me when you’re out of the car.

  I toss my phone onto my bed and walk over to my photo collage, unpinning the few pictures Hunter is in. I grab a pair of blue-handled scissors from the cup on my desk and carefully trim him out, tossing the bits of photo paper right into the wicker trash can.

  The pictures come out goofy—I have to cut off my arms where they wrap around his shoulders as we dance. But it’s still an improvement. By the time I re-pin the last cropped photo, my phone rings.

  “Hey,” I say, tucking my phone between my shoulder and my ear.

  “I swear that was the longest car ride ever,” Alex replies. “I ran out of lives on Candy Crush, and my mom wouldn’t let me turn the radio on.”

  I snort. “Do you need me to hashtag that ‘first world problems’ for you, or . . .”

  She laughs. “Yeah, yeah. I know. So did you figure out what you’re going to do about Hunter?”

  “Avoid him at all costs?”

  “Obviously.”

  “I told him we’re not going to be friends, but I don’t think it got through to him. So I think I’ll make sure the front desk is clear that he’s no guest of mine. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Good idea.” There’s something muffled in the background. “Dang, I gotta go. I’m standing outside a gas station and my mom’s paying for her coffee already. Catch up later?”

  “Yeah. Later.”

  I hang up the phone and glance down into my trash can, where Hunter’s face stares back.

  He better not ruin this for me.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Where are we going?” I ask Malik the following Sunday as we step out of his car. I glance up at the neon PIKE PLACE MARKET sign glowing a block away. “The market is closed.” The summer air is cool against my bare legs as I follow him across the rough cobblestone road, my little heels sticking in the cracks, making me feel wobbly.

  Or maybe it’s because of the way Malik looks tonight. We’re both a little dressier than normal, and the way his shirt hugs his shoulders, it’s enough to send anyone off kilter.

  “I have a key,” he says, reaching over to hold my hand, as if to steady me on the uneven ground.

  “You have a key to Pike Place,” I respond, raising a brow.

  He doesn’t speak, just holds out a ring with a single key, swinging it in front of my nose. “Not to all the individual stores or anything, but to one of the side doors.”

  Wow. I shouldn’t be surprised that he would have access to the biggest tourist destination in the city. After the Space Needle, I guess. Our movie-theater date proved he’s got connections, but this . . . this is beyond.

  He leads me around the corner, down an alley, and we pass the infamous gum wall—a wall a dozen feet wide and almost as high, stuck with chewed gum so thick you can no longer see the bricks. He unlocks a metal door, and we’re in.

  Pike Place after hours. It’s almost eerie, how silent it is. Somewhere in the distance, a machine hums—a vacuum? An AC unit? But everything else is dark and shuttered. Strangely silent. Normally, a person can’t go five feet in here without bumping elbows with another patron or without hearing the clink of change in a register, the music from the speakers, and the calling out of prices and specials.

  Instead, it’s just our footsteps echoing off the walls as he leads me down the long aisleway. We stop at a door emblazoned with a restaurant’s name on the glass upper, but it’s dark beyond.

  “Um, pretty sure they’re closed,” I say, pointing at the door.

  “I know,” he says, pulling out the key ring again. Moments later, we’re inside and he’s flicking on lights.

  “Are you sure this isn’t going to get us in trouble?” I ask.

  “Yes. My mom is friends with Tom Douglas. He gave me the key himself.”

  “Who?”

  He narrows his eyes. “Tom Douglas?”

  I shrug.

  “You’ve lived in Seattle how long and you haven’t dined at a Tom Douglas restaurant?”

  “Um, no . . . ,” I say, my voice trailing off. Crap. Tom Douglas must be some fancy chef or something. At someplace people like Malik have dined at a million times.

  I glance over a menu left open near the front door. Dinners here cost fifty to sixty dollars. I try not to let my eyes flare wider—I’m supposedly used to dining like this—but I can’t help it.

  I guess the prices are beside the point anyway. Tom Douglas doesn’t seem to be present.

  “Huh,” Malik says, studying me. Like having lived here without going to a Tom Douglas restaurant is a total crime. “I guess I’ll have to take you to one. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “Sounds great,” I say after a long moment, glancing back at the menu. “But this is Tom Douglas’s restaurant, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But . . . he’s obviously not around, so . . .”

  “So, I hope you’re hungry.”

  “You’re cooking for me?” Surprise hits me full on, mixing with the heavy weight of guilt. This is a fling. He shouldn’t be doing such thoughtful, romantic stuff.

  “We’re cooking for us,” he corrects. “I thought it would be a fun activity to do together.”

  “Oh.” Fun. Good. Flings are fun. Cooking together is fun. This is okay.

  “What kind of ‘oh’ is that?” he asks, stopping. “We don’t have to.”

  “No, it’s a good oh,” I say, blushing. “I love it. I’m just not a very good cook.”

  Moving into Sunrise House has been one of the best things ever, because I used to survive on PB and J or Easy-Mac cups I could microwave. Even though my mom usually worked on-site at whatever apartment complex
we lived, she was working full-time and going to college at night, and I was often left to heat up microwave meals or order takeout.

  “I took a culinary class at school,” Malik says, interrupting my reminiscing. “So I’ll share a few pointers.”

  I follow him toward the kitchen. His school has a culinary class? I mean, the public school I went to had home ec, but the fanciest thing we ever cooked were cupcakes, and mine always ended up caving in.

  He hits a few switches inside the door, and two rows of fluorescent lights flicker to life. The kitchen is enormous, all stainless-steel surfaces and enormous, gleaming appliances.

  Malik goes to the fridge, plucking out an armful of supplies, then turning and dumping them onto a counter.

  I stay near the door, staring, taking in the way he navigates the kitchen with practiced ease. The way he knows where the knives are, the butter, everything.

  He glances up, realizing I’m frozen in the doorway. “What?”

  “Who else have you done this for?”

  “What?”

  “You’re walking around here like you’re used to cooking in this place,” I say. “You’ve brought other girls here, haven’t you?”

  “What? No.”

  “Then why do you know where everything is?” I cross my arms, taking in his expression. He’s got a sheepish smile, and his cheeks flush. “Wait . . . I’ve embarrassed you!”

  “I’ve had this key for six months. I come here sometimes when I can’t sleep. I’ve spent hours cooking here by myself. But no one knows. Other than the owner, obviously.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling guilty again.

  “It’s silly, because I have a kitchen at home, but I feel more comfortable in here. It’s quiet and it feels right.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to accuse you.”

  “It’s okay,” he says, waving my concerns away. “Now, do you think you could wash the asparagus and trim off the stalky ends?” he asks. “I’ll start on the chicken.”

  “Sure,’ ” I say, finally making my way around the expanse of countertops. He grabs a white apron off a nearby hook, and I allow him to lift it over my head and pull my hair out of the way. The maneuver feels oddly intimate, his fingers sliding across the skin at the back of my neck so softly and deliberately that I find myself holding my breath.