Chapter Forty-Five
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THEN
October 2024
“I DON’T HAVE TIME for this. I have too much going on and don’t have the patience for a fight with you today,” Elizabeth answers the phone.
I called her earlier, but she didn’t answer, so I called Nick instead. When I hung up with my cousin, I dialed her number again because she was the only person I wanted to talk to about what just happened.
“Hello?” She calls from the other end when I don’t say anything. “Josh,” she sighs. “I don’t have time for games, I—”
“My sister is fucking my best friend.”
“Excuse me?” Elizabeth laughs. “I could almost swear you just said Michaela is sleeping with—”
“Finn, yep.”
“How do you—”
“I just walked in on them.” I scrub my hand down my face, falling onto one of the benches in the courtyard a few blocks from Finn’s condo building.
The last thing I had expected when I knocked on the door of my best friend’s condo was for my little sister to answer the door half-naked this morning. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She was supposed to be at her condo a few miles north with her husband , where I’d be meeting her in a few hours for lunch. That was the whole reason I had stayed in New York an extra day. I had work meetings at the beginning of the week to solidify a contract renewal and I was going to leave last night, but Michaela begged me to go to lunch with her today. There was something she just had to tell me. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined it would be that she’s sleeping with Finn.
I shake out my hand, which still aches from the blow I landed on Finn’s face not even an hour ago. After Michaela answered the door, I couldn’t control myself. I felt hurt, betrayed, and downright furious. My sister was a married woman, what in the hell was Finn thinking? What was she thinking?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly David’s biggest fan, but I’d never condone this . I lashed out, punching my best friend, and he took it because despite how wrong I was for doing it, he knew he was wrong, too.
“Can you honestly say you’re surprised?” Elizabeth asks.
“You’re not?”
“No,” she says with a small laugh. I can almost see her shaking her head as a smile tugs on the corner of her mouth. “Not at all, actually. Makes a lot of sense when you think about it.”
That’s what Nick said, too. Am I really the only one surprised by this whole thing? I can’t be. Surely, Mom and Dad will be, too. Shit, Mom and Dad…Do they know about this? What am I saying? Of course they don’t.
I can hear her shuffling around in the background and then whispering to someone else. Who in the hell is she with? It’s a Wednesday morning. “Look, I have to go.” Elizabeth sighs. “But Josh, don’t be too hard on her, okay? Your sister doesn’t need judgment right now; she needs support.”
“I wish you were here.” The words tumble out before I can stop them, and maybe I should regret it, but I don’t. It’s true. I wish she was here because she would know what to do and what to say in these situations. Maybe I wouldn’t have punched my best friend if she had been there. Maybe I wouldn’t have accused my sister of cheating on her husband. Maybe I would’ve taken a step back and looked at the bigger picture.
“I uh…I have to go. Just think about what I said, okay? And Josh…Don’t be too hard on your sister. If anyone can understand where she’s coming from right now, I think it might be you.” She doesn’t wait for me to reply before hanging up.
“Well, you’re dressed, that’s a good sign,” I say when my sister opens the door of her condo.
I knocked a few minutes before two o’clock—when I was supposed to be here to talk about what in the hell was going on—and I could tell it pissed her off. Honestly, I expected her not to show at all after what happened this morning. I figured she would hide out at Finn’s and ignore me, but since she’s here I guess that’s a positive, right? She can’t be that mad at me about it.
“Oh, don't give me that look, Michaela. I'm not the one in the wrong here.” I know Elizabeth said to try to be understanding, but that look my sister is giving me right now is making it very hard to do that.
“I forgot who I was talking to: Saint Josh."
I roll my eyes. I cannot stand when she calls me that. That’s just as bad, if not worse than when Elizabeth’s friends call us Mr. and Mrs. Perfect. “Don't be so dramatic, MJ.”
"You're the one who threw punches this morning!”
“I’m not going to apologize! I came to see if my best friend wanted to grab breakfast before I met you, and what did I find? You. My sister, half-naked, answering the damn door of his apartment. Don’t you think you should have asked me if it was okay to fuck my best friend first?”
“I’m an adult, Josh. I don’t need your permission to sleep with someone, and that includes your best friend.”
She thinks she’s an adult? I scoff. She has no fucking idea what being an adult looks like.
"How long has this been going on?" I ask.
"That's none of your business.”
"Not my business?” I scoff. “You don't think I have a right to know when you're fucking around on your husband with one of my friends?"
"Okay, first of all, I'm not fucking around on anyone.” Michaela shakes her head in disbelief, but I think it’s a reasonable question to ask. Last I knew, she was happily married to David Reid. No one has told me any different. “And second, it’s not your business. We weren't ready to tell you because of shit like this! Because of how you reacted this morning."
"How could you do this to David? And with him!"
Don’t get me wrong, Finn is my best friend, but I know what he’s like. I grew up with the guy; he isn’t exactly a knight in shining armor.
"You're not listening to a damn word I say! David and I are not together. We haven't been together for months now.”
My brow furrows together as her words sink in. They’re not…together? Meeting her gaze from across the living room, her shoulders rise and fall with a heavy sigh.
"David asked me for a divorce in Italy."
"Italy—that was practically five months ago, Michaela!"
"I'm aware of when it was, Josh." She rolls her eyes and wraps her cardigan tighter around her. Her arms crossed tightly as she chews on her bottom lip, suddenly finding her socked feet very interesting.
"Why didn’t you tell me?” I wish she had come to me about this, I could’ve helped her deal with that asshole so she wasn’t alone. I don’t understand why she would confide in Finn instead of me. I know that I’ve been a little out of touch with things recently, but if my sister needed something…I would’ve been there for her.
"I don't know." Michaela shrugs, and I can see the tears building behind her eyes. One breaks the surface, falling down her cheek, but she wipes it away with the end of her sleeve. "I guess a part of me thought I could fix it…Because if I could fix it, I wouldn't have to tell anyone. It would be like it never happened, but..."
“Sleeping with Finn wasn’t going to fix anything.”
The opposite, actually.
“Finn was an accident,” she whispers and falls onto the couch with her head in her hands. "I never meant for it to happen. God, Josh. It wasn't supposed to happen, but working with him…I got to know him, I-I saw this different person, and I—”
“Do not say you’re falling in love with him.”
I don’t think I can handle another revelation today.
Michaela swallows the words she is about to utter, and when she meets my stare, I can see the chipping of the wall she’s been hiding behind for months. Hell, maybe longer.
She’s hurt by what happened this morning, but so am I. And it’s going to take time before we can get back to ourselves again. I need time to process, time to get used to the idea of them being together…The thought of my friend and my little sister being together brings up thoughts I never want to have. I mean, this is someone who I used to trade sex stories with. How am I supposed to look at him the same? But then I think about what Elizabeth said before she hung up the phone. I need to be more understanding, toward both my sister and Finn, but especially my sister. If anyone can semi-understand what she’s been going through…it’s me.
"No,” she laughs softly.
She’s lying. I know she’s lying. I can see it in the way her eyes light up just thinking about Finn. I could see it this morning after I punched him, in the way she ran to him and protected him. My little sister has fallen in love with my best friend.
“But I think I could.”
“I don’t like it, Michaela. I don’t like it one bit.” I cross my arms over my chest. “But if he makes you happy—”
“He does,” my sister interrupts.
“Then I guess that’s all that matters.”