That made him laugh. “Me? Really? How do you figure that?”
“You respect her. You’ve respected her privacy all this time, even though it made you miserable. And yesterday, you defended her. She’s never had anyone do that for her.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because no one did it for me either,” Connor replied quietly. “You may think growing up wealthy means your life is easy and wonderful, but trust me, that’s not always the case.”
“I’m sorry, Con. I’m sorry that I misjudged you. You’ve always been a good friend, and I guess there were a lot of times when I just assumed that you had this great life all the time.”
“I was brought up to put on a good façade. I was never supposed to do anything but smile and make it look like everything was just the best.” He shrugged. “That’s why no one ever realized how much I hated being married to Rachel. The only good thing about it was having Annabeth.”
Nodding, Axel took a sip of his coffee. “Have you ever thought about reaching out to Lexi?”
Connor’s laugh was a bit mirthless. “More often than I’d like to admit. But then I think of how awful it would be to disrupt her life and make her remember what I put her through.”
“Not you. Your family.”
“I was still the main messenger. I’m sure she looks back on her time with me—if she ever looks back on her time with me—and regrets it all.”
“I don’t know. We all spent the following summer together…”
“She spent most of her time with Kelsey and some of the other girls. We kept our distance.” He sighed as he picked up his mug. “I’d like to think we would have been happy, but…that ship has sailed.”
They finished their muffins, and Connor wiped down the counter.
“So? Are we good?”
Axel stood and smiled. “Yeah. We’re good.”
“Do we need to hug it out or something?”
They both laughed. “Nah. But I guess we could shake on it.” He held out his hand, but Connor stepped around and hugged him anyway.
A bro hug—lots of clapping on each other’s backs.
When they stepped apart, they were both grinning.
“So…you’re meeting Maisie this morning?”
“Yeah, she said she’d be here around ten. And I really need to run over to my cabin and get my shit together.”
They turned just as Milo knocked and let himself in. “Oh, hey! You’re back. Everything okay?”
He chuckled again. “Yeah. Everything’s great. I’ll let Connor fill you in. I’ve got to get ready because Maisie’s going to be here any minute.”
“Um…before you go, I just want to say I’m sorry if my involvement in all of this upset you. I just wanted to help.”
“We’re cool, Milo. And if it weren’t for you, Maisie would still be struggling with her parents.” He paused and noticed the folder in his friend’s hand. “Is that…?”
“This is everything I could find on Dominique and Alexander Quinnland.”
“Wait, you found stuff on her mother too?” Connor asked.
“Sadly, yes.” He held up the folder. “I almost feel bad about it, but this should guarantee that she never has to defend herself to her parents ever again.”
“Good,” Axel said. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”
“You don’t want to know what I found?” Milo asked.
