by Lili Valente
“Doesn’t mean she can’t mess with her mama.” Nash laughs softly. “They start young these days, don’t they, Skeeter?”
“Skeeter?” Melody asks.
“She kind of looks like a Skeeter, don’t you think?” Nash asks, summoning another happy burble from Felicity. He reaches for his water glass, smile slipping as he meets Aria’s eyes across the table. “I could give you some tips on how to get her trained to sleep better, if you want,” he says in a careful voice.
Aria falters, looking torn, before she finally shakes her head. “Thank you, but that’s all right. It’s just a stage. I’m sure she’ll grow out of it sooner or later.”
“She will.” Nash nods. “But you’d feel more rested, and be a better mama to her, if it was sooner.”
“I’m doing fine, thanks,” Aria says, anger creeping into her tone.
Nash shrugs and smiles his good-old-boy grin. “Just trying to help, Princess.”
Aria clenches her jaw and turns her attention back to her plate, not saying a word. Mason jumps in to cover the awkward moment by asking Melody what she’s been up to during her week off, and soon the table is alive with comfortable chatter again.
Chatter from everyone except Aria.
She doesn’t speak again until over an hour later, when the boys have finished loading the dishwasher, while we cleaned up outside, and Nash and Mason are drifting toward the door.
Aria passes through the living room with a sleepy-looking Felicity snuggled in her arms and pauses at the bottom of the stairs. “Good night, Mason. Good seeing you again, Nash.”
Nash hesitates only a fraction of a second, but it’s enough for me to see surprise and a more mysterious emotion I can’t quite place flicker behind his eyes. “Good to see you, too,” he says. “And to meet Felicity. She’s a sweetheart.”
“Thanks, and thank you for—” Aria breaks off mid-sentence.
Nash is already out the door and halfway down the walk to his car.
Aria glances down at the floor, looking so forlorn I want to run across the room and hug her. “Well, anyway…” She sighs. “Good night, everyone. I’ll see whoever’s here in the morning. Sleep well.”
She turns and walks stiffly up the stairs, and I know right then that I won’t be dragging Mason off to my apartment tonight. It doesn’t matter that Melody promised to stay in her old room so Aria won’t be alone, there are times when a middle sister knows her unique, bridging-the-gap skills are needed, and this is definitely one of those times.
“I know,” Mason whispers, when I stop by the door instead of grabbing my purse and racing him to his car. “Go take care of her. See what’s up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I should be sorry. I should have mentioned your name. Maybe then Nash would have realized you and Aria were related and all the awkwardness could have been avoided.”
I wince. “Our plan failed pretty miserably, didn’t it?”
“Crashed and burned and caught the surrounding forest on fire,” he says with a wry smile.
“Such a shame,” I say with a sigh. “Nash seemed so nice, and I think Felicity is in love.”
“Aria handled that well,” Mason says. “I’m sure it was hard. Seeing a man she doesn’t care for connecting with her daughter.”
I nod. “I’m sure. I should go check on her.”
“Go. Tell her I appreciate her giving me a chance tonight, and that we’ll babysit for her soon so she can get some sleep. I bet we can rig up someplace for the baby to sleep at your apartment, right?”
“Of course we can. I was thinking the same thing.” My chest suddenly feels tight. “You’re a good man, you know that?”
Mason shrugs self-consciously. “I just know what it’s like to be sleep deprived. It’s hard enough when you’re getting paid to work ridiculous hours.”
“You’re still a good man.” I stand on tiptoe, brushing my lips across his cheek, knowing I won’t be able to stop if I go for his lips, but needing to kiss him one last time. “See you tomorrow.”
“I’ll pick you up at noon,” Mason says, brushing my hair over my shoulder, his fingers lingering deliciously at the back of my neck. “I can’t wait to spend another day with you.”
“Me, too.” My breath rushes out. “But now you have to leave, before I forget how much I want to be a good sister.”
He grins. “All right. Good night.”
“Good night.” I lean against the doorframe, unable to resist taking a moment to enjoy watching him walk away. It doesn’t make me sad now. Because I know he’ll be walking right back to me as soon as he can.
Chapter 18
Lark
Mom and Dad’s room is the largest bedroom in the house. When Aria came home, they moved into the guest room, shifting their old furniture around to fit Felicity’s crib and changing table in the corner behind a wicker screen. The screen gives Aria the illusion of privacy and keeps Felicity from being able to see her mama asleep in bed, but Felicity still ends up sleeping with Aria most nights, after she wakes up to have her milk and refuses to go back to her crib without putting up such a fuss Aria worries it will wake the rest of the house.
So when I knock softly on the half-open door before pushing it in, I’m not surprised to find Aria lying on top of her bed fully clothed with an arm thrown over her face and Felicity asleep in a similar pose next to her on the king-size bed.
“Aria,” I whisper. “Are you awake?”
Aria doesn’t move a muscle, but whispers, “Yes.”
“Can I talk to you?” I ask, tip-toeing into the room.
Aria breathes slowly in and back out. “About what?”
“You know what. Put Felicity in her bed and come downstairs. Let me make you a cup of cocoa.”
“How about a shot of whiskey, instead?” Aria asks, still not moving or uncovering her eyes.
I ponder that for a moment. “I don’t think Mom and Dad have any whiskey, but there’s still beer in the fridge.”
Aria sighs. “It’s all right. I don’t really want whiskey. Or cocoa. I’m just going to get ready for bed. It’s been a long night.”
“So you don’t want to kill me anymore?”
“No. I don’t want to kill you.” Aria finally moves her arm from across her face and opens her eyes, but she doesn’t look my way. Her gaze remains fixed on the ceiling. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Like usual. Like everything else.”
“No, it isn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have tried to surprise you,” I say, pushing on when Aria doesn’t respond. “How do you know Nash anyway?”
“Oh, you know. From…around.”
“Around where? He said he went to River Valley High School, not Bliss River.”
Aria rubs the tops of her eyes. “It doesn’t matter, Lark, it was a long time ago. Before you were old enough to know about certain things that happened.”
“Things like what?” I ask, my brow furrowing. This sounds more serious than a teenage romance gone awry.
“Just…things,” Aria whispers. “Things I did. People I hurt without meaning to. All those kind of things.” Aria sighs again, and a tear slips quietly down her cheek.
It’s the first time I’ve seen Aria cry since she and Felicity moved back to Bliss River.
The very first, and it shouldn’t be, I suddenly realize.
When your marriage falls apart and you’re suddenly a single mother, living with your parents, trying to support yourself and your baby on a pastry chef’s salary, you should be able to cry about it. At least once or twice. You should feel safe to break down in front of the people who understand how miserable you are to have seen your dreams die and the forever love someone promised you betrayed.
I don’t know what drove Aria and Liam apart, but I’m willing to bet serious money it was Liam’s doing. Aria was so in love with him, in a way she’s never been with anyone else. From the day they met three years ago, Aria hasn’t glanced at another guy. Her serial dating days were beh
ind her the second she and Liam slam-danced into each other at a Violent Femmes tribute band show in Atlanta.
He was her English, rock-n-roll dream come true.
She was so gone on him that my parents, Melody, and I all did our best to put aside our distaste for the douchebag. Yes, the fact that he seemed to believe being a record producer and former member of a British boy band made him better than the hicks in Bliss River, Georgia, was annoying. But we believed he loved Aria, and that was enough to excuse a multitude of sins.
But honestly no one is sad that Liam won’t be joining us for Christmas dinner this year.
No one, except Aria.
“I guess I deserve this,” Aria says, more tears spilling from her eyes. “And Nash deserved a chance to kick me while I was down.”
“No, Ra.” I sit down next to my sister, careful not to disturb the baby as I brush her hair from her face. “Whatever happened between you and Nash, you were only a kid. And as far as Liam is concerned, I don’t know what he did to make you leave, but I have no doubt that you did not deserve it.”
Aria’s face crumples. “He was with someone else,” she whispers, swiping at her damp cheeks as she sits up. “While I was pregnant with Felicity.”
“That bastard.” I curse softly. “You were always too good for him.” I grit my teeth and shake my head, holding back the much more colorful things I’d like to call Liam, wishing Nashville was closer so I could go punch the jerk in his pompous face.
Or somewhere else…
Somewhere more befitting his crime.
“He promised he was going to end it, and I think he did,” Aria says. “But right after Felicity was born, he started up again. With someone else.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I say, rubbing Aria’s back. “Slowly. With whatever weapon will hurt the most. A fork. Or a toothpick. Ten thousand paper cuts.”
“He’s not worth it.” Aria lets out a bitter laugh-sniff. “After I found out about the second woman, I did a little snooping… He’d been cheating the entire time we were together. With Becky who worked publicity at the record label, and then with some barely legal girl in that British girl band he was helping put together when we first met.” Her head bows and her shoulders shudder. “He was making a fool of me the whole time.”
“I’m so sorry, Ra.” I put an arm around my sister and hug her close. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Like I said, maybe I deserved it,” she says, her breath hitching. “I mean I never cheated on a boyfriend, but I wasn’t always gentle when I ended it with someone. Back in the day.”
“Teenagers are stupid,” I assure her. “They can’t help it. We’re all thoughtlessly cruel when we’re young.”
“You weren’t,” she whispers.
“Sure I was. Just not about boys. Mostly because I was too shy to date anyone seriously until I was almost twenty,” I say, continuing to pet her back, grateful for the chance to offer what little comfort I can. “How old were you when you dated Nash?”
“We never really dated.,” Aria whispers. “We met at that arts camp I went to when I was fifteen.”
“Fifteen,” I echo, vindicated. “See? You were practically a baby. You couldn’t be expected to know what you were doing when it came to feelings and boys and relationships. You didn’t even have real boobs back then. I remember. It was the only thing that kept me from being insanely jealous of how beautiful and popular and talented you were. At least I had the boobs.”
“You still do.” Aria snorts. “Glory days, huh?”
“No way. Your glory days are still ahead of you,” I say, smiling when Aria turns wistful eyes my way. “You are an amazing person and mother, you have a precious little girl, and you make the most gorgeous works of cake art I’ve ever seen. The future is so bright, Ra. Just give me a few years and I know we’ll be bringing in enough for you and Felicity to get your own place. I swear I’m going to make Ever After Catering so big we’ll all be rolling in dough. Or frosting.”
“Or cheese balls,” Aria says, her lips lifting on one side. “I could go for a cheese ball right now.”
“How about a cheese plate? I’ve got feta and brie and some only slightly funky bleu cheese in the fridge. Why don’t I whip up a cheese plate and find some more wine, and we’ll make Melody play cards with us?”
Aria’s smile crumples in the middle. “That sounds really nice,” she says, and promptly begins to cry again, even harder than before. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying now.”
“Because you need to cry. And you deserve to cry, so don’t you dare apologize.” I hurry to the bathroom to fetch some tissues and return to the bed to press them into Aria’s hand as she stands. “Now, go on. Go downstairs. I’ll put Felicity in her crib and be right down.”
Aria hesitates a beat before lunging at me, pulling me in for a tight hug. “Thank you. I love you, you know that?”
“You, too.” I hug my sister hard, feeling closer to her than I have in years.
Since…Liam came into the picture, as a matter of fact.
He was the kind of guy who erected barriers between Aria and anything he feared would distract her focus from their relationship—including her work, friends, and family. He was selfish with her love, the total opposite of Mason.
Mason was always an inclusive kind of boyfriend, the type my friends loved hanging out with and my parents flat out loved. When I’d come home, giddy with excitement over our engagement, my mom had burst into happy tears and my dad had been thrilled to finally, in his words, “have a son.”
Aria deserves someone like that, a man who will make her life fuller and richer, not harder and lonelier. I hope someday I can help her find someone like that. Someone like Mason.
And yes, Mason screwed up, too, but not like Liam. He wasn’t a serial liar or a cheat. He was a damaged soul who was afraid he didn’t have what it took to be a good husband. But instead of letting that fear drag him down, he’d fought back, getting the help he needed to learn to have faith in himself.
And then he’d come home to fight for me. For us.
I’m so proud of him, and so grateful we’re together again, that all the pain from the past feels like it happened in another lifetime.
That’s the thing about being in love: it feels so good, you want everyone to have the same blissful experience, to soar on the wings of happiness and anticipation into the fluffy, pink clouds of happily ever after.
Even after only a few days, you tend to forget the heartbreak, to block out the misery of being left alone and betrayed.
You forget, until something—or someone—forces you to remember.
Chapter 19
Aria
I wake up early.
Very early, considering I stayed up until midnight playing cards with Melody and Lark and got up to feed Felicity at two thirty, and then again at five. But for some reason, my eyes fly open at six fifteen and stay that way, fixed on the ceiling while an unexpected sense of dread—like a raincloud sweeping in to hover over the bed, menacing me with its ominous, black belly—swells inside me.
It’s…strange.
There’s no reason to feel so off-center, not when I went to bed happier than I’ve been in months.
The stubborn, prideful part of me hasn’t wanted to tell anyone what Liam did, not even my sisters. But the lonely, broken, certain-I-am-unlovable part appreciated hearing Lark call Liam a bastard so much it was probably sinful. I needed to hear that I’m too good for the man who broke my heart into a thousand, razor-sharp pieces. I needed Lark’s strong hug and assurance that the best days of my life are still ahead of me. Just a few hours of not being alone with my secret—one of them, anyway— was enough to send me to bed with a smile on my face and a tiny, flickering flame of hope in my heart.
I fell asleep more easily than I have in months and dreamed a scandalous dream starring Nash Geary and his impossibly perfect body. The boy was perfect enough back when we were kids, but the man he is now…
; Well, now, Nash is the stuff of fantasies.
And naughty dreams involving me, him, a bucket of ice in a hot tub, and not a stitch of clothing.
No matter how awkward and humiliating eating dinner with him had been, it was almost worth it for a dream like that. I haven’t had a dream that wasn’t a nightmare since I caught Liam cheating the first time.
Between the talk with Lark, the perfect late night with my sisters—eating massive amounts of cheese and snorting wine through my nose over stories from when we were little—and the delicious dream, I should be waking up invigorated and ready for a fresh start.
Instead, I have…dread.
It’s almost as if something inside of me knows.
Knows I’m going to run into Mason’s creepy uncle at the store while picking up the diapers I forgot to grab yesterday. Knows Parker will tell me that he received the message I left the other day asking if he still has any of Mason’s things, and that Parker will give me a box of his nephew’s old papers right there in the parking lot of the A&P.
Knows I will take those papers home and sneak them up to the closet in my room and go through the box during Felicity’s nap, even though a voice in my head screams for me to leave it alone, to let Lark and Mason be happy and quit looking for the fly in the ointment.
Knows I will find something that proves that Mason is a liar—a liar then, and a liar now, and making a fool out of Lark all over again.
And once I know the truth, I can’t un-know it. I can’t turn back time and restore my own innocence, and I can’t sit back and let Lark be tricked by the man who already shattered my too-trusting sister once before.
I don’t want to destroy Lark’s dream, but I don’t want my sister to be destroyed, either. I don’t want Lark to know what it’s like to give everything she has to a man, only to be left alone and devastated when he decides everything isn’t good enough. I don’t want my sister to hurt the way I hurt, the way I’m not sure I will ever completely stop hurting, no matter how much time passes or how many good things come into my life.