Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
LOTTIE
The air has a chill to it tonight, so I wrap my blanket tighter, then lean back against the porch swing and allow the momentum to take me as I stare up at the stars.
I’m exhausted.
I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out why I’m not more upset with my new neighbor than I am. If I’m honest, it’s because the loneliness that lurks behind his eyes calls to the loneliness in my heart like the other half of my soul.
It scares the shit out of me, but the reality is, I’m simply not upset by Thane’s high-handedness, and I like feeling needed more than I thought I would.
There’s something about his awkward encounters that’s almost…endearing. And if I had any questions before about his authenticity when it comes to Kara, I don’t anymore. The man obviously cares about his sister a great deal—he has to. He’s putting up with much more than I thought him capable of.
The screen door of his back porch slams shut, the sound echoing into the yard between our homes, and against my better judgment, I lean forward, attempting to get a glimpse of him.
Wait. What the hell am I doing?
I don’t need anyone. I haven’t in a very long time. But I haven’t wanted to get close to anyone either, and now here I am, acting like a breathless teenager spying on her crush.
His screen slams again, and his voice carries on the breeze. “Fucking door. Siri, remind me to have Tanner install new hinges on the screen door. Kara!” There’s silence for a moment. “Kara?” The third time he calls his sister’s name, it’s laced with fear, and I spring to my feet.
The motion detection light over my head turns on, and he swings his gaze my way. I lift my arm in a jerky wave.
“Have you seen Kara?” He’s already walking toward me, and I scramble for my blanket. I’m not wearing a bra, and my tank top is definitely translucent, considering I’ve had it since high school. Awesome. Now he gets to see my Shrek pj pants and Girl Power tank top that’s a few years past its time-to-discard date.
I’m shaking my head as he stops on the bottom of my stairs.
“She…” He spins in a circle. “I know she came out this way. I heard the door slam.”
“Yeah. I heard it a few seconds before you came out. What’s going on?”
Ever so slowly, he turns his head toward me, and something like shame has him angling his face downward. “She— I don’t know, I guess she tried to dye her hair with some shit she got from the farmer’s market last week.” His shoulders hitch up to his ears. “It didn’t turn out as she expected, and I had no warning. She just popped out of the bathroom like that and I—well—I reacted…poorly.”
“Oh no. What did you say?” Problem-solving mode activates, and I drop the blanket, find my slippers, and move toward him, intent on searching our yards for Kara.
He doesn’t move an inch, but he takes up the entire staircase with his large frame.
“Thane?”
He swallows hard, and it sounds painful. “Ah,” he mumbles, then licks his lips. His gaze struggles to stay focused on my face.
Shit. The tank top. Crossing my arms, I step closer, until we’re nearly touching. “What did you say to her, Thane?”
“You’re so fucking beautiful.”
I have no way of containing the blush creeping across my skin, so I stare at the ground. “To Kara, Thane. What did you say to Kara?”
His head snaps up, then he steps aside so I can walk down the stairs, and we scan the yard side by side. “Ah, something about a skunk, or maybe it was a raccoon. Either way, it didn’t go over well, and Rafe was in the shower so…”
“So she ran out here.” Propping my hands on my hips, I scan from the corner of Thane’s yard, back toward mine, then toward the lake. “Let me talk with her.”
“You—you see her?”
“No, but I bet I know where she is. Hang here. I’ll bring her back. I’m pretty sure she didn’t leave the property, just may be hiding.”
“I’ll wait for seven minutes.”
That seems like a random number.
“It takes three minutes to walk down to the lake. Two if you walk fast.” He’s staring at me as if that explains it all. “Seven minutes, Lottie, then I’m coming for you both.”
WTF. That should not excite me, but my body reacts like it didn’t get the memo. I want to ask if I ran, would he chase me, and that’s all kinds of messed up, so instead, I turn on my heel and speed walk toward my bench on the lake.
“Six minutes,” he calls to my back, and I nearly run, but I’ve already spotted her silhouette on the dock that splits the property lines.
“Kara?” I call quietly as I get closer. She instantly pulls up the hood of her sweatshirt. “Thane told me what happened. Maybe I can help?”
Her shoulders tremble as if she’s crying, and my chest aches with a pain I haven’t felt since I stopped searching for parental figures in my life. I was thirteen, same as Kara.
“Sweetheart? Can you show me?”
She shakes her head, so I walk along the dock and sit beside her. It’s freaking cold down here.
“He—he didn’t even ask if I was okay. He said I looked like a rabid raccoon and asked what the hell I did.” She hiccups, then slowly lifts her head.
Mascara has melted off with her tears and formed big, dark rings around her eyes. Okay, so now I understand why he’d say what he said, but he’s got to learn to use a filter.
“And—and I ruined my hair, and I don’t have anyone to help me. I’m all alone. Everywhere I go, I’m alone. I grew up being the girl without a mom. Now I’m the girl without a dad too, and I know Thane’s trying, but…but…”
“It’s hard being a girl without a mom.” My own heartbreak bleeds into my words. The dock creaks, and I find Thane standing at the end with his hands pressed tightly to his hips. Kara hasn’t seen him yet, so I hold up my palm and gently shake my head.
Thane steps back but doesn’t leave. It’s as much privacy as we’re going to get.
“I never knew my mom.” She sniffles and wipes her nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “She left when I was a baby… Pretty sure my dad paid her to leave and never come back.”
Her father is as much of a monster as my own. I swing my legs beneath me, my toes nearly touching the water, and tuck my hands under my thighs.
“My mom passed away when I was ten. One day she was here and the next…she wasn’t.”
Kara questions me with watery eyes.
“The doctor said she had a stroke, but she was young—too young, or so I thought. My father went from bad to miserable to unbearable in the span of a week. My brother tried to shield me, but that’s probably a story for another time. I have a feeling we’ve walked a similar path.”
“Does your brother at least like you?”
Over the top of Kara’s head, Thane stands still as a statue, except for his fingers that tap a synchronized beat at his sides.
“My brother loves me, and so does yours, but this is all very new for you both. It’ll be an adjustment, and not an easy one, but he wouldn’t be here, with you, if he didn’t care for you.”
“I don’t really know anything about him,” she admits. “Not anymore. He’s so much older, and he stopped coming home after Dad fired Ophelia. Thane only came when she gave him the all clear, and it was usually when Dad was out of town. He’s probably worried about appearances too. It’s all my dad cares about, so I shouldn’t be surprised. What would it say about Thane if he let me go into foster care?”
Thane lifts a foot as though he’s going to march down the dock, and once again, I wave him off.
I’m actually surprised he pauses.
“Our fathers, unfortunately, are very much alike, Kara. Did you know that?”
She frowns up at me, but I sling my arm over her shoulder and pull her into my side. “My dad and your dad are bitter rivals in the tech industry. They’re essentially the same person. Dictators, assholes, misogynistic fools, take your pick. It suits them both.
“If you ask someone at my father’s company if they like working for him, you’ll get a canned answer about what a privilege it is. Do you know what happens if you ask someone at Wilder Minds if they enjoy working for your brother?”
“No.” She fidgets with the zipper on her sweatshirt. “What?”
“They love it. They say he’s demanding, and they say it with a genuine smile. They say that it’s a collaborative environment, and even though Thane doesn’t interact much, he’s always teaching and leading by example. Most of the people I spoke to held him in such high regard, they fear leaving because they’re learning more from a week with your brother than they learned in all four years of their degrees. He pushes them hard, and they work harder because they respect him.”
She frowns, but I give her a few moments to ruminate on what I’ve said.
“Does that sound like someone who doesn’t care to you?”
“Well, no.” Kara scrubs her face with the heels of her hands. “But…”
“But different, right? All of Thane’s employees know he cares about them and their success, even though that care looks different than what they’re used to.”
“He’s not different.” Kara’s voice takes on a hard edge of defense. Whether she wants to admit it or not, she loves the man.
“No, he’s not different. He’s…unique. His love and care are unique to him. Just as your love language is unique to you.”
“Are you saying when he called me a rabid raccoon, he was trying to say I love you?”
The laugh barrels out of my chest before I can stop it. “God, no. That was man-code for ‘what the hell happened?’ and while we women weigh our words, men sometimes don’t. I know it’s not fair to give a broad generalization like that, but in my experience, it’s true. I’m sure it was a reaction, a gut reaction, that tied up his words, and what came out was not what he meant. He loves you, Kara.”
“Maybe,” she grumbles.
“Wanna show me what we’re working with under there?”
She sighs so heavily it causes tiny ripples in the water below. Then she reluctantly pulls down her hood.
I only have the moonlight overhead, but it’s enough light to know she’s done a number on her hair. I’m not even sure what color she was going for. Her natural, golden brown matches her brother’s, but now she has dark streaks in odd places.
“I wanted it darker, but then there wasn’t enough to do my whole head, so I thought I’d do like highlights, but dark ones. The YouTuber made it seem so easy.”
I lift my arms, then freeze in midair. “Can I?”
She nods, so I stand and run my fingers through her long strands, assessing the damage as I do. That’s when the weight of Thane’s gaze hits me hard. I turn my head toward him, and we instantly lock eyes. His face is full of so many conflicting emotions I can’t even name them.
He signs the word thank you—he used flipping sign language—then turns on his heel and slowly walks back toward my house, or his, I’m not sure.
“How does he know sign language?” I whisper the words under my breath. Thane Wilder is a mystery.
“He learned when I was little,” Kara says quietly, staring after him long after he’s faded from view. “The doctors thought I had trouble hearing. Turns out, I was just learning how to survive the constant yelling in our house. Thane took a class and taught me. It’s how we communicated when we didn’t want Dad to know what we were saying.”
My insides shake and tremble so much it hurts. The emotion building inside me has no outlet, but I cannot cry in front of this little girl.
“Does—” My voice cracks, and I try again. “Does that sound like someone who doesn’t love you?”
“He might love me, Lottie, but he doesn’t like me a whole lot.”
“That’s not?—”
“Can you help me with my hair?” Kara shrinks about five sizes when she asks. She’s not used to leaning on anyone either.
We’re more alike than she could ever know.
“Yeah.” Blinking away tears, I offer my hand. “Let’s go see what we can do.”
Hand-in-hand, we walk back to my house. Back to Thane, who’s waiting on my porch with his head in his hands, the porch light illuminating his slumped form, and a single tear that’s dripping from his nose.
Somehow, in a matter of days, this little family has infiltrated my heart, and I don’t know how to evict them.
Or if I want to.