33. Hayden
33
HAYDEN
L ola loves me. And I love her.
How the fuck did this happen?
It wasn’t long ago I was just an angry, lonely guy trying to find out if his sister was worth a damn. And now I'm sitting in the same coffee shop where I met Lola and am about to sit down with Penelope for the first time since the DNA test came back.
I see Penelope walk in, and I stand from my seat as she lifts black sunglasses from her eyes and rests them on top of her head, still eyeing me with suspicion as she makes her coffee order.
I would have paid, but something tells me not to push it.
When they hand her the cup, she walks over, staring at me for a long moment before she says anything. “Are you a crazy person?”
“What?” The question shouldn’t make me flinch, but it does.
“You heard me. She was insane. Completely. And hateful. And horrible.”
“I’m aware.” There was no one on this earth I hated more than my mother, not even my father. She was my mother. She was supposed to protect me, and she fed me to the wolf.
“So?”
“So what?” Neither of us have taken a seat as she continues to stare at me, her chest rising and falling. I’m almost afraid she’s going to collapse.
Penelope is definitely intense.
“Are you insane? Do you have some sort of diabolical plan?”
“No.” I place my hand over my heart. “I get why you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me either. It’s in our nature not to.”
She scoffs, folding her arms. “Our nature. Jesus.”
“We may not have grown up in the same place, but we grew up similarly.”
“How did you start with her and end up here?” She gestures to my suit.
I motion to the table. “Sit down with me, and I'll tell you anything you want to know.”
She watches me with a guarded caution, but she relents and takes a seat. I follow, sitting across from her.
“I moved in with my grandmother—my father’s mother. She couldn’t stand him and hadn’t talked to him for years, but she took me in. She was good to me until she died.”
“Were you young?”
I nod my head as she takes a sip of coffee. I notice her hand shaking. “Yes, but I was old enough to get a job and become emancipated. I worked my ass of and went to college where I met my mentor.”
Her dark eyebrow raises. “Is that code for a secret older lover?”
I laugh and then shake my head. “He was a sixty-year-old professor at K-State.”
“You went to K-State?”
I nod. “You too?”
She half smiles. “Yes.” Her shoulders relax, and she places the coffee on the table in front of her. “He could have still been a lover.”
She’s funny. Good. “Nah. Sadly he wasn’t into me that way.” I grin, and she laughs.
It’s light, but it’s good to hear. “He was just a really good man who, for whatever reason, saw something in me. And when he passed away right before I graduated, he left me his estate.”
Her eyes widen. “Wow.”
It was a complete shock to me. A twenty-one-year-old kid inheriting two million dollars, property in California and more knowledge than I knew what to do with in real estate, but I made it work. “He wasn’t married and didn’t have any kids. He left me everything, and there was no way I was going to let him down.”
“Seems to me you made him proud.”
“I’m trying.” I smile into my coffee, taking a drink.
“So you were worried I was like mom. That’s why you didn’t just come and tell me right away.”
I nod my head. “Just like you’re worried I’m insane right now because I share her blood.”
She can’t argue with me. “She was the worst person I know. Knew.”
“Me too.”
“Do we have any other siblings?”
Fuck, that’s a scary thought. “Not that I know of.”
She nods, picking at the sticker on her cup. “According to the results, we don’t share the same dad?”
I shake my head. “No. I guess not but knowing Slate, who the fuck even knows if the men we thought were our dads actually were.”
“Why did they call her that?” I suspect my knowing her nickname was the biggest part of her agreeing to a DNA test.
“She never told you?”
“She never told me much of anything. Other than I was her?—”
“Tragedy,” I finish for her.
Her eyes widen, and the tears in them make me feel sick. “She called you that too?”
“Yeah.” Fuck, I hate her even more knowing she did this to my little sister. I don’t give a fuck if I just found out about her or not, the fact that she grew up like I did is infuriating. “Forget about that shit. She was the only tragedy in her life. And in everyone else's.”
Penelope nods. “Why did they call her that? Her eyes?”
I nod my head, thinking about my father burning my flesh with the lighter and telling me the story. “Partially. They were a slate blue, kind of like yours.” I see her cringe and sympathize with her wanting nothing from our mother. “My father gave her that nickname when she was pregnant with me.”
She looks afraid to ask. “Why?”
“Apparently, they were pulled over with a ton of shit in their car. Heroine and pot, I think. Ready to distribute. She was four months pregnant with me, and he took the blame. He told me it was her idea to make some money to raise me.” It could definitely be bullshit. Nothing that ever came out of either of their mouths was the whole truth. “Anyway, he gave her a clean slate while he went to prison.”
“But he got out in time to torture you, I'm guessing.” I wonder if Lola told her that part. Her eyes fall to my hand. “Or was that her?”
“Him. Yeah, he got out pretty fast. I think I was two, but he was in long enough to be really fucking mad when he got out. He hated her, but he lived with us.”
“I’m sorry they were your parents.”
I swallow tightly, hearing how strained her voice is. “I’m sorry she was yours. Did you know your dad?”
Please say no. I can’t imagine he was good. “No.” Relief sweeps over me. “Oddly enough, he was in prison.”
“You were eight when you met the Sterlings?”
Now she smiles. It’s real and a great big smile as she takes a sip of coffee. “Yes. Yes, I was.”
“You dated Colt first?”
She nods. “You and Lola really have gotten to know each other, haven’t you?”
“She’s not just a hookup for me. Or a part of a scheme to hurt you or her. Or anyone.”
She studies me, pursing her lips and seems to accept that. “I believe you. I have no idea why, but it’s weird... You’re going to think I'm crazy, but I think I felt safe with you from that first meeting. But when I found out you lied?—”
I cut her off, “You had every reason to be suspicious. It’s smart.”
“I’m getting married.”
“I heard. Congrats.” I smile, not really knowing Lincoln from the one dinner I had with him, but if Lola says he’s good to her, I believe it.
“Thank you. Are you in love with Lola?”
Damn. Everyone surrounding Lola is blunt as hell. “Yes.” I don’t have to hesitate with that question anymore.
A slow, sardonic smiles slides over her face. “Don’t hurt her.”
“You know, so far in the short time I've known you all, I’ve been told if I hurt you, my balls will be shark food. And if I hurt her, they’ll never be able to identify my body.”
She snorts as she takes a drink from her coffee. “The Sterlings are intense.”
I laugh too. “No shit. I’ve been around some tough motherfuckers, but they are something else.”
“Now you know why I couldn’t shake them. Tougher than all the street kids I knew combined.”
“I’m really glad you had them.”
“Me too.” She smiles sweetly. “Anyway, you should be Lola’s plus one to my wedding.”
“You’re inviting me to your wedding?”
Her small shoulders shrug, and I feel her insecurity. “If you want to come. But you are the only blood relative I have, and she loves you. She’s going to need you.”
“Why? As far as I can tell, she loves you like a sister already.”
I can tell the feeling is mutual, but her smile fades. “Because of the location of the wedding.”
My blood runs cold. “Where?”
“The lakehouse.”
I shake my head. What the fuck? “Why?”
She swallows, and I see the tears are back in her eyes. I can’t imagine why they would ever go back there. “Closure. You don’t know the whole story. I’m almost certain of that. Linc and I... There’s a dark past there.”
“So you want to be married there?”
That makes no sense.
“Yes, because Nora’s wedding there was beautiful, and it was therapeutic being there. I just... I want Colt to be a part of it. I don’t want to hide from his memory because he meant so much to both of us.”
The brother she dated before the brother she’s marrying?
Okay, so maybe she’s a little crazy.
“Penelope.”
She holds up one hand. “You may be my older brother, but that does not mean you get to start lecturing me. I’ve made up my mind. I need this. Linc needs this. But I don’t want it to send anyone else into a spiral.”
I think about holding Lola in the pool yesterday. “I’ll be there.”
Her shoulders square. “You really do love her.”
I really do.