27. Stephanie
— ? —
Stephanie
The drive to Kevin’s house felt endless.
I sat in the passenger seat with my hands clasped in my lap, watching the familiar Nantucket roads blur past. Gray-shingled cottages, a flash of harbor between the houses.
My stomach was doing somersaults. Harry’s call had lasted all of thirty seconds.
Come to the house tonight. Both of you. No explanation, which for Harry was practically a scream.
Every possible explanation for her cryptic announcement ran through my head, each one more unlikely than the last.
“Don’t lose your shit with your sister, okay?” I said, breaking the silence. “Maybe she’s back with her ex.”
Kevin’s hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles paled.
“THE ONE WHO CHEATED ON HER?”
I grimaced. “Shit. You’re right.”
“The one who slept with her paralegal while she was working late to support his failing business? That ex?”
I’d forgotten the specifics. Harry only ever handed them to you in pieces.
“Okay, I forgot the details.”
“The details were horrific.”
“Well.” I searched for another explanation, anything to stop the muscle jumping in his jaw. “Maybe she forgave him. People forgive cheaters sometimes. You’ve got no right to judge her.”
He sighed, heavy and long, a sound with years in it. “Yes. And I fucking hate that.”
I turned to look at his profile. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m in no position to lecture anyone about relationship mistakes. After everything I did. After how badly I failed you.” He glanced at me, then back to the road. “If Harry wants to give someone a second chance, who am I to tell her she’s wrong?”
Three years ago that sentence would have been impossible. I reached over and squeezed his thigh.
“You’re a good brother.”
“I’m a work in progress.”
The house came into view around the next bend. Our house. The one we’d bought together when we were young and in love and certain nothing could ever come between us. My chest pulled tight at the sight of it.
Kevin parked in the driveway but didn’t turn off the engine. Neither of us moved.
“You still have your keys?” he asked.
I blinked at him. “Didn’t you change the locks?”
“Of course not.” He looked at me, and his face went soft enough to hurt. “I wanted you to be able to get inside anytime. This is still your house, Steph. It never stopped being your house.”
I swallowed hard against the lump climbing my throat. Three years of a one-bedroom in another city, and the whole time there’d been a door here that would open for me.
“Kevin.”
“I know. I’m dramatic. Harry tells me all the time.”
“You’re not dramatic. You’re sweet.”
“Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my reputation.”
I leaned over the console and kissed his cheek.
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
We got out of the car and I fished my keys from my purse. The same keychain I’d had for years, with the little Nantucket lighthouse charm Kevin had bought me on our first anniversary.
The lock turned smoothly, well oiled. The door opened into the foyer I knew by heart.
It looked the same, just emptier. The furniture was all there, the photographs still on the walls. But a stillness hung in the space, the particular quiet of a house that had been waiting for someone to come home.
“You didn’t redecorate,” I said quietly.
“I couldn’t.” He closed the door behind us. “Every time I thought about changing anything, I’d imagine you walking through that door and not recognizing the place. I couldn’t do it.”
I turned to face him. “Three years, Kevin. You kept everything the same for three years?”
“Hope is a stubborn thing.”
We moved to the living room and sat on the couch. The same couch where we’d watched movies and made love during lazy Sunday afternoons. The history of us seemed soaked into the cushions.
Kevin was tense beside me, his knee bouncing, the same tell he’d had since college. I was about to reach for his hand when the doorbell rang.
We both jumped.
“They’re here,” I said unnecessarily.
We sprinted to the door together, elbowing each other in the narrow hallway, and yanked it open in unison.
My mouth fell open.
Harry was standing on the porch. And next to her, his arm around her waist, was Hugo.
My brother. Hugo. With his arm around Kevin’s sister.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, staring at Hugo.
He grinned. That infuriating big-brother grin that had tormented me since childhood.
“Holy shit, you told him before us?!” I wheeled on Harry. “I feel VERY betrayed. You trust my brother MORE THAN YOU TRUST ME? We’ve been friends for years! I told you about my first period! I held your hair when you threw up at your law school graduation! And you tell HIM first?”
Hugo stuck his tongue out at me. “Yeah. I knew before you. I knew before her, even.”
“What does that mean?”
“Since I fucking proposed to her.”
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence. Not even a bird. The whole world seemed to hold its breath along with me.
Harry elbowed Hugo in the ribs, hard enough that he grunted. “Okay, there WAS a better way to soften that news. You made them catatonic! Look at them! They’re about to catch flies!”
She pushed past us into the house, dragging Hugo behind her. Kevin and I stood frozen in the doorway, mouths still hanging open.
Only when they were settling onto the couch did I snap out of it. I closed the door and turned to face them.
Harry had her feet in Hugo’s lap. His hand rested on her ankle, thumb moving in an absent circle. That comfort between them wasn’t new at all.
“You two,” I started, then stopped, the words jamming up. “You and him. Him and you. The two of you. Together.”
“Words,” Harry said helpfully. “You’re using them. Sort of.”
“With my little SISTER?” Kevin finally found his voice, glaring at Hugo across the coffee table.
Hugo pointed a finger at him. “You can’t say SHIT, Kevin Coleman.”
Kevin’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click.
“Touché,” I muttered, and dropped into the armchair before my knees gave out.
“But why?” I leaned forward, trying to make sense of it. “When? How? I need information. My brain is melting.”
The pieces started sliding together. Tris’s birthday. Hugo, oddly scarce all weekend. They clicked into place, and I gasped.
“THAT’S WHY YOU KEPT LEAVING ME ALONE AT TRIS’S BIRTHDAY PARTY!” I shrieked at Hugo. “Every time I turned around, you’d disappeared. ‘Going to the bathroom.’ ‘Taking a walk.’ ‘Getting another drink.’ YOU SNEAKY BITCH, YOU AREN’T HERE ON VACATION!”
Hugo had the audacity to look smug. “Geez. Tone it down, Hurricane Stephanie.”
“AND YOU.” I rounded on her. “THE FREAKING HICKEYS! The ‘mosquito bite’ that was very obviously not a mosquito bite! OH MY GOD. HOW DID I NOT SEE IT?”
“HICKEYS?” Kevin’s voice went up an octave. “What hickeys? When were there hickeys?”
Harry lifted her hands defensively. “OKAY, that was NOT necessary, Steph. You can connect the dots inside your mind and NOT tell my brother every sordid detail.”
“I want to know the sordid details!” I crossed my arms and settled in. “EXPLAIN. I want a timeline. Start from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”
Harry sighed and leaned back against Hugo’s shoulder.
“Fine,” she said. “But this requires wine.”
“There’s wine in the kitchen,” Kevin said automatically, already half rising.
“No wine,” Hugo said. “Harry’s not drinking.”
Kevin and I exchanged a look of pure horror.
“Not like that!” Harry added quickly. “God. I’m just trying to cut back. We’ve got a wedding to plan. I need a clear head.”
I collapsed back into the armchair. “Talk. Now.”
Harry took a deep breath, gathering herself.
“It started eight years ago,” she began. “At that Fourth of July party at Mom and Dad’s house. You two were still married, still happy. Hugo and I ended up on the same boat for the fireworks.”
I remembered that party. Kevin and I had left early because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
“We talked all night,” Harry continued. “And then we kept talking. And then one thing led to another.”
“We slept together,” Hugo supplied helpfully.
“YES, they got that, thank you for the unnecessary clarification.”
“Just being thorough.”
“After that,” Harry pressed on, “we agreed it was a one-time thing. A mistake. We had too much champagne and it wouldn’t happen again.”
“But it did happen again,” I said.
“It happened again.” Harry nodded. “Two years later. I was going through that awful breakup with Preston, remember? The one who thought he was too smart to have a real job?”
“The philosophy major who lived in your apartment for free while ‘working on his dissertation’?”
“That’s the one. Anyway, I was heartbroken and Hugo showed up with ice cream and-” She shrugged. “You know how it goes.”
“I don’t know how it goes. That’s why I’m asking.”
“They had sex again,” Kevin said flatly, sitting back down beside me. “That’s how it goes.”
Hugo grinned. “Your brother-in-law catches on fast.”
“Don’t call me that yet.”
Harry laughed. “Fine, almost brother-in-law. The point is, this kept happening. Every time I was single, every time I was hurt, every time things fell apart with whatever idiot I was dating, I’d end up in Hugo’s bed.”
“Or my couch,” Hugo added. “Once in my car. That was uncomfortable but memorable.”
“OKAY.” Kevin stood up abruptly, palms out. “I’m going to get water. Anyone want water? I’m getting water.”
He fled to the kitchen.
“You broke him,” I told them.
“He’ll recover.” Harry waved a dismissive hand. “Where was I?”
“The car. Unfortunately.”
“Right. So this went on for years. I thought it was just physical. I thought Hugo saw me as a convenient backup option, someone he could call when he was bored between girlfriends.”
“I never had girlfriends,” Hugo said quietly. “Not since you.”
Harry turned and looked at him with an expression so soft it made my chest hurt.
“I didn’t know that,” she said. “Not until my mom’s birthday party.”
“What happened at the party?” I asked.
Hugo shifted, suddenly uncomfortable, my unflappable brother studying the carpet. “I may have had a few drinks.”
“You were hammered.”
“I was emotionally vulnerable.”