Chapter 34
To Do:
- Prep lasagna
- Practice deep breathing
- Quote on greenery rental
Claire yawnedas she tore off a sheet of aluminum foil and covered her freshly made lasagna. Her mother’s recipe had carried her through countless potlucks and dinners with glowing reviews. Claire could have made it in her sleep. It was the lowest amount of effort she could put in without setting out cold cuts and calling it a day.
She leaned against the kitchen island and took a sip of wine, fanning herself with the oven mitt. In classic Pennsylvania fashion, the temperature had soared up to ninety. Her tiny window air conditioner was chugging along doing its best, but it was definitely warm in her fourth-floor apartment. Maybe the heat would scare people away sooner.
What would this dinner be like? She was starting to get a handle on Jack, but Tanya and George were complete unknowns. What if Tanya was another Rachel? What if George was a serial killer? At this point, nothing would surprise Claire.
She ripped off sheets of paper towels and tucked them under the forks at the place settings. She wasn’t trying to impress these people. She hadn’t even made a dessert. They were lucky she made them a meal at all. Really, she was only doing it to shut Jack up…and to satisfy her curiosity. With the bonus of torturing Luke.
Claire took another sip of her wine and jumped when the doorbell rang. Rosie went crazy, barking at the door as her stump of a tail wagged vigorously.
Claire blew a strand of hair out of her face and opened the door.
Her father, clearly already uncomfortable, stood in another one of his famous nondescript suits, his arm around an earthy, ethereal-looking woman.
“Oh, Claire!” The woman exclaimed, rushing forward and wrapping her in a tight hug.
Claire shrank into herself like a hermit crab scuttling into its shell. Why was the home-wrecker hugging her?
“I am so pleased to meet you,” the unsolicited hugger added. “Let me look at you.”
She drew back and held onto Claire with both arms, her meadow green eyes poring over Claire’s features. Claire leaned backward as far as she could manage without tipping over.
“You have your dad’s eyes. And his chin,” Tanya said with a dazzling smile. “You are every bit as beautiful as I imagined.”
“Uh, thank you,” Claire said, taking a small step back into her apartment. “It’s nice to meet you, Tanya.” A realization hit her like a sack full of day-old scones. Tanya had a label beyond home-wrecker. She was Claire’s stepmother.
“Please come in.” She opened the door wider and tried to covertly take another deep breath.
“Your home is lovely,” Tanya said, floating around the room in her gaucho pants and Birkenstocks. Gold bangles clanged against each other on her slender, tanned arms as she skimmed her hands over the spines of Claire’s books as if she was reading by touch. Apparently, her father had a type.
Jack thrust a gift bag in Claire’s direction. His posture was rigid.
“Gifts,” he said simply.
“Thanks,” she said. The bag definitely wasn’t big enough to hold twenty years of birthday and Christmas gifts. She reached inside and drew out a bottle of top-shelf wine. At least he was good for something. “This will pair well with the lasagna.”
Tanya’s smile faltered for a moment.
Jack cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Tanya is a vegan. Sorry, I should have mentioned.”
Of course she was. Claire’s smile was so cemented on at this point that her cheeks ached from the effort.
“That would have been good to know. But it’s okay, I have several vegan-friendly side dishes. Sorry, Tanya, I wasn’t aware of your dietary preferences.”
“It’s fine, darling girl,” she said, cupping Claire’s cheek with her hand. She stared intently into her eyes again.
Ugh. Why was this woman so touchy? Claire squashed her neck back and gave herself a double chin.
“I actually brought a vegan chocolate cake.” She leaned in close, and Claire’s skin crawled. “It’s made with nutritional yeast,” she whispered conspiratorially.
“That sounds delicious. There’s nothing I love more than nutritional yeast.”
“Me too! We have so much in common. Did you see the other gift?” Tanya asked in the same manner that someone would have asked what their wildest hopes and dreams were.
Claire reached into the bag again and pulled out a bag full of tiny glass bottles and a diffuser. “Oh, a diffuser. Thank you.”
“It will change your life,” Tanya said earnestly. “I used to have crippling migraines and an awful immune system. I started using these oils and I feel twenty years younger. If you like these, there are dozens more. My friend from ceramics class?—”
Jack put a hand on Tanya’s shoulder, and she stopped.
“Tanya, we talked about the oil thing,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
“I know, I just thought after all the poor girl’s been through, she could use some relief,” Tanya said.
“Great. I’ll just set this over here.” Claire slunk further into her living room and placed the bottle on her coffee table. She sneezed immediately, overwhelmed by the smell of star anise.
The doorbell rang again, and Claire almost sprinted to it. The door swung open, revealing Luke dressed in a navy button-down with the sleeves rolled up.
“Luke,” she said in relief. Butterflies swarmed in her stomach.
He stepped over her threshold, smiling and holding two bottles of wine. He stepped forward and kissed her on the cheek.
“Come in,” she said, backing away to let him enter. “Dinner will be ready in a couple of minutes.”
The secret of George perched on her tongue, but she swallowed it. He should be here any minute. Luke would know soon enough.
Rosie, who had been dancing on two legs trying to get Jack to pet her, sprinted for Luke and nearly took him out at the knees.
“Jack, this is Luke.” Claire nudged him toward her father. If she had to deal with the awkwardness, so did he.
“Nice to meet you, Special Agent Hartley,” Luke said, giving what looked to be a firm handshake.
Jack seemed to be sizing him up. Luke flexed his fingers when the handshake broke.
“Something smells good,” Luke said, turning back to Claire.
“Lasagna.” She gestured at the oven.
“Sounds great. Anything I can do to help? I see you already set the table.” He scanned the place settings. “Are we expecting someone else?”
As if he had summoned it, there was a knock at the door.
“There might be one teensy surprise,” Claire said. Her heart rate quickened. Maybe this had been a bad idea. Luke was making an effort, and she was intentionally pulling the wool over his eyes.
She opened the front door and stepped back.
A man strode into her apartment. “You must be Claire. George Islestorm, attorney at law,” the man said, putting a very confident hand forward.
So, he had taken after his mother. This was true in more ways than one. In addition to Rachel’s steely, commanding demeanor, George also had her fierce cheekbones. Although Luke had clearly inherited more traits from his dad, there was no denying they were brothers. Their movements were the same, the “nice to meet you” fake smile was the same. George was an inch or two shorter than Luke, and his sandy blond hair was carefully molded into place.
“Hey, man,” George said, crossing into the dining room and sticking a hand out to Luke. “It’s been a while.”
Oh, boy. A vein stuck out in Luke’s forehead. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a strangled sound came out. His hands turned into fists at his side.
Luke had never acted like this before. Not when she was bleeding out on the ground in front of him, not when strangers had broken into his house. Bamboozling him with George’s presence may have been a mistake. He hadn’t seen him since their father’s funeral, after all. Blinded by her rage, she may have gone too far in her quest for revenge.
George’s permasmile faltered, and he pulled his hand back to his side.
“Jack, this is Luke’s brother, George,” Claire redirected. Jack reached over and shook George’s hand. “George, this is my biological father, Special Agent Jack Hartley.”
“George Islestorm, attorney at law,” George parroted, administering another bone-crushing handshake. “FBI, CIA, or something in between, Jack?”
“Why don’t you all go into the living room and have a seat for a few minutes?” Claire interjected.
Tanya led the charge, floating from the dining room to the living room. George and Jack followed. Luke did not.
Claire nearly dove into the kitchen, pouring glasses of wine. She hid behind her refrigerator so she didn’t have to make eye contact with Luke as she downed her glass in one gulp before refilling it. Press be damned, she wasn’t planning on leaving her house. This wine was warranted.
This dinner may have been her dumbest idea ever. What had possessed her to invite into her personal space her estranged father, her home-wrecking stepmother, and the man who had effectively killed her sort-of-boyfriend’s father?
Luke was still standing wordlessly at the dining room table. She put a glass of wine down for him and walked out without saying anything. It served him right. Didn’t it?
“Nice digs,” George said when she appeared in the living room. “A renter, I see. I’m sure your landlord appreciates you paying his mortgage.”
Awesome. George was a douche. She had suspected it the moment he walked in, but now red flags were falling out of the sky like a freakin’ ticker tape parade.
“I’m sure he does,” she agreed. “Almost as much as I appreciate being able to call him anytime something breaks.”
She handed a glass to him, and he took it, sniffing it. “Is this wine gluten-free?”
Oh, boy. He really was a Rachel.
“Are grapes gluten-free?” Claire said, unable to clip a hint of sarcasm from her voice.
George set his glass down and said nothing.
She passed glasses out to the remainder of the attendees. Fortunately, Tanya didn’t ask if the wine was vegan.
Claire quietly excused herself. She shut her bedroom door and picked up her pillow and screamed into it for a few seconds. Then she picked up the flask she had stashed on her nightstand in case of such an emergency and took a small swallow. Maybe she should pull out Taser #3 too.
Her bedroom door opened unexpectedly. She whirled around, whiskey dribbling out of the corner of her mouth.
Luke stepped inside and shut the door with a snap. Wordlessly, Claire handed him the flask and turned back around. She studied the sword hanging between her bedroom windows. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to look Luke in the eyes.
The flask rattled. Luke sighed.
“You invited my brother,” he said, his first sentence since George had walked in.
“I did,” she began.
Luke cut her off midsentence.
“Why, Claire? You invited the asshole that I told you was responsible for ending my father’s life. For taking away my last chance to see him alive. To say goodbye. And you didn’t think I deserved a heads up.”
“I wanted to punish you,” she whispered to the sword. Her entire body tingled with shame. “I wanted you to hurt, like you hurt me.”
She turned to look at him.
“Well, you did a great fucking job.” Luke set the flask down on her dresser with a clunk.
She flinched.
“Listen, I get why you would want to hurt me. I did a shitty thing, and I’ve been trying to make up for it. I have never tried this hard in my life, do you understand that? I have bent over backward for you, sending pizza boys across the country and talking about my feelings and missing the shit out of you when you’re not in the same room with me. And every second of it has been worth it, because I hoped that at the end of this rough patch, you’d remember what we have and come back to me. But this,” he said, gesturing to the bedroom door. “Miss Happily-Ever-Afters and True Love. I had no idea you were capable of something like this. Honestly, after today, I feel like I don’t know you at all. How could you keep something like this from me?”
She reeled like he had slapped her. The bed creaked as she sprang to her feet.
“Oh, you mean like when you didn’t tell me you thought I was being targeted by a serial killer?” She pointed forcefully in his direction. “Or when you told me twice that you didn’t have a brother, but George was douching around this earth the whole time? Or when you covered up the fact that your entire documentary hinged on getting me to agree to an in-depth interview about the night I was almost murdered?”
Luke took a step back. “How long are you going to keep rehashing the past, Claire? I’ve apologized for all of that. I have fought for you. I’ve done everything I could conceivably think of to make this up to you. I even checked Google to see if professional apology planners were a thing. They aren’t, by the way. There might be a market for that. Anyway, if you can’t accept my apologies and my promise to do better—to be better—in the future, there’s nowhere to go from here. I can’t make you forgive me. I think I need to go. This was a mistake.” He put a hand on the doorknob.
Her heart launched itself into her throat.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She had known this was a mistake from the moment George walked through the door. It was time she owned up to it.
He paused.
“You’re right. I went too far. I thought maybe you were being dramatic with the whole estranged brother thing. I didn’t realize how much I’d actually be punishing you by inviting him tonight. This was a terrible idea.” She sat back on the edge of her bed and turned away from him again. She couldn’t watch him leave.
There were footsteps on the hardwood floor. Luke sat next to her and took her hand. “You’ve had better ideas.”
“I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I was so angry at you. I’m still angry at you, if I’m being honest. But you’re right, inviting your brother was needlessly cruel and didn’t help solve anything. This night is a disaster. Your brother’s an opinionated dick. My stepmother is a multi-level marketing hippie. My father is even more uncomfortable than I am.”
Luke passed her the flask again. She took another small sip, vowing to abstain from alcohol for at least a week…after tonight.
“Should we get this over with?” He offered his hand.
She raised her eyes slowly. “You’re not leaving?”
Luke shook his head. “I’m sorry for threatening that. That’s the kind of shit my mom used to pull on my dad. If you’re willing to work on this—us—then I’m not going anywhere. I’m willing to talk, and to work this out like adults. Leaving in the middle of an argument isn’t healthy.”
Wow, how mature of him.
“Thank you.” Claire stood, steeling herself.
“We can do this,” he encouraged.
She caught his arm before he opened the door. Maybe it was the whiskey, or the fact that they had talked—really talked—for the first time since Paris. Or maybe it was the apartment full of attack-hugging and occupation-dropping strangers. Something in her ached for him. She tugged him back to her, hungrily drawing his mouth to hers.
Luke pulled her in as though he would never let go. The smell of sunshine and freshly cut grass enveloped her. His thumb grazed over her cheek, and she nearly moaned. There was more than passion in this kiss. There was longing, frustration, and an apology. His fingers fisted in her hair, and her hand snaked around to cop a feel. She had missed that glorious butt.
A titter of laughter sounded from the living room.
Claire broke away. She blinked slowly, slightly dazed after the kiss. “We should get back out there.” A true smile blossomed for the first time that evening.
“One more.” Luke drew her in again.
“Maybe they’ll have all killed each other,” she said breathlessly as he kissed her neck.
“We can only hope.”
The saladand soup course were largely uneventful. The salad had come from a bag, and the soup from a can, but that didn’t stop Tanya from raving over it. Jack and George had an uncomfortable political conversation. Tanya said what seemed to be a pagan prayer, offering thanks to the “Earth Mother” for their bounty. George refused to eat anything with carbs in it and informed everyone he only ate 1,200 calories a day.
“You know, Claire, you have a half sister,” Tanya said in her irritatingly positive way.
“I heard rumors.”
Tanya plowed on. “You might actually know of her. Her name is Brianna. Brianna Hartley.”
Claire’s fork tumbled out of her hand.
“You’re joking. The Brianna Hartley from?—”
“Fool’s Silver? For the Love of Frosting? Aidan’s Peak?” Luke interrupted with a rapid-fire list of movies. All those titles were in the “guilty pleasure” section of his floor-to-ceiling DVD cabinet in the screening room.
“The one and only,” Tanya said, laughing again. “We don’t get to see her very often because she’s usually in Los Angeles or New York, but I’m sure she would love to meet you.”
“That would be…nice,” Claire said, sitting back in her chair. She would rather set herself on fire. Of course her half sister was a young, beautiful, famous actress. Probably a vapid narcissist too. She should have brought the flask to the table.
“Your lasagna is delicious, Claire,” Luke said, laying a hand on her knee under the table. He squeezed it once.
“Oh, thank you. It’s my mother’s recipe.”
There was a beat of silence after she spoke. Whoops.
“It’s actually my recipe,” Jack said with a small smile. “You did a great job.”
“No,” Claire politely corrected. “It’s definitely mom’s recipe. She got it from a friend. Here’s a picture of the recipe card,” she said, getting ready to pass her phone to her father.
“Oh,” she said, sitting back down. She had never noticed that the top of the card had a monogram at the top that said JH. “I stand corrected,” she said.
Great, he even ruined her sacred family lasagna recipe. Everything was a lie.
“My Jack is a marvelous cook,” Tanya said. “Just the other day he made a delicious aquafaba meringue.”
“My dad had the best recipe for chili,” George spoke up, setting down his fork with a few leaves of spinach still wound through the tines. “Remember, Luke? He would make it on football Sundays.”
“I remember,” Luke said quietly. He was systematically ripping his garlic bread into tiny pieces.
George, who had clearly decided the wine was gluten-free, judging by the four glasses he had consumed, stared Luke down.
“You still won’t talk about Dad.”
“You don’t know that. You’re not a part of my life anymore. You don’t know what I talk about.”
“I know you’re still a pussy,” George said, sitting back and crossing his arms, a dare in his eyes.
“And I know you’re still a murderer,” Luke said in a matter-of-fact way.
Claire, Tanya, and Jack froze. Claire’s eyes widened.
“You shut your mouth,” George said, fist clenching his wine glass. “I did what I had to do. I was the medical power of attorney. He put that on me, not you. I made the hardest decision I have ever made. And I had to make it alone, because you were gone. You were always gone.”
“I was in Afghanistan,” Luke said, voice raising. He shoved his chair back, stood up abruptly. “It’s not like I was on spring break in Miami.”
George threw his chair back too. He stood, and they stared at each other. “It doesn’t change the fact that you weren’t there.”
“Oh, boy,” Claire said softly.
“You should have waited,” Luke said with a darkness that Claire hadn’t heard in a long time. His voice wavered ever so slightly. “I was at the airport.”
“You know that’s not what Dad would have wanted. He always said if he was ever a vegetable that we needed to?—”
“Pull the plug. Yeah, I know. Except you and Mom got to say goodbye. The last time I saw Dad was when they saw me off when I was getting deployed. I missed most of the last two years of his life.” Luke’s mouth had hardened into a solid line. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides.
“Oh, yes,” George said loudly, looking around as though he were addressing an invisible audience. “All hail Luke, the golden boy. The American hero. Too busy serving his country to be there when his dad’s in a fucking coma. Too far away to take any responsibility.”
Claire’s mouth dropped open.
Luke leaned forward. “I almost forgot. It’s Friday. Isn’t there a church somewhere you should be drunkenly plowing your car into? Or do you need to have Sophia with you in order to take that errand off the To Do list?”
Uh-oh. The dirty laundry was out. The shit was officially hitting the fan.
George reared back with his fist cocked. Claire leapt up from the table, between Luke and George.
George, unable to stop the momentum of his punch, staggered forward with force. Claire ducked her head to the right and dropped to the floor, sweeping George’s legs out from under him. Sawyer would have been proud. Where was a camera when you needed one?
George banged off the table and fell heavily to the floor, wheezing and moaning.
“Get out of my house,” Claire said, hand shaking as she pointed to the door.
A loud click came from the table.
Claire glanced back for the first time. Luke was gaping at her with an open mouth. Jack was standing, gun drawn, and Tanya stood next to him with her hand on his arm.
“Jack. You know the rule. No guns at dinner,” she hissed.
It was possibly the first sensible thing Tanya had said the entire evening.
George high-tailed it out the front door and slammed it behind him. Silence rang in his wake.
“Who wants cake?” Claire asked after a moment, lifting the lid on a meticulously decorated chocolate cake. The sooner everyone ate cake, the sooner they would get the hell out of her house.
As much as she hated to admit it, the weird vegan cake was pretty good. Maybe she really did like nutritional yeast.
Tanya cleared the dessert plates and left Claire with a hefty, cling-wrapped chunk of cake. Luke washed the dishes and Jack dried. They exchanged a few words about the upcoming football season. For such a strange collection of people, it was eerily normal.
Claire served coffee, and the four of them sat around the table for another few minutes.
“Claire?” Tanya asked.
“Yes?” Good lord, what now?
“Thank you so much for having us over. I know it can’t have been easy for you. You must feel like I took your father away and disrupted your entire life.”
Claire shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
Tanya reached over and touched her hand. Her hands were soft, like unbaked dough. Claire cringed but didn’t withdraw.
“I don’t regret the life your father and I created together. But I regret the way it started.”
Yep, a child born of adultery while half of the couple was still legally married to someone else was not exactly a recipe for a classic fairytale romance.
“And most of all,” Tanya continued, “I regret not being able to be in your and Charlie’s life while you were growing up. Do you think she would ever agree to meet with me?”
Claire exhaled. Charlie was a badass publicist who did not have time to suffer fools. She had written her father off the day he had walked out the door. “Maybe. Someday.”
Tanya smiled and withdrew her hand. “Jack? We should get going. It’s a flower moon tonight.”
“We should do this again sometime,” Jack said, awkwardly sticking his hand out to Claire.
“Sure,” she said, shaking his hand. What a tempting offer.
“Did you have any questions for the procedure tomorrow?”
Oh, hell. Tomorrow she was going to the prison to grill Barney. She had purposely put it out of her mind, but time was running out. She needed a plan.
“I’m good, thanks,” she said to Jack.
“Oh, Claire,” Tanya strode over to the bar, where Claire had abandoned the diffuser and bottles of oils. “If you’re feeling nauseated, just lift the cap off the peppermint oil and take a deep breath. It’ll fix you right up. And if you find yourself having anxiety or trouble sleeping, just run a nice hot bath and add a few drops of the lavender oil.”
Great. Then she could sleepwalk in the streets of West Haven while smelling like an apothecary.
“Thank you both. Take care,” Claire said as she opened her front door.
The moment they left, she collapsed on the floor. Rosie sprinted over and licked her cheek. Luke came to lie beside Claire and sat down a glass of water with a straw.
“Thank you,” Claire said, sipping noisily. Was this blossoming headache from the stress or the alcohol? “That could have gone worse.”
He smiled and rolled onto his side, propped his head in one hand. “I will always cherish the memory of you sweeping my brother’s legs.”
“Shit, he’s not going to sue me, is he? I’m already in the middle of trying to low-key blackmail my way out of a lawsuit. It’s not a good time to add another. And then there’s the fact that I flung a trash can lid at a cult member’s face on live television.” Good lord. How many lawsuits could one person have? Maybe she really did have a violent streak.
“Unlikely. He’d have to admit he got his ass handed to him by a proposal-planning badass.”
“He deserved it,” she said, sitting up and draining the rest of her water. “Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Oh god. What now? Did you schedule a brunch with our moms tomorrow?”
She glared at him. “Don’t even speak that into existence. No, I need to tell you something about Barney.” It was time he knew the truth. The whole truth. Punishing him had solved nothing. If they were going to rebuild whatever this was, honesty had to come first.
“Okay. Go ahead.” Luke sat up and stared at her patiently.
Claire took a deep breath. “It’s a long story. Let me start from the beginning.”