Chapter 2 #2
“It doesn’t have to be. I knew I wanted to marry your mother the moment I met her.
Not a day has gone by that I haven’t loved Rebecca with everything I have,” he said.
That was the thing though. The whirlwind romance, the declarations of love…
they didn’t always mean that a happily ever after was on the other side.
“I know hurt when I see it, Lydi-bug. You can talk to me if you want, but I won’t pressure you to.
Just know, there will always be a place for you around this table, in this house, and in this family.
Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away.
That bedroom down the hall will always be yours. ”
Annoying tears prickled at the corners of my eyes before I blinked them away. I wasn’t going to saddle my father with the shitshow his only daughter had managed to turn her life into, not when his life was finally looking brighter.
“Thanks, Dad. I’m fine though, really.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
He took our empty plates, putting them in the sink, and started cleaning the kitchen.
“I can get that. You did all the work already.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. I’m usually on dish duty anyway, cleaning up after Sheila.” He rinsed the plates before adding them to his ancient-looking dishwasher. Drying his hands on a towel, he turned to me, his back against the kitchen counter. “What time are you taking off?”
“Um, I’m not sure. I thought maybe I’d hang around for the day. Maybe swing by Wyatt’s and play with girls for a bit.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, looking so much like my dumb brothers. “Hang around as long as you want, Lydi-bug. No need for you to rush on back.”
“We’ll see, Dad.”
* * *
A few more days had passed, and I was no closer to making any sort of decision about my life.
I sank down on the couch, the same spot where I had been rotting away for the past four days, when the noise level ratcheted up to twelve in the space of half a second.
Wyatt strolled into Dad’s house, wrestling a screaming toddler.
He had Jane in a football hold as she flailed her arms and kicked her legs.
Behind him, his fiancée, Maeve, bounced their youngest, Veda, as she too screamed her pretty little head off.
My brows winged up at him.
“Don’t give me that look,” Wyatt grumbled. “She’s pissed that she had to wear socks, but it’s fucking freezing out there, and she has tiny feet. The cold will eat through her in an instant.”
“Then what’s her problem?” I asked, jutting my chin out to the wailing infant.
“She’s teething,” Maeve said with a shrug. If I had sharp shards of enamel cutting through my gums, I would be pretty pissed too. I could understand that.
It was crazy to me to see my oldest brother settling down with a family of his own, two mini monsters with their powerful lungs and grubby hands. Cute monsters… but still.
I hadn’t heard a car pull up over the cries of Wyatt’s girls, so when the door opened again, my head snapped to look over my shoulder, a pit forming low in my stomach.
Luke and Scarlett waltzed in next, Scarlett’s belly showing the slightest signs of the tiny terror growing inside of her.
I let out a slow breath and looked around to see if anyone noticed, but no one was looking at me.
“Hi, guys. Hey, Lydia,” Scarlett smiled. Luke’s girlfriend was friendly and warm, her smile as bright as her copper hair, so different from his ex-wife. I was glad to see him with someone who brightened his life instead of darkening the heavy rain cloud over his head.
“Hi,” I greeted them.
Wyatt put Jane down, and she ran to my father, her eyes red and puffy from crying, her pleading gaze begging to be comforted from the injustice inflicted upon her by socks.
Last to arrive were the newly wedded Mr. and Mrs. Reid and Claire Wilder.
“Hey, everyone,” Claire called, hanging her floor-length puffy coat on the hook by the door.
“Hey, if it isn’t the newlyweds.” Luke grinned at them.
“Lyds, you’re still here.” Reid smiled and wrapped his arms around my neck. I squirmed, trying to get out of his hold, but he wasn’t the teenage little shit that he was when I left anymore.
“Get off,” I griped, pushing at his chest until he let me go.
I hadn’t been to a regular Sunday night dinner in ages. The couple of times I would come down here were always for holidays. These last four days were the longest single stretch I had been in town since the day I packed it up and got the hell out. It was strange to be back here again.
Reid pulled Veda from Maeve’s grasp like it was something he did every day, the decibels not even registering to him, then leaned over and kissed Claire.
“I’m surprised you haven’t hit the road already. How long are you here for?” Luke asked, pulling my attention to him.
“I’m, um, not really sure. Just taking some time away for a minute,” I told him.
Scarlett placed a quick kiss to Luke’s cheek, and the three ladies, including Maeve, all sauntered off to the kitchen to join Sheila.
I watched their dynamic play out like an outsider. Everyone moved around like they rehearsed it weekly, a script they were all privy to that I didn’t get.
His brow furrowed in concern. “What about work? You can’t just not show up, Lydia. Do they know you’re still in town?” he asked, ever the practical one.
The room got eerily quiet. My gaze bounced around to see everyone looking at me. Embarrassment washed over me like I was a kid again, waiting to get scolded for doing something dumb.
If they only knew.
“Well, seeing as I don’t have a job, it isn’t really a problem,” I snapped at him.
“What? What happened to the art galleries you were working with? How are you surviving? New York City is notoriously expensive, Lyds. How are you going to live?”
His rapid-fire questions burned behind my sternum. I couldn’t tell them what had happened at the gallery opening, the night that cost me my job. Absolutely not. It was bad enough admitting that I was adrift—no money, no plans, no spark.
“Isn’t that the question of the day.” I dropped my head, my shoulders slumped from the heavy weight of pressure weighing me down. “Honestly, I’ve kind of been out of work for a while. Blake’s been helping me with the rent and groceries and stuff, but…” I trailed off.
Luke was a smart guy. He could read a room—read me. “Well, if you don’t have anything to rush back to, maybe stick around here for a while.”
“I don’t have anything here either,” I scoffed, not really answering his unasked question of whether I had anything to rush back to. It wasn’t like I had any roots tying me to Calla Bay, other than the people in this house.
“Ouch. That’s fucking harsh,” Wyatt said with a deep chuckle. “You could always, I don’t know, get to know your nieces.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” I said quickly. “It’s just… what I need is money. And work is a lot harder to come by in town than it is in the city.”
“You can come work for me,” my little brother offered. Reid’s construction company was really taking off after a major renovation project garnered him some attention. “I do a decent job keeping my schedule in order, but I could use someone to help with the financial stuff.”
“Yeah, the paperwork side of owning a business is the worst,” Wyatt agreed. “I’d take that help any day of the week.”
My lip curled up in disgust from the thought of it alone. “Ugh, looking at spreadsheets and receipts all day?” Did these men not know me at all? That sounded like the seventh circle of job hell. “No, thanks.”
“Think on it, Lydi-bug,” my dad piped up from his chair with Jane on his lap. “I’ll always encourage you to chase your dreams, wherever they may lead, but sometimes that dream is just to get a paycheck. No shame in that.”
I gave him a tight-lipped smile and nodded. “I’ll think about it,” I agreed, mainly just to stop this conversation from continuing.
Could I really sell myself out, from New York City art galleries to working as my brothers’ administrative assistants, like that?
Reid sidled up close to me, whispering for just me to hear while the others moved the conversation on to other things.
“Are you okay? If you need a loan to get back on your feet, just let me know. I can help you.”
“I’m fine,” I said. The lie slid off my tongue easily. The last thing I wanted was to take money from my baby brother, who was just starting out in life and newly married.
While Dad played with Jane, now happy—and barefoot—as could be, Luke pulled Reid into a conversation about the construction project he was working on.
My eyes bounced to the kitchen, then back to the room of guys and babies before me. I got up from my seat on the couch and discreetly poked my head into the kitchen.
“Go get her,” Sheila said to Maeve.
She crinkled her nose with worry. “I don’t want to bother her. She’s hanging out with her family, you know.”
“Yeah, but we’re more fun,” Scarlett said.
“Hey, what are you all doing in here?” I glanced around as all eyes swung my way.
Maeve and Scarlett were sitting at the table, while Claire sat on the table and Sheila leaned against the counter.
Maeve, Claire, and Sheila each had a glass of rosé wine in their hands.
“I kind of expected there to be cooking going on.”
“Oh, the dinner is done.” Sheila waved my comment away. “This is our girls’ time to chat while the guys talk about sports and cars and construction.”
She grabbed another cup from the cabinet and poured a glass of wine for me.
“Thanks.” I took the wine from Sheila. “So, what are we talking about today?”
“You,” Scarlett said.
My brow raised. Color me surprised that the hot girl club was talking about me behind my back.
Maeve’s eyes rounded, and she non-covertly kicked her friend under the table. “Scarlett,” she hissed. “Nothing bad, I promise.”
“No, we were just curious about you, that’s all. But we didn’t want to pull you away from spending time with your family,” Claire added, tucking a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear.
“But you’re here now. So, what’s your story?” Scarlett asked.
All eyes in the room were on me, waiting for me to… what? Tell these women the most intimate secrets of my life as some sort of girl-bonding time? Ha. As if that was going to happen.
“Just a small-town girl living in a big city,” I said.
I caught Sheila’s eye. She looked back at me with understanding and quiet support. “And it’s nice to have our small-town girl back.” She smiled. “I better get the guys in here for dinner before they come to check on it and find us all blabbering while their food gets cold.”
Maeve and Claire set the table while Sheila called the guys in.
A fold-out chair was added to the corner of the table.
Wyatt grabbed the high chair from where it was tucked next to the refrigerator and dragged that to the table, too, as ten people tried to cram themselves around an eight-person table.
I went to take the folding chair since everyone else would have their usual spots, but Wyatt snagged it out of my hand and sank into it before I had a chance. Everyone found a seat around the table, paying no mind to who they were sitting next to.
“Dad. I think you need a bigger table,” Reid grumbled after getting elbowed in the ribs by Maeve.
She pressed her lips together and shot him an apologetic look. “Sorry about that.”
“Just move over,” Wyatt huffed.
“There’s nowhere to go,” Reid volleyed back.
“Ow,” Scarlett said, rubbing her arm where Wyatt connected with her.
“Fuck off, Wyatt. She’s pregnant,” Luke complained.
“It was an accident, fuckface.”
“Shut up, all of you. Sheila’s been working on this dinner all night, and all I hear is grumbling,” Dad yelled.
I had to bite back my laugh. I didn’t realize how much I missed this.
Even with the elbow to the gut or the armpit in my face as Claire stretched across me for the salt.
Family dinners were bigger now, louder, somehow more chaotic than when we were kids, but they were something special.
Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to stay around for another couple of days.