13. Abigail
THIRTEEN
ABIGAIL
My eye was twitching again.
Blair clicked her tongue as she looked around my second living area, shaking her head. “This won’t work. I have eleven bridesmaids, and we need to do a video of us getting ready together! How Donny thought this place was a good idea, I’ll never know.”
“Well, Donny could’ve considered running it past me. You know, the person who owns the house?”
Blair ignored me, marching back to the kitchen. I followed her, not even sure why I bothered. Maybe to make sure she didn’t mess with my stuff. I heard the front door open, and just as Blair was poking her head through the kitchen door, Rex appeared at the mouth of the hallway.
His eyes flicked to me—and the running outfit I hadn’t been able to change out of yet, because Blair had monopolized the bathroom and locked me out of using my own shower—then over to Blair, who was opening the door and marching through my sanctuary.
She turned her nose up at the covered porch. “Would it kill you to vacuum once in a while, Abigail? And those mugs look like they’re growing mold.”
Rex’s brow arched as he approached.
I took a deep, calming breath. Or at least, I hoped very hard that it would calm me, with less-than-stellar results. “You can’t film in there,” I blurted.
Blair paused, her foot holding the kitchen door open, and turned to meet my gaze. Her eyes were dark and utterly serious. “Oh? And why not?”
“Because I said so, that’s why?” It came out like a question, and I cursed myself for it. I sounded weak.
Blair’s only response was to snort, and then she turned to Rex. Her face transformed. She flicked expertly curled blond hair off her shoulder and batted her lashes at him, smiling coyly. “Hi there, T. Did you have fun watching the game?” She swanned over to him, plucking a piece of lint off his chest. “Did you behave yourself?”
I gritted my teeth as my eyes narrowed.
Rex didn’t back away from her, but he didn’t seem to be lapping up her attention, either. He shrugged. “Game was all right. You two ladies have a good time at home?”
“Peachy,” I gritted out, then stomped to the refrigerator. I pulled out the old boxes of pizza and took a slice, masticating like the pizza had personally offended me. Meanwhile, Blair regaled Rex with tales of video setups and plans of live recordings.
“But we need a getting-ready shot. And the photographer has a whole list of shots he needs to take outdoors, but look at the state of the backyard! What are we going to do?”
Rex glanced out the window and frowned.
And I had enough. I swallowed the bite of pizza in my mouth and faced her. “What you’re going to do is use your actual wedding venue for those photos, and not my home, Blair.”
She laughed and flicked her gaze at Rex. “I don’t know how you put up with her, honey.”
Honey. Honey???
That was my boyfriend she was cozying up to. Sort of. For now.
“I mean, when Donny told me the two of you were dating, I couldn’t believe it. I kept waiting for you to change the RSVP, but here we are.” She giggled, leaning against the kitchen counter in such a way that her breasts looked high and round, and a little strip of skin was exposed below her navel.
It wasn’t for my benefit, that was for sure.
The only thing stopping me from calling this whole thing off was the interaction in my bathroom this morning, and the casual way Gabe had assumed I couldn’t handle seeing this wedding through. He already expected the worst from me, and if I couldn’t even manage to do a favor for his best friend, I would only confirm his assumptions.
Blair was saying something—probably some subtly veiled criticism of me, my looks, my house, or my job—and I couldn’t handle it anymore. I grabbed the stack of pizza boxes and stomped outside.
Sure, the grass was a little long. Who cared? It was my grass to do what I wanted with! And yeah, the fence leaned a little on the far side, and it probably needed a lick of paint. What didn’t need a lick of paint in this town? My flower beds were full of weeds with nary a flower in sight, but come on. I was a working woman with friends and a life. You couldn’t expect me to actually garden .
“Abigail!” The screen door slammed behind Rex as he came jogging toward me.
“Not now, Rex,” I replied, cutting across the grass toward my compost bin.
He reached me just as I lifted the lid off and said, “Whoa! You feel the heat coming off this thing? When’s the last time you turned your compost?”
“You stay away from my compost, Rex Montgomery,” I snapped. He watched me stuff the pizza boxes into it, mashing them down to compress the whole thing so I could fit the lid back on.
To his credit, he said nothing.
When I turned to face him, his expression was blank, and he was watching me like he was afraid I’d spook and run. I crossed my arms. “What.”
“I really appreciate you doing this for me, Abigail,” he answered quietly. He sounded sincere and genuine and nice .
For reasons unknown, it made me want to rage. “This,” I said, jabbing my finger toward my house, “is not a fair trade.”
“I know.”
“I did not sign up for this.”
“I know, Abigail.”
“The only reason I haven’t talked to Gabe is because—” I stopped. I didn’t want to admit how much my brother’s attitude hurt me. “Because I don’t want him to hate you forever."
Rex sighed and shrugged, spreading his arms. “It’s just for a few days. I’ll—I’ll make it up to you.”
He looked so resigned. I frowned. “How did you get to the point where your brother is dating your ex, and now you’re bending over backward to do everything you can for them? They sure don’t seem to care that much about you.”
Rex flinched, and a tiny part of me felt bad. Only a tiny part, though. He let out a long breath. “This is the way it is between me and Donny.”
“Maybe Donny should learn to take care of himself.”
Rex shrugged. “He just needs a little help sometimes.”
“With life?” I snarked.
“Yeah, with life,” Rex replied. “My dad died, and it hit him hard. He was so much younger than me; I had to step up. And now he relies on me for things like this. He’s not a bad guy. He’s just…Donny.”
“You sound like Gabe,” I said, upper lip curling. “The brave, clever, overprotective big brother who just has to take care of his screwup of a younger sibling.”
Rex frowned. “That’s not what Gabe thinks.”
I snorted. “Isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s not what I think.”
“You seemed pretty happy to play along with him calling me a disaster waiting to happen this morning.”
Rex stared at me, and understanding dawned in his eyes. He’d hurt my feelings, and he knew it.
I hated that. It burned through me, the shame of his compassion, the absolute mortification of Rex fucking Montgomery preparing to be so goddamn nice to me again .
“I have to go inside and make sure Blair hasn’t turned my living room into a film studio,” I said, brushing past him?—
And promptly tripping over one of the concrete blocks I’d dumped in the backyard over a year ago when I’d had dreams of building a fire pit where Charlie, Sophie, and I could hang out on warm summer evenings.
Rex caught me before I hit the ground, helped me right myself, then moved toward the concrete blocks like he was going to clear them out of the way.
“Don’t touch those,” I snapped at him. “That’s my fire pit.”
Rex straightened, gaze on the five or six concrete blocks tumbled in the middle of my yard, almost completely obscured by grass and weeds. His eyes flicked to me. “This is your fire pit?”
“Oh, shut up, Rex,” I said, and spun on my heels to rush back inside.
Blair looked up when I entered the kitchen, and I didn’t even have the energy to duke it out with her. I made my way to my bedroom and slammed my door behind me.
My home was overrun with unwanted houseguests. I had to pretend to date my brother’s best friend, who had made it more than clear that he was in no way actually interested in me, which would be fine except for the fact that I’d discovered he was unbearably attractive. And worst of all, he was trying to be nice to me. I couldn’t get out of this situation without ending up even more disgraced than I was now, so my only choice was to see it through.
But I would not cry. Not over Rex, and definitely not over Blair and Donny. I was better than that.
Winston looked up from where he’d been grooming himself near my closet. His black-and-white head tilted, green eyes clear and bright in the fading sunlight illuminating my room. I got on my knees in front of him and let him sniff at my fingers for a second, then enjoyed his motor-engine purrs as I scratched him behind the ears.
“Everything really sucks, Winston.” I sat down fully, and he climbed into my lap. “Everything just really, really sucks.”
He rubbed his head against my palm, then daintily stepped off my legs and slinked over toward Rex’s pile of stuff. His tail flicked back and forth as he paused by Rex’s shoes, glancing over his shoulder to stare at me. Then he scampered to the bed, using my bedside table to hop up onto the mattress before curling into a tight black ball in the center of my bed.
Curious, I tiptoed over to Rex’s pile of belongings. And right there in his left shoe was a perfectly formed cat turd. I rolled my lips inward to stop from laughing, glancing at the cat on my bed.
Winston had one eye open, watching me.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I told him, and he closed his eye. His tail made a soft whisper of sound as it brushed over my duvet. I climbed up beside him and gave him more scritches behind his ears. “You really can’t poop in people’s shoes, Winston. It’s not nice. But thank you. He deserved it.”
The cat didn’t respond, but after a few more moments, his purring started up again, and most of the aggression plaguing me melted away.