5. Kaitlyn
FIVE
Kaitlyn
I STARE AT THE GROUP TEXT FROM TESS THAT CAME through a few minutes ago, heart pounding in my chest so hard my ears are ringing like church bells.
Tess: Bachelorette party tonight at Went’s shop. Bar’s closed. Limo will be at the center to pick us up at 7:30.
Went’s shop.
As soon as I saw it, my brain started to scramble, frantically searching for a rational, believable reason that will allow me to bow out gracefully.
Because I can’t.
I cannot go there.
I can’t see him.
Not again.
Not after what happened last time…
Another text comes through, mid-scramble, that instantly ties my guts into a thousand tiny knots.
Tess: This is happening, ladies. Even if I have to hogtie each and every one of you and toss you in the trunk.
Surely, she doesn’t mean me. I mean… the only reason Henley even asked me to be a bridesmaid is because there was an odd number of groomsman and she needed a stand-in. Someone reliable and who?—
Another text rolls in.
Tess: yes, I mean YOU.
Half convinced that Tess is psychic, I drop my phone into my lap.
Shit, my hands are shaking.
You can always tell them the truth. That you can’t go to a bachelorette party at Went’s shop because ? —
Wait.
I really can’t go.
It’s Friday. I babysit for Ryan and Grace on Friday nights because Ryan has class and Grace usually has a shift at the bar. Even if the bar is closed, Grace is still going to Henley’s bachelorette and Ryan still has class—which means I still have Molly, Henry, and Allison to look after.
I’m saved.
Retrieving my phone from my lap, I tap out a text.
Me: I’m going to have to sit this one out. Ryan has class which means I’m on babysitting duty.
Hitting send, I feel a wave of relief, closely followed by its usual companion, guilt.
Me: Sorry.
From his dog bed behind the desk, Mookie lets out a soft whine, a second before he scrambles to sit up, tail swishing across the floor behind him. A second after that, the center’s heavy back door slams shut and I hear the fast slap of sneakers echoing across its granite-tiled floor.
Mookie’s tail immediately picks up the pace, wagging so fast he’s having a hard time staying seated while he whines in joyous anticipation because his Molly’s home from school.
“I’m home!” Molly bursts around the corner, dropping her backpack on a dive that sends her crashing into the massive Pitbull whining and wiggling in his bed behind my desk. Giggling, Molly flops onto her back while Mookie dances and yips around her, licking her face while she lavishes him with pets and praise.
If you ask her, Molly will tell you that he’s her best friend. I’m sure if I could ask him, Mook would tell me the same thing.
Laughing at the scene they make every afternoon, I look up just in time to watch Ryan and Henry round the corner Molly just flew around. When he sees the pile of giggling five-year-old girl that is his daughter, happily trapped under my hundred-pound meathead dog, Ryan shakes his head on a laugh while Henry watches the two of them with a cross between big brotherly disdain and reluctant amusement. It’s a look I used to see on Luke’s face all the time, growing up.
Like always, when I think of him, I hold my breath and listen carefully, hoping to hear his voice in my head the way I used to and like always, all I hear is quiet.
My brother stopped talking to me a long time ago.
“Hi, Henry.” I always make a point of saying hello. Making sure he feels seen because I know what it’s like to feel invisible. Like the afterthought. The kid no one wants. “How’d your math test go?” We studied last Friday after Molly and Allison fell asleep. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he’s been nervous about it.
“Mrs. Turner handed them back today.” He gives me a shrug, accompanied by the quick flash of a smile. “I got a B.”
I feel my own face break out into a wide grin. “I knew you could do it,” I tell him, holding out my closed hand for a fist bump. When he doesn’t oblige right away, I wiggle my clenched fist and give him a loud, exaggerated sigh. “Come on—you know you want to.”
“Lame.” Henry rolls his eyes and raises his own fist to halfheartedly bump it against mine while he tries to hide a grin of his own. He’s ten going on forty. The life he lived before coming to live with Ryan and Grace forced him to grow up hard and fast. Dropping his arm, he looks up at Ryan. “Can I?—”
“Yeah.” Ryan gives him a nod before he can even finish asking because it’s the same question every day, Monday through Friday. Can I go upstairs and see Allison? “Why don’t you take Moll upstairs and let Grace know we’re home from school.”
“Okay.” Henry bobs his head in agreement before giving me a smirk. “Later, Kait.”
“Later, Henry.” I sit back in my seat while he moves past me to drag Molly out from under a still wriggling Mookie before helping her to her feet.
Standing next to my chair, Moll pushes her tangled mop of pale blonde hair out of her face. “When you come over tonight, can Mook come too?”
“Don’t be dumb, Moll.” Henry grabs her hand and starts dragging her toward the bank of elevators on the other side of the lobby. Stopping to pick up her backpack, he shoulders it, along with his own, rather than give it back to her to carry on her own. “She brings him with her every freakin’ Friday.”
When he says freakin’ Molly frowns. “That’s another swear,” she tells him while Henry pulls them both to a stop in front of the elevator. “That makes eight since breakfast.”
“ Freakin’ is not a swear,” Henry huffs impatiently while he jabs the elevator button with this finger.
“You said it again.” Molly shakes her head, looking up at him like he’s a lost cause. “That’s nine.”
“Jesus Christ.” As soon as the elevator doors open he steps inside, pulling Molly along beside him. I know without a doubt he won’t let go of her until they’re both safely inside their apartment. In the weeks since coming to live with Ryan and Grace, Henry has become almost as protective of Molly as he is of Allison.
“That counts as two ,” Molly exclaims right before the elevator doors slide closed between us and them. As soon as they’re gone, I look at Ryan.
“So… how’s it going?” I ask on a laugh. Despite the withering glare my cheeky question earns me, I know the answer. Ryan is the happiest he’s ever been.
I know because I’ve been with him from almost the beginning. I was his nurse at Sojourn, before Patrick built the veteran center from the ground up, just so Ryan would have a safe place to live. When his sister, Henley, came to me and asked me to consider quitting Sojourn to come work here as Ryan’s private nurse, my first instinct was to tell her no. Not because I didn’t want to but because every time I look at him, I’m reminded of the brother I lost—which, oddly enough, happens to be the reason I said yes.
“He still sneaks into Allison’s room every night and sleeps on the floor next to her crib,” Ryan tells me with a flat, exasperated smile. “And he punched a kid on the playground yesterday for calling him an orphan. Bloodied the kid’s nose. Grace had to go down there and smooth things over.”
“ Hmmm …” I make a noise in the back of my throat while I arch an eyebrow at him. “Sounds vaguely familiar,” I tell him—a not so gentle reminder of all the assaults he committed while he was still very messed up and a resident at Sojourn. Unchecked rage was just one of the issues Ryan has spent the last year and a half battling. Before he can tell me to shut my trap or call me Nurse Ratchet , I close the subject by changing it completely. “What time do you need me to come over tonight?” Like Molly’s question about Mookie, it’s a dumb one. It’s been the same time every Friday night for the past several months.
When I ask it, Ryan gives me a rare, genuine smile. “Sorry, Nurse Ratchet—you’re on bridesmaid duty tonight, remember?”
The knots that had slowly been loosening in my stomach retie themselves in an instant. How he knows about his sister’s sudden and impending bachelorette party is anyone’s guess. This family is in each other’s business 24/7. “No.” I shake my head emphatically. “You have?—”
“Class.” He gives me another grin. “And an exam I can’t miss… that’s why Mary is going to come stay with the kids tonight while you and Grace go out.”
Mary.
Declan and Conner’s mother.
I forgot about her. She and her husband have been back from Ireland for almost six months now and she’s been chomping at the bit to spend more time with the kids.
“Ry—”
“Mary’s staying with the kids,” Ryan repeats himself firmly. “So if you want to try to ditch out on tonight, you’re going to have to explain it to Tess.” He gives me one of those old Ryan, asshole smirks that make me want to strangle him. “Good luck with that.”
Before I can even think of a reasonable line of argument, he turns away from me and shuffle thumps his way to the elevator, leaving me to silently curse the day I said yes to Henley when she asked me to be a bridesmaid.