I wake up Sunday morning feeling determined. Today will be a good day. Today will be the day I finally move on from Grayson Walker. Because let’s face it, what other choice do I have? The man is going to be my brother-in-law. I can’t realistically go on pining after him forever. Talk about a wasted life.
La Bella Vita isn’t open until dinner so I have the whole day to myself. I’m going to take a nice hot shower, make myself a big cup of coffee, get out my sketchbook, and just enjoy a nice leisurely morning of drawing.
Then later this afternoon I’m going to practice making some of the dishes on the menu that I can’t seem to get right. No matter what I do, they never quite taste like my mother’s. Even though I follow her recipes to the letter. I thought today I’d compare her recipes to some popular ones online and see if I can’t figure out what’s missing. Perhaps she left out secret ingredients so no one would copy them.
I stretch and get out of bed. I eye my powered-down phone on the dresser, wondering if Grayson ever texted me back last night.
No, I tell myself.
No Grayson.
I leave the phone where it is and, yawning, walk to the bathroom. I yank on the handle and pull it toward me.
I hear the gasp first. Followed by the jostling of fabric. And then a deep, slightly-accented voice yelling, “Oh, shit.”
There’s still sleep in my eyes and cobwebs in my brain so it takes a moment to compute what I’m seeing. But then my vision clears. And my heart leaps into my throat.
Alex is on her knees, wiping her mouth daintily with her fingertip. Grayson has his back turned to me, hunched over slightly, struggling to pull his pajama bottoms over his perfectly sculpted ass.
I let out an involuntary yelp.
I can’t help it. It just flies from my mouth all on its own. I’m partly blinded by what’s going on before me. And completely paralyzed. Which is unfortunate because all I really want to do is bolt. Run and never stop running. But my feet are cemented to the floor.
Alex lets out a soft giggle and pulls herself to her feet. “You’re supposed to knock, Lia,” she says, looking only slightly embarrassed.
My tongue feels heavy and swollen in my mouth but I manage to babble out, “And you’re supposed to lock this side of the door!”
Alex smiles coyly. “Oops.”
She smoothes down the top of her hair which has obviously been tousled by Grayson’s grappling hands.
Grayson has finally managed to get his pants back on. When he turns around, there’s a stricken look on his face. A panic in his eyes. And then, when our gazes meet, it’s quickly replaced by a flash of remorse.
The sickness hits me next. It rises up in my stomach, threatening to spill over. I eye the toilet but obviously it’s inside the bathroom. And I’m certainly not going in there. I stumble backward, slamming the door behind me. I collapse onto my bed, forcing myself to take deep breaths.
In. Out. In. Out.
The nausea eventually subsides.
I can hear voices behind the door.
“How was I supposed to know she would walk in?” That was Alex. She sounds aggravated.
Grayson speaks next. His voice is more subdued. Quieter. It doesn’t penetrate the wood so I can’t make out what he’s saying. It’s just soft incomprehensible mumbles.
“Well, it’s not like I planned to give you head,” Alex replies. “If you remember, it was kind of a spontaneous thing.”
A pause. More low rumbles from Grayson.
Then Alex bellows, “Don’t tell me to be quiet! I’m not like you! I can’t turn off my emotions or have silent, controlled orgasms. I don’t come like a robot. I feel things.”
I can’t take this. I can’t listen anymore.
I slide my feet into my flip-flops, throw open my bedroom door, and hurry down the stairs. My dad is sipping coffee at the kitchen counter, reading the newspaper. I stop and turn my ear toward the stairs, praying he can’t hear what Alex is shouting.
Fortunately, it’s all clear down here.
I pour myself a cup of coffee, stir in some cream and sugar, and sit down at the table next to my dad.
“Morning,” he says, looking up from his paper to give me a smile. I pull my knees to my chest and lean back in the chair, sipping the coffee slowly. It takes a moment, but eventually the aroma and caffeine and silence start to calm my throbbing chest. My tightly bound nerves unravel and I feel myself relax.
Now, if only I can erase that image from my mind.
Alex on her knees, dabbing at her mouth. Grayson fumbling to cover himself, looking at me with those soulful eyes. Like he was sorry.
Pshh.
Yeah, right.
Sorry I walked in on it. Sorry I had to see my sister pleasuring him only a few hours after we practically tore each other’s clothes off in this very kitchen. I glance over my shoulder at the kitchen island, still able to feel the cold marble against my bare back and Grayson’s hungry palm, chilled from the ice cubes, gliding down my chest.
Ugh.
My legs begin to grow hot and I force myself to turn back around. It’s starting to feel like no room in this house is safe anymore.
I take a deep breath and another sip of coffee.
Dad glances up, peering at me over the top of his reading glasses. “You okay, Li?”
I grumble out a yes.
“Trouble at the restaurant?” he guesses.
I almost smile. My sweet, old dad. So naïve. So oblivious. Thank God I’ve been able to keep this drama from him all these years. All he needs is to know that his precious little girl has been having secret sex fantasies about his future son-in-law for almost half of her life.
I nod. “Yes. I just can’t seem to figure out why no one shows up anymore. When Mom ran it, it was booming. I haven’t changed a thing!”
He smiles hurriedly and then looks back down at his newspaper. I immediately feel bad. I know better than to mention my mom. I shouldn’t have done that. Especially now that’s he just starting to get over her. Nearly a year later.
And when I say “over her” I mean, I no longer come home from the restaurant to find him sitting at the dining room table, staring at her empty chair. He no longer scours the credit card statements, searching for clues as to what she might be doing.
No longer cries himself to sleep at night.
Maybe someday I’ll actually be able to convince him to pack the clothes she left behind into boxes. Or cancel her magazine subscriptions. Or erase her username from the computer.
But I’ve learned that recovery is relative. There’s no timetable for something like this. People don’t move on until they move on.
With my dad, I take what I can get.
Of course, Alex wasn’t around for any of it. She couldn’t even be inside this house after it happened. So I was forced to take care of our father by myself while Alex hid out in the Big Apple, going to her glamorous parties, dressing in her designer outfits, drinking her one-hundred-dollar-a-bottle glasses of champagne.
I lean forward and flip through the pile of newspaper sections that my dad has removed and stacked neatly to the side. Entertainment. Food. The Arts.
My hand slows as I realize that these are all the sections my mom used to read.
He’s still separating them into a pile for her, just like he used to.
I glance uneasily at my father, who’s engrossed in the sports section, wondering if he’s been doing it on purpose or just out of habit. I suppose some habits are pretty hard to break after twenty-seven years of marriage.
I wipe the pitying look off my face before he sees it and push the newspaper stack away from me. I’m about to stand up to take my coffee outside when I hear footsteps on the stairs.
Alex emerges from the hallway, looking stunning in a strapless brown-and-white-striped romper and wedge heels. Her long golden brown hair is still slightly damp, ready to dry in perfect silky waves down her back after only a few quick scrunches of her fingertips.
When I see that Grayson is not following her, I let out a breath that I didn’t even know I was holding.
“Lia,” she says, pouring herself a cup of coffee and leaning against the counter. “Can I ask you a favor?”
I almost do a double take.
Ask me a favor?
Since when does Alex ask for anything? She usually just demands. And it’s never considered a “favor” on Planet Alex. It’s always a duty.
“Uh, sure?” I respond uncertainly.
She casts a hesitant glance toward our father, and then back at me. “I was hoping you would go with me today.”
“For what?”
My dad looks up interestedly from his newspaper.
Alex sips. “Um, you know, just wedding dress shopping.”
The knot forms almost instantly in my stomach.
Shit.
I really don’t think I can do that. I know I should do that. After all, it’s my sisterly obligation and everything, but seriously? Wedding dress shopping? After her fiancé’s tongue was in my mouth?
But of course, Alex doesn’t know that.
And so therefore, I have to act like it never happened.
Just like I promised I would do.
“Uh, I don’t know,” I fumble, trying to come up with a good excuse without sounding unsupportive. “I have…you know…things to do today.”
She bites her lip, looking very uncharacteristically anxious. Then her gaze sinks to her feet. “Right. Okay.”
Wait. WHAT?
This is not Alex. This is someone else. Alex doesn’t take no for an answer. But then again, Alex never gives you a choice in the first place.
“Why are you shopping for dresses here?” My dad asks, sliding his reading glasses onto his head. “Wouldn’t there be a better selection in the city?”
Alex fidgets with the bottom of her coffee mug. Another very un-Alex thing to do. Insecure people fidget. People who didn’t grow up the envy of every guy and girl in their high school fidget. I fidget.
“I don’t know. I just thought, it would be fun to…” Her voice trails off and she shoots another uneasy glance toward Dad. “Never mind. You’re right. I should just shop in the city. I have some friends that have offered to go, given that…Yeah. I’ll just go with them.”
And that’s when it hits me.
The nervous looks at our dad. The fidgeting. The anxiety.
Wedding dress shopping is normally something you do with your mom.
And with ours out of the picture, she figured I was as close as she was going to get.
“I’ll go with you,” I suddenly hear myself blurting out, before I can stop to think what I’m agreeing to.
Alex’s face lights up and I feel a pang in my chest. “Really?”
“Sure.”
She beams at me over her coffee cup, bouncing a little on her toes. “Great!”
I can’t believe how genuinely excited she sounds. At just the thought of shopping with me. When I was twelve and she was fifteen, I would have jumped at the chance to go shopping with my cool, popular, older sister. And the twelve-year-old that’s still in me now feels just the tiniest thrill that Alex actually wants me to come. That she might value my opinion. That I’m some kind of suitable replacement for our mother.
My heart starts to swell.
But the sensation bursts like a popped water balloon a second later when Grayson strolls into the kitchen.
“What’s great?” he asks, giving my dad an affectionate pat on the shoulder and me a fleeting, awkward glance. He reaches into the cabinet above the coffee-maker and removes a ceramic mug.
“Lia is going to go wedding dress shopping with me today.”
There’s a loud crash and we all jump. I spin around to see that Grayson has dropped the coffee cup and it’s shattered into a hundred pieces in the kitchen sink.
“Klutz much?” Alex says with a giggle.
Grayson blinks rapidly and then gets to work scooping up the larger pieces and tossing them in the trash. “Sorry about that, Jack,” he says to my dad. “I’ll buy you another mug in town today.”
My dad waves it away with his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I hated that mug.”
I watch Grayson carefully as he runs the faucet, washing the smaller pieces down the garbage disposal.
He peers up and catches my eye momentarily. I feel my cheeks flush with heat and then we both turn away.
“So,” he says with a clearing of his throat, “wedding dress shopping. I…uh…thought you would buy a dress in the city.”
Is he nervous?
His voice sounds strained and kind of wobbly.
Is he worried I’m going to tell her something? That two hours alone in a mirrored dressing room with my sister will somehow turn me into a blabbing idiot?
Like I would ever do that to Alex. Let alone, while she’s picking out her wedding dress.
I roll my eyes and fight back an audible groan.
Wow. He really is self-centered.
It’s all about Grayson, isn’t it?
Keeping Grayson’s secret. Making sure Grayson doesn’t get in trouble. Preserving Grayson’s relationship so he can continue to get spontaneous blow jobs in the bathroom.
The whole thing makes me want to gag.
Alex shrugs, watching Grayson wipe down the sink with a sponge. “I thought it’d be nice to shop with my little sister. You know, a sibling bonding thing.”
His cheeks seem to spasm as he smiles back at her. “Sure. I guess that makes sense. But—”
“And I want to go.” I interrupt him before he can try to talk her out of it for his own selfish reasons. I stand up and look pointedly at him, raising my eyebrows. “I never see my sister and I feel like we have a lot to catch up on.”
I down the rest of my coffee, rinse the cup, and place it in the dishwasher, closing the door with a bump of my hip.
“I can be ready in twenty minutes, Alex,” I tell her and then stalk out of the room without another look back.
I smile to myself as I climb the stairs.
He’s nervous.
Well, good.
Let him sweat it out. Let him spend the day agonizing about what’s going on behind closed doors.
It’ll be a nice change.