Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club #3) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,79
black sheep of the family.”
“How do you figure?”
Candi started picking at her chipped nail polish. “I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I’ve switched majors four times.”
“So.”
“We’re Vanderpools. We don’t do that.”
“Then do things your own way. Life is short.”
To Alexis’s horror, tears flooded Candi’s eyes. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.” Alexis winced. “That was a thoughtless thing to say given your father’s health.”
Candi shrugged half-heartedly. “It was hard for me, too, when I found out about you.”
“I can imagine.”
Candi’s face darkened. “He denied it at first, that you were his daughter.”
Alexis held her emotions back, hoping the sting of that information didn’t show on her face.
“But I told him there was no way the test was wrong,” Candi said. “I could only share that much DNA with someone who was my sibling, and unless I came from a different mother, which, obviously, I didn’t, then you had to be his.”
“He must have been pretty shocked.”
Candi nodded, eyes staring at the window. “He begged me not to tell Mom. I hated him for that, you know? I hated him for asking me to lie for him.”
“But you did.”
“For Mom’s sake, not his.” She gnawed her bottom lip. “I feel bad that I didn’t at least warn her before you came to the house. She shouldn’t have found out that way. She’s still mad at me.”
Alexis pulled her legs onto the bed crisscross style and turned to face Candi. “Listen to me. Don’t let this, me, get in between you and your parents. It doesn’t solve anything to hold on to grudges.”
“It’s not a grudge. I don’t understand how he could just walk away from you and your mom.”
“You might not be here if he hadn’t. Besides, he didn’t know about me back then. He didn’t know my mom was pregnant. She’s as much to blame as he is.”
The admission was as sour as a shot of apple cider vinegar and burned just as badly. But it was true, wasn’t it? Her mother could have told Elliott she was pregnant. She should have told him, and the most frustrating thing about all of this was that Alexis would never be able to ask her mother why.
Candi shook her head as if fighting off the emotions that had made her lips tremble just moments before. “Do you have any pictures of your mom?”
Wordlessly, Alexis slipped off the bed, retrieved her phone from her purse, and tapped the icon for her photos. After clicking on the album where she kept photos of her mom, she handed the phone to Candi.
Candi swiped slowly, studying each photo as if trying to build a connection with the woman who’d once been part of her father’s life. “She was really pretty,” she finally said.
Alexis peered closer at the photo Candi was looking at—a picture of Alexis and her mother at Alexis’s graduation from culinary school.
“Dad was right,” Candi said. “You look so much like her.”
“But the eye color is definitely Elliott’s.”
“And mine.”
“And Cayden’s,” Alexis added. She immediately regretted it when she saw Candi’s face light up.
Candi handed back the phone. “Thank you for showing me those.”
“I don’t have many extended family photos like you,” she said, curling the phone into her hand. “My mom was an only child, and so am I.”
“That sounds kind of lonely.” Candi sucked in a gasp and smacked her forehead. “Why do I keep saying stupid shit?”
“It’s not stupid. It was lonely sometimes.” Another sour admission. Another burn of resentment, this time toward her mother. Her eyes grew wet, so she looked away quickly.
“How come you never looked for him?”
Alexis shrugged and returned the phone to her purse. “I didn’t see the point.”
“But you weren’t curious who your father was?”
“I went through phases, I guess. But I had my mom, and she was all I really needed. I figured any man who would abandon her wasn’t worth my time.”
Candi winced.
“Sorry,” Alexis said. Though why she was apologizing, she didn’t know. There was no point in sugarcoating things. “I obviously didn’t know the truth.”
“But does it matter, really? He did abandon you. He cheated on my mother and walked away like there would be no consequences. Whether he knew about you or not, it’s still a shitty thing to do.”
Alexis climbed back onto the bed. “What part of that actually makes you mad? That he lied? Or that he cheated?”
Candi shook her head and bit her lip, as if to hold in something profound and painful. “He kept you from