Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SIERRA
Sydney takes a deep breath. “Why did you just slam your door?”
“I ran into my room because I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Beau. He doesn’t need to know our family is crazy.”
“Wait, who’s Beau?” she asks.
“Jackson’s little brother. You remember him?”
“The snowboarder? Holy shit, Sierra!” she practically yells. Sometimes I forget that he’s the same age as my twin sisters. Of course they met at Blackstone Mountain, the same way I met Jackson. “Why is he at your place?”
“He’s in town for a few weeks, training for the X Games, so Jackson said he could stay in the spare bedroom. Since I’m staying at her place and she won’t even charge me rent, it’s not like I have much say who my roommate is.”
“Is he as hot as he looks on social media?” she asks, skipping right to the part of the story she’s clearly most interested in.
“Unfortunately,” I tell her as I pace back and forth in my room. “Why do you even follow him?”
“Because he’s a kid I kind of knew when we were in high school and now he’s a pretty famous professional snowboarder. Why is it unfortunate that he’s as hot as he looks online?”
I drop my voice low. “Have you ever tried living with someone who’s ridiculously hot and looks at you like he wants to devour you, but you absolutely cannot go there? Sydney, he’s my best friend’s much younger brother. Nothing can happen.”
“First of all, five years isn’t that big of a difference now.
I mean, you and I are in much more similar places in our lives now than say, when I was fifteen and you were twenty.
And the older you get, the less a five-year age difference would matter.
I mean, Joe is four years older than me, and we’re getting married. ”
“Yeah, back to that,” I say quickly, anxious to get off the topic of me and Beau, and back to the all-important breaking of our family’s curse. Which of course isn’t real, so it doesn’t need breaking—but better safe than sorry, right? “What the hell do you mean you’re getting married next weekend?”
“Joe proposed last night. And given our family’s history with marriage, we don’t want a long, drawn out engagement period.
Since his only family is his brother, he doesn’t want a big wedding and I honestly don’t care either way.
I just want to actually marry him.” I can feel the love in that statement.
This isn’t about breaking a curse, it’s about her wanting to spend the rest of her life with Joe.
And it makes me wonder if I sounded the same way talking about marrying Peter.
“We thought about doing it here in Boston, but then we’d have to invite people or their feelings would be hurt.
And Ma—” She sighs deeply. “—I’m not sure that having her there on my special day would be the best thing for me. ”
“I completely understand.” She doesn’t need to explain to me why that’s complicated.
Sydney and my mom have a similar relationship to me and my mom, but maybe even worse because Ma grew more and more bitter as we girls got older.
I think watching her youth and vitality fade as ours grew was way too much for her sociopath brain to handle.
She was only happy when she was making us feel less-than.
“So anyway, eloping seems like the best option. We’re flying to Vegas next weekend. There’s no wait-time for a marriage license and it’s a long weekend, so it’s perfect. And I want you to be there.”
“Of course I’ll be there,” I squeal. I’ve never been to Vegas, and I haven’t seen Sydney in too long. “I can’t believe this is really happening. Are you . . .” I trail off, afraid that me being scared something bad will happen to ruin this for her will actually be what ruins it.
“Scared?” she offers.
“Yeah.”
“Hell yes. Part of me wants to just hop on a plane today and get this taken care of. Or apply for a marriage license tomorrow when city hall opens, wait the three days, and get married here on Thursday. But I want you to be there, and Joe wants his brother there. His brother is in LA, and you’re in Park City, so Vegas—with its lax marriage laws and its location—just makes sense. ”
“If it were me, I would probably do both,” I admit, even though she’s not asking for my advice.
“Really?”
“Would the Vegas wedding be more relaxing and fun if you knew you were technically already married? You’d still get to do the ceremony, and have Joe’s brother and me there with you to celebrate, but you wouldn’t have to spend this next week worrying that something might happen to stop the wedding.”
“I can’t stop thinking about Lydia,” Sydney says, her voice barely a whisper.
“Me too. But Syd, Lydia’s situation was different. They were fighting all the time. She was already pregnant. I think he just cut his losses, but was too chickenshit to tell her.”
“I know,” she says. This is a conversation we’ve already had a million times, each assuring the other that it doesn’t mean “the curse” is real. “But I’m still scared, even though, logically, I know it makes no sense.”
“Think about getting married at city hall before you fly out to Vegas, just so you have the peace of mind and can actually enjoy the ceremony and celebration there.”
“I’m also worried about how Lydia will feel about me getting married and inviting you, but not her,” Sydney says. She and Lydia are like two sides of the same coin—opposites in every way except DNA, yet intrinsically bound together.
“That’s fair. But it’s your wedding. If having her there would make it less enjoyable for you, it’s not worth it.”
“She’s just so freaking difficult. I don’t want her ruining the excitement or my happiness with her doom and gloom scenarios.
I don’t want her comparing our lives. She always makes me feel like somehow it’s my fault she’s living in a trailer park in Blackstone.
Like I made her choose to date Anthony and get knocked up when she was nineteen. ”
“Like Ma, Lydia can hardly stand to see others happy. Her life is hard, and the fact that our lives aren’t—that we made different choices and are happier than she is—she just doesn’t know how to deal with that.”
“I know. But it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with her.”
“True. Maybe you can wait until midweek and invite her? I mean, the chances of her being able to come on such short notice are low?” I feel like a complete asshole suggesting this, but Lydia’s just so exceptionally difficult. Having her there really could ruin the whole experience for Sydney.
“Let me think about it,” she says. “But anyway . . . Vegas!” She shares her plans with me, insisting that she and Joe are booking three rooms at the same hotel they’re having the ceremony at, and all I have to do is get myself there.
“Joe’s brother will be there with his wife,” she tells me.
“Maybe you should think about bringing someone too?”
I stop pacing, coming up short at my mirror.
“I literally just broke up with my fiancé, Syd. There is no one else.” I take a good look at myself and wonder if that will always be the case.
Peter was the first guy I dated who really “stuck.” My track record before that was full of short-term relationships that just fizzled out.
“What about Beau?” she asks. “Obviously there’s some strong attraction, and you know what they say—what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Might be the perfect place for some no-strings fun for the two of you.”
My entire body shudders, goose bumps prickling my skin at the thought. At how badly I want that option. “No. That’s a brilliant but terrible idea. And Jackson would never understand me having a fling with him.”
“You know, you don’t have to tell her.”
The idea of keeping a secret like that from my best friend is .
. . preposterous. Then again, I never told her about that night I turned him down when he was seventeen.
And she lied to me about Nate when they first got back together.
She had good reasons, and I’ve forgiven her, but I can’t help thinking that this wouldn’t be that different.
Yes, it would, I tell myself. This is her brother.
“I don’t think I could outright lie to her about something that big.”
“Are you sure she’d even care? They’re not close, right?”
“No, and that’s why she’d care,” I say, making sure to keep my voice low.
I end up heading into my bathroom and shutting that door too.
This is not a conversation I want Beau to overhear.
“She has this picture of who he is, and she doesn’t like that person at all.
But as I’ve gotten to know him better, I think her version of him is . . . incomplete.”
“Oh, man.” Sydney laughs. “You’ve already thought this through.”
“Hard not to when I’m living with someone who walks around half-naked and blatantly undresses me with his eyes. The worst part, Syd, is he’s not just some snowboarding sex god, he’s actually a good person—and I’m attracted to that aspect of him as well.”
Her laugh is low and rumbling. “You are so screwed.”
“He’s leaving in two weeks,” I tell her. “I can get through two more weeks.”
“You’re a mess after only one week,” she reminds me. “I’ve never heard you like this before. You’ve never expressed this level of attraction to Peter. Or anyone.”
“I know. It’s bad.” It feels good to admit this out loud, to tell someone else instead of having to hold it inside all the time.
“Where’s he going in two weeks?”
“The X Games in Aspen. Then he’ll be off to the next competition, or whatever. I think he said maybe Switzerland? He never stays in one place for long. He doesn’t even have a home base, just travels all the time. New locations, new girls, that’s his lifestyle.”
“So in other words, you couldn’t be more different.”
“Exactly.”
“Well,” she says slowly. “If he’s only there for two weeks and then you’ll probably never see him again, why not have a little fling?”
The thought of never seeing him again has my chest seizing up painfully. You’ve just gotten used to having him around, I remind myself.