“By someone like him, I’m assuming you mean someone you respect enough to make him the godfather of your daughter. Or maybe you mean someone you care about so much he’s been your best friend and partner for over a decade. Is that what you mean when you say someone like him? Because I can’t imagine you’d mean to actually insult the man who you’ve called your brother since the day you met him!”
“You know what I mean,” he grumbled like a moody teenager, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Then I guess it’s a damn good thing I’m an adult and can make my own decisions, huh?” I shot back.
“You’re still my little sister. It’s my job to protect you. Especially when you’re making stupid fucking decisions!”
“Dexter!” Wendy snapped with an outraged gasp.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Dex,” I said, the trembling in my hands belying the calm in my voice. “It’s not your place to protect me. It never was. You took that responsibility on and carried it on your shoulders all by yourself.”
“Because you’re my goddamned sister!” he continued to argue.
“Yeah, I’m your sister. All that means is that you’re supposed to love me unconditionally, without judgment, no matter whether or not you agree with the choices I make with my life. Your job is to protect your wife and daughter. All you’re supposed to do is be there for me to lean on when I’m hurting, but seeing as the first thing you did when you came in here was throw around cruel words, you’ve just proven that you’re incapable of doing that.”
I knew I landed my intended blow when my brother’s face fell and he visibly flinched. But I wasn’t finished. “You’ve spent years telling me how to live my life, what I should or shouldn’t do, what you disagree with, that you haven’t been there for me when I needed you.” That stupid friggin’ lump was back in my throat and the tears were once again brimming in my eyes.
“That’s not true,” he whispered, sounding just as wrecked as I was feeling.
“It is, Dex. Think about it. You argued with my choice to move to the City. You argued that opening Fire & Ice wasn’t a stable move. You didn’t even tell me you were proud of me until after I proved to you that I could actually open and run a successful store. You never approved of a single boyfriend I ever brought home for you to meet. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve succeeded at, you’ve been there to tell me how I could do it better.
“That’s not being a supportive brother, Dex. All that’s ever done is make me feel bad about myself. And I’m tired of trying to prove myself to you. I don’t care if you disagree with what I do with my life. I’m living it how I want because that’s what makes me happy. I’ll pick myself up and dust myself off. I won’t count on you to do it. I’ll learn from my mistakes and be a better person for it. But if you don’t open your eyes and see that you aren’t always fucking right, you’re going to be the one who doesn’t learn. You’ll be the one missing out. It’s going to be you who wakes up one day and realizes that he’s alienated everyone he loves because they didn’t do what he wanted them to do.
“And you know what? I’d rather spend the rest of my life screwing up and learning from that, than ending up sad and lonely just to prove a point.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I wasn’t going to give him a chance to try and make me see his point of view. I was mentally and physically exhausted. I had nothing left. Grabbing my purse from the hook, I slid it over my shoulder and turned to offer one last parting shot before I got the hell out of there.
“I love you with all my heart, Dex. Always will, but you need to pull your head out of your ass before you lose your sister and your brother.”
THE FRONT DOOR SLAMMED behind Pepper and all I could do was stand and stare at it, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.
“I cannot believe you!” Wendy seethed. I couldn’t remember ever seeing my easygoing wife look so angry in all the years we’d been together.
“Wendy—”
She stopped me with a raise of her hand. “No, I don’t want to hear it. I’ve gotta say, Dex, I don’t think I’ve ever been as disappointed in you as I was tonight. You should be ashamed of the things you said tonight. To people you’re supposed to love! What the hell were you thinking?”
“You know everything I said was true, Wendy,” I argued, even though I felt most of the fight leeching out of me every time I recalled the broken look on my sister’s face. Christ, her words gutted me. I’d never stopped to think that my wanting the very best for her could have been construed as something so negative. The bone-deep pain I felt at hurting her was squeezing my chest, making it difficult to breathe. “Fuck,” I cursed, raking my fingers through my hair as I began to pace. “Am I really that bad? Is that really me? Please tell me I’m not that fucking person.”
She watched me with pity in her eyes.
“Shit! I am! I’m the asshole who shoves his opinion down everyone’s throat!”
“Not everyone,” Wendy attempted to placate, coming up to cup my cheeks in her small, soft hands. “Just the people you really care about. It doesn’t come from a bad place, honey. You just go about it in all the wrong ways.”
Dropping my forehead to rest against hers, soaking up the comfort she offered, I released a heavy breath. “It’s just… Jesus, Wendy. This is Griffin we’re talking about. I’ve seen some of the shit he pulls. I don’t want that for my sister.” At her low, sweet laughter, my eyes opened and I focused on her face. “What?”
“Nothing,” she giggled. “It’s just funny…”
My forehead furrowed in confusion as I asked, “What’s funny.”
She smiled adoringly at me. It was the same smile I’d fallen in love with so many years ago, the smile that sucked me in the moment I saw it across a crowded living room at a frat party and never let go. “The fact that you honestly think you were any better than Griffin before you met me, when you were actually a thousand times worse. It’s hilarious!”
“I wasn’t—” I began to argue, but she interrupted.
“You were, Dex, to the point you’re lucky I even looked twice at you.” Her expression softened as she slid her fingers into my hair and gave it a light tug. “But I did, and I’m thankful for that every single day. I love you more than anything in the world, but Pepper’s right, baby. You need to get your head out of your ass. Griffin isn’t the bad guy you made him out to be, and if there’s a woman on Earth capable of settling him down, it’s your sister.”
My head fell back on a pained groan as Wendy giggled again and pushed to her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to my jaw. “Better get used to the idea now, Dex. From the look on Griffin’s face when he got back in that cab, he’s gearing up for a fight.”
“Brilliant,” I grunted. “Two stubborn-as-hell people going head to head. Just what I fucking need.”
“I’m putting my money on Griffin this time,” Wendy said. “I have a feeling this is going to be really entertaining.”
This was my sister and best friend we were talking about. I couldn’t think of two people in the world more volatile together than them. For that reason, I couldn’t share my wife’s enthusiasm.
All I could do was hope everyone survived the explosion when it finally happened.
“I LOVE YOU, DUMPLING, you know I do…” Tomas started and I knew what was coming next wasn’t something I was going to like, “…but it’s been two days and I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t just say it. You stink.”
“What’d I do this time?” I asked from my place on his couch, curled up in a ball on my side just like I’d been since I arrived two days ago. After leaving my brother’s house, I hadn’t gone home. I couldn’t run the risk of Griffin showing up. Once again I’d fallen on Tomas’s doorstep so he could help heal my broken heart with gossip and tequila. It hadn’t worked. I could only assume his issue with me was the fact that I’d left the running of the boutique to him while I had my little pity party.
“No, not metaphorically, sugar
plum. I mean literally. You stink. Like… a lot. Get your ass up and get in the shower. I’m afraid you’re going to leave a ring on my couch cushions.”
“I do not,” I objected weakly. But when I lifted my arm and took a sniff of my armpit, there was no denying that he was right. “Okay, I take that back.”
When I didn’t move from my little cocoon, Tomas stomped over and snatched the blanket from around me.
“Hey!”
“Good Lord, girly! Another one?” Tomas cried as he reached down and grabbed the box of oatmeal crème pies from where I’d been clutching them to my chest like a baby.
Now that got me moving. “Gimme that! Those are mine!”
“This is the third damn box I’ve confiscated from you. Where are you even getting them?!”
There was no way I’d admit that I had only left Tomas’s apartment long enough to con his doorman into running out and stocking me up. It was crazy what a man would do just to escape a crying, overly emotional woman in the midst of a breakdown. I wasn’t too proud to admit that I had used that to my advantage.
“Give them back,” I demanded, standing from the couch and giving chase.
Tomas held the box above his head to keep them out of reach. “Get in the damn shower, and I’ll give them back.”
With a hmph, I stopped jumping for my box of sugar goodness and glared. “Fine,” I grumbled. “But I want those back as soon as I get out.”
Once in the bathroom, I undressed and turned on the water, letting the steam fill the bathroom before climbing in. I scrubbed with whatever was available before finally just standing there, letting the warm, steady spray wash away the tension of the past few days. I knew it was long past time to pull up my big girl panties and get on with my life. Two days was my wallowing cutoff. I’d reached my limit. It was time for me to go back to my own apartment, wear something other than dirty sweats, turn my cell phone back on, and handle my responsibilities. The real world had been closed out long enough.
By the time I dried off and dressed in another pair of Tomas’s sweats, the internal pep-talk I’d been giving myself had finally started to work.
“Feeling better, sunshine?” Tomas asked. I made my way to where he sat on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table in front of him, ankles crossed, an unwrapped oatmeal crème pie halfway to his mouth. Snatching it out of his hand before he had a chance to take a bite, I plopped down beside him and curled my legs underneath me as I laid my head on his shoulder and ate the confiscated pie.
“Yeah,” I spoke with my mouth full. “Back to the land of the living.”
“Good. Homeless Pepper was not a good look for you, lovely.”
I actually found myself laughing for the first time in two days. “So you’re saying no The Walking Dead casting calls for me?”
“Sadly, Rick Grimes will never fall in love with you.”
“That’s okay.” I shrugged as I finished off the last bite. “I’m more of a Daryl kinda girl anyway.”
Tomas’s arm wrapped around my shoulder and he gave me a gentle squeeze. “You gonna be okay?”
My chest rose on a heavy sigh as I answered, “Yeah. I’ll be okay. I’m going back to my apartment. And I’ll be at the shop tomorrow morning.”
“Good,” he said as he placed a kiss on the crown of my head. “You know I’m here for you if you ever need me, but this just isn’t you, babe. You’re tough. You just forgot that for a little while.”
To prove to him and myself that he was right, I reached over and picked my phone up from the coffee table and held the power button down, turning it back on. It wasn’t all that surprising to hear the notifications going off, but I hadn’t thought there would be that many.
As expected, I had texts and voicemails from Dex, Wendy, and Navie, there were even a few from Harlow and, most surprisingly, Chance. It was the number of calls and messages from Griffin that was staggering. In the past two days alone he’d texted about thirty times and left twelve voicemails, all of which I deleted without answering.
“Oh,” Tomas started in a warning tone. “You should know that Navie’s totally pissed you’ve been incommunicado the past couple of days. She came by the boutique today and told me to tell you that if your ass isn’t there when she shows up tomorrow, she was going to hunt you down and sit on you until you told her what the hell was going on.”
“That’s gonna be a fun conversation,” I deadpanned, thinking I’d rather volunteer for a root canal than have to relive the last few weeks with Navie.
“Hey, this is what happens when you keep shit from your friends. I think this might be one of those learning moments you threw in your brother’s face.”
“You know, I really friggin’ hate it when you’re right.”
“What can I say? All this perfection tends to mess with peoples’ heads.”
That earned him a slap, but at least I was laughing as I did it.
“PEPPER JULIANNE O’MALLEY! GET your ass out here!”
I could hear Navie’s shrill voice all the way from my sewing room in the very back of Fire & Ice.
“Shit,” I uttered quietly as I made my way to the front of the store. It was still relatively early so the shop wasn’t full, but the handful of customers that were in there had stopped perusing the racks to stare at the powerhouse in a barely-five-foot frame. Navie might have been a munchkin, but I didn’t know a person out there who’d want to mess with her when she was pissed. Hell, Rowan had been the King of Assholes, happily ruling over his entire douche-dome before he met her. She knocked him down several pegs and he was hooked.
Tomas, to his credit, didn’t help matters at all, only throwing fuel on the fire by mumbling the stupid score to Jaws, getting louder as I got closer. “Shut up, or I’ll kill you,” I whispered to him before turning back to Navie.
“You owe me an explanation,” she demanded. “You don’t just disappear without a word. I was worried about you. Now I kinda just want to kick your ass.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, feeling like a complete ass for upsetting my friend.
Her shoulders squared and her chin tilted up in the air as she crossed her arms over her chest, and I knew she was working hard to hold on to her mad, even though she was one of the sweetest, most forgiving people I knew. “Yeah, well… don’t let it happen again,” she replied lamely, and I knew I had her back.
I tipped my head toward the hall I’d just come from. “Come on, let’s go talk. I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
I led her to the office I rarely ever used, usually choosing to handle paperwork for the boutique from the comforts of my own home as opposed to being stuck at a desk for hours on end. Once I closed the door and we were sitting on the old, faded, yet still comfy couch against the wall, I dove right in. There was nothing I left out. She got the good, the bad, and the ugly, starting from my pre-teen crush up until just three days earlier.
The only time she’d interrupted was to yell, “I can’t believe that asshole never told me!” when I got to the part of the story where Griffin entrusted Rowan with our little secret.
“Oh my God,” she gasped once I’d given her all the gory details. “I can’t believe I never suspected anything! I mean, Harlow and I always wondered why you two seemed to hate each other so much, but I never would have guessed… Holy shit! Your virginity, Pep. That’s huge!”
“I know.”
“And then he just up and left…” she trailed off, giving the story some serious thought before finishing with, “what a douche!” I opened my mouth to defend him, for some insane reason, but she held up her hand to silence me. “Look, you know I love Griffin, and I get his reasons for everything he did, I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that there were about a million different ways he could have handled that situation.”
“Believe me, you aren’t saying anything I haven’t thought at least a million times over the years. I thought I’d gotten over everything that had happened back then, but after seeing him with tha
t woman…”
“You relived it all over again,” she answered for me, her dark blue eyes growing sympathetic.
“It was so much worse this time,” I told her, my voice embarrassingly small.
“Oh, honey,” Navie whispered, leaning in and pulling me into her arms. For someone so small, the woman gave seriously strong hugs. Some of the tension began to ebb away as I relaxed against her, absorbing her warmth. That was, until Navie voiced her next question. “Sweetie, are you sure you really saw what you think you saw?”
“What do you mean?” I asked as I pulled out of the hug, my brows dipped in incredulity. “I told you what I saw… what happened a few days after our first time. I mean, what else could it have been?”
“I know, I know,” she offered pacifyingly. “But…”
“But what?” I demanded to know when she trailed off.
“But he didn’t fight to try and get you back the last time,” she responded, her words a punch to the throat, not because they were cruel, but because they were true. At that very moment, my cellphone rang from my backs pocket, Griffin’s name displayed like a beacon. “And I’m willing to bet that’s not the first time he’s called you since that evening. Hell, I’d be surprised if that’s the first time he’s called today.”
Damn her and her intuitiveness. The only response I had to give was an aggravated huff. And that damned knowing grin of hers was only leading to further aggravation. “I’m totally right, aren’t I?”
“You don’t have to be so smug about it,” I grumbled, flopping against the back of the couch on a pout.
“So…” Navie said, resting next to me. “What are you going to do?” My phone started ringing again before I had a chance to answer her. “’Cause I’m pretty sure that’s not gonna stop,” she giggled.
I didn’t have an answer for her. The truth was, I didn’t have a damned clue what I was doing. I’d spent the majority of my first day back at work simply going through the motions.
Fire & Ice (The Locklaine Boys #1) Page 17