The point was, as I stared at Sienna in her pajamas and her dark hair mussed from sleep, all I could think about was what a shitty, ungrateful friend I was.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
“I assumed that’s why you came here in the middle of the night,” Sienna said. She ushered me to the couch and I sat down at the very edge, not letting myself be comfortable as if that was a great punishment. I clasped my hands, wringing my fingers together.
“It’s 11:30 pm, hardly the middle of the night,” Logan said. She looked at me, her eyes full of questions. Was I sure I wanted to do this now? I swallowed and didn’t say anything and hopefully, she heard my answer in the silence. Logan went into the kitchen and took the kettle off the stove, filling it with water. For a moment, the only sound in the apartment was the sound of rushing water. Then Sienna sat down next to me, putting her hand over my joined fingers.
All the air seemed to get sucked out of the room with that small gesture. My heart was racing in my chest, so hard that I could hear the blood whooshing in my ears. This was it. I was about to lose my friends and I had no one to blame but myself.
“I know what you’re about to say,” Sienna said. My head snapped up and I stared at her wide-eyed. How could she possibly know? Had Daniel told her? Why would he have told her without talking to me about it first? A guilty pinprick in the vicinity of my heart reminded me that I was here without talking to him first. I wasn’t going to be the only one affected by my honesty.
I had been driving myself crazy all day, thinking about this very moment. Last night, Daniel and I talked on the phone for hours. We were too busy to see each other, so we could only talk on the phone. We hadn’t talked about anything, in particular, his family, our childhoods, the kinds of movies we liked—incidentally, we were both Hitchcock fans—the places we had been and the places we wanted to go.
I could picture us doing all those things together and instead of elation, I felt dread. I could picture myself falling in love with Daniel. Worse still, I think I already was falling in love with him. I was so scared I had no idea what to do with myself. But I knew the first thing I needed to do was come clean to Sienna.
“You do?” I asked, unsure. I looked over my shoulder at Logan, who was watching us with interest.
“Yeah, you’re about to tell me about the time you borrowed my car and dinged it a little,” Sienna said. “Honey, it’s no big deal. I’ve dinged that car more times than I can count. I’m starting to think I may not be a good driver.”
I stared at her, trying to gauge if she was serious. Sienna blinked back at me and I recognized the blank and gentle expression on her face. The look doctors wore when they were about to deliver bad news.
“Sienna,” I said.
“What? I’m not allowed to joke?” Sienna looked between Logan and me, and seeing our serious expression, she rolled her eyes. I didn’t want her to be right, at the same time I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell her.
Sienna squeezed my hands and took a deep breath.
“You want to tell me that you went on three dates with my brother,” she said.
“They were not dates,” I replied automatically. “That’s what he called them but they weren’t.”
“Of course, that’s what he called them. He’s a Reid. He knows a good thing when he sees it and he’d be stupid to let you get away. You’d be even more stupid to stick around, though.”
I wasn’t sure what I felt at her declaration. There was relief, confusion, fear, and a strange mix of other emotions. I was relieved because I didn’t have to tell her the truth, confused because somehow, she already knew it, afraid because of what would happen now. She was already telling me off, telling me to stay away from her brother.
“Honey, I don’t think Eve can control her emotions as well as you can,” Logan said gently.
“It’s not hard, I can teach her,” Sienna said. She patted my hand in a manner meant to express her companionship. Like we were in this together, when I didn’t even know what this was. I pushed my hair behind my ear and turned my body so I was facing Sienna fully. She stared at me with patient and sleepy eyes. I didn’t see any judgment or hatred, and I wondered just how good she was at hiding and controlling her emotions.
“Who told you?” I asked. That seemed to be the most important question.
“Daniel. Inadvertently. See, he told Emily but that girl can’t keep a secret. Seriously, that’s the title of her autobiography: I Can’t Keep a Secret. The first chance she got to talk to me, she spilled the beans.”
I digested that information. I guess I didn’t have any reason to be upset with Daniel since I hadn’t expressly forbidden him from mentioning it to anyone. It’s just that I assumed the person he told would be Ian since he had already witnessed our first kiss and whatnot.
“How long have you known?”
“About a week or so,” Sienna said with a careless shrug.
“A week?!”
“Or so.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Because I thought you would hate me!”
“Why would I hate you?’
“Because I’m dating your brother!”
The kettle whistled loudly then as if wanting to add more emphasis to my words. Sienna and I turned to look at Logan as she hurriedly removed the kettle off the stove, grimacing as she did it.
“Who are you making that tea for?” Sienna asked.
“For us. It’s too late for coffee and we can’t eat that cake with milk. I refuse to do it.”
Sienna rolled her eyes. “Is this a Southern Hospitality thing?”
“Okay, timeout,” I said, making the timeout gesture with my hands. “I want to date your brother. Why don’t you hate me?”
Sienna exhaled loudly, groaned, and fell back on the couch. She threw an arm over her eyes.
“Look, my family already has boundary issues and I make it a point not to care about who my siblings are having sex with. Do I wish my brother had found someone other than one of my closest friends? Of course. Am I going to be upset about it with you and break up the dream team? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”
I felt tears pricking the back of my eyes and stinging my nose. I sniffled and Sienna blindly searched for the Kleenex box on the side table and handed it to me. I laughed, taking it from her hand and pulling out a tissue to wipe my nose. I would have hugged Sienna if she would have allowed it.
Sienna sat up suddenly, grasping my hands tightly and looking at me like she was about to impart some deep knowledge. I held my breath, the look in her eyes telling me that whatever she was about to say, she couldn’t take back.
“You need to pay attention to what I’m about to say,” she said as if I could do anything else. “Don’t fall in love with him.”
I inhaled sharply, my brain making that uhhhh noise. I distantly registered that all noise had stopped in the kitchen. Slowly, I turned to look at Logan, hoping she could make more sense of what Sienna said than I could. Was she joking again? I couldn’t even laugh this off. It wasn’t like we were teenagers. At our age, if you dated a man you liked, you did it intending to eventually have a future with him. At least, that’s what I did. That’s what I wanted in the end. Sienna was okay with me dating Daniel but didn’t want me falling in love with him. How was that going to work?
“Sienna, honey,” Logan said in her direct voice. “Why do you think Eve and Daniel are dating?”
“Because they’re two attractive people who are attracted to each other?”
“Sienna, you know it’s more than that,” Logan said defensively. They were talking about me, yet I felt entirely unnecessary for it. My brain was working overtime trying to catch up to everything. I leaned forward and clutched my head in my hands.
“It can’t be more than that,” Sienna said reasonably. She rubbed circles on my back gently, trying to calm me down while her words caused my anxiety to rise.
; “Is it me?” I asked. “Your family won’t accept someone who’s not a doctor?”
Again, it was quiet for a long time. Sienna’s hand stopped rubbing my back. Even though I couldn’t see them, I could practically hear Sienna and Logan having a silent argument. Maddie and I did the same all the time.
“What are you talking about?” Sienna burst out. Her sharp voice startled me enough that I sat up.
“Exactly what your words sound like to me. I can date your brother but can’t fall in love with him because that’s the kind of thing that leads to marriage?” From the stricken look on Sienna’s face, I knew that’s not what she had meant. Hell, the fact that I was drawing that conclusion said a lot about the state of how I saw my self-worth rather than Sienna’s opinion of me. She didn’t treat me any different than any of the other girls.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. I took a deep breath and pushed my hair back. “I should go home and we will talk about this another day after we’ve had a chance to clear our heads.”
I stood up and started for the door.
“Evelyn Ashley Darling, you are not leaving this apartment until we are finished talking!” Sienna said loudly. “We’re going to go to the kitchen, drink our teas, eat our cakes, and talk like civilized people.”
She didn’t wait for me to go to the kitchen myself. She grabbed my arm and dragged me there, pulling out a chair and manhandling me into it. Logan sat a cup of tea in front of me and shrugged helplessly when I gave her a questioning look. Sienna, her face set in a stony expression, stalked over to the fridge, took the cake from it, and thumped the plate down in the middle of the table. I wrapped my hands around my teacup, listening to Sienna stalk around the kitchen, grab the plates, the rattling of the drawer as she took out the cutlery.
“Good god, Sienna. Are you trying to raise the dead with all that noise?” Logan demanded.
Sienna put the plates down on the table, hard enough that they should have broken.
“Logan Claire Baptiste, what would your mother say about you using the lord’s name in vain?”
Logan rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing my mother isn’t here, then, isn’t it?”
“Logan, cut the cake,” Sienna said, handing her the cake slicer. Then she turned to me and placed her hands on my arms.
“Evelyn Ashley Darling—”
“Do you have to use my full name?”
Sienna took a deep breath. “Evelyn Ashley Darling, where do you get the idea that you are not good enough for the Reid’s? If anything, it’s the Reid’s who are not good enough for you. That’s why I don’t want you falling in love with my brother. You are an amazing person and deserve so much better than Daniel—”
“What are you talking about?” I interrupted. “Daniel is nice. He opens my doors, pulls out my chairs and he doesn’t have a problem that I work all the time because he also works all the time. He’s a little obsessive when it comes to cleaning, and I could do without the whole adventurous bit because it makes me slightly anxious. He also doesn’t like sharing his fries and I’ve never eaten a plate of fries by myself, but it’s not a major issue.”
I stopped talking, my face flushing as I realized I had said more than I had intended to. Could Sienna tell that it was maybe too late for her warning? She didn’t say anything, just patted my arm gently while Logan smiled at me slyly, like she was in on my secret.
“Yes, well, Daniel’s always been a little weird about his fries. We think it comes from being the oldest. The cleaning thing new, though,” Sienna said. “Listen to me, honey, us Reid’s, we’re an expert at messing things up, especially our relationships. Our family should be in the Guinness Book for the most divorces in a single-family ever.
“I don’t want my brother to hurt you and my concern is that he will. Fucking-up is a family trait, like our blue eyes and dark hair. We’re genetically programmed to fuck things up just when we start to feel real happiness. I know I sound crazy and I wish I didn’t have to say any of this. Think about it, if you married my brother, I would finally have a sister I liked. Why would I be against that?”
Sienna beamed at me, and thinking the conversation was done, she picked up her fork and dug into her slice of cake. I picked up my fork numbly and cut off a piece. For the first time, a piece of baked good tasted like ash to me. I didn’t say anything, just ate my slice and the next one Logan put on my plate as if she knew how much I needed the sugar and carbs.
Sienna’s words created a maelstrom in my head. Don’t fall in love with him. We’re genetically programmed to fuck things up. I remembered what Daniel had said all those weeks ago. That between my issues and his, a relationship wasn’t even worth pursuing. At that time, I had dismissed his words because I had been too focused on my issues. But now I wondered just exactly what were his issues? And how bad could they possibly be if the sister who admired and looked up to him didn’t want me falling in love with him?
Chapter 20 – Daniel
I’ve enjoyed talking to you these past few weeks.
I wish things could go back to the way they were.
I stared down at the messages on my phone, a sour feeling twisting my stomach into knots. I wanted to slam my head down on the steering wheel or better yet, steer my car into oncoming traffic. How did this keep happening? Did I have another personality I didn’t know about? One that was insistent on fucking things up for me?
I didn’t want to see this message from my ex-girlfriend. For Cecily, wanting things to be the way they were between us was as good as a declaration of love. We had lived together; I think the word marriage may have been tossed around once or twice.
The only reason I started talking to Cecily was that I thought we could still be friends. I don’t know why I even wanted it. We were together for three years, that’s the longest relationship I’ve ever been in. It’s hard to just forget that kind of connection in six months, no matter how hard you tried.
I exited out of her messages. Of course, the name below hers in my message app was Eve’s. I clicked on her name, knowing what I would see. It’s the same thing I had seen in the last three days when I clicked on her name every few hours as if expecting that checking the messages obsessively will either make her last message change, or my longing for her would travel across the airwaves and make her finally get in touch.
That’s what it was now, longing. I was longing for Eve’s smile, the warmth in her eyes, the feel of her body under my hands, her mouth beneath mine. Another thing that was blatantly clear to me was that Eve was avoiding me. I knew she had trust issues, I just wished she would give me the chance and talk to me.
A sudden and rapid knocking on my passenger side window made me jump and drop my phone. I looked over and found my sister, Emily, waving at me frantically. I pushed the button to open the window.
“Why are you sitting in the car outside the house like a creeper?” She demanded.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded right back. I hadn’t even told my parents that I was visiting. I had the weekend off and I thought I would finally visit my parents. I started to regret the decision halfway here and almost turned around twice. I had spent the past fifteen minutes sitting outside looking at my messages just so I wouldn’t have to go inside.
“It’s Saturday, I always come over and spend some time with Mom and Dad. You know, so they don’t think all their children have abandoned them,” Em said. I rolled my eyes and unclicked my seat belt, getting out of the car.
“I haven’t abandoned our parents. I was living in another state.”
“You’ve been back for six months and this is the first time you’re coming home,” Emily said sweetly, coming to stand next to me.
“I hope you realize that in your old age, you’re turning into your mother,” I replied just as sweetly.
Em gasped, punching me hard in the arm.
“Ow! That hurt.” I glared at her and massaged where she had punched me. Comparisons to our mother were not welcome for any of u
s, except for maybe Kailin. She was the youngest, had always lived with our mother in Chicago, and would probably be thrilled to be compared to our mother.
“I’m telling Dad,” Em said, stalking down the steps that led from the street down to the walkway in front of the house. I stalked down after her, leaving my overnight bag in the car for now.
Emily was through the front door and calling for our father when I stepped in and closed the door behind me.
“Dad, we have a stranger in the house,” Em said. “And he insulted me.”
The house was open concept, exposed brick and stone, and wood paneling, and nothing has changed since the last time I had been here. It was only a year and a half ago, so it hadn’t been that long. Strange, why I expected everything to be changed in the house. Other than an upgrade to the kitchen and new furniture, everything remained the same as it had when I was a teenager.
Dad was on the couch watching a baseball game and looked over his shoulder at Emily’s declaration. His eyes slid right past her and landed on me.
“Look at that, there is a stranger in the house,” he said. He muted the television and got up to greet me.
“I grew up in this house,” I said. “I still know the code for the front gate.”
“He said I look like Mom,” Em said, whispering the last word.
“Daniel, apologize to your sister. She may look like your mother but that doesn’t mean you can insult her,” Dad said.
Emily looked at Dad with betrayal written clear across her face.
“I can’t believe you’re taking his side.”
Not My Type : Golden Girls 1 Page 16