by K. A. Linde
Our movie was at Alamo Drafthouse, as it had been last time. It was the kind of place where you showed up early even though it had assigned seating. The food was good, the atmosphere was fun, and the staff was excellent. I showed up twenty minutes before the show and waited for Sutton to arrive.
Couples and families passed me with giant smiles on their faces. One guy even wished me good luck. A girl made an aww sound when she saw the giant bouquet of daises I had in my hand. Apparently, I was a hit. I might as well be in a John Hughes movie, holding a boom box over my head, for all the attention it was getting me.
But it was Sutton’s face that made all the mild humiliation worthwhile. She was fighting a grin when she wandered up to me in jean shorts and a yellow tank top with a jean jacket tucked under her arm.
“Hey,” she murmured when she saw me.
“Hey. These are for you.”
She took them from me and blushed a pretty shade of pink. “You, uh, didn’t have to do this.”
“No guy ever has to buy a girl flowers. He does it because he wants to.”
“Well, this isn’t…you know. This is…just a movie.”
“Everything with you is more than just a just.”
She frowned down at the flowers and then nervously glanced around her, as if she didn’t want anyone to see her holding them. “Why don’t we get our seats?”
“Sure.”
Sutton pulled up our seats on her phone and led me into one of the large auditoriums and all the way up to the top row. Her favorite. We were the first people up there with a handful of other couples scattered around the room. A few were even dressed like the Avengers. Pretty in-depth cosplay, too. Impressive.
“Seems I forgot my costume,” I said, trying to break the thick layer of awkwardness that had formed between us.
Sutton made a noncommittal sound.
I sighed and figured I might as well break the ice for real. “I guess I should ask…why did you still come to this with me?”
“Well, I had the tickets,” she said, not meeting my eyes.
“You could have taken Annie.”
She shook her head. “Actually, I couldn’t. She’s at orientation this weekend for medical school. She’s super booked, doing…I don’t know…doctor things.”
“Oh, I see. I’m second choice again.”
“I suppose, last time, you were first choice because I was tired of Annie only being here to look at hot guys.”
“And this time?”
She shrugged. “This time…I don’t know.”
But, when she said it, she was looking at me. And I could see that she was being cautious around me, but she wasn’t pulling back. She wasn’t retreating. She was still at a comfortable distance. But we were here. Together. That was something.
“I’ll take it.”
The moment was broken by the cheery employee who came to take our orders. I got us a giant bowl of popcorn, two waters, and a root beer float for Sutton. He nodded his head at us and then disappeared once more.
Sutton turned her body to face me and sighed. “Okay. I’m not being entirely fair to you.”
“Do you have a reason to be fair to me?”
“It’s just that I feel like, when I first found out about you, I might have overreacted. I mean, I feel justified in my anger, but the things I said and did, that wasn’t right.”
“I understood where you were coming from with it all.”
She turned away from me and pulled on her jacket. I could see that this conversation was hard for her. She probably didn’t even want to be having it.
“I feel like I owe you the chance to explain. I don’t know that it will change my mind or make me feel differently, but I’ll never know if I don’t hear you out.”
I stared back at her in surprise. For the last week, I had been certain she was never going to let me explain. And my reasons for hiding my identity might not make her feel any better.
But at least she was giving me a second chance.
Giving us a second chance.
Seven
Sutton
We walked out of the movie. The daisies were in my hand between us. Almost a barrier. But not quite.
I couldn’t believe that I’d actually been able to spit that all out to him. That we’d had that conversation and sat through a two-and-a-half-hour movie without trying to make out with each other’s faces. We’d been at Wright, and I’d barely been able to hold it together. But, somehow, back in that movie theater, we’d made it. The physical connection was there, as ever.
It was the emotional one that my heart was balancing on a tightrope. I didn’t know whether I’d make a misstep and plummet into the depths below.
“So…” I murmured. “Some movie.”
“Honestly? I think I’m going to have to see it again.”
“Why is that? Didn’t get your fill of the hot men?”
“I was a little distracted,” he said, purposefully meeting my eyes.
I couldn’t help the blush that crept onto my cheeks. Things with David were easy. Or they had been. That was what I’d loved about it. That it was effortless. And yet…we’d royally fucked it up. All the complications had reared their ugly heads and shattered that illusion of simplicity.
“So…we should talk,” I said.
“Your place or mine?”
I chewed on my bottom lip and weighed the pros and cons. Truthfully, neutral ground would be better, but at ten p.m., our options were pretty limited.
“Your place. Jen is watching Jason tonight at my place.”
“All right. Meet you there?”
“Yeah.”
David stopped and reached out to touch my arm. “It’s just a talk, okay?”
I released the breath I’d been holding. Right. Just a talk. Nothing more. We could barely keep it together at the office. What was going to happen when I was at his house?
No, I wasn’t going to think about that. I was going to drive over to his place. We were going to talk about why he never told me he was a Van Pelt. And then I was going to leave. Simple as that.
David’s mansion was close to my house on the south side of town. He lived in the country club in an outrageous place all by himself. But, apparently, with the cost of living in San Francisco, he only would have been able to buy a shoebox there for the cost of this place. I guessed…the same would be true for New York City, too. The place he was really from.
I parked in the driveway, doubting my every move. Being here with him was not smart. Hearing him out was though.
I didn’t want things to progress too quickly. I’d told the girls that I was willing to listen to David’s side of the story. Maybe even give us the second chance that I never had with Maverick. But I didn’t know what I was doing. And I didn’t know if I was ready for that second chance.
But I had no choice right now. I would listen to what he had to say. Make any decisions from there.
I left the flowers in the car and hoped that the summer heat wouldn’t ruin the buds. They were a sweet gesture. He’d looked so cute, standing at the front of the movie theater, holding them. Even if I hadn’t intended for this to be a date. It wasn’t a date.
Someone would believe that statement, I was sure…
David had already unlocked the front door, and I entered cautiously. He slipped off his jacket and slung it on the back of a barstool. He glanced down at his phone before depositing it on the island in the kitchen and sauntering back into the living room toward me. He looked delectable in a polo and shorts. I liked him in relaxed attire as much as a suit. But what really did me in was seeing him in his own element with the confidence that came with that.
He gestured to the couch. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink?”
“Just water. Thanks.”
“Don’t mind if I have some bourbon, do you?”
“No.” Though I was surprised.
“Good. This story…well, it needs something a little stronger.”
I
watched him pour a knuckle’s worth of amber liquid into a glass and down it before pouring another. He brought it over along with my water and left them on coasters on the pristine glass coffee table.
What a contrast in our lives. A glass coffee table was one of the most ridiculous pieces of furniture you could have with a toddler in the house. It would always have fingerprints and Legos and juice and Cheerios and fifteen books and a smashed SpaghettiO or something. It would definitely never look like…this. #MomProblems
“I suppose I should start at the beginning.” David took a seat in a chair across from me and sighed, as if this were going to be a long event.
“Wherever you want to start is fine.”
“Bear with me.” He took another sip of his bourbon. “When I was at Yale, I was getting a business degree so that, once I graduated, I could start working at the family company. I had every intention of taking over and running it when my father retired.”
I swallowed. Oh God, I hoped I was ready for this.
“I was home for the summer and working for my father when I came across a string of suspicious emails that led to me finding out all of my parents’ dark secrets. I’ll spare you the boring details that you likely already know, but it was a long track record of dirty dealings and stolen money.”
“Before that, you knew nothing?” I asked in disbelief.
“Did you know that your father had invested money with the Van Pelts before it went public?”
I shook my head. “I guess I didn’t know much about the business as a child and had no interest when I grew up.”
“Right. I was kind of a reluctant bystander in this. Destined to take over the company to make my petulant, irritable father proud of me. A man who couldn’t even hug me, let alone treat me with affection. I’m not sure that I ever heard him tell me that he loved me.”
David glanced away, lost in his own memory. I could tell that it still pained him to think about it all these years later. I hadn’t had a great father, but he’d still doted on me. I knew that he loved me. I couldn’t imagine growing up in world where I doubted my parent’s affection.
“Anyway, I confronted my parents about what I’d discovered.”
“That must have been difficult.”
He laughed sardonically. “You have no idea. This was my legacy, and I was about to turn it upside down. But I was convinced it was a mistake, some error. That I was doing the right thing by bringing it to my parents’ attention so that we could discuss it like adults.”
I frowned at that. I’d always believed the Van Pelts were monsters, and David had worked under the impression for most of his life that they were the good guys. How had it hurt him to realize that he’d been played? It must have destroyed his sense of self to make him change his name and move to San Francisco.
“As you can imagine, it didn’t go well. Obviously, it wasn’t a lie, and I’d discovered years of careful manipulation and a decades-old Ponzi scheme. Instead of being rightfully horrified at what they’d done, they insisted that I couldn’t tell anyone. Even made it seem like I was in on their secret club now that I knew.”
My hand moved to my mouth in horror.
“But I couldn’t take over a fake company. I felt cheated and lied to. I told them I was going to go to the police. That this wasn’t right. They tried to tell me that no one would believe me, and then when I became more adamant, they told me they would disinherit me.”
“Disinherit you? That’s preposterous. They knew they’d lose everything. You’d have nothing to inherit anyway.”
“Yeah, but at the time, it was a real threat. I was insane with anger, and throwing a disinheritance on top of it.” He shook his head. “I completely lost it. I couldn’t believe they’d do that to their only son.”
“I can’t believe anyone would say something that cruel to you when you were the one doing the right thing.”
“They didn’t think it was the right thing. They’d been doing this so long, they were blind.”
“God, what fucking assholes,” I said, jumping to my feet and burning with indignant rage against the Van Pelts all over again.
“They are,” he agreed.
I ground my teeth together. No wonder he’d abandoned them. I couldn’t even believe that Katherine had stayed on their side. That anyone could side with the Van Pelts. I felt validated. But, if he was so against the Van Pelts, then why the hell hadn’t he told me? Of course we didn’t like them, but I might have understood his own distaste for them; instead, he’d lied and proven he was more like them than he cared to admit.
“Sutton, please, sit down.”
“Okay, okay.” I plopped back on the couch and took a long drink of my water. “I just…I don’t feel like this explains why you lied to me. If anything, I feel like this all would explain why you should have told me.”
“I know.” He steepled his fingers together and stared down at the bourbon in his almost-empty glass. “This isn’t easy. I don’t…I don’t talk about these things. In fact, the only person who does know any of this is Katherine, and we don’t see eye to eye. Confiding in people is hard from me. And, God, I just…I don’t know how to say the next part.”
I took a deep breath and then let it out. I was letting my fury get the best of me, and I needed to hear out the rest of his story. “Go ahead. I’m listening. I want to hear the rest.”
“Well, when they said they’d disinherit me, I told them I couldn’t believe that they’d do that to their only son.” His eyes moved up to mine. “And my father said…that I wasn’t his son.”
Eight
David
“Excuse me?” Sutton asked.
Her eyes were round with confusion and disbelief. The look I’d been expecting from her. The look I expected from everyone. That was why I had never told this story.
“Like…what does that mean? Did your mom…have an affair? Are you not actually your dad’s son…like biologically? Why would he raise you as his son if you weren’t?” she blurted out. “I’m sorry. I have so many questions.”
“I’d be more surprised if you didn’t.” I finished off my drink and then continued, “No, she didn’t have an affair. As far as I know at least. No affair that resulted in me. I was adopted.”
Sutton furrowed her brows. “But…why? Like, they had every option available to them. IVF and fertility treatments and all that.”
“When she was younger than you, my mom was told that she could never have kids. They always planned to adopt.”
“So, is Katherine adopted, too?”
“No,” I said on a sigh. “Katherine is theirs. My mother had her thyroid removed shortly after I was adopted. There was a history of thyroid cancer in her family, and after she went through treatments, ta-da, Katherine.”
“Wow.” Sutton blinked a ton. “Wow.”
“Yeah, she was their miracle baby while I was…this abomination they’d purchased.”
“David,” she whispered sadly.
“Okay. That’s not true.” It felt true sometimes. But it was more likely that my father was just a total dick. “I was angry, and I told them that I’d rather be no one than their son. I left their place, changed my name, and found out where my biological parents lived, and as soon as I graduated college, I upped and moved to San Francisco.”
“Ohhh,” Sutton muttered. “Your biological parents live in San Francisco.”
“Yes. So, every time you asked if my parents lived there…I said yes. Because they do.”
“But not the ones who raised you.”
I shook my head. “No, not the ones who raised me. But I didn’t know how to tell you that. I’ve never told anyone that.”
“Not even Katherine?”
“No. I was in San Francisco when the story broke about my parents.”
“So, you never told on them?”
I glanced down at the empty glass in my hands. “No. Despite all my bluster, I chose to walk instead of doing something.”
She was silent
for a long time. I felt her judgment weighing on me. But I already felt shitty about it. In the end, I’d sided with them. I could have turned them in and gone traitor on my own parents, but I hadn’t done it. They’d made a misstep that someone else turned them in for. It was wrong of me not to incriminate them, but at the end of the day, I hadn’t been able to do it. I’d wanted to start over rather than wade deeper into their shit.
“Once the truth came out, my parents told Katherine about where I was and that I’d changed my name. She came looking for me because she wanted me on their side.”
“But why? How could she side with them?”
“She’s loyal to a fault. She would never turn her back on someone she cared about. Even if she had to be dragged through the mud with them.”
Sutton sighed and seemed to contemplate that. She had to understand that quality. The Wrights had it in spades.
“I stayed out of the media when the story broke and stayed in San Francisco—building an empire and meeting my new family. I thought no one could be worse than my old family. Fuck, they were all over the news. They were atrocious scumbag liars. But, still…I was wrong.”
“Your biological family was worse than the Van Pelts?” she asked in disbelief.
“In a different way, but yes. They didn’t know I was a Van Pelt. It was a closed adoption. The Van Pelts didn’t want my biological parents to come looking for a payout when they realized who had adopted me. And that was good for me for a long time. My bio parents greeted me with open arms. I helped them move into a new house in Silicon Valley. I met their children…my real siblings. They were all married with multiple kids, and I suddenly had this giant family with nieces and nephews and everything. The love and support I’d always dreamed of.”
“Like what you see with my family.”
“Yes,” I told her. “But it was a lie. They skimmed money from me for years for drugs and alcohol. When they found out I was a Van Pelt, they tried to gain access to my trust fund. Then, when that failed, they blackmailed me, saying that they would go to the media and out me as David Van Pelt if I didn’t help fund their heroin habits.”