Chapter 13 #2
"And Kylo." I nudged his arm with my shoulder.
"My sister would not survive without you and I mean that.
That woman talks about you like you hung the lights in the sky.
She messed up, and she knows it, and she is going to spend a long time making sure you know she knows it.
" I looked at him. "But we have all done something we had to come back from.
Every single one of us. The question is just what you want your marriage to look like on the other side of this.
" I let that land. "Decide what you want it to look like and move like that.
She will follow your lead. She always has. "
He looked away and this time I saw his throat move, saw him swallow something down hard that he was not ready to let out on a public sidewalk, and I didn't say a word about it.
I stepped into him and wrapped my arms around him instead, just held on for a moment the way you hold somebody when words have done everything they can do. He let me before he pulled back, straightened up, and wiped his face quickly with the back of his hand.
I patted his back and let him have his composure back without making a single thing of it.
"You wanna go another block or three?" I suggested.
He smirked, wiping the last of it away, and started walking.
"Yeah," he said. "I’ll go slow for you."
“If you don’t, you gone be walking by yourself.”
By the time we were on our way back, he looked over at me with a lighter expression. “How are you though? Baltimore treating you right?”
“Baltimore’s been fine,” I said. “But I think I’m going to move.”
He looked at me with genuine surprise. “Move? Like back home? I thought you’d never —”
“Yeah, well.” I smiled to myself at the sidewalk. “Things change.”
My mind had already drifted before I finished the sentence, back to a man who was somewhere probably getting closer by the hour. He promised he would find me and Big Bane never made a promise he didn’t intend to keep.
I was thinking about what I was going to say when I finally had to sit across from him without any distraction between us.
I was also thinking, somewhere underneath all of that, about Malcolm, and what state he was in.
When we got back the house smelled like butter and maple syrup. Layla had gotten Nina to set the table with Bakari.
I showered, took my time with my body butter, worked it into my skin slowly while the morning sun came through the guest room window, and reached for my phone.
Big Bane’s line went straight to voicemail, which meant he was already on his way back. I didn’t entirely know what to do with that information so I set it aside and scrolled to the next name I had been avoiding.
Malcolm.
I pressed call before I could talk myself out of it.
It rang four times, then five, and I was almost ready to hang up when he picked up.
He didn’t say hello. He just breathed for a second and then said, “So you fuckin’ married.”
“Malcolm —”
“Nah, I need you to hear me out because I have been sitting with this since last night and my whole —” his voice cracked, “— my spot just blew up behind you. My shop, my face, my fiancée, all of it. And on top of all of that I find out that the woman I love —” he stopped. “You married.”
“I’m not going to have this conversation with you if you’re going to raise your voice at me,” I said calmly. “And if you can’t speak to me the way I deserve to be spoken to then we never have to talk again.”
I was met with silence.
Then I heard him exhale. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I knew he was, but I didn’t say it out loud.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“After the hospital visit, yeah. I mean I have a concussion now.” He paused. “Your husband is a big dude.”
Something moved through my chest that I chose not to harp on.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said, and I meant it.
“Lauren. I feel like we need to talk. Not like this, not on the phone with all of this between us.”
“What is there to talk out?”
“Everything,” he said. “Starting with the fact that you never told me you were married. I know what I did was wrong and I’m not sitting here trying to make myself the victim of my own choices, but I didn’t know that you were already committed to another dude.
And now looking back at every time you deflected a conversation about a future, every time you pulled back right when things started to feel real — it’s all adding up, and I feel like I deserve to understand what any of it actually was.
” He paused. “And I need you to know that I’m not with her anymore.
I didn’t know she was going to try you like that, and that was discussed with her.
I ended it with her. I just need you to know it. ”
I rolled my eyes at the ceiling but let him finish.
“For the record, we have an arranged marriage,” I said. “But that’s not something I owe you an explanation for. And honestly, Malcolm, there’s nothing that needs to be said in person. I called to make sure you were breathing. You’re breathing. That’s what I needed to know.”
“Lauren. I know I don’t have the right to ask you for anything right now.
I know that. And I’m not pretending I didn’t play the biggest role in how this fell apart.
” He let that sit for a second. “But I also know that what we had wasn’t nothing.
And I don’t want the last memory you have of me to be what it is right now.
That’s not who I am to you, or at least it’s not who I was trying to be. ”
I paused and looked at the phone. “Let me take you to dinner for one conversation. You can walk away after and I will never reach out again if that’s what you want. I just need to be able to look you in the face and say what I need to say like a man. You deserve that much from me at least.”
I stared at the ceiling for a long moment as I thought over his words.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“Okay.” I sat up and reached for my glass. “I’m hanging up now.”
“Damn,” he said, and I could hear the smallest trace of something almost like a smile in it. “You’re not even gonna stay on the phone a little longer after checking on me like that?”
“No,” I said.
I hung up.
I took my time getting dressed, mostly because the guest room had good light and I had not had a morning with nowhere urgent to be in longer than I could remember.
I pulled on something simple, ran some product through my hair, and told myself I was not going to think about Malcolm or Big Bane or any of it until after I had breakfast.
I could hear the kitchen before I turned the corner. Multiple conversations ran at the same time.
When I walked in, everyone was already seated and comfortable. Kylo was at the head of the table with his coffee. Layla was moving between the stove and the counter. The kids were eating and talking amongst themselves.
And in Kylo’s slides, sitting at the kitchen island with a glass of white wine was my big brother, Lance.
“Oh,” Lance said, looking up from his glass with those pretty light eyes catching the kitchen light, “if it isn’t my sister who can’t tell nobody that she was coming into town.”
I crossed the kitchen and grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him on the forehead, because I had to give him some love before he started in on me.
"I missed you," I said.
"You should have thought about that before you showed up without calling." He was already getting started, which meant the real complaining had not even begun yet.
"Lance —"
"You couldn't pick up the phone." He pulled me into a hug, but his mouth kept moving the whole time. "Could've said something. Anything. A text. A carrier pigeon. But no, you just went completely ghost on the entire family and started moving funny."
"This is coming from the man," I said, pulling back to look at him, "who was on a ski retreat in Aspen with some handsome stranger last Christmas instead of opening gifts with the rest of us."
He rolled his eyes. "But we talking about you though."
"Uh huh." I hugged him tighter.
"And you know Layla made those stiff turkey sausages this morning. But I ain’t say nothing since she a crybaby," he whispered.
I started cracking up. "At least she's cooking now."
"Mm hmm." He shook his head slowly. "We could've gone to Breakfast at Barney's and called it a day, but no, we're out here pretending turkey sausage needs to be that eaten."
"Stop acting up."
"I will," he said, "when I feel like it."
“Mhmm.”
Lance D'Amore was tall, tattooed, pretty in a way that was completely unself-conscious, with a wardrobe that cost more than most people's rent and a roster of people in Atlanta who have literally paid for the privilege of his attention. He was so masculine, you wouldn’t know that my brother and I play for the same team.
He never came out, and I respected him for it.
You either knew or you didn't, Lance had made peace with that a long time ago.
"Layla said she was cooking breakfast and I said I would be here," he said, releasing me and picking his wine back up. "Which is the only reason I’m awake before noon on a Saturday."
Layla pointed at him from the stove. "And I appreciate you."
"You should." He handed me a glass. "Here. We already started."
"It's nine thirty."
"It is," he agreed, completely unbothered.
I took the glass and sat down.
"Did Mom, Dad, and Landon miss their invite?" he said, looking over at Layla with that face he made when he already knew the answer and wanted to hear her say it anyway.
Layla cut her eyes at him. "I didn't send it."
He raised his eyebrows slow, swirling his wine. "Oh. Well why not?"
"Lance."
"I'm just asking a question."