Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
“She’s got your stubborn streak already,” Ava said, gently bouncing Rory in her arms while I tried to focus on my econ homework spread across the coffee table. “Look at that little frown. That’s pure Dumontier determination right there.”
I looked up from my textbook to see my twin sister making faces at my baby, who was indeed sporting a tiny scowl that looked remarkably like the expression I made when Coach was lecturing us about missed plays.
“Great,” I muttered, highlighting another paragraph about supply and demand curves. “Just what the world needs—another stubborn Dumontier.”
Liam was sprawled in the armchair across from me, supposedly working on his own assignments but mostly just watching Ava work her magic with Rory. She’d shown up an hour ago with a bag full of supplies and immediately taken over, forcing me to take the first real break I’d had in days.
An hour later, I was deep in a paragraph about elasticity of demand when Rory started getting fussy in Ava’s arms, making those little whimpering sounds that usually meant a full meltdown was incoming.
“Try singing to her,” I said without looking up from my textbook. “Harper did that yesterday and it worked like a charm.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them, and I immediately felt heat creep up my neck. Fuck. Why had I just said that?
Ava raised an eyebrow. “Harper Tinsley? As in our sworn enemy Harper Tinsley?”
“She’s not our sworn enemy,” I said automatically, then caught myself. “I mean, she is, but—fuck, I don’t know what I mean.”
Liam’s head shot up from his textbook. “Did you just defend Harper Tinsley?”
“I didn’t defend her. I just said she was good with the baby. It’s an observation, not a character reference.”
But even as I said it, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Harper had looked yesterday when she was holding my daughter.
She’d had this gentle expression on her face, swaying back and forth, and when she started singing…
Fuck, it had thrown me back to a time I’d shoved deep into the recesses of my mind.
“Harper sang this lullaby when Rory was fussing.” I rubbed my hand over my face, trying to shake off the memory. “I hadn’t heard her sing since—”
“Sixth grade,” Ava finished, her voice thoughtful. “The choir concert.”
“You remember that?”
“Of course I remember. You were obsessed with her for a few weeks up until that concert. Following her around like a lost puppy, helping her with homework, walking her to choir practice. I thought you’d lost your damn mind.
” Ava shifted the baby to her other arm.
“Then something happened and you came home all angry and hurt, and suddenly Harper Tinsley was the enemy again.”
Liam was watching this exchange with fascination. “Wait, you two were friends? How the fuck did I miss that?”
“For like three weeks,” I said dismissively. “It was stupid kid stuff.”
“Wasn’t that when you were visiting your dad?” Ava asked Liam, and his face shuttered. We didn’t talk about Liam’s dad anymore, but Ava didn’t know the whole story.
“Must’ve been,” he muttered and then put his head back down and focused on his own homework.
“And was it really stupid kid stuff, Drew? Because at first I thought maybe you were doing some elaborate prank on her, but…” Her voice faded, but there had been something in her tone that made me look up at her.
“But what?”
“I remember you being really happy during those three weeks. Happier than I’d seen you in a long time.”
I didn’t want to think about that. About how easy it had been to talk to Harper when we weren’t trying to destroy each other. About how she’d laughed at my jokes and how smart she was and how her whole face lit up when she talked about music.
I definitely didn’t want to think about how dumb I’d felt when I’d heard her talking to her friends about what a loser I was.
“I wasn’t the one playing a prank,” I mumbled. “And it doesn’t matter anyway,” I said, turning back to my textbook. “That was a long time ago.”
“But you’re thinking about it now,” Ava observed. “Because she was good with your daughter.”
“Can we not psychoanalyze this? I just made an observation.”
“An observation that’s clearly fucking with your head,” Liam added helpfully.
I shot him a glare. “Whose side are you on here?”
He raised both hands, palms out, in the universal surrender gesture.
Ava was quiet for a moment, absently stroking Rory’s soft, dark hair. “You know, I’ve been thinking about the feud a lot lately. Especially since”—she gestured to the baby in her arms—“she arrived and everything got complicated.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what exactly are we teaching her?” Ava asked, her voice serious.
“That she’s supposed to hate the Tinsley family because of something that happened before any of us were born?
That she can’t be friends with Harper’s kids someday because of some love triangle and business deal that went wrong decades ago? ”
“Dad always said the Tinsleys cost us our legacy.” But the words felt hollow even as I spoke them. Hadn’t I been wondering the same thing she just voiced? Especially after Gordy’s comment that the only way to end the feud once and for all was to actually stop feuding.
“Did they, though?” Ava asked. “Or did two stubborn men make bad decisions and then spend the rest of their lives blaming each other instead of taking responsibility?”
I stared at my sister. “Since when do you question family loyalty?”
“Since I started thinking about what kind of world we want this little girl to grow up in.” Ava’s voice was soft but firm. “Do we want her to inherit our anger and our grudges? Or do we want her to make her own choices about who she trusts and who she cares about?”
Liam was nodding. “Ava’s got a point, man. You’ve got a daughter now. Everything’s different.”
“Not everything,” I protested, but even as I said it, I wasn’t sure I believed it.
Because fuck, everything did feel different. Yesterday, watching Harper hold my daughter and sing to her, I’d felt something I hadn’t experienced in years. Something that made my chest feel less tight.
For twenty minutes, we hadn’t been enemies. We’d just been two people taking care of a baby who needed us both.
Ava’s voice was quieter when she continued. “I’m tired of being angry all the time. Tired of crossing the street when I see Harper on campus. Tired of pretending that the music coming from their house isn’t beautiful.”
It had been a long time since I noticed the fine details about my sister.
And what I saw now made my chest ache. She looked worn down and weary—and it wasn’t just from helping me with Rory.
I wasn’t the only one who’d been deeply impacted by the feud.
She may not have been actively fighting with Harper like I always had, but she’d felt the strain of it, nonetheless.
Considering the small town we’d grown up in, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.
“You really think we should just…let it go?” I asked.
“I think,” Ava said, brushing a gentle finger over Rory’s cheek, “that maybe it’s time to stop letting our great-grandfathers’ mistakes define who we are. Especially now that this little girl is depending on us to make better choices.”
She handed my daughter back to me, and I settled her against my chest, feeling the now familiar weight of her tiny body. She smelled like baby powder and something indefinably sweet, and when she looked up at me with those trusting eyes, I felt that overwhelming protective instinct kick in again.
“What kind of man do you want to be for her?” Ava asked softly.
The question hit me like a puck to the gut, because I’d been asking myself the same thing ever since she’d arrived. And the answer sure as fuck wasn’t matching up with the person I’d been for the past few years.
The person who thought it was funny to mess with Harper’s practice time. The person who held grudges over things that happened before he was born. The person who couldn’t admit, even to himself, that hearing Harper sing yesterday had been one of the most beautiful sounds he’d ever heard.
“I don’t know,” I admitted quietly.
“Well,” Ava said, gathering her things to leave, “maybe it’s time to figure that out.”
After she left, Liam and I sat in silence for a while, both of us staring at the baby in my arms. She’d fallen asleep, her tiny fists curled against my chest, completely trusting and peaceful.
“You know what’s really fucked up?” I said finally.
“What?”
“Yesterday, when Harper was holding her, I thought…” I paused, trying to find the right words. “I thought they looked right together. Like Harper belonged here.”
Liam was quiet for a moment. “And that scares the shit out of you.”
“Terrifies me,” I admitted.
“Because of the feud?”
“Because of everything.” I looked down at my daughter’s sleeping face. “Because I don’t know how to be anything other than Harper Tinsley’s enemy. And because I don’t know who I am if I’m not fighting with her.”
“Maybe like Ava said,” Liam said softly, “it’s time to find out.”