“Ugh! Can you believe that?” I say, fuming my way over to the far end of the kitchen.
“Believe what?” Lexi asks, pushing the turkey back into the oven after basting it.
“I know he’s your brother and all, but he can be infuriating. He paid all my medical bills, Lexi. After I told him not to.”
Lexi laughs. “The way I heard it, he paid them before you told him not to.”
“You were listening,” I say.
She rinses off her hands and walks over to the kitchen table, taking a seat and patting the one next to her. “Yes, my brother can be infuriating. Most men can be from time to time. And yes, he paid your medical bills. But, Murphy, he was the cause of your injury and paying those bills was much less of a burden for him than it would have been for you.”
I plop down in the chair beside hers. “I can’t stand rich people who throw around their money.”
She eyes me as if I’m being a petulant child. “He throws around his money, huh? How has he ever done that? Tell me how my rich brother flaunts his money, Murphy.”
I shrug thinking about how the man lives modestly even though he’s making millions. I finally think of something. “The park. He rented a ball field in the park.”
She smiles. “Yeah, he told me about that. But try again, because he said he only had to pay a few bucks for a permit.”
“What about the VIP tickets. And the phone—he bought me a new phone.”
“He’s a ball player. You don’t think he has to pay for those tickets, do you? And a phone. Really? You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“So, you think he’s right and I’m wrong?”
Lexi puts her hand on mine. “It’s not about being right or wrong, Murphy. It’s about finding a balance. It’s about not letting the little things turn into big things. Because big things can ruin you.”
“You say that as if you have experience with it.”
She nods. “You’ve no idea just how alike we are, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
Kyle comes into the kitchen to check on us. He leans down and gives his wife a kiss, looking at me with empathetic eyes. “Everything okay in here?”
“Everything is fine. Just give us another minute,” Lexi says.
When he leaves, her eyes follow him. I can tell how much she loves him just by the way she looks at him.
“He did the same thing, you know,” she says, looking back at me. “Kyle paid my hospital bills when I had Ellie.”
I look at her, confused. “That’s different. He’s Ellie’s dad.”
“Not biologically,” she says. “Kyle didn’t even know me when I showed up pregnant at his hospital.”
“Really?”
Lexi and I have gotten close and we know a lot of things about each other, but this comes as a huge surprise.
“Really,” she says. “And when I found out he paid my bills, I freaked. It almost ruined us. It did ruin us for a while.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
“It’s fine. We’re fine. I just don’t want the same thing to happen to you and Caden. Your relationship is fragile and new. He told me yesterday that you’re officially a couple. I think that’s wonderful, Murphy. You’re the one for him. I know it.”
“How do you know it, Lexi?”
She smiles. “Are you kidding? You should see the way my brother looks at you. It’s as if you are the Mona Lisa. The game-winning home run ball. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”
I roll my eyes. “Caden does not need any more pots of gold.”
“Give me a break,” she says jokingly. “I was on a roll.”
Sawyer comes into the kitchen, looking around. His eyes dart awkwardly over to me. “Uh, can I grab a beer?”
I know full well there is a beer fridge under the bar in the living room. I snort petulantly. “Did Caden send you in here to check on me?”
“No.” He looks guilty as sin. “Okay, yes. Hell, I don’t know how to do this shit. Your boyfriend is on the edge out there, Murphy. Throw the guy a bone.”
My mother walks in and I shake my head. “More reinforcements?” I ask.
“We’re all worried about you, honey.”
“And we’re hungry,” Sawyer adds, making us all laugh.
“Fine,” I say, getting up from the table. “Let’s get things moving then.”
My mother puts a hand on my arm, stopping me from helping. “I think Lexi and I can handle this. You have something more important to do.”
I look at Sawyer. “Is he still in the living room?”
“He’s on the balcony.”
I nod, leaving the kitchen and grabbing a throw blanket off the couch on my way to find him.
I wrap myself up and open the sliding door, frozen air assaulting me as I walk through to the outside.
Caden turns around and sees me, worry etching lines across his forehead. “Murphy, I’m sor—”
I hold up my hand to stop him. “There can’t be any more secrets,” I say. “I know you had good intentions, Caden, but we have to be able to talk about everything or this isn’t going to work. First you withheld the fact that Tony was going to break up with me, and now this.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he says guiltily. “It won’t happen again.”
I pin him with my stare. “Are you sure, Caden? Because you said that once before. I need to be able to trust you.”
“You can,” he says, his eyes imploring me to believe him. “I screwed up, Murph. And believe me, I won’t do it again. More than anyone, I know about three strikes and you’re out. I’m not about to strike out with you. I promise.”
“Okay.” I walk over to him. “You will always have more money than me. That is something I’ll have to deal with. I know you can pay for things that I can’t. But in the future, we need to agree on what those things are.”
He sighs in relief at my mention of the future. “What if I want to get you a birthday present?” he asks with a smirk.
“That’s different. Presents are fine. Well, unless you buy me a car or something.” I look at his face that is breaking into a smile. “Do not get me a car, Caden.”
“But anything up to a car is fine?”
“You can be infuriating, you know that?” I swat his chest, causing the blanket to fall off my shoulders.
He picks up the blanket and walks around behind me, pulling my back to his chest as he wraps us both up. “No more secrets,” he whispers in my ear.
We stand like this, pressed together and keeping each other warm. And as I look over the city, I realize this is our first holiday together. I turn around and thread my arms around his waist. “When I was little, every Thanksgiving my dad would make us go around the table and say what we were thankful for. I would always say something stupid like how I was thankful for my bike or my new dress. It wasn’t until after he died and we stopped doing it that I realized the only thing he ever said he was thankful for was me.”
Caden leans down and kisses the top of my head. “It appears your father and I have a lot in common.”
“I wish you could have met him,” I say, looking up into his eyes.
“Me too. You know that nobody can ever replace him, don’t you?”
I follow his eyes as they look into the living room where his father is helping my mother bring a platter of food out to the dining room table. “It’s crazy, don’t you think? Your dad and my mom?”
“If by crazy you mean perfect, then yes, Murphy Brown, it’s crazy.”
I have a horrible thought and pull back from Caden. “Oh, my gosh. What if they get married? You’ll be my step-brother. We can’t let that happen. It’s gross.”
Caden laughs, winking at me as he pulls me back to his chest. “We’ll just have to beat them to it, then.”