Been There Done That (Leffersbee #1) - Hope Ellis Page 0,59
over time. Like my research.
Shit.
Fuck my life.
I thought of Nick and winced. He’d once been a permanent fixture in this kitchen. He and I had twirled on those very same dark leather stools at the counter as children, wheedling after-school snacks from my mother. By high school, we’d been pseudo-chefs assembling our own elaborate creations, then disappearing to the basement or our favorite spot in the woods.
I shook my head at myself. Is that why I’d come here? For a highlight reel of all my most gut-wrenching memories with Nick?
“I love you, Z,” seventeen-year-old Nick had said, his vivid green eyes fixed on mine as we’d laid side by side on a carpet of crunchy leaves and soft earth, a canopy of gnarled branches stretching over us. “Forever. We’ll always be together. We’ll get out of this town. Soon. Together. Just like we planned.”
But that hadn’t happened. By the time I’d transferred to Northwestern for college, Nick had been gone for an entire year. The bleeding in my heart may have slowed, but it never really stopped.
Hard experience had taught me that not every dark corner needed light. I’d learned to suppress much of the emotion and impulsivity that had guided my college years. I was an adult. Firmly settled in the career I’d worked so hard for. I couldn’t afford to remember how good, how normal it had felt when I woke up in Nick’s arms on our return flight. For a moment, just a moment, before I opened my eyes, I’d been awash with a kind of peace and contentment I hadn’t felt in years. I’d breathed in the familiar smell of him and reveled in his hold. And then I’d opened my eyes and remembered. Remembered all that we weren’t, and how much it would cost me to repeat the mistake of trusting him. By the time I finally came to myself, I was practically in his lap. He’d waved away my embarrassment and apologies, then practically fled the plane the moment it landed. And he hadn’t ridden back into town in his own hired car with Adesola and I as planned.
Adesola, thankfully, sensed my humiliation and never said a word. But I wanted to wring my own neck. I knew better, I did. But my own body had betrayed me.
Dear God, I was a hussy in my sleep.
No more thinking about Nick. I slipped a mental leash around my thoughts as I made my way to my father. Spending any more time thinking about Nick would only uncork a geyser of angst I’d spent years smothering. Judging by how unsettled I currently felt, the seal of that cork was tenuous. Best not to unsettle the already precarious balance. I needed my mind clear and agile.
Especially when dealing with my father.
I planted a kiss on his upturned head. “Hey, Daddy.”
Few townspeople would recognize my father in his current state of undress. Instead of a perfectly tailored suit, he wore a fancy blue bathrobe my siblings and I had all chipped in on together to get him for a birthday. Wearing his reading glasses and a blood-dotted dab of toilet paper stuck to a shaving cut, he wasn’t quite as formidable a figure. But make no mistake, Ezra Leffersbee was a titan in banking, in Green Valley and beyond. A town for the people, run by its people, he’d always preached to whoever would listen. He’d spent years chasing big box stores and Big Business out of Green Valley, often marshaling the town to pitch in and address the town’s individual and collective needs. He and my mother wielded their influence both overtly and subtly, at times simply allowing the strength of their name and the considerable current of power running through our family tree to speak for them. Real power, I’d learned, was silent, stealthy. More times than I could count, I’d watched them mount a campaign or wage war in formal wear, circulating among a room of the state’s movers and shakers. As fascinating as it was, I’d never desired to hold those reins, not in the same way my sister did. For me, happiness had always been Birkenstocks and my lab.
That had always been a point of dissension between my father and me. The absolute last thing I needed right now was for him to crow over my career choice and remind me for the millionth time I should be working at the bank. With the rest of the family.