12. Locked Doors #2
“Fine.” Junie swats her hand away. “I’m just hungry. I get…” Her gaze cuts to mine for half a second before returning to Katie. “Cranky when I don’t get what I want.”
I snort. I can’t help it. “That,” I say with a smirk, “is the truth.”
Katie watches us with a knowing grin I’ll answer for later, then drags Junie by the arm while shoving a pile of mail into my hands. “Let’s go. Cole can meet us there. We have some…catching up to do.”
Fuck me. There are worse people for Junie to befriend, but Katie’s the only one here who scares me.
I sit as Junie slips her feet into her shoes and leaves with Katie pressed to her side as though they’re already spilling secrets, then I glance down at the padded envelope Katie handed me.
It’s from Fen. I’d recognize the packaging anywhere. It’s the kind of overkill only Fenway Ashford Jones III would consider appropriate for sending personal items through the mail, but I open it without thinking.
Inside are photos and a Post-it note in Fen’s writing.
Found these cleaning out the extra rooms at the Brookline house.
He means Junie’s house. But no one, not even Junie, has ever called it that around us. It’s always just been…ours.
It’s why I changed my trajectory, why I acted alone. We’ve all needed that house at one point or another. The ghosts it carries are ours. And Junie has a right to decide what happens to it.
Thought Spite-Berry might want them. Or you. Whatever. Don’t make it weird.
I knew he and Hudson were taking care of the house for Junie. I didn’t know it would come with hauntings from the past though.
The first photo I pull out is all five of us at the kitchen table—it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence back then.
Junie’s probably seventeen. She’s mid-laugh, her head thrown back in glee at something Fen said.
It was clearly him because he sits in the photo with the smug expression of a job well done.
Hudson’s head is down, reading. Nolan’s looking at me—as though whatever he sees is changing the very fabric of his soul.
What Nolan sees is me watching Junie. My face tells the same story it does now, but I always thought I was better at hiding it back then.
No wonder later that year he told me to stay away from his sister. This is what he watched grow from innocent care to an inappropriate love.
It’s what made it easy to sacrifice myself for them.
He was finally in med school. He would’ve had to drop out—and he would’ve done it without hesitating.
Hudson was in law school and in his own battle with his father who had cut him off financially.
Going to him then wasn’t an option, and the more time that passed, the harder it became to explain why I was in this position.
And while I love Fenway like a brother, there’s nothing he could have done.
It had to be me.
Anger vibrates through my chest with new realizations. We’re all in this photo. That means…Natalie took this one too.
Whether we knew it then or not, Natalie was always there, collecting evidence. Patient. Strategic. And she leveraged it when she needed it most.
My heart thuds viciously as if I’m back in that moment. The instant Natalie laid all the photos out on her desk, one by one, like a house of cards built on a shaky foundation, and asked one simple question…
What would Nolan think?
Then she tossed out the final blow. A video of Junie’s mom. She was talking to Junie’s dad and the slimy fucking loan signing agent who had come over to close on the loan they were taking out—against Junie’s house—and said the one thing no daughter should ever hear come from their mother’s lips.
I don’t even know why Natalie was there that day, or why she started recording.
But it was enough to make me give up everything to fix it.
The worst part is, Natalie held onto that video for close to a year.
She didn’t bring it to me until three months after Junie’s mom had passed away, and Natalie decided that her brother’s care was now my problem too.
The corners of the photos bend as I shove them back into the envelope. The anger in my soul makes my writing almost illegible as I write a quick note that says For Junie then toss it all on her table.
But as I walk away, I remember which photos were in the stack. Because if Natalie took them, it means she has copies, and I need to know exactly which moments of our lives she’s still holding hostage.
A war is coming, and I can only protect Junie if I control all the pieces.
Junie sits in her designated spot between Katie and Dollie, facing the TV screen I set up this afternoon, so she doesn’t see me enter. She and Katie sit with their heads together like a couple of teenagers while Marley keeps shushing them and asking Junie if she’s updated her matrix.
After sneaking in, I lean against the back wall. I promised to attend, not participate, so that’s what I’ll do tonight.
My mind isn’t in the right headspace for anything else.
The silence lasts for all of five minutes.
“What’s wrong with your face?” Nana Mae asks, dragging a folding chair behind her, alerting everyone to my presence. Including Junie, whose gaze is slowly peeling back the stitches on all my old wounds.
“There’s nothing wrong with my face,” I grumble, thankful when Katie whispers something to Junie to make her focus on the show again.
“There is. It’s doing that thing again.”
“What thing?” I ask, taking the beer she offers.
“The one where you pretend you’re happy, but it makes you look like you’ve been constipated for six months.”
“I am happy,” I grumble.
“You could be, but you’re distracted.” Nana Mae never lets anything slide. “I’ve seen you smiling all week, Cole.”
“See, smiling means you’re happy,” I whisper. If Marley shushes me, I might lose my shit tonight.
“Right, and now you’re distracted, which means you’re searching for ways to sabotage that happiness.”
My scowl has no effect on my grandmother.
“She’s always been under your skin, but now you’re terrified because you know what it’s like to have her in your life again, and you’re just waiting for her to be taken away.”
I stare at my grandmother. Sometimes I forget that the woman who engineers fake engagements and enters my designs into competitions is also the woman who raised me—the woman who helped me sell my grandfather’s cars to pay a debt that wasn’t mine.
She understands the architecture of me better than I do, but she needs to stop talking to Bea so much.
“I don’t need to know all the dirty details of what went down between the two of you—though I’ve always had my theories.
But I will say this.” Marley chooses that moment to shush us, and Nana Mae mimes locking her lips right before flipping her off.
“Your grandfather didn’t think he deserved me either.
You know what finally changed his mind?”
“You told his mother you were married.”
She sighs, beyond frustrated with me. “Before that. He realized that protecting me from himself was just another way of leaving. And Arthur wasn’t a quitter. He fought for me. Even when it was hard. Even when it cost him his family.”
The parallel lands like a punch I saw coming but couldn’t dodge.
Leaving Junie was my only choice. That’s the framework that let me sleep at night.
“It’s not the same,” I manage.
“It’s exactly the same. You just have better excuses.” She pats my knee. “That girl’s hurting more than you know. She’s trying, Cole. She’s giving you openings the only way she knows how.”
“There are things you don’t know,” I say. “About why I left. About what it would cost—”
“Then tell me.” It’s the closest I’ve ever heard my grandmother come to begging.
The words hang in the salt air.
I open my mouth, but all the moisture has evaporated, and only two words escape, rough and as wounded as my soul. “Not yet.”
It’s the most honest thing I can say to her. Because for the first time, not yet doesn’t mean never. It means the wall is down and the silence is crumbling and I can see the confession on the horizon, even if I’m not brave enough to walk toward it tonight.
Nana Mae studies me, then nods. “Not yet is better than not ever.” She stands. “But don’t wait too long. That girl won’t stay forever. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because you haven’t given her a reason, and when push comes to shove, she’ll seek safety over silence.”
Nana Mae’s weathered hand pats my cheek, then she turns to join the others at the S&S meeting.
My phone has been buzzing in my pocket this entire time, but I’ve ignored it until now.
Fen & Tonic:
Nolan: I rescheduled my shifts. I’ll be there in two weeks.
Fen: Gangs getting together in Porchlight Cove.
Hudson: Counting breaths with all the sarcasm text messages allow.
I have two weeks to find a solution or get comfortable with the knowledge that all our lives are about to change.
Two weeks, and Junie. Because if Junie doesn’t find proof of my innocence, I’ll go to jail. And if I’m in jail for Devin’s crimes, I won’t be able to pay to shield Junie any longer.
Homes, land, and hearts all rest squarely on my shoulders.
And confessions, kisses, and blackmail have a way of derailing the best of intentions.