Kristi scoffed. “It doesn’t change what she did to you, or what she’s doing now.”
Aunt Bree looked like she wanted to agree, but I was sure the reason Uncle Konrad was whispering to her was to try to stop her from saying anything else. My mom looked shocked and mad that she was just finding all this out. Aunt Aubrey and Uncle Jeremy, my dad’s brother and sister-in-law, were staring at me just like Dad was . . . without judgment. Just waiting for what would come next.
“No, it doesn’t change what she did. But now you know why I wanted to be with her so bad. She fell back into my life, and I wasn’t letting her go again no matter how hard she tried to fight her feelings for me. No matter how much I fucking hate what’s happening now, everything finally makes sense. Why she was cautious, why she tried to push me back, why she still wouldn’t let anyone actually define our relationship . . .” I trailed off and focused on my sister again. “Yeah, I was mad when I found out. I was mad she’d waited so long to tell me. But you? You have no room to sit there and judge her or be a bitch about what’s going on because all you know is that she was married. Think about everything she did when it came to my relationship with her in the five months from when she moved here until her ex showed up, Kristi, think about it. And now think about her ex. They were married when she was eighteen, and he left her and disappeared out of the blue one day only a few months in, and just showed up again four years later. I fucking hate what is happening, and I hate not knowing who she’s going to choose. But really, you can’t blame her for being confused when she found out that the reason he left her was because he had to go undercover for the police department.”
Kristi’s pissed-off expression disappeared when I finished, and was replaced with wide eyes that were filled with shock. But she never said anything. No one did.
“Yeah. So there’s the whole story. Have fun with that.” Without another word, I turned and walked out of my parents’ house. No one tried to stop me, not like they could have after everything that had just gone down in those few minutes. And now that I’d just told the entire story, I was right back where I’d been for the last month.
Hurting. Frustrated. And waiting. Always waiting.
November 30
Kennedy
“DID YOU NOTICE the way Kristi kept looking at you today?” Kira asked as we walked up to our condo.
“Yes! You noticed it too?”
Kira gave me a look and laughed. “Kind of hard not to. She looked like she couldn’t figure out what to say to you, so she just kept telling me everything.”
“Oh well. At least she doesn’t look like she wants to kill me anymore. I wonder what changed.” I was about to put the key in the door, but stopped and looked at Kira with wide eyes. “Do you think . . . do you think Liam is seeing someone?”
“No. No way. If he were, Kristi would be throwing it in your face after how she’s been acting the last month.” Kira didn’t look worried about the possibility that Liam had found someone, but when she saw my face, her expression softened. “Have you talked to him?”
I shrugged. “I’ve tried. Whenever I call him or text him, the first thing he asks is if I’ve decided yet. When I tell him I’m still trying to, he says, ‘I’ll be here,’ and then hangs up . . . or stops responding.”
Kira suddenly looked uncomfortable, but before I could question her expression, she asked, “And are you getting any closer to deciding?”
I thought about that for a minute, and finally said, “If I had to make a decision right now, I know who I would choose. But whenever I think about making the decision, I feel like I’m still not giving Rhys the chance he deserves—so I don’t.”
“It’s been more than a month,” she reminded me.
“I know,” I groaned. “I know it has. I really need to spend some time actually talking with Rhys . . . I’ve been ignoring him even when I’m near him.”
Kira didn’t respond; she just nodded her head as she turned to face straight ahead.
Unlocking the door, I pushed it open and followed Kira inside. A few steps in, she turned to look at me with wide eyes.
“Smells good in here,” I mumbled.
“It does,” she agreed, and turned toward the living room.
It wasn’t uncommon for the condo to smell alarmingly good. Rhys had nothing to do all day, and was still on paid leave for another month from the department to regroup from his time undercover, so we often came home to a clean house. Once he explained how he’d been living for four years, and how, now that he was away from that life, he felt like nothing was ever clean enough, I’d stopped asking him not to clean, and let him do what he wanted.
“Wow,” Kira said in amazement when she rounded the corner to look into the kitchen. “What is all this?”
“Oh, wow!” I echoed when I looked into the kitchen. There were plates and bowls filled with amazing-looking food, and Rhys was standing in front of the sink rinsing off what looked like the last of the dishes he’d been using. “Where did this come from?”
“I made it,” he answered with a nonchalant shrug. “I went to the store today and bought enough food to stock up the pantry and fridge.”
I glanced over at Kira, who was looking in the pantry, then looked back at Rhys in awe. “Really? You didn’t have to do that. It must have cost so much.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this so full,” Kira whispered from where she was now standing in front of the refrigerator.
“You didn’t let me help pay any of the bills from last month. I had to do something.”
“Because you sleep on the couch and clean all the time!”
Rhys smiled. “Kennedy, that does not come close to equaling out.”
“Wait,” I said, and held up a hand. “How did you get to the store to buy all of this?”
Kira turned to Rhys for his response, but quickly moved her eyes away and looked down at the food.
“Uh, I went and bought a truck today.”
“You bought a truck?” Kira asked, her voice and face showing her excitement.
“How?” I asked again.
Rhys’s smile turned sarcastic. “Well, I picked it out, signed the papers, and drove it back here. But if you’re asking how I could afford it, you have to remember I came back to four years of back pay with absolutely nothing that I needed to pay for except my ticket here.”
“Huh, well, that’s fun—wait! How did you get to the dealership?”
Both Kira and Rhys laughed, and after a quick look back at Kira, Rhys’s eyes were on me. “They have these cars called taxis now. You call the number, they pick you up, you pay them to drive you somewhere. They’re pretty cool.”
“Shut up,” I said on a laugh, and rolled my eyes. “You could’ve just said you called a cab, jerk.”
“But then you might have asked, ‘How?’ ”
This time I was laughing with them, but my laugh died and I blurted, “Wait! How did you call a cab?”
“Rhys asked if he could use my phone today, I left it with him when we went to work.”
For a second, I wondered why he’d asked Kira instead of me, but figured he probably didn’t feel comfortable asking me seeing as I was always either at work or at the beach, and if I was home, I was locked in my bedroom. And he and Kira had become friends over the last month, so I just nodded. “Okay, I swear I’m done with the hows.”