“You are the best dad.” She runs her fingers down my cheek. “I wish I had a dad like you.” I look into her eyes. “A dad who I knew loved me with his whole heart.” I wrap my arms tighter around her. “I never had that,” she says softly, and this is her giving me a piece of her. “My step dad would be proud of me, but that would usually come when he would tell me to do something I didn’t want to do, but I did it anyway. Like when I wanted to go on my school ski trip, but he didn’t want me to go. Then told me he was going to take me to Europe to ski anyway.” Her voice trails off. “So I stopped asking him to go and he was proud that I was mature enough to understand. I was eleven,” she continues softly, “and he never took me skiing anyway. But he did take me to the country club, and I impressed a couple of his friends with my manners, so that got me a big side hug from him.”
My stomach tightens when she laughs, but I know the laughter is fake. “Baby,” I say softly, the anger running through me, “that’s fucked up.”
“You have no idea,” she replies and then puts her hand on my chest and looks down at it. “I had no one to shield me from any of it.”
“I’m so sorry you went through that. I wish I could have been there to shield you from all of it. My sister and I were very close growing up.” She looks up at me. “She moved out here when she came to visit. When I went to tell her that I found her husband fucking my wife, she looked at me and blamed me.”
Kylie gasps, “What?”
“Yeah, if I hadn’t asked him to do me so many favors when I was away, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“That’s bullshit,” she snaps, angry for me.
“She took him back,” I share softly. “I don’t know how she did it, but she took him back. My parents have swept it under the rug and are pretending that it didn’t happen. I just can’t do it. I refuse to sit at a table with him. I refuse to sit at a table with my sister, knowing she blames me. I just?—”
“You shouldn’t have to sit at a table with them. You are allowed to have your pain and not be around the one person who brought the pain to you.” She’s tapping her finger on my chest nervously. “That would be like me going to have dinner with my father and mother, if they were still alive.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” I admit to her. “It sucks, but it is what it is.”
“Fuck them,” she declares, making me laugh and kissing my neck, “for making you feel less than you deserve to feel.”
“Fuck them also,” I tell her. “Your parents.” Her eyes go soft. “For not loving you the way you should have been loved. For not seeing how perfect you were, even back then.” She sighs. “Next break we get, we’re going skiing.”
“Are you crazy? I don’t know how to ski and I’m too old to learn.”
“Nonsense,” I retort. “It’ll be fun.” She shakes her head and gets up.
“I’m leaving. It’s getting late and the last time you took me on a trip, it did not end well.” I look up at her, not wanting her to go. Actually hating that she has to go.
I get up off the couch and walk her to the front door. “I have to make it up to you.” I put my hands on the side of her neck.
She puts her hands on my sides. “You don’t have to make anything up to me.” She looks up at me. “Sleep tight, Knox,” she says. The minute she says that my stomach gets tight and my heart feels like it’s in the middle of my throat. I bend my head to kiss her and then watch her walk down the front steps with her things in her hands. I step out onto the porch as she gets into her SUV and pulls out of the driveway. I hold up my hand. “I’m going to make it up to you every single fucking day,” I vow as she smiles at me and drives away.
thirty-six
Kylie
“Delivery for Kylie,” Lexi announces, walking into my office with a bouquet of flowers. I look up at her and smile as I take in the pink vase boxed with what looks like a hundred roses. “I wonder who they could be from?”
“I wonder also.” I shake my head and reach for them and put them on my desk, the white card in the middle sticks up with my name written on the front with two lines under it.
I’m about to grab it when the door to the office opens and then is slammed shut. “Kylie.” I hear Kirby’s voice and see Lexi’s whole face light up. “Where is the birthday girl?”
Lexi gasps and puts her hand to her mouth. “What?” she asks me, shocked as Kirby comes into my office with a box in one hand and flowers in the other. “That motherfucker beat me to it.” I can’t help but laugh at his tone.
“It’s your birthday?” Lexi asks me as I shrug.
“I don’t like making a big deal out of it,” I say and then she smacks my arm.
“What the fuck, Kylie?” she hisses. “I’ve been with you for over four hours and not once did you say anything.”
“I just told you that I don’t like making a big deal out of my birthday,” I repeat the words, walking over to Kirby and hugging him around the waist. “Thank you,” I say, grabbing the flowers from him, “but you already got me a fabulous purse and matching shoes.” He laughs.
“Good to know,” he says, “but this is something that I picked out.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you two?” Lexi shouts and then turns her glare to Kirby. “You.” She points at him. “You didn’t think this is something you should have mentioned to me?” Her voice goes higher. “And you,” she points to me, “it’s the one day of the whole year where it’s about you and only you.” I raise my eyebrows at her. “I’m so mad at you right now.”
“I’m sorry, Lexi, I should have said something but?—”
