Chapter 38
Sofia
“Are you doing okay with all of this?” I bite my lip, worried that Alessandro is falling out of love with me as forty of my family members have taken over his wing. We’re loud. We may know how to dress, but we’re not half as classy as Alessandro is accustomed to.
As an example, a beer bong has already made an appearance.
“It’s fine.” He gives me a tight smile.
It is not fine.
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would turn into… this.” I look through the sliding doors on the balcony into bedlam. But it was to be expected; everyone is celebrating the fact that I wasn’t being tortured for weeks and weeks.
“Sofia. This is what I deserve after keeping you from them all this time. And besides, I have all the staff at my fingertips to clean up everything when they go home tomorrow.” He gives me a smile that’s less fake, and I start to feel okay about things.
“As long as you don’t get offended that I hide on this balcony for the next two hours until everyone goes to bed, all will be well. ”
Two hours? I won’t tell him it’s going to be much longer than that.
I give him a quick kiss and head back inside. He’s made as much progress with my family as he could after everything that’s happened.
I pass through the kitchen and notice Nick leaning against the counter, beer in hand and scrolling through his phone with a pained expression.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
He shudders at my question and quickly stuffs his phone in his pocket. “Yeah. How are you?”
“Good… Are you sure? You look sad. And I visited you in the hospital soon after you got shot, and you had that smart-ass smile on your face the whole time.”
“They had me on the premium stuff for that visit, and I’m just tired from travel today. That’s all.”
“Where’s Savannah?”
I cut to the point of why I think he’s acting this way—Max told me earlier that they broke up.
And really broke up, unlike their short breaks that’s common with their relationship.
And Max, being a man, had absolutely no details to provide.
He didn’t know what had happened or when it had happened.
He didn’t even notice that Nick wasn’t acting like himself.
“She’s finding herself in Vietnam,” he says flatly.
“Vietnam?”
“Yep.” He takes a sip of beer.
“Well… I’m sure she’ll come home soon. It’s Savannah. She impulsively went backpacking around Southeast Asia, and she’ll impulsively decide to come back home.”
He shakes his head. “It’s different this time.”
“Well, maybe you should go find her.”
I realize I shouldn’t have been that blunt when he glares at me. I reflexively take a step back. I don’t think he’s ever looked at me like this before.
“You don’t think I’ve tried that already? And I’ve been kind of preoccupied with rescuing my cousin from an evil man only to find out she’s in love and happy as ever.”
“I’m so sorry, Nick. I… it’s been a long few days. I shouldn’t be this nosy.”
His body relaxes, but I can still tell he’s dejected as he leans against the counter again. “I’m sorry, too. Don’t worry about it.”
I stumble through a goodbye and leave him.
I’m not an intuitive person, but for some reason, I feel it in my bones that those two will end up back together and Savannah will come back home.
I try to shake off the guilt from that conversation and wander around until I find Bianca, Max, and Hailey standing in a circle amidst the chaos.
Bianca holds some sparkling water in her hand and seems to hold herself together well despite this party environment. I’m only a couple of years older than her, but I feel a motherly-sort of pride overwhelm me because of her sobriety, and I give her a big hug.
“Hey,” she laughs, placing a strand of her platinum-blonde hair behind her ear.
“I missed you so much.”
“Me too. And now that you and Alessandro are in love.” There’s a layer of sarcasm around the words ‘in love.’ No one fully believes everything is fine between the two of us. “I was thinking of spending part of the summer here if that’s okay with…”
“Yes! That is absolutely happening!”
Hailey groans. “If I weren’t taking summer classes, I’d come too.”
“Well, I’ll be flying in to help with your wedding before you know it.”
She groans again, Max giving her an exaggerated look of offense followed by her playfully rolling her eyes at him. “You know that I’m excited, but it seems like so much work with everything else going on in my life right now.”
“I told you,” Max says. “We’ll hire a good wedding planner.”
“But she still needs to make all the decisions,” I argue on Hailey’s behalf.
Max holds his hands up in surrender and then walks away. “I’m going to go try to cheer Nick up.”
“Good luck with that,” Bianca says, and she means it sincerely. I am really getting worried about Nick. Damn men and their inability to open up. I’m dying to know what happened with him and Savannah.
“Has anyone tried calling her?” I ask, changing the subject.
“I have, but she always flips the conversation back to me,” Hailey says. “We’re taking care of her dog while we get him all the vaccines so he can travel with her but something tells me if it weren’t for Teddy, she would have left her phone in the States and went no-contact with all of us.”
“That is so weird.”
Hailey is good at hiding her emotions, but I can see a bit of anger and betrayal beneath her stoic mask.
She had an upbringing that involved her growing up in an isolated cult, and Savannah was her first friend outside of that horrible place.
I’m pissed off on her behalf. This is unusual for Savannah.
The three of us talk and talk and talk until a couple of hours roll by. Bianca chats about all the clubs she joined her senior year of college and the new friends she’s made now that most of her nights aren’t spent partying.
Hailey talks about how Max is teaching her how to cook, a skill she never picked up with how she was raised. Apparently, most of her meals were from a cafeteria. She never opens up fully about her past, but the tidbits of information I get always shock me.
Mom joins our circle, giving me a side hug and then rubbing the back of my head. “Can I talk to you before I go to bed?”
“Of course.” I lead us to a spare sitting room where we can get some privacy—I assumed that if she just wanted to casually spend time with me, she would have joined all of us and talked.
I move a couple of boxes from a couch since we haven’t decided what to do with this room yet; it’s mostly been used for storage.
We take a seat on the antique furniture, and I run my hands on its velvety surface.
This room desperately needs a touch-up, but there are so many rooms in this place it’s been exhausting making it our own.
“So.” Mom takes a sip of wine, narrowing her eyes playfully. “You like him?”
I groan. “For the millionth time, yes.”
“Why?”
“I… just do. Why do I need to get interrogated at this party?”
“Because I need receipts. Otherwise, I’m moving in until I am satisfied with how he treats you.”
I laugh at needing receipts. She clearly stole that line from Bianca.
“I’m serious, Soph!” She sets her glass down and leans forward. “It has been a living hell ever since that damn ceremony.”
“Okay, okay.” I hold my hands up and then ponder where to even start with this.
“At first he was miserable to be around. Absolutely miserable, and I can’t think of any adjective to describe him better in the beginning.
He wanted to be alone constantly. He didn’t want me to talk or do anything, really. Then…”
Well, I need to skip past the X-rated version of our story.
“Then… I guess I realized he truly cared about me. About my safety. And that confused me. And slowly. I mean, really, really slowly. I stopped viewing him as so annoying and miserable. So, the hostage situation turned into a fairly normal relationship.” I feel my face glow.
“He’s funny. I don’t think he even means to be half the time, but he makes me laugh. We’re both nerds.”
She snorts.
“Mom, that’s when you’re supposed to say, ‘You’re not a nerd, sweetheart’.”
She sarcastically mimics that statement, then I continue on. “But seriously, you know how I get competitive about things?”
“Really? I never noticed.”
I laugh. “Well, that’s not a problem with him. We played a game like Jenga for over twelve hours once. Then he took me to Greece…”
“Sofia?”
She snaps me out of my memories, and I can feel myself blushing thinking about that night on the boat.
“I believe it now. I needed to see that glow.”
I relax on the couch. “Really?”
She nods, but I can tell from her body language that we’re not done.
“Now, whenever you two fell in love, why on Earth didn’t you call us?”
There’s some hurt and worry in her voice, and that makes me feel so guilty.
I wring my hands nervously. “I was so confused about my feelings about everything, and I thought it would only complicate things, telling everyone about the change in dynamic. It was stupid, and I’m so sorry.
If I had known about the package that was sent…
” I trail off, not knowing how to explain myself better.
There was a bit of spite keeping me from reaching out to them—for always calling the shots.
But I can sense that my temper has evened out since the last time I talked to her in person.
Before, I would have started a fight or thrown her poor advice not to go on birth control in her face.
There’s no point in any of that. I don’t have to win.
I don’t have to be right. I just want everyone to be happy.
“Well, I still don’t trust him,” she says. “But I can tell you’re safe, so that’s all that matters.”
She gives me a quick hug, and then we make our way back out to the party.
While I still feel guilty for all the pain I put them through, that conversation helped a lot.
And really, just having everyone here makes me feel like my life is finally back on track.
That all the nightmarish parts are over and I can finally start my new life.