I groaned the moment I opened my eyes, squeezing them shut against the bright light. My head was throbbing and my mouth was dry. I looked beside me to see that the bed was empty, and sighed in relief that I hadn’t slept with Amanda the night before. I had lost control and given into her, but in the end it seemed I had resisted her charms. I got out of bed, my whole body feeling achy as it usually did after a night of drinking. It was true that I felt like I was getting old—I could no longer party the way my sister could, with endless drinks and little to no sleep in between.
I went downstairs first thing, walking across the parking lot without a coat on despite the fact that it was freezing outside. The cold air felt good on my skin after last night, feeling overheated and warm with Amanda. It soothed my headache, too, and the movement of my legs helped wake me up so that by the time I reached the apartment’s gym I was ready for my workout. I spent a long time running on the treadmill, my legs pumping, mind going blank as I ran. No matter how stressful my job got, I could always turn to running to clear my head. I ignored the clock as I ran, and by the time I was finished, sweat was pouring down my body. I wrapped a towel around my neck and made my way shirtless back to the building, shivering in the cold.
I spent the rest of the morning lazing around, having decided not to go into work today. The hangover was bad enough, but moving had made me sore, and I wasn’t feeling up to dealing with the high-speed pressure of fashion week looming in front of us. I felt slightly guilty for not working, but I knew that my team was more than competent enough to handle it without me, so I didn’t feel too bad as I lazed on the couch, flipping through TV channels mindlessly as I nursed my headache.
My phone rang and I picked it up, hesitating for a moment when I saw that it was my mom. I had barely spoken to her in the past year—I’d called her on Mother’s Day and on her birthday, but otherwise I had stayed away from both of my parents. Still, I did miss my mom—we had always been close, and I knew that hearing her voice would be good for me. I picked up the phone.
“Hey, Mom,” I said to her. It had been so long since I’d talked to her that I found myself holding my breath, for some reason expecting her to yell or be angry with me. That wasn’t the type of person my mother was, but I felt guilty for being away from her for so long, though I had no reason to believe that she would be angry. It wasn’t my mother I had fought with—she was just a bystander, and innocent casualty in the fight between my father and I.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said, and I smiled at the warmth in her voice. It didn’t matter how long we’d gone without talking to each other; I had known that my mother wouldn’t feel awkward, but would be her usual sweet self. “How are you? Are you at work?”
“Took the day off,” I told her, not wanting to elaborate on the fact that I had a massive hangover and could barely bring myself to stand, let alone go into work. “I wasn’t really feeling well this morning.”
“Your sister says you had quite a night,” my mother said, and I winced, knowing that Trixie had told her everything. The two of them were very close, and Trixie spilled her guts to my mother no matter what the topic.
“We did,” I said. “It was a good time.”
“You need to stay away from those models,” my mother chided. She was always telling me that. She had since the beginning. My mother was convinced that all models were empty-headed bimbos, and no matter how many times I tried to tell her that most of the women I worked with were perfectly competent and bright, she never managed to believe me. I sighed.
“How are you?” I asked, changing the subject. The last thing I wanted was to be chided when I was already feeling slightly guilty about how far I had gone with Amanda. I vaguely remembered kissing her, touching her on the couch, but I couldn’t remember anything afterward. I hoped that I was right and she hadn’t spent the night—I knew from experience how awful it was to forget having sex entirely, and it wasn’t something that I ever wanted to experience again.
“I’m good,” she said. “I miss you. I want you to come home for Christmas.”
I swallowed. “I don’t know, Mom.”
“Tyler, please,” she said in a pleading voice that made guilt spread through my entire body, making me feel heavy and sad. “Your father—”
“He definitely doesn’t want me there. You remember what happened the last time I talked to him. We had a huge fight,” I said to her. “We almost—it didn’t go well. I don’t want to go through that again.”
She sighed heavily. “He just doesn’t understand why you left the company.”
“I know he feels betrayed,” I said in exasperation. It was a conversation that I’d had over and over with both Trixie and my mother, but it still didn’t change the fact that I was proud of my decision not to work for my father, to be independent and on my own. “But I wanted to do my own thing. I never wanted to work for Dad for the rest of my life and I never promised him that I would.”
“I know,” she said in a sad voice. “I tried to explain that to him, but he had his heart set on you taking over the business.”
“Trixie is interested in taking over the business. Why doesn’t he let her do it?”
My mother sighed again. “Your sister isn’t quite as responsible as you are.”
“She can be,” I said. “He just needs to give her a chance. She has some growing up to do, but she loves that company. He doesn’t treat her right.”
“I know,” she repeated, then paused. “Will you come visit? We haven’t seen you in a year. Your father—I promise he won’t mind. He misses you too.”
“I don’t know,” I said to her honestly. “I don’t know if I can face him. We were yelling at each other last time. I miss him, but—”
“It won’t be like that again. I’ll talk to your father,” she promised quickly. “I’ll tell him he has to stay calm. You two should be able to talk this out. You were always able to before.”
That was true. I had been close with my father up to the point where I’d announced to him that I wanted to do something other than take over his advertising company. It was something that he had expected me to do since I was little, something that I had never had any interest in. For most of my life, I had been too afraid to tell my dad that my heart wasn’t in advertising, afraid to hurt his feelings, knowing that the fight was inevitable. But eventually, I’d had to do what was best for myself, and that was going into the fashion industry and building my own empire with Les Chic.
“Okay, Mom,” I said, not wanting to argue about it anymore. I would make my decision at a later time, when I was less hungover and ashamed of myself. “Talk to him. Ask him if he wants to see me. I’m not coming unless he says yes.”
“He will,” my mother said, sounding excited. The sound of her voice broke my heart, knowing there was a good chance that I wouldn’t be able to make it. Despite my success, I had never been good at confrontation, especially when it came to my family. Family had always been everything to me, which was a big reason why it had hurt so bad to have such a big fight with my father. “I know he will.”
The door opened then and I glanced over to see Trixie walking in with a pizza for lunch. I shot her an annoyed look and she grinned at me.
“I gotta go. Call me,” I said to her quickly. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said, and told me goodbye before hanging up the phone.
“Mama’s boy,” Trixie teased, putting the pizza down on the table.
“You’re one to talk. You told her about last night with Amanda?”
“You were acting like an idiot,” Trixie said, shrugging her shoulders. “It was funny.”
I shook my head at her. “I didn’t sleep with her, right?”
“No,” she said. “You passed out on the couch before she left.”
“Great,” I said sarcastically, sitting down at the counter and pulling a slice of pizza out of the box. I took a bite of it, having to force it down. My hangover was making me queasy. I grimaced, and Trixie frowned at me, standing up to go to the liquor cabinet.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked her in exasperation. At this point, I knew I shouldn’t be surprised by my sister’s constant drinking, but it always amazed me how much she could put down. I had been the same way when I was younger—Trixie was twenty-four, at the peak of her party days, and it seemed to me like she never stopped going.
“I learned how to make a new cocktail. And you need some more alcohol,” she said matter-of-factly.
“That’s the last thing I need,” I told her, screwing up my face in disgust.
“It’ll make you feel better. Everybody knows vodka is the cure for any hangover,” she said. I shook my head in disbelief as she passed a glass of pink liquid over the table to me. I picked it up begrudgingly and took a sip, unable to say no. Trixie was good at making cocktails, and she had a way of convincing me of doing a lot of things I shouldn’t do. When we were younger, it had led to some pretty crazy dares that had gotten us in trouble, but also had made us very close growing up. Trixie drank her liquor down and poured another, then went to my cabinets and started digging through them.
“What are you doing?” I asked her, taking a bite of the pizza, trying to keep it down. It didn’t taste good after drinking the alcohol, but I knew that I needed to eat if my headache was ever going to get better.
“I brought stuff to make a pie,” she said, pointing to a bag that I hadn’t seen her bring in.
“A pie,” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“As a housewarming gift,” she said with a grin.
“Do you even know how to make a pie?” I asked her. I had never seen Trixie cook or bake anything in her life, other than ramen, and even then she had over-boiled it so that it had been squishy and inedible.
“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes as if it was obvious. I decided to trust her, though I knew it was probably a bad idea. It was hard to say no to Trixie, who was always lively and in a good mood. My sister was the kind of person who always wanted to make everyone around her happy, so I let her bake the pie, despite the fact that I wasn’t quite sure she wouldn’t end up burning the entire apartment building down in the process.
I laughed, shaking my head, and took another sip of my drink. Though I wasn’t used to drinking this much, it was nice to relax with my sister, especially after the tension that talking to my mother had caused me.