He smiled and jerked his head toward the living room. “Let’s get a drink and make up, okay?”
“If the drink is a smoothie, sure. It’s not even eight.”
He snorted. “Right.” Henry rolled his eyes playfully. “Forgot you can be a prude.”
“Let me hop in the shower, and I’ll be right out,” I said, and he nodded, body already shifting sideways. “And Henny?”
He turned back.
“I’m really sorry. You know I love you, right?”
He smiled. “Yeah, I do. Love you right back, babe.” He gave the back of my neck a quick squeeze before walking into the living room.
Pulling in a long, steady breath, I tried to find the nerve to face this.
I was going to tell him, but I needed to make sure this was really happening. I needed to get my dad on the phone. It had only been a little over a week. Maybe Iwasblowing everything out of proportion.
Whatever this was—stress, fear, old shit I hadn’t dealt with—it was starting to get the better of me. And if I didn’t figure it out soon, I was going to make things worse.
I needed to get my head on straight.
Fast.
Classes started out okay, in spite of everything.
That first week, I was really apprehensive that things would be just like last time, but nobody was interested in me—not the way they used to be, with all the gossip. Here, it felt like slipping into anonymity, which was a welcome relief. And when I actually talked to people, they seemed more interested inme, not my last name or my past.
I was still looking at places near campus, even if Henry kept insisting I could stay. The tension from our fight seemed to have faded for him completely in a matter of hours, but I still felt like an asshole for not telling him what was going on. And if I couldn’t solve this, I couldn’t just keep living off him.
Charlotte had definitely picked up on something. Naturally, she thought it was about Sebastian and his boyfriend and not the family shit—because even though I’d been in touch with our dad for a while, I hadn’t exactly told her about that either.
She’d cut off all contact with him a few months after the wedding, after everything went down. We hadn’t talked about it, but I had a feeling something else had set it off. But, staying on brand, neither of us brought it up. Like we had an unspoken agreement—never talk about him, and it’s like it never happened. And apparently, I was a fan of replicating that strategy with everything else in my life.
Still, she’d been calling more often to check in—like now, as I walked into the apartment after a full day of classes, wrapping up my first week and already feeling wrung out, with two unanswered emails and five straight-to-voicemail calls to my father. I was already trying my best to keep it together.
“Have you talked to him again?” she asked.
I hummed, dropping my keys and my bag on the counter. “Texted a bit.” I was keeping the Sebastian talk vague.
“Are you really not going to give me more than that? I’m home with two kids all day—I need grown-up gossip.”
“I’ve already told you about the last time I saw him, and that was three days ago.” I pulled out my laptop and logged in. “I have no more updates for you.”
“Oli and I are thinking about popping over for a visit. Without Liam and Amelia.” Her tone wobbled, just a bit.
“Are you ready for that?”
“I need a little time to myself, E. And with Oli. I love them to death, but that whole losing-your-identity thing is no joke. Just a little breathing room, you know?”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I think it’s a great idea. For both of you.” I refreshed my email. Still nothing. “When were you thinking?”
“We wanted to go for Ash’s birthday, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to make it. Maybe a couple of weeks after that… maybe.”
“Well, I think you should, but I’m completely biased and being extremely self-serving about it.”
She laughed. “You sure you don’t want to talk about it? Him?”
My phone buzzed. I pulled it from my ear to check the screen—my dad.
