Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
NOW
FINN’S VOICE BOOMS DOWN the hallway. “There you are! What are you doing up here?”
An internal groan resonates. I should’ve stayed in my room. The party was starting to wind down anyway, so I could’ve disappeared until tomorrow morning without any real repercussions. I made my appearance, mingled, and had a couple of drinks, I even laughed a little. Michaela had nothing to complain about.
“Everything okay down there?”
“Fine.” He waves it off. “Ophelia and her friends just had a little too much sugar. They went crashing into the BOO letters you moved.”
I’m sure Kai’s wife, Eileen, is ecstatic that her daughter is hyped up on pure sugar. Eileen had tried to manage some of the intake, but it didn’t help that Mic was secretly giving Ophelia and her friends candy behind everyone’s back. I’d walked into the kitchen earlier to find my sister shushing them as she handed them each another cookie. The girls stuffed their faces and ran past me in a chorus of giggles. Michaela’s eyes widened when she saw me standing there, but I rolled my eyes and walked away. It wasn’t my place to ruin the fun.
“Probably sounded worse than it was,” Finn says, trying to cover a yawn.
“Guess we should’ve left them where they were, huh?”
“Don’t say that too loud, your sister already started in on Nin about it.”
Of course she did. Any opportunity to tell her best friend she was wrong.
“Y’alright? You snuck off during that last game of beer pong and—”
“Fine,” I say with a tight-lipped smile. “Just needed some space.”
Finn smirks. “And that space included your soon-to-be ex-wife?”
Shit.
“Look, I get it.” His hands fly up in retreat. “One more for the road, but maybe not while we’re all downstairs?”
“We didn’t…I didn’t…It’s not like that!”
“Whatever you say, Joshy.” Finn winks and heads down the hall toward the master suite. He pulls the orange ascot from his shirt with a relieved sigh before the door closes behind him.
When I walk downstairs, it’s quiet, the quietest it’s been all night. The majority of the guests have gone, and all that remains is the rest of the family. Eileen holds a zonked-out Ophelia in her arms, the young girl clutches her mother’s neck as her mouth hangs open. Nick holds a car seat with a costume-free Elena inside, fast asleep. The two of them talk with Michaela at the front door, but the three Villa siblings are nowhere to be found.
“There you are,” my sister shouts in a whisper, trying not to wake the sleeping girls. Nick and Eileen turn to see who she’s talking to. “Where did you run off to?”
“Just needed a breather.”
“Old man.”
Nick starts to say something, probably about to add another insult to the pot, but is interrupted when Kai returns from the living room carrying Ophelia’s witch hat.
“Got everything?” Eileen asks.
“Finally. It took forever to find this damn thing.” Kai sighs, stuffing it in one of their open bags.
“We would’ve found it eventually, no biggie,” Michaela interrupts like I’m sure she has a million times already.
“Better I find it now than deal with a potential meltdown later.”
Eileen nods with a tired smile before trudging out the front door. She doesn’t wait around for goodbyes. I’m sure she has probably already done her rounds and is ready to go. Kai thanks Michaela again for a fun evening and follows his wife.
“Nick, let’s go. I want to get home before she wakes up to eat,” Nina says when she and Elizabeth walk out of the kitchen less than a second later.
“Everything okay?” Nick asks, motioning toward Elizabeth, who hugs Michaela goodbye.
“We’ll talk about it later .” Nina turns to me and asks, “Are you still coming for breakfast tomorrow?”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
But Nina’s face is answer enough.
I had planned on having breakfast at their place until I learned Elizabeth would be staying with them. I don’t think she wants to wake up on her birthday to find her ex-husband sitting at the breakfast table.
“Don’t worry about it, Nin. I’m sure Mrs. Taylor will be up bright and early with breakfast and coffee waiting for us.”
“You know it!” Finn says, rubbing his stomach as he takes the final step, now dressed in sweats and a plain white T-shirt. Mrs. Taylor was the mother of the high schooler who was Finn’s “little brother” in the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program. Knox and Finn hit it off pretty well, and when Mrs. Taylor was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he and Michaela insisted they move in. So, at the beginning of September, Finn bribed Nick, Alex, and me to help move the duo from East Harlem to the Financial District. Despite her diagnosis, Mrs. Taylor refused to quit cooking, and it seemed to be the one thing she could still do without difficulty. “That woman is a godsend.”
“Well, if you change your mind—”
“Don’t worry about me, Nin.”
“You and Elizabeth should go out tomorrow,” Nick says to his wife. “Elena and I can come over here.”
“No, I don’t want to leave Elena.” Nina smiles down at the sleeping baby. Since giving birth in August, Nina hasn’t gone anywhere without her daughter. She even turned down a few work events because she would have to leave Elena at home. “You can come over here, though. Elena can stay with us.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Nick says. He kisses his wife’s temple before thanking Finn again for hosting the party. I think he and Nina are just glad someone else did it for a change—the thought of hosting a party while dealing with a newborn sounds terrible.
“Never thought I’d see the day where we have kids at our parties,” Finn says, motioning toward the car seat. “But here we are.”
“Yeah, and you’re next.” Nick smirks, raising a brow at Finn.
“Oh God,” I groan, earning a laugh from both of them. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that.”
The thought makes me sick, considering he’s dating my little sister. Still laughing, Nick pulls me into a one-armed hug before doing the same to Finn. Nina hugs Finn but only offers me a tight smile. Our relationship has been strained since everything came out, that’s for sure. Normally, she’d hug me and push a little harder for me to join them in the morning, but not anymore. And I’m sure Elizabeth told her what happened upstairs. “Bye, Short-stack.”
“Bye, Bub.”
Well, at least she still uses my nickname. That’s a good sign, right?
Michaela walks them out the door with Elizabeth in tow. She had taken a step back from the conversation when I showed up. Was that how it was going to be from now on? When one of us was around, the other had to take a step back to make sure we didn’t step on one another’s toes? It feels unnatural. We’ve never been like that, not even when we were in the middle of a disagreement before. We had always been able to maintain a certain level of cordiality. But now, we don’t have to do that. We don’t have to get along in front of the others.
I find my way to the kitchen to make one final drink for the evening. As I walk in, Finn already has two beers on the counter and offers me one. “Figured you could use one of these.”
“You figured correct,” I say, taking the beer.
“You know,” my sister says, walking into the kitchen. “If you and Elizabeth would just talk , I’m sure you’d both come to realize you actually do love each other.”
“It’s not that simple, Mic.”
“Sure it is!”
I scoff bringing the beer bottle to my lips.
“You do love her, don’t you?”
Yes.
“I don’t know, Michaela.”
“How do you not know if you love someone?”
“It’s…complicated. Okay?”
“But—”
“Michaela!” I don’t mean to yell, but right now, the last thing I want to do is deal with her meddling. “Just stop. Damn.”
“Hey, chill,” Finn warns. “Your sister doesn’t mean any harm. We’re all just trying to understand. Trying to get used to this new normal.”
“It’s not that hard to understand.”
“Josh, you were in an arranged marriage.” Michaela puts a large emphasis on the arranged part as if I’m not aware of what I’ve been going through for the past ten years. “That’s not—it’s not something that just happens!”
“How did it happen?” Finn takes a tug of his beer.
Now that’s a long story.