Chapter 2
Sloane
“Sloane, shut that damn thing off!” Grant bellows from somewhere in the apartment and I blindly feel around the coffee table from where I lay on the couch, trying to find my phone without fully committing to opening my eyes.
The irritation in his voice, that he doesn’t bother to hide, is confusing because were it not for me, Genevieve Dupont wouldn’t have graced our presence at that dingy bar the other night.
More gratitude—that’s what I’d like for shoving him toward the woman of his dreams. She walked into the room and he calmed down entirely.
Returned to who I know he really can be, just by being near her.
It shocked me, and, well I wouldn’t say this to Grant because he’s far too practical and not nearly whimsical enough to really get it, but I feel like I’ve known her forever.
Felt it when we spun each other around the dance floor until we were dizzy, that there’d always been a part of my heart waiting for her to get here.
But maybe my brother does feel that way.
I wouldn’t know because getting him to open up about anything feels like all the times I siphoned gasoline from Clemmie’s neighbor’s car.
Slow and painful, with the intermittent taste of poison.
I’ll think I’m getting somewhere with him but make the wrong move and he’ll seize up. Try to distract from the point at hand.
Like Connie. Or Genevieve.
Somehow, we’ve managed to focus far more on my life in San Francisco than anything else, which is extremely inconvenient because I’m actively trying to forget so much of it.
Gen’s managed to get me a job at the Boston Conservatory where she dances.
It should help; I’m hoping it helps. Not painting has, I’m sure, not been helping me move on from Elliot and all my mess.
Connie’s treatment plan will be finalized today, so I imagine most of my weeks will be spent with her if she’ll allow it, but even my early attempts to just catch up were met with push back. And I get it: she’s sick. But I want to be there for her, came all this way to do just that.
My alarm goes off again.
“Sloane!” Grant’s voice comes again. Really, he needs a muzzle. “I’m grabbin’ breakfast at Vida’s with Ben if you can get it together in the next—” he pauses. “—ten minutes.”
I’d rather poke pins in my eyes than watch the rich kids of Astor Hill kiki at their glorified dining hall.
It’s not that I’m a stranger to grotesque levels of wealth.
Growing up with Evie and Beau, it was almost unavoidable.
But the art scene in San Francisco had been such a breath of fresh air after all that, and to come back here to more of it? My nausea pitches just at the thought.
A bunch of nepo babies, walkin’ around with Daddy’s credit card.
“Aren’t you just describin’ yourself?” my brother mumbles from the kitchen, I think.
I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud. The curtains protecting me from the blistering sun are wrenched open, and I fling my arm across my face in a panic.
“Grant!” I try to chuck a pillow toward him, but it just rattles the wall art instead. “If that’s what I am, what does that make you?” I stick my tongue out, forcing myself into a more upright position only to find that my head is throbbing.
A pair of painkillers and a glass of water are shoved in my direction across the coffee table, and I look up to find my brother sternly glaring at me, arms crossed like he’s looking at a fugitive.
Like somehow, he knows my one chief aim in life right now is convincing him to repair his relationship with Connie.
I already know what’s coming, and I’m by no means prepared to navigate the mine field that is Grant Fielder.
My brother, with the cross he bears and his holier than thou attitude, is the worst person to peer pressure into anything.
Grant, come try this cigarette. Glare.
Come on, Beau and Evie left the liquor cabinet open. Eyebrow raise.
Xavier has the keys to the rec center. Either come or keep your mouth shut. He stayed home.
For all his perfectionism, he’s also the only person I’d actually trust with my life; I know that at the end of the day, he would risk life and limb for me. Would wreak havoc on anyone who messed with me.
And this is how I know he’ll fight this hard, how I know he’ll either shut down or blow up on me rather than have a normal conversation if I even mention Connie wanting to see him.
He closed that door a long time ago and I know, by the death stare he’s serving me, that he’s going to do anything to keep it that way.
Not just because he stopped trusting our birth mother years ago, but because he’ll think he’s protecting me.
He’ll be right, I’ll be wrong, and that’ll be the whole story.
God, he has a savior complex.
But if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that slow and steady really does win the race. I’ll wear him down with my good graces and more good behavior than he can ever imagine. He’ll trust me, and once he does, he’ll see her. I know it.
“Is there a reason you’re interruptin’ my beauty sleep?” I ask him with just the right amount of cheer and cluelessness. If he even senses he’s being manipulated, it’ll be game over for me. And Connie.
He cocks his head to the side, lifting one brow with expert precision.
“Well you can’t sleep on the couch forever,” he says, annoyed.
My eyes shift in confusion until he shoves his phone at me, gently kicking one of my trash bags of belongings.
“There. Pick one. And buy more luggage while you’re at. Since we’re nepo babies.”
“Adoptive nepo babies,” I grumble, staring into the screen at a series of same day delivery mattresses before handing his phone back.
“Not necessary. I don’t even know how long I’m gonna be here.
” I don’t say it’s because I’m still hoping Connie will change her mind about me staying with her. He’d blow a gasket.
He heaves a sigh before plopping down next to me, bracing his elbows against his knees as he lets his head hang. “Sloane. What the hell happened out there?”
Pursing my lips, I avoid his gaze, jutting up from the sofa to busy myself with his coffee maker.
“Sloane.”
I rifle through this fridge, desperate for some heavy cream. All he has is two percent.
“Sloane, if you don’t tell me why you left your program, why you’re hiding it from Mom and Dad, and why you’re acting weird as fuck, I swear to god—I will call them.” His tone is the one that says I’m older than you by a minute, and I know he’s serious.
I spin around, holding the watery milk and a mug in my hand, the cold plaster chilling my fingers. The same ones that haven’t been able to paint anything in over a month. Not since the piece I was working on with Elliot, that now sits somewhere in his iconic warehouse, unfinished. Not since before.
Sloane, you idiot.
Telling my brother, with his brow all hard set, that I not only got involved with my professor, but that I let myself get so lost in him that it sucked all the artistic passion out of me, feels like I’d be telling a brick wall.
He wouldn’t get it. He’d blame me; he wouldn’t say it, but in the undercurrent of his awkward soothings there would be the truth: that it is so like me to be so careless and chaotic with my feelings.
And it still wouldn’t be the whole truth. The whole truth would gut him.
Not to mention, Connie’s cancer. Jesus, I’m just the bearer of all things bad.
I hesitate, wanting so badly for him to be open to some of my burden.
“I was stupid. I got involved with this guy and—” He’s already rolling his eyes at me, and I feel my spine stiffen before I will myself to continue.
“—it just kind of ruined the vibe,” I finish, shrugging, but I can tell he doesn’t buy it.
Eyes narrowed at me he gets up and strides over to the counter.
“The vibe?” His condescension is thick in the air, and if it wasn’t for Connie I would just leave.
“The conditions were not,” I wiggle my head around, trying to find the word, "conducive for me to create anything.” Sort of the truth. “I would’ve been wastin’ my time. Listen, if you could please save whatever demoralizin’ thing you have sittin’ on the tip of your tongue, that’d be great.”
I turn abruptly and spoon coffee grounds into the filter, hoping he’ll disappear into his cave at the back of the apartment. Instead, I can feel him lingering by the counter.
“What?” I spit, spinning on him. He doesn’t even flinch. Just gives me this pathetic smile that spells out how predictable I am.
“Remember when you almost got expelled?” A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, just as a frown tugs at mine. This is at once nothing like that time and just like that time.
“Suspended,” I correct him. “Because the dean refused to listen to my side of the story.”
“Whatever,” he shrugs, and I can’t help but scoff. “You packed that rollie luggage Evie’d gotten you for Christmas and walked to the end of the road.”
“Yeah, because I felt like no one was lis—” I stop, shaking my head. “What’s your point?” I feel myself shrink in real time as nostalgia pools in his gaze, this unsettling memory of mine somehow funny and sweet to him.
“You just do this. You run whenever you make a mistake or—”
“Who says I made a mistake?” I hate how shrill it comes out, hate how I’m sure he can see my molars grinding.
Grant’s mouth opens and shuts, his thoughts coalescing around an exaggerated inhale. “No one. But tell me that’s not what you’re doin’? Runnin’ away from somethin’ and toward…” His jaw twitches.
“Go on,” I say, seething. Small. Embarrassed. “Spit it out.”
“Oh come on, Sloane. It’s Connie. It’s always about Connie with you. Your life goes to shit and you think it’s Connie who’s gonna make everythin’ better, like she isn’t the reason you’re messed up to begin with.”
I press my lips hard into each other, lifting my hair as a small reprieve from the hot anger radiating off my neck.
“So it’s just me who’s messed up. Got it.
” I turn back to the bag of coffee, inhaling deep enough for the fumes to distract me from his insult.
Grinds dirty the counter top, and I mindlessly swipe them onto the floor.
“Sloane.” I spoon more coffee into the filter. “I just know she’s gonna hurt you. That’s all.”
Taking a deep breath, I face him. “If you cared about that, you wouldn’t say such hurtful things to me.” I squint, staunching the tears that so badly want to bleed across my waterline.
Grant’s throat bobs, and I witness the apology take hold in his gaze. “I’m sorry. I could’ve said all of that differently.”
Relief washes over me, and I can almost see my point of entry. “Thank—”
“But I’m serious about Connie. Leave me out of it.”
And just like that, it closes. He closes up, just like I knew he would.
Shoulders squared he shakes his head, frowning.
He can’t even begin to see how much his grudge is eating at him.
Some selfish part of me wants to just tell him about her cancer.
Let his stubborn rationality try to metabolize that.
“One day she won’t be here. And that guilt will keep eatin’ you alive,” I tell him, instead, biting the inside of my cheek until that familiar metallic taste clouds my senses.
“I don’t feel guilty. That is just…not my life anymore, Sloane.” He plants his hands on the counter, glancing down distractedly. “If you’re gonna stay here, it’s on my terms.”
“And they are?” I cross my arms, trying to school my breath.
“One—you’ll drop the Connie shit.” It’s a non-starter, but this is going nowhere. I need to wear him down slowly, over time.
So I shrug one shoulder, rolling my eyes. “Sure,” I lie. “Two?”
“No parties in my house.”
I scoff. “Who do you think I am?”
“My sister. Which is why I hate that this even has to be a rule, but three,” he pauses, raising his brows, “no sleeping with my teammates.”
My jaw drops from the sheer audacity. “How we’re related is sometimes beyond me. Who cares who I sleep with?”
“Me. I do. The team’s already been thrown through a loop with Ben comin’ back. The last thing they need is any of your chaos.”
I still, blinking furiously to staunch the tears that press behind my eyes.
“That’s it. I won’t tip off Beau or Evie, will let you crash in my spare room—just follow my rules. Please.”
I inhale deeply, exhaling as I let my eyes shut, knowing I don’t have any choice in the matter. “Your turf, your rules, I guess.”
“Great.” A genuine smile spreads across his face, and I wonder just how good the dopamine rush of control feels for him, and just how painful it feels when he loses it.
How painful it will be, eventually. The thought twists like a dagger in my own heart because I love my brother, and I hate that he’s like this.
I hate that I couldn’t just run here and share everything with him, that he’s so in denial about his own fragility that he’s created a bubble that he thinks will shield him forever.
But then I remember Gen, and the pain subsides.
“Is a certain ballerina off limits, though? Because I have a million ideas about—”
His hand flies up, eyes shutting hard as a blush overcomes the face that so reminds me of my own. “I will let you know. If I need…advice. Or whatever.”
My own smile is sheepish as I try to catch his gaze.
“Sure. Just know, I like her. A lot. She’ll be good for you.
” His eyes tip back as he shakes his head, walking out the door.
“I have a sense about these things!” I call after him with forced playfulness, tipping the pot into the reservoir and flicking the machine to life.
Coffee slowly drips into the pot, unhurried by my migraine or fatigue, and I wish I had all the time in the world, because then I’d do everything I needed and wanted to do. And everything I’d ever done wrong, I’d do right.