I’d tried to be welcoming, but I’d definitely felt uncomfortable hanging out with them for the last half-hour, making small talk and answering Mrs. Clarke’s awkward, slurring questions. The discomfort was only increasing, a thousandfold, as Cary and his dad stared each other down.
Cary still hadn’t said anything, to any of us.
Mr. Clarke’s already stiff jaw hardened into jagged iron. He set his drink down on a table very purposefully.
Mrs. Clarke took a small step toward her son, then stopped, leaving a wide berth between them. “Hello, dear.”
Cary looked at her but said nothing.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I said gently, trying to project Do you mind? I can’t tell what’s going on. Cary’s eyes met mine. “I ordered dinner for us, and there’s plenty to share.” I pointed at the food spread, and he looked at it. I’d gotten a bunch of his favorites. I even had “Paint It Black” playing for him—the cover version by Gob, a local punk rock band, which maybe I hoped would impress him or something.
He said nothing.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” his dad demanded.
“He’s been working so hard,” his mom said, to his dad, like Cary wasn’t even standing there. “Let’s just give him some space.” Then she turned her back to Cary and sipped her wine.
When Cary’s eyes met mine again, it looked like all the color had drained from his face.
Then his fingers started moving. The left ones, tapping against his thigh.
Shit. Obviously, letting his parents in, unannounced, and blindsiding him like this was a bad, bad idea. I didn’t know, though. It was his parents. They dropped by on his birthday. What was I supposed to do, tell them they couldn’t enter the property?
Who was I to tell them that?
“I got you a gift,” I said, desperately trying to distract him. I indicated the gift table. “Your parents even brought one from your grandmother.”
Cary didn’t seem interested in the gifts, though. He was staring at his dad again, and his jaw was starting to tick.
“Oh! And I got this for us.” I indicated the bar cart, which was stocked with pickles, bread and vodka. “With proper Russian vodka this time.”
All Cary said was, “What are they doing here?”
He addressed me, not them.
“Uh… your parents dropped by as I was setting up for our little birthday dinner.”
“And you let them in,” he said, his eyes shifting back to me. They were so cold and dark, a shiver ran through me. He didn’t even look like the Cary I knew. He looked…. sick.
Why was he turning that strange color?
Was he about to have a panic attack? I had no idea, really, what the signs were. Reading about it was not the same as witnessing firsthand, I was pretty sure.
“Cary…” I took a few steps toward him.
“Of course she let us in,” his dad snapped. “Your mother’s come to visit you on your birthday.”
“I’m not celebrating my birthday,” Cary ground out. His jaw was so tight, his lips barely moved.
“You know that’s a slap in your mother’s face every time you say it?” His dad’s voice was rising.
“Oh, stop talking about it,” Mrs. Clarke said. “It just makes you argue. So fine, no birthday party.”
“Why, Mom?” Cary said, his voice frighteningly low. “Why can’t I talk about it?”
She didn’t even look at him. And as I watched them… it felt like something curled up and died inside me. I could feel his pain and the tension in his body as his mom refused to look at him.
“You know I don’t celebrate my birthday,” he said through his clenched teeth.
“Why on Earth not?” his dad demanded.
“Because Gabe dies tomorrow,” Cary spat out.
Mr. Clarke made an angry, exasperated noise. “Gabe died five years ago, Cary.”
I inched closer to Cary. Clearly, this family conversation needed a mediator or something. But I had zero knowledge of the family politics here. “Maybe we should—”
“I know he died five years ago, Dad. I was there.”
I reached for him. “Cary.” I tried to touch his shoulder, but he recoiled. He didn’t even look at me as he turned away and walked stiffly into the house.
“Don’t waste your time,” Mr. Clarke muttered.
I looked at Cary’s dad. Was he talking to me?
I turned to Cary’s mom, maybe for help. She was looking around at the trees that lined the property, like they had eyes. “My God,” she whispered. “Why does he always have to make such a scene…?” I wasn’t even sure who she was talking to.
Then she downed the rest of her glass of wine.
Clearly, no help was forthcoming.
I hurried to follow Cary into the house. But by the time I reached the studio doors, he’d locked himself inside.
“Oh my God,” were the first words out of Courteney’s mouth when she found her parents standing in Cary’s foyer, putting on their shoes.
When they’d showed up, I decided to text her and invite her to join us for the little birthday party. She’d arrived in record time, but not before Cary came home—and locked himself in the studio. And definitely not in the mood I’d expected her to be in, as she stormed in the front door.
“Hello, dear,” her mom said.
“Oh, no,” Courteney said, as I shut the door behind her.
“Let’s not have dramatics, Courteney…” her dad said.
“You can’t be here,” she told them. I lingered behind her, not sure what to do.
“Don’t be rude, Courteney,” her dad said.
“We’re here,” her mom said.
“No. You need to leave.” Courteney turned to me. “Where’s Cary?”
“In the studio.”
“Does he know they’re here?”
I glanced at Cary’s parents. “Yeah.”
“We’re not criminals,” her dad growled. “Why do you both treat us like this?”
Courteney turned back to her parents. “You have no right. Cary didn’t invite you in here. You can’t just show up. You know how he gets.”
“We simply dropped by with a birthday gift, Courteney,” her mom said. “Where’s the harm in—”
“That!” Courteney stabbed a finger toward the alcove where the studio doors stood closed. “That is the harm, Mom! And your clueless attitude about it doesn’t change anything. It never has.”
“Courteney,” her dad warned.
“You know you shouldn’t be here when he’s not home,” Courteney went on, ignoring him, “and you shouldn’t be just dropping by. It’s not fair to him. And you of all people should understand that.”
“Do not talk to your mother that way,” Mr. Clarke growled.
I started to sidestep out of the way. “Maybe I’ll just—”
“Stay,” Courteney said firmly. “They’re going.”
I stood there, feeling awful. For Cary. For his sister. For whatever this horrible tension was that looked like it was about to crack her dad’s jaw.
“We’re leaving,” Mr. Clarke announced. “When Cary’s calmed down, you tell him to call us.”
“Right,” Courteney said bitterly. “Calmed down. Nice, Dad. He has, like, catastrophic anxiety that almost killed him and you guys always send him spiraling. Why can’t you understand that and respect his boundaries?”
“We didn’t mean to upset him, dear,” Mrs. Clarke said, looking a little panicky herself.
“Please. Just leave.”
Mrs. Clarke glanced at me. All I wanted was to be on the other side of those closed doors with Cary, but he’d locked me out. He’d locked us all out. I’d called his phone, texted him, but he didn’t answer. And his mom was looking at me like I was supposed to know what to say here, because she sure as hell didn’t. She looked utterly stupefied, her face drained of color, like she’d never experienced a moment like this in her life.
But how could that be true?
/> I could feel the resentment seething off her daughter right next to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
Mrs. Clarke said nothing.
Courteney looked at the ceiling while her parents let themselves out. Then she went and locked the front door behind them. “God, I hate them sometimes.” She took a deep breath, seemed to collect herself, then looked at me. “I’m sorry you had to be in the middle of that.”
I still wasn’t sure what that even was.
“Courteney, what happened?” I asked her, lost. “Your parents showed up with a birthday gift for Cary, so I let them in. I had no idea I wasn’t supposed to do that. I wish I’d known.” All Courteney had told me when she messaged me earlier this week to let me know his birthday was coming up was that he didn’t like to celebrate his birthday.
But lots of people didn’t like to make a big deal out of their birthday. Danica was one of them.
But this… this was something else.
“This isn’t your fault,” she assured me. “I should’ve warned you. Fuck. My brother’s relationship with our mom and dad is a natural disaster. I pretty much have to call in the National Guard to sort through the debris every time they do this shit.”
“They didn’t really do anything, though,” I said carefully. “He just showed up and found them here.”
“Yeah. That’s the problem.” She pulled out her phone. “I’m just gonna text him to let him know they’re gone, and you and I are here. It might not do any good just now, though.”
Oh, God. My stomach was sinking.
“What the fuck did I do?” I said, feeling kind of panicked myself.
Courteney sent her text and tucked her phone away. “Okay, how do I put this…” She rubbed her face and looked around the room, at the framed photos halfway up the stairs above us. At the closed studio doors. “They hurt him a lot, Taylor.”
“I’m so sorry, Courteney. I didn’t know. He just came home and he freaked out when he found them here. He locked himself in the studio…”
“I know. Here.” She gave me a hug and I felt the tears creeping up. I blinked them back. “What did he do, exactly? What did he say?”
“He barely said anything. He just went very pale and vanished. He locked me out.”
“It’ll be okay, Taylor,” she said, but I wasn’t sure she really believed it. “There’s just so much crap in that relationship, it’s hard to explain. I totally blame Mom and Dad for that. They know they’re not supposed to ambush him like this or show up uninvited and unannounced. They don’t take these things seriously, but they should.”
I still wasn’t sure what she meant when she said these things. “Please explain this to me. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Courteney took my arm and guided me to the living room, where we sat down. “Okay. Let me try to explain this for you. All the shit my brother’s been through, and all his… difficulties… after Gabe died? My parents just don’t understand any of it. Or they pretend not to. They totally abandoned him when he fell apart. Mentally, emotionally. Physically.”
“Oh, fuck. I didn’t know. He never mentioned that to me. He’s mentioned feeling abandoned by people, but I didn’t know he meant your parents.”
“Yeah. They were the worst, unfortunately.” Courteney sighed. “My dad still refuses to acknowledge his anxiety disorder. They even refused to go to Gabe’s funeral because Cary was in ‘inappropriate hysterics’ over his death. That is a direct quote. My dad actually said that to him, in front of me, the day before the funeral, after he read some stupid article in the paper that had a picture of Cary crying in public.”
“Oh. God.” Tears were forming in my eyes, and I brushed them away. I couldn’t believe I’d done that to him. Ambushed him, like she said. In his own house. Letting his parents into his inner circle when they weren’t necessarily welcome there, and certainly not without warning.
“He gets along okay with Mom,” she said. “Sometimes. She can be clueless, or like I said, pretend clueless. And she can be kind. She’s a mom, you know? She cares, in her way. But Dad is harder to deal with. He treats me like a princess as long as I’m perfectly happy, or pretending to be perfectly happy in his presence, and I don’t complain about a thing. But Cary… he’s hard on Cary. He always has been. He treats my brother’s issues like they’re all his own fault, and punishes him for it, with judgment and criticism and callousness. My brother has never had a safe place to fall down in this family.”
“What about you?” I said gently.
“I try,” she said, tearing up. “But I’m his little sister. By fourteen years. I don’t always have what it takes. That’s what Gabe was for. Gabe was his brother in every way. The brother he needed. He was so lost when Gabe died…” She stopped, wiping her tears away. “My parents stopped coming around. My dad said they wouldn’t talk to Cary unless he ‘collected himself.’ I was the one who found him on the floor of the studio when he’d fallen apart. He basically had a nervous breakdown. He had a panic attack and fainted and he was all alone. I was so scared. I begged him to see a therapist after that. But even when he was getting help… Mom would listen a bit when he told her about it, but all she wanted to hear was that he was getting better. ‘Don’t depress me with the details.’ There’s one of her classic sayings for you. And my dad didn’t even want to hear about therapy. I think he’s under some fucked-up illusion that real men shouldn’t need therapy.”
“This is all very fucked-up, Courteney,” I told her. “I hope you know that. The lack of support they give him… it’s not okay.”
“Oh, I know. It never felt right to me, even when I was a kid. And the way they treated me after Gabe’s death was almost as bad. They practically pretended like it didn’t happen. They ignored my feelings about it. It was like they expected me not to mourn, to just pick up and carry on. I was so, so angry with them. And that was nothing compared to what Cary went through. Gabe was his best friend.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand how your parents could be so cold about it.”
“I don’t think they’re cold. I don’t think they don’t feel. I think they just try to pretend they don’t so they can ignore it and avoid suffering. But my mom has anxiety attacks of her own. They should understand what Cary goes through, because she’s suffered from anxiety all her life. That’s probably a lot of where my brother gets it from. But her way of coping with her son’s problems is denial. She won’t accept that Cary has any serious problems because God forbid anyone actually blame her for anything. It’s all about her. It always has been. And my dad just can’t accept flaws or weaknesses. He coddles my mom’s anxiety because she worships him in return. He’s number one with her and she’s number one with him, and then my brother and I are kind of seen and not heard. But not really seen either, you know? They just expect us to be perfect and that’s all they want to see. It’s like, they think Cary should be just fine, so they convince themselves that he is. And then they conveniently forget to respect his needs.” She sighed again. “I’m sorry. This probably makes no sense to you.”
“Not really. But honestly, my family has its own dramas, and I wouldn’t expect anyone outside of our family to understand, either. So I get it. It’s complicated. And it’s dysfunctional. And you and Cary had to find your own ways to survive it.” I touched her arm. “I’m sure it helps that you’re both so smart and likable.”
She smiled a little. “Thanks.”
“But seriously, Courteney, this is devastating. What do I do to fix this?”
“Well, the thing that I’ve learned over time is that you can’t. You can just be there for him.”
We both just looked at each other for a long moment, maybe thinking the same scary thought.
“What if he won’t let me?” I said.
“No,” she said firmly, taking hold of my hand. “That’s not up to him to decide.”
I tried to absorb that, but it was like I was in shock. I couldn’t quite believe th
at he’d locked me out. Me.
“Things were going so good, Courteney. He told me he loved me. I can’t believe I fucked this up.”
Courteney stared at me. Her eyes softened to two liquid pools as she absorbed that. I had no idea if she knew, before this moment, that her brother and I were falling in love.
But now, she knew.
“You didn’t fuck up, Taylor,” she said gently. “You tried to do something nice for him on his birthday.” She cocked her head, a smile playing at her mouth. “He told you he loves you?”
“Yes.”
She glanced out the French doors, toward the pool. “And you were throwing him a party?”
“Yeah. Just a small one. It was just supposed to be me and him. But the way he looked at me… I guess this surprise didn’t go over so well.”
“It would have, I’m sure. If my parents weren’t here.”
“I’m so sorry,” I told her, again, because right now I couldn’t tell him. Because he wouldn’t let me.
“Trust me, Taylor. You’ve made things better for my brother. My parents… they just make things worse.”
“I had no idea his relationship with them was so bad. I should’ve realized, though. I mean, I’m no stranger to messed up family dynamics.”
“It’ll be okay,” she said. “You didn’t know. He’ll realize that. Just give him some space.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
I could. This was just a glitch, right? I made a mistake and he’d understand that.
I’d give him space.
And then he’d come back to me. He’d let me in again.
He told me he loved me. Which meant he’d forgive me for fucking up, because that’s what you did when you loved someone.
We’d talk it out.
And then things would go back to the way they were before.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Taylor
Look Alive, Stay Alive
Things didn’t go back to the way they were.
After Courteney left, I sent Cary another carefully worded, apologetic text, asking him if we could please talk. Then I cleaned up every trace of the party stuff, except my gift for Cary, which I left outside the studio doors for him.
Lovely Madness: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 4) Page 33