my mind. Do I only want Katie because I shouldn’t have her? Is the chase as good as the get? Am I doing to her what I did to Cassidy?
I was trying to get my head on straight. I thought some distance might help, and then she showed up at the racquetball court and took care of me when I hurt my ankle. She’s so damn kind, and I don’t deserve her.
I imagined her in the same position and wondering what I would do to make her day better. I imagined getting a book of jokes and reading every one. I’d read her a historical romance that took place in a faraway land, where the hero’s nipples were on display on the cover. I’d make her my grandmother’s recipe of gnocchi because my grandmother had told me that dish was only for the ones I loved.
I felt the spark again that night.
I was in after that. All in until we found out where this relationship was going.
And then she had to go and make plans with him.
Of all people, on all nights of the year, she’s going to be with Branson Ford.
“I hate that British fuck,” I grit out.
“Jeez, watch your language,” my sister, Melissa, says as she walks into our parents’ kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her, surprised to see her here at ten o’clock at night.
“I should say the same thing to you. Don’t you have a fancy bachelor pad in the city?”
I raise my glass of whiskey to her in a cheers. “Why commiserate alone in my own home when I can do so in Mom’s Martha Stewart kitchen?”
She puts her purse on the counter and slides her coat off her shoulders. “There are so many aspects to that comment that I’m dying to get into, but first, I need a drink.”
“Macallan?” I lift the bottle to her, but she shakes her head as she grabs a wineglass.
“Pinot. Women don’t drink whiskey.”
“I beg to differ.” With a slap of my thigh, I turn to her and change the subject. “What brings you here on a school night?”
She pours her wine and takes the seat next to me. “I have a meeting in the city in the morning, so instead of waking up before dawn to drive in, I put the kids to bed and then drove here, hoping to cut down the commute in the morning.”
“I can give you a ride in. I have to be in the office at eight thirty.”
Instead of saying thank you or even accepting my offer, she shakes her head and raises her hand in question. “Why the fuck are you here?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I happen to enjoy Mom and Dad’s house.”
“They’re not even here. Dad took Mom to Mohegan Sun.”
“Yeah”—I take a drink—“learned that when I came home to an empty house.”
Melissa drums her fingers on the counter and lowers her gaze to me. The woman does resting bitch face really well. But active bitch face? She could win a prize for the way her eyebrows hover and her nose narrows. It really is an art.
“You don’t want to know,” I lament, a deep exhale pouring from somewhere deep in my gut.
Her brows relax, and her attitude fades. With dropped shoulders and a tilt to her head, she looks at me with a bewildered stare.
“It’s the girl,” she says.
“Katie.”
“Katie broke up with you,” she surmises.
“No. Actually, you’ll be very happy to know that I fucked this one up all on my own. Well, that, and she has a thing for a certain Brit with a bad accent.”
She waves her hand in the air, as if wanting me to back up. “Rewind. You were just here with a woman for the first time since Cassidy, being all starry-eyed and sleeping out in the pool house—don’t think I didn’t notice that—making a pretty bold statement to the family that this woman was special to you. I mean, Mom’s one step away from ordering your china. Now, you’re telling me that she wants someone else?”
How do I give my sister the CliffsNotes version of our relationship?
“Katie longed for another man for years until we started dating. When I surprised her with tickets to Miami for the weekend, she said she couldn’t. She has plans. With him.”
I finish my drink and pour another.
“What a whore.”
“She’s not a whore.” I’m quick to defend her, my tone deep and loud. “Don’t you ever call Katie that.” I rub the back of my neck and