“You have an open lot picked out and a business plan you’ve been tweaking unnecessarily for over a year. Whatever else you need, you’ll figure it out.”
“How did you even arrange this?” I ask, still dumbfounded.
“Maybe I used a little magic fairy dust after all,” Leo says, but when I glare at him, his demeanor changes. Fiddling with his thumbs, he exhales. “I called my stepdad.”
I jump off the bench. “Are you fucking kidding me? You asked that prick for a favor? You’re never going to live it down.”
They both stand while Leo answers, “I don’t care about any of it. It’s worth it to call that jackass if it means getting your foot in the door. He’s got the connections with investors that you need, so I made the call.”
“It’s too much. Too fast.”
Ty comes up behind me. “And we’re not even stopping there, but first things first, let’s get you ready for Monday. I’m thinking new suit, maybe like a Conor McGregor-style one with the little ‘fuck you’ pinstripes down the side. No?”
I laugh, but I can’t stop thinking about him saying we’re not stopping there. Can’t help but think he’s referring to Kendall—a door I’m not willing to open just yet.
“And for a loan, I’ll cosign with you,” Leo offers.
“What?” I don’t think I’ve heard him correctly. I’m shocked that they’ve been planning everything without my knowledge. A loan this size is not going to be easy to attain, much less pay back, and he’s willing to take that chance on me? “You can’t do that.”
“I have a sizable trust that my dad left me before he passed.”
Now Ty and I stare at each other in shock. This is the first we’re hearing of this. “You’ve been holding out on us?”
Leo shrugs like it’s no big deal.
But if he has enough that he can cosign on a loan with me, it’s a big fucking deal. I have so many questions. And from the look on Ty’s face, so does he.
“Dude, you’re loaded, yet I still have to cover your ass when we go to lunch? What’s that about?”
Leo gathers his things and makes his way out the door. “That’s how I stay rich.” He winks and nods toward the door for us to follow him, and I feel like I’m truly following the Godfather toward the light.
The three of us walk out the back door to the club as we’ve done many times before. The only difference is that I’ll leave soon for good, but I know we’ll remain friends.
Brothers.
And when I get to my apartment, I feel lighter than I have in a long time. Kendall may not be here, but having my family for the long haul is its own kind of relief.
As I walk by the large hole in the wall above my couch, I take a deep breath as I decide it’s time to let it all go. In my bedroom, I find a framed picture of Leo, Ty, and me, along with a hammer and nail, and walk back to the living room. Placing it over the hole, I stand back and nod.
Nod at the past, for it led me to Kendall.
And a nod at the future for all that’s to come.
Chapter 53
Kendall
I step out of the car like I’m stepping on a frozen lake that could cave at any moment. Crossing my arms in front of me, I walk toward Lauren. She’s in a red sundress that brings out her tan, probably from the honeymoon.
I cringe as memories from the wedding, of how I attacked my sister, flood my mind.
But I take steps forward to reconcile whatever small piece of us there is to salvage.
She wouldn’t answer my calls or texts, so with Mom and Dad’s help, I flew out here to force her to talk to me. I didn’t want to call them, but they were eager to get us talking again. Ready to move forward, even though they’re still pissed at me.
They were proud of me for making the first move, which relieved me of my guilt for asking them to pay for my airfare.
The whole flight out here, I thought about what I’d say, how I could possibly make up ruining her wedding reception to her.
Lauren doesn’t hug me or say anything when I reach her on the porch. Instead, she merely leads me inside. I take in her living room decorated with rustic décor—a windowpane hovering over the fireplace, distressed coffee table, and cotton ball bouquets in vases scattered around.
I haven’t been here before, to see her new house. Her new life.
One I want to be part of.
The house is nestled in a small neighborhood close to the small downtown area where they have a farmer’s market every weekend. Being in a small town, it’s also close to a good school where Lauren and Rhett’s kids will one day attend.
The thought makes me tear up.
She’s growing up and getting a life of her own, married with a stable job and a bright outlook.
I’m jealous of her.
Jealous of her being so put together, but the feeling isn’t as strong as it would’ve been before my revelation. Before letting Emma talk me into a more optimistic, confident mindset.
Rhett comes around the corner and into the kitchen that’s next to the living room. I’m still standing in the middle of it, looking at their pictures lining the fireplace mantel. He’s in his gym shorts and T-shirt, very different from his usual button-up and slacks. He does a double take when he sees me.
“Hey…” he starts, as though he’s forgotten my name. Or my sister banned its utterance from this house. I can’t blame either one of them for it. “How are you?” He puts his hands on his hips like he doesn’t know what to do with them. He shares a look with Lauren that I can’t read. It’s their own language—the kind you develop from really knowing someone and letting them know you in return.
Lauren kisses him on the cheek. “It’s fine, Rhett. Go on to the gym. Kendall, you want some water? Sweet tea? Maybe a soda?”
She peeks around the refrigerator door, watching me, asking me politely if I want refreshments like we’re strangers. Like I’m a guest in her home and not someone she grew up with, snuggling together in the bed two feet from hers and calling it a “sleepover.”
I’m still new at turning my life around, at being unsure of where it’ll take me, but the one thing I know I want is for Lauren to be in it. As my sister and friend, not my enemy. I want to be part of her new life, to be present for her and Rhett. To one day know her children and their favorite colors, TV shows, and even what they like to stick up their noses.
But there may not be any hope for us, after what I’ve done.
I burst into tears, having held them in for the last forty-eight hours. Rhett stops with his hand on the doorknob, and Lauren gently sets the pitcher of sweet tea on the counter. They’re both waiting for me to do something, scared of approaching me. I’m the reason they fear coming close to me—who knows when I’ll snap.
I hold my face in my hands while I full-on sob, what little makeup I had smearing down my cheeks.
There’s shuffling behind me, and then the front door opens. When I look behind me, Rhett’s gone, and Lauren comes around the counter to stand in front of me.
“Sit,” she says.
Taking a seat across from her on her cream-colored couches, I don’t know where to start. While I search for the right words in the intricate lines on my palms, Lauren takes the lead. “Why are you crying?”
Confused, I search her eyes for an explanation but come up empty. The answer seems obvious. “What?”
“Why are you crying?” she repeats. “We don’t talk for weeks, and now you’re here sobbing in my living room. Don’t get mascara on that couch, by the way.” She reaches for a box of tissues from the end table and hands it to me.
“Do you always have to be such a bitch?” I dab at my eyes with a tissue, wondering why I came here. Every word from her has me feeling like this was a mistake.
“I’m the bitch?” She scoffs, looking away from me. “Yeah, I’m the bitch who attacked my sister at her wedding. The one who missed my sister’s bridal shower without so much as an explanation. Who disappeared from my sister’s life even when she
lived across the hall.” She glares at me, her gaze unwavering. Her jaw clenches in anger—rage, actually. Her face is as red as her dress, her neck breaking out in red splotches the longer we stare at each other. “So I’ll ask again, why the fuck are you crying?”
My chest is heavy as I inhale, desperate for more air to fill my lungs. Unable to stop myself, I jump into defensive mode, pointing at her. “I may have done those things, but you didn’t exactly make it easy to be your friend. Your snobby friends couldn’t wait to pick me apart every chance they got. And you joined right in. Every time.”
“Maybe if you wouldn’t call them—and me—names, we wouldn’t give you such a hard time. You realize you started it, right? You started this whole thing between us.”
“Because of Jeremy? In high school?” I laugh humorlessly. “Get the fuck over it already. He was such a douchebag. He’s got a nasty mullet now and washes cars over on Fifth. I did you a favor.”
She pauses, studying me, all humor—fake or otherwise—gone and replaced with tension. “Sure, I was mad at you in high school, but I didn’t hate you. Jeremy made out with another girl that night too, not just you. I knew he was a douchebag. But you,” she continues, her eyes sad, “you avoided me afterward for months like that time I had chicken pox.”
“I did not avoid you. You’re the one who wanted nothing to do with me. I believe your exact words were, ‘Don’t ever talk to me again, you fucking skank.’”
She throws her hands up, her body bouncing off the couch. “I was mad! In that moment, in high school, I said a lot of mean things. I made a random sophomore cry when she tried to congratulate me for being prom queen. Shit, I didn’t hate you. I never wanted this.” She points her finger back and forth between us.
I fidget, knowing I’m to blame once again. That I might not be able to fix it now.
She whispers, “I’m not even talking about Jeremy. Not really. It’s what happened after. After you broke up with Adam and dropped out of college. You disappeared on me.” She angles her body toward me. “Adam turned you into this zombie. You wouldn’t let anyone close to you. Even after you broke up, you were never the same, and it was hard to talk to you. Now it’s years later and you still avoid me.”
I flinch at her mention of Adam, hoping we didn’t have to talk about him. Since Emma mentioned him a couple weeks ago, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him. Trying to deal with his effect on me, to really move on. With deep breaths, I tell myself that maybe talking about him with my sister might be another way for me to get over it.
But before I can say anything, she asks, “Want to know why I had my bachelorette party in Vegas?” She doesn’t let me answer, her frown reaching her eyes. “It was so close to you that you wouldn’t have an excuse not to come, like with my bridal shower. But you still didn’t want to be there. And you found every excuse not to hang out with us.” She looks down, her honey hair falling over her shoulders as a tear falls. She quickly wipes it away like she hopes I didn’t see it.
I inhale, willing my own tears to stay locked inside. I’ve cried enough, but fuck if holding them in doesn’t hurt worse than my pride would if they fell.
As soon as my voice sounds, the tears follow. “I had no idea,” I whisper through the tears now falling on her couch. I grab a handful of tissues and bury my face in them. “I’m so fucking stupid.”
“Yes.”
I glare at her, a small smile spreading across her face. Which is now glowing, a contrast from the pained expression thus far. “I’ll still kick your ass like we’re kids again.”
The pained expression is back, but not full force.
I place a hand over my chest, remembering that I did actually try to kick her ass at her own wedding. My heart sinks at how I hurt her, how humiliating it was, and how it’ll be an unwanted memory she’ll never get rid of. “I’m so sorry about what I did at your wedding. I was so drunk.” I shake my head, not knowing where to begin or how to make it up to her. “Sebastian had just—”
“Don’t blame him for your actions.” Her jaw clenches, and she seems older now. Still glowing, but we’re not kids anymore. And I should stop acting like one. Before she continues, I know what she’ll say. “Don’t blame him or the alcohol. Just… no more excuses. If falling on your ass at my wedding was what you needed to get your shit together, so be it.”
Okay, not what I expected her to say.
I search her eyes, her demeanor, her sofa—anything to find the catch. The message between the lines. But I find nothing other than sincerity. She watches me intently, and I’m suddenly afraid of her, like I’m one of her patients knowing I’ve never flossed and she’s about to lay into me.
“I’m serious.” She nods. “If that hadn’t happened, you might not be here now, and we might not be having this conversation. You might not have finally embraced yourself and what you really want.”
“What do you mean?”
“I follow your Instagram. I see you making positive changes that might not have happened had you not hit rock bottom.” She shrugs, then glares at me. “And maybe now we can get to the bottom of why you’re pushing Sebastian away.”
“You don’t even like him. I thought you’d be thrilled I broke it off.”
“I might not have liked him at first. He was a random guy we met in Vegas—a stripper no less.” She pauses. “But he seemed to really care about you. Even the morning after that first night, he watched you with excitement. The way Rhett looks at me, even.”
Her words make my tears well up again.
“When you brought him to the wedding, I know I gave you a hard time, and I’m sorry, but I was actually glad he was there. You liked someone enough to bring him around the family. You hadn’t done that since Adam, what, three years ago?”
“That’s why I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of how much I liked him, but I didn’t think you guys would accept him.”
She purses her lips. “You didn’t even give us a chance.”
The wind is sucked out of me. If I was standing, I’d fall to the ground.
She’s right. I never gave them a chance, just like I never gave him a chance.
“Yeah, like you would’ve accepted a stripper as my boyfriend if I had,” I say weakly.
“We might’ve. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing you’ve ever done.”
I laugh at the way her teasing has changed. It’s no longer malicious, just good sisterly teasing. The way we used to be.
“Well, he wasn’t who I thought he was, anyway,” I say.
“Oh? What could he have possibly been hiding? He literally puts himself on display on a regular basis.” I toss a pillow at her, and through her giggles, she manages, “Come on. You can’t date a stripper and not expect those jokes.”
“He was engaged before and didn’t tell me. He has this whole other life that he kept from me. Like he’s not over it or her. And to top it off, I don’t think he’s happy doing what he’s doing, but he won’t admit it and change his situation.”
“You know, when Rhett and I first started dating, I knew I wanted to marry him.” I roll my eyes, and now she tosses the pillow back at me. “I kept trying to find reasons why I shouldn’t, because falling for a guy by the second date is weird, but nothing stopped me. Until the fifth date, when he told me he got a DUI when he was twenty-one.” Her face twists, as she becomes lost in the memory. “Only then did I pause, because suddenly he wasn’t perfect. That one thing stayed on my mind for days, and I didn’t see or talk to him during that time. I thought, ‘My perfect future husband has a criminal past. His clean slate is tainted.’”
I wait for her to go on, surprised that perfect Rhett had anything but gold stars on his record. I’ve never even heard the guy curse. At the wedding when I pulled his bride’s hair, he actually very gently pulled me off her.
“I was looking for excuses not to love him from the beginning, and the minute something came up, I freaked. Of course, a DUI isn’t a
joke, but he learned from it. It made him more cautious and determined to be better.” She meets my gaze then, making me feel her every word down in my soul like she’s planting them there, making sure they take root. “But then I realized that I was just scared. Scared of falling hard for a guy I’d just met. Scared that I already knew what wedding dress I’d get because getting married this young wasn’t part of my plan.” Her lips twitch in a grin. “And I was actually disappointed that I found a guy Mom and Dad would love.”
“Yeah right.” I scoff. “You subconsciously picked him because of Mom and Dad. They conditioned you to find a man like Rhett.”
She’s serious when she says, “Did you know they didn’t want me to be a dental hygienist? They wanted me to be a teacher or something that would give me more time off, especially during the summer, for when we have kids.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“But I did it, anyway. You might not believe me, but I’m not afraid to hurt their feelings. Deep down, they just want us to be happy, no matter what they say.”
I know she’s directing that at me more than she is to herself.
“As for Rhett, I’m glad they like him, but at first, I didn’t want him to meet them because he was the perfect gentleman for them. I’ve usually done everything the way they wanted me to, not because they wanted me to, but because what made me happy just happened to also make them happy.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, like we’re not clarifying seven years’ worth of events.
I look into her eyes for the first time since I got here—really look—and notice the differences I missed while I was in my own head. The slight wrinkles in the corners of her eyes and the way she parts her hair now. It’s not to the side or middle, but somewhere in between. She then runs her hand through her hair, and the part is no longer visible at all. That’s when I notice how her boobs have become perkier.
I have to borrow that dress sometime.
We’ve both changed, our age beginning to show. But she still has the same scar on the side of her face from when she had chicken pox and couldn’t stop scratching. Mom told her it would scar, but like the six-year-old she was, she didn’t listen.
Strip for Me Page 24