36. Chapter 36
Chapter 36
Corbin
I fucked things up for good this time. It’s the one thought running through my head on a loop as I make my way to the shop the next day. There’s no way to fix the mess I made this time. I know it’s for the best. Avery and I never made sense. It was bound to end eventually. It’s better that it happened now instead of later when things were more serious.
I check my watch. Her plane should have landed in New York by now. I wonder what she told her mom about my absence. I know she’d told her I was coming. I feel a pang of guilt at forcing her to face that alone, but a clean break is better. Meeting her family would have made things even more awkward when it ended later. This is better.
I let myself into the shop before locking the door behind me. Turning around, I jolt in surprise when I see Jessie coming out of the break room, a cup of coffee cradled in her hands.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“I own the place,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking the weekend off?”
“I thought you were doing the same,” I say.
She shrugs. “I have a nipple piercing coming in half an hour. Noah gave me his key.”
I just nod before walking over to my station.
“Well?” Jessie asks.
“Well, what?”
She rolls her eyes. “I told you why I’m here. Your turn.”
I should have known she’d have questions when I showed up here. In my defense, no one was supposed to be here today .
“Henley’s coming by for a session,” I say.
She sighs. “Okay, but why are you here? You’re supposed to be in New York with Avery, right?”
I blink at her. “How do you know about that?”
She laughs, rolling her eyes again. “If you must know, I’ve known about you two for weeks. But that’s not the point. What happened? And why aren’t you with her? Did you fuck it up?”
My anger twists in my gut making me want to lash out at Jessie. I manage to rein it in before I do something to make another woman lose trust in me.
“I’m not going to get into how you knew or why you didn’t mention it,” I say. “It doesn’t matter anymore because it’s over now. Things can go back to normal.”
She eyes me for a long moment. “No offense, boss. But that’s the last thing you should want.”
“Why the hell not?” I snap.
She doesn’t flinch from the anger in my voice this time.
“You were miserable before,” she says. “You’re better with her.”
I’m saved from needing to respond by a knock on the front door. Turning, I see Henley standing on the other side of the glass wearing a big smile.
“Let it go,” I say, walking toward the door.
Jessie sighs, but doesn’t say anything else as I unlock the door to let my sister in .
“Hey, you,” she says, giving me a quick hug. “I can’t believe you got me in on a Saturday. Who did you have to murder for a spot to open up?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” I say. “Come on.”
“What crawled up your butt?” Henley asks.
“Nothing,” I mutter. “I’m fine.”
“Bullshit,” she says. “You’re crankier than usual.”
“You’ve been here for thirty seconds,” I say. “You haven’t had time to know if I’m cranky.”
“I’m your sister,” she says. “I can tell.” Turning to look at Jessie, she points at me. “What’s his problem?”
“Avery,” Jessie says with a smirk. “She’s in New York for the weekend.”
I narrow my eyes at her, silently ordering her to keep her mouth shut.
“And?” Henley asks, eyeing me.
“And nothing,” I say. “Just drop it.”
“And he was supposed to go with her, but he’s here instead,” Jessie says, earning her a death glare from me.
“Oh, shit,” Henley says, grinning. “You fucked the hot apprentice, didn’t you.”
“More than once,” Jessie mumbles under her breath.
“Will you shut the fuck up, please?” I say, my tone making it clear that it’s an order and not a suggestion.
Jessie holds her hands up as if in surrender. “Fine,” she says. “Just trying to help.”
“Like hell,” I mutter as she walks away.
When I turn back to look at my sister, she’s standing there with her arms crossed over her chest, glaring at me .
“What?” I ask, suddenly defensive.
“Tell me everything so I can help you fix it,” she says in a business-like tone.
I roll my eyes, even though the idea of letting someone else fix my fuck-up is awfully tempting. I’ve always been the one to fix everyone else’s problems. I wouldn’t know the first thing about letting someone fix mine.
“You can’t fix this, Hen,” I say. “Let’s just get to work on your back.”
She shakes her head. “Not until you talk to me.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why the hell does every woman I know want to talk shit to death? It doesn’t fix anything.”
“How would you know if you’ve never tried it?”
“Holy fucking shit,” I mutter, swiping a hand over my face. “Fine. You want me to talk, I will. But afterward I don’t want to hear a fucking word about it. I don’t want to hear ‘I told you so.’ Got it?”
She just smiles. “Got it.”
I sigh as I sit on the stool behind me. “Me and Avery,” I begin.
“Hooked up?” she guesses.
I nod. “Yeah. It started out that way. Just a good time. We both agreed to it. We kept it quiet and had fun. No feelings. No strings. Just hooking up.”
She nods. “Sounds like a solid plan to me.”
“Yeah. But something happened.”
Henley’s eyes go wide. “Is she pregnant? Am I going to be an auntie? ”
“What? No! Geez,” I say. “No one’s pregnant. Fuck.”
She looks slightly disappointed which makes me question her sanity. “Fine,” she mutters. “So, what happened?”
I try to figure out how to put into words something I’ve barely let myself consider before now.
“It’s hard to explain,” I say, my gaze on my hands.
“You fell for her?” she says softly.
My eyes fall shut and I find that I can’t speak around the sudden lump in my throat, so I just nod. I wait for Henley to speak, but she remains silent for so long that I finally look up. Her expression is expectant.
“What?” I say.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me the problem,” she says. “So far I’m not hearing it.”
I sigh. “We’re too different,” I say. “She’s too young. She comes from a totally different world than we do, Hen. I wouldn’t know the first thing about being part of her world. And she doesn’t fit into this one.”
Henley is shaking her head before I finish speaking.
“What now?”
“She seemed to fit in just fine the last time I was here,” she says. “What makes you think she doesn’t?”
I need to make her understand how big the differences are between me and Avery and why it’ll never work. I try a different tack.
“Do you know what the Bradshaw Foundation is?”
It takes Henley less than a second to nod. “Yeah,” she says. “Based out of New York. Lots of capital. They started out in tech before tech was really a thing. Made a ton of money, sold big. Now they’re mostly into investments. They do a lot of charity work, though. Why?”
I eye her meaningfully. “Avery.”
“She works for them?”
I shake my head. “She is them. Her mom runs the whole damned thing.”
My sister blinks in disbelief. “Wow. Her mom is Meredith Bradshaw?” She narrows her eyes before they go wide again. “Oh, shit.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “You see why it’s fucked now?”
Henley shakes her head. “No. I mean oh, shit . I know her.”
“You know Avery’s mom?”
She waves her hand dismissively. “No, not her. I mean, I met her once. She’s a little intimidating, but she seems nice enough. But I mean Avery. I don’t know her, know her. But I know of her.”
Annoyed by her inability to get to the point, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “What are you talking about?”
“I know her story,” she says. “Avery’s. I heard it a few years ago when I went to the Bradshaw Gala for a work thing.”
“What story?” I ask, wondering what my sister knows that I don’t.
“She didn’t tell you?”
“Henley, I swear on everything holy, if you don’t get to the fucking point…” I say with a sigh.
“It’s not like it’s a big secret,” she says. “One internet search would tell you the whole story. But fine. From what I remember, she was in a horrible car accident when she was a kid. Her dad died, but she survived. Barely. She had some head trauma and needed a bunch of surgeries. Had to relearn how to do a lot of things. She needed months of rehab. Maybe longer. I can’t remember all the details.”
Henley's words hit me like a punch to the gut, sucking the air from my lungs. Avery. My Avery went through all that? She almost died. Why didn’t she ever tell me? She was just a kid and she nearly died. I take a split second to consider a world without her in it and immediately shy away from the thought. The very idea makes me recoil.
“They have that charity gala every year to raise money for traumatic brain injury patients and their families,” Henley says. “To help pay for medical expenses. It’s a big deal. That’s where she is?”
I nod. Last night’s conversation comes back to me, and I remember her telling me how things are complicated with her family. I’d asked her why she needed to go to this party, but she’d been evasive. It’s so obvious now that I know her story. What better way to raise money for a cause than to show off a shining example of success? Avery wanted to tell me about it, but I was too busy pushing her away for her own good to let her talk.
“She wanted you to go with her?” Henley guesses .
“Yeah,” I say, still feeling sick over everything I just learned.
“So, why are you here? Why aren’t you in New York with her?”
I sigh. “I told you already. We’re too different. It won’t work.”
“Bullshit,” she says. “Tell me the real reason.”
I think about everything that happened last night, beginning with the phone call I got as I was leaving the shop and ending with Avery leaving my apartment, her voice breaking as she'd said we would never work. I’d been in a great mood before that phone call. I’d been looking forward to meeting Avery’s mom, even if I was a little nervous about it. I’d been looking forward to a possible future with a woman I was falling for. But one phone call knocked me back to reality and made me realize how impossible it all was.
I look at my baby sister and remember all the times I’ve protected her from the truth of our mother’s problems. I think about all the times I vowed to keep her from the ugliness I saw. And I realize I’ve done what I set out to do all those years ago. I helped her become a strong, resilient, and amazing woman. I'm so proud of the woman she is now. And I know I'm partly responsible for who she is today. I kept her safe until she could protect herself. But now, maybe it’s time to share the burden I’ve carried all these years.
“I got a call last night from Boston PD,” I say, meeting my sister’s gaze directly. “They picked Mom up trying to use a stolen credit card to buy cigarettes at a convenience store. She was high off her ass. She gave them my name. Said I’d bail her out.”
Henley’s eyes close and her shoulders slump as she sighs. “Shit,” she whispers.
“I was halfway to the station before I realized what I was doing,” I say. “Cleaning up another one of her messes. Trying to hide it from everyone. Trying to keep it together so you wouldn’t see.” I shake my head. “Then I realized how fucking tired I was. Tired of all of it. Tired of cleaning up her shit. Tired of running to her rescue. Tired of wondering if the next phone call from the cops is going to be to ID her body. Tired of doing it all alone.”
My voice breaks on the last word and I look up to meet my sister’s gaze. Her dark eyes look so sad that it breaks my heart.
“I drove around for an hour. Trying to talk myself out of bailing her out. Trying to convince myself it didn’t make me a shitty person if I left her in jail.”
“You should have called me,” she whispers. “You could have talked to me about it. You don’t have to do it all alone.”
I shake my head. “I never wanted you to have to deal with that.”
“Corbin, I know you were just trying to protect me. You've always protected me. I love you for that, but you can stop now. I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle the hard stuff.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” I say .
“Neither should you,” she says. “You think I don’t know what you sacrificed for me, but I do. I remember you working your ass off to make sure I was taken care of. But no one was there to make sure you were okay.”
“You were just a kid, Henley,” I say.
“So were you,” she says. “You were just a kid trying to raise one. And I know I didn’t always make it easy for you. I’m sorry you didn’t have anyone to take care of you, but you do now. You have me.”
“And me,” I hear from behind me.
Turning, I see Jessie standing a few feet away. She looks like she’s worried I might be angry at her, but all I feel is relief and gratitude. I can’t quite muster a smile, but I give her a small nod of thanks.
“I’m guessing you also have Avery,” Henley says. “Or you would if you get your head out of your ass and tell her how you feel.”
I shake my head. “It’s too late for me and her.”
“I doubt that,” Jessie says. “I’ve seen how she looks at you, boss. I think you’ve still got a shot.”
I turn back to look at my sister, but she’s looking down at the phone in her hand.
“There’s a flight leaving in 2 hours from Logan,” she says, standing. “Let’s go.”
She grabs my hand and tries to pull me to my feet, but she’s not strong enough.
“I can’t go to New York,” I say. “After last night I doubt she even wants me there. ”
Jessie mutters something about stubborn men and my sister glares at me with her hands on her hips.
“I don’t know what happened between you and Avery last night,” Henley says. “You can tell me or not. I don't care. But if she feels the same way about you as you feel about her, you owe it to her and to yourself to try to fix it. I know you, Corbin. It'll eat at you forever if you don't try."
I feel a faint stirring of something like hope in my chest, but it’s tempered with fear. I look at my baby sister who somehow grew up to be wiser than her idiot brother.
“What if I can’t fix this?” I ask, voicing my biggest fear.
“You won’t know if you don’t try.”