by L.J. Shen
Dean
Thx. Again, sorry about Sunday night. Do YOU need anything?
Rosie
No. Just forget about it. Seriously. We’re both clean, right?
Dean
Right.
Since Rosie wasn’t the type to steal sperm—that was more like Val’s hobby—I gathered she was on the pill or something. It would have been nice if she put me out of my misery and said it, but it wasn’t any of my fucking business. I needed to move on and take her word for it. No matter how strongly I felt about this particular subject.
Dean
I’ll miss you.
Rosie
You’ll survive. I’ve missed you for eleven years.
Dean
I’ll make sure you get enough of me now.
Once in Todos Santos, my phone buzzed with an incoming call. I was so distracted with everything Trent and Rosie, I answered before I checked the number. It was unlike me, and the minute I pressed the green button, I remembered why.
“Yeah?”
“Jesus, finally. I thought you’d never answer,” Nina groaned in frustration. My heart dropped, and my jaw clenched. The world tilted on an axis for a second, before I gathered my wits, dropped my duffel bag to the floor with a thud, and opened up Vicious’s liquor cabinet, staring at the neat line of glass bottles like they personally taunted me. I wasn’t stupid. I saw the direct correlation between my issues with her and my drinking and weed smoking.
Every time I thought of her, I wanted to forget.
Every time I talked to her, I wanted a distraction.
And she was always in the picture. Always asking for shit she didn’t deserve. Always messing with my head. Did I want her in my life? Did I not want her? Did I forgive her? Could I forgive her? Did I want to know who he was? Was he even going to want to get to know me?
“You don’t give up, do you?” I smacked my lips.
“Not really. We’re very much alike. We need to talk, Dean, and you know it,” she purred. She had a way with words. The perfect charmer. A constant flirt. Shame it was wasted on me, but that was another reminder to how similar we were. It deflated me, because she was the very person I hated more than anything else.
“Not interested, Nina, and you can shove the rest of your ‘every son needs a father’ speech up your ass, where it belongs.”
“I have your happiness in the palm of my hand.” She ignored me. I knew exactly what she meant.
“Still not interested.”
“Give me six hundred K and it’s yours. You can find him. Meet him. Talk to him. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn’t. I was still on the fence. The fact that she thought it was okay to blackmail me, even after all these years, was mind-blowing in itself.
“I gave you twenty thousand dollars less than a week ago, so you would stay the fuck away from me. I gave you money to lay low and stop calling. I paid your way out of my life, and you still can’t seem to do the only basic shit you’re required to do. Maybe this should be my last payment ever, seeing as your word isn’t worth shit anyway.”
That was the fakest bullshit I had ever uttered. This cash cow wasn’t going to stop wiring her small sums of money. She barely had enough for bills and food—she never worked—and last time I attempted to stop the gravy train, she called me a hundred times a day, sent enough emails to block my account, and texted me so many times that I had to change my number. Twice. I knew I was nurturing her bad habit, but it wasn’t worth the hassle. She was a lost cause. All she wanted was to have me, to make me work for her, take care of her, and love her.
She had to settle for me merely keeping her above the poverty line. But as I said. The Luna shit opened my eyes. I didn’t want to meet him. I wanted to forget he ever existed and move on.
“Come on, baby,” she whined. “I really need the money.” She dragged out the word ‘really’ in a way that I found particularly annoying.
“Go work. It’s a foreign concept, but it’s doable. You’re a capable woman,” I said. Sort of.
“I don’t need to work. I have something that you want. Him.”
I did want him, and it killed me. I didn’t even want to get to know him necessarily. Just to see what he looked like. Maybe from afar. I tried hiring a few private investigators when I graduated from Harvard, but they came back empty-handed. She knew exactly what she was doing. Besides, it was really far-fetched. I think she genuinely knew where he was, but he was nowhere near her.
Small miracles to be thankful for and all. I bet he was better off without her.
“I met a girl.” I changed the subject. As if she cared. As if it made any difference at all.
“Oh?” she responded, sounding both surprised and unhappy. “I thought you always meet girls. Your reputation precedes you.”
“Our reputations are similar, Nina. You outshine me in the fucking-people department. At least there’s one thing you excel at.”
“Sensitive much, Dean? I was only being conversational.”
She was only being a fucking headache. Of course, Nina wasn’t deterred by my lack of interest in humoring her.
“Does she know that you don’t find women reusable?” She chewed on something on the other line. Someone else’s dick probably.
“She’s a keeper.” My jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because she is the opposite of you.”
And she was. Rosie was brave, sassy, loyal, and witty. With the potential to be an amazing mother. She was a hardworking girl who didn’t like taking favors from other people. And, unlike me, Rosie didn’t use any of the shortcuts given to her. Her illness meant she could have had it the easy way. But Baby LeBlanc never walked the line. She danced all over it, her flip-flops smacking on the floor throughout.
I brought a bottle of rum to my lips and took a swig, then another. I did so well for three days, not touching a drop of alcohol—even in Vegas—and it was all flushed down the toilet the minute I answered my goddamn phone.
“You know you still love me, despite everything,” Nina droned, laughing her coy laugh. And I had to admit that, horrifyingly, she wasn’t completely wrong.
I stared at the blooming trees from my viewpoint on Vicious’s balcony.
“Oh, and Dean?”
“Yes?”
“This is one truth you don’t want to miss out on. It will change everything.”
I had no doubt.
“Stop calling. I stopped answering. Bye, Nina.”
“Yo, shithead. Where art thou?” Trent’s voice echoed from the sparse landing. I peeled myself off of Vicious’s antique couch, holding onto my head like it was about to burst. Rosie’s parents lived on the second floor, but I don’t think they were home. Her mom joined the Todos Santos Pie Committee, and her dad worked part-time as a landscaper. Vicious once told me that there was no convincing the LeBlanc folks to slow down and stop working altogether, even after retirement. I wasn’t surprised. Their daughters weren’t any different.
“Right here,” I groaned, not moving an inch.
Trent and Luna entered the large living room. She wobbled on her feet like a duck, her honey-brown curls and smooth, tan skin making her green eyes pop out. Luna threw herself between my legs for a hug. I picked her up and brought her to my chest, and she wrapped her chubby arms around my neck.
Trent placed his temple against the wall, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“How is she doing?” I asked, squeezing Luna to my body, sniffing her hair.
He shrugged, looking out the window.
“She thinks she’s on vacation with Grandma and Grandpa. She keeps putting my phone to her ear and expects to hear her mommy.”
“I read somewhere that our earliest memory can be from the age of two. Maybe she won’t even remember that bitch had ever left.” I offered my support by giving him bullshit data I picked from a dated magazine while I waited for my dentist appointment. I think most people tried to convince him tha
t Val was going to come back eventually, but I wasn’t one of them. What was the point in lying? I knew her kind. They popped a kid, abandoned them, and would only check on their offspring if they saw an opportunity waiting to be cashed.
“And I read somewhere that your earliest memory could be from the womb. Maybe she’ll remember everything,” he offered me a dry look.
Touché.
I put Luna down on the floor. She swayed until she gained balance, then clutched my hand and smiled.
“Look, no offense, man, but you don’t know what it’s like, okay? You’ve never had to deal with this kind of bullshit before.”
I wasn’t going to correct him. It wasn’t about me. I wanted to be there for him, even if he was going to be a pissy little shit for a while.
“Put your big girl panties on, Trent. You have enough money to hire the best nannies in the world and Luna is a cool kid. You have your parents, your friends, me. You’re not alone in this.”
“I know, I know.” Trent scrubbed his face, walking over to the liquor cabinet and taking out a bottle of Glenmorangie. “Luna, show Uncle Dean how you dance,” he asked tiredly as he poured himself a drink, his smile flaccid. Girl started shaking it like Beyoncé in Madison Square Garden, and we both clapped for her for a few minutes, before Luna got distracted by a door and decided to close and open it five hundred times in a row.
“She’s pretty advanced for her age,” I remarked.
“Very. She’s blabbing all the time, too. Maybe it’s my bias-ass, but I think she’s special. So special.” He shook his head, frowning. “Too special to be discarded like this by her mom.”
“What are you gonna do, bro?”
He stared at me through the rim of his glass while taking a sip, his silence tipping me off that he already had an idea. Putting his glass down, he clucked his tongue. “My parents have a new house here in Todos Santos. Chicago is big and cruel, and I work an insane amount of hours.” He stared at me, long and hard, and I instantly knew what he was asking for. I tapped my lips with my laced fingers.
“Let’s talk shop.”
“This is my so-called life.” Trent gestured with his ripped arms, stealing another glance at Luna, who was still opening and closing the same double door with a devotion better saved for finding the cure to cancer. “It’s a Mess with a capital M, and my daughter is in the middle of the shitshow, dragged through the mud and filth, the consequences of her parents’ bad decisions ruining her life. This stops here. She needs stability.”
“What are you proposing, exactly?” I cracked my neck, looking him dead in the eye. Fiscal Heights Holdings’ headquarters was in New York, and I ran it. Smoothly, if I may say so myself. I was the dedicated bachelor, and I put down the hours. Vicious was working in L.A. and commuting from Todos Santos every day. He wouldn’t leave California for the world. This was where he was born, and this was where he would die. Jaime was in London, handling our European accounts, and Trent was in Chicago, our newest and smallest branch. But it was expanding, fast. There was money to be made, and money talked. It fucking screamed, especially to people like us.
“Vicious should take Chicago.” Trent stared at me with a death glare.
I smiled. “Vicious should do a lot of things. That gap between what he should do and what he actually does? That’s where he thrives.” I wasn’t joking.
“You need to back me up when I bring this up at our next meeting.” He held my gaze firmly, his jaw ticking. I tugged at my lower lip.
“You need more than my vote to make it happen.”
“Jaime’s in, too.”
“Jaime is going against Vicious?” My eyebrows jumped up. Jaime always took his side, even when it was time to call Vic on his bullshit.
Looking at Trent, I saw someone I was willing to fight for. Hard. The guy to always do the right thing. If someone deserved to catch a break out of the four of us, it was him. I nodded, placing a hand on top of Luna’s little head.
Protect the strays. Atone your past. Break the fucking cycle.
“When?” I asked.
“November sounds good. Thanksgiving and all. We’re all going to be here anyway.”
I nodded. “Let’s get you back in Cali.”
We bumped shoulders and clapped backs. “Fuck yeah.”
What makes you feel alive?
Dean. Dean Cole makes me feel alive.
THE REST OF OUR VEGAS escapade dragged, despite my best efforts. I took the girls to the Mob Museum, a barbeque restaurant (my first choice was sushi, but as much as I was mad at my sister, taunting her was not high on my to-do list), and to a spa. Millie and I exchanged a total of twenty words the whole trip and shared nervous silence whenever we were alone. I was curt, polite, and distant. She was miserable, worried, and troubled.
Then there was the guilt. It ate at my insides like a growing tumor. I wasn’t even sure which part was worse. The part where I slept with her ex-boyfriend—there was no denying at this point that Dean and I were more than sleeping together, and that was an issue, too—or the part where I didn’t partake in the cooing-fest Gladys, Sydney, and Elle threw when it came to my sister.
On Thursday, we boarded a plane back home, and even though I dreaded meeting my parents, relief washed over me. The minute we got back to the mansion, I entered my room, collapsing onto the four-poster bed. Exhausted didn’t begin to cover what I was feeling. My lungs screamed in agony from all the dancing, walking around, and…well, let’s just say that having sex on cold tiles wasn’t the best idea I’d ever had. I practically felt the mucus covering my airways. And while I needed to book an appointment to see Dr. Hasting as soon as possible, I couldn’t leave here before the wedding.
As I rolled to the side of the bed to text Elle and ask how her flight to New York went (she had to skip the wedding for a family event), my older sister threw my door open and dashed in like a storm.
“We need to talk.”
I turned around, sprawled on a throne of puffy, colorful pillows, and the hurricane in her eyes calmed once she saw my wet cheeks and red eyes. Her face twisted in worry. That was Millie for you. Even when I acted like a brat at her bachelorette party, she still melted under my cold flesh.
I patted the empty side of the bed in silent invitation. To the place where we sat, where we laughed, where we cried, and stared at glow-in-the-dark stars and made crazy plans. I waved the white flag. In return, she stepped from her position—not outside the room but not inside, exactly, either, then closed the door behind her.
Cough-laughing, I bowed my head down.
“Then let’s talk, sister.”
“I never meant for you to find out this way. Ever,” Millie said, her arms behind her head, staring at the ceiling.
My face was buried between her chin and armpit, and from that angle, I could see the blue vein that popped inside her cleavage, running through her left breast, as her body prepared for breastfeeding.
“But I couldn’t exactly mention it to you in passing, either, and we both know why. Daddy is on your case, Mama is crazy-scared now that she knows that you’re alone in New York, and the last thing I wanted was to put more pressure on you. Bad call, I know, but only because people found out way sooner than they should have thanks to my morning sicknesses and tendency to go green every time I smell coffee.” She took a deep breath and rubbed her cheek against mine.
“Gladys and Sydney found out a week ago. I was going to tell you before the bachelorette party, but then you outdid yourself with the Vegas trip and we never got the one-on-one time.”
“I work with babies,” I pouted, hugging a pillow to my chest and pulling at a loose thread. “You could have told me this in passing. I still would have been nothing but ecstatic for you. Why would you assume differently?”
She gulped, looking down to the space between us.
“Because, Rosie, love and passion are the two forces that can drive a person into madness, despite their best intentions.” She turned around to face me, tucking a h
and under her ear. “And you are passionate about motherhood. I didn’t want to throw it in your face along with this wedding, and the lavish ceremony, and whatnot. This is weird for me, too, okay? I’m not used to having it easy in life.”
I pulled her into a hug, sniffing her neck, the scent of the cherry blossom perfume she always used. She smelled like home.
“I’ve never been so happy about someone else’s fortune,” I said, each word light and easy, because it was the truth. “And get used to all this goodness, because you’ve definitely earned it fair and square. Now, tell me everything. How far along are you?”
“Nine weeks.” She bit the corner of her lip, sliding a hand over her flat stomach. “The smell of coffee makes me throw up, and the thought of bacon sends uncomfortable shivers down my spine. Oh, Rosie, and my boobs. They hurt so bad. All tender and huge. Which only makes Vicious even more fascinated with them.” She rolled her eyes and snorted out a laugh. “They say the first trimester is the hardest, and it’s a breeze from there on.”
I spared her the stories of the young mothers I worked with, and how the real work started when the baby was out, and hugged her, entwining my legs with hers.
“How do you tolerate me, dude? Seriously. I’m, like, the worst person in the world. I acted like a spoiled brat all week just because for a few, miserable seconds, I felt what it was like to be you. Not the center of everyone’s world.”
“Jesus. Rosie, it’s no big deal. You were a little quiet in Vegas, but…”
“No, Millie, it’s not just this,” I muttered.
Dare I say it? Might as well. She is giving me her truth. It is only fair that I give her mine.
“And…?” Millie disconnected from our hug, eyeing my curiously. I scooted up, sitting with my back against the headboard. I stared at my hands so hard my vision became blurry. I did the crime. It was time to pay the time.
“And I slept with Dean.”
I didn’t look up. The prospect of hurting my sister was suddenly very real and very raw. For twenty-something years, my life was devoid of responsibilities. Other than to stay alive, of course. I was let off the hook time and time again, as long as I took my medicine, went to my physiotherapy sessions and did my airway clearance every morning and afternoon. Now, I had to ask for forgiveness. To show remorse. To deal with the consequences.