Page 92 of Sexy

“So? What’s that got to do with me?” I regret those words and quickly amend them. “Us, I mean. Because even though what you’re doing to me right now isn’t fair, I’m still here. I’m still trying. But all you seem to want to do is blame me for this fucked-up position you’re in. Do you want the money to keep your house, Fletcher? I can give it to you if that’s what you need in order to understand I like you.”

“Fuck you,” he growls. “I was never interested in your money, Tiffy. You’re mixing me up with your dream man, Cole.”

I look away and shake my head. We are both silent again, perhaps choosing our next words carefully as we try to navigate a minefield of hurt and disappointment.

“Back when I first started the matchmaking thing it was sort of a joke. I had just quit school in my senior year to help Samantha with Shelly after she gave birth. She had some depression and I was a psych major. So I figured if I couldn’t finish my degree, I could at least help her out. And it became so clear that Samantha’s self-worth was tied up in Walker’s opinion of her that I started coaching her on how to feel sexy. Not how to be sexy, Tiffy. How to feel sexy. There’s a very big difference.”

I look him in the eye now, seeing a way forward, even if it is by way of a very crooked path.

“And after she started getting better, I began to notice more and more how people perceived me, and how that perception wove its way into my own opinion of myself. Sexy, to ninety-nine percent of the population, is only on the outside. So why not take advantage of that? Why not sell my brand of sexy and buy myself some time?”

“So you became a stripper. Don’t you think that’s a little self-defeating, Fletcher? On the one hand you’re lecturing Samantha and these other girls about valuing themselves for who they are on the inside, but at the same time you’re using your looks to make money.”

“It was an experiment, that’s it.”

I can tell he’s pissed off about my accusation, but screw it. He brought it all up. “So you wrote a screenplay about what it feels like to be an objectified man taking his clothes off to survive and you sold your story to a network. I’m happy for you, Fletcher. And I think you’re going places. Selling this house is probably going to set you on a path to success. And I wish you all the best. But I was raised by a prostitute, Fletcher. So excuse me if I didn’t have the highest regard for your path to redemption.”

His mouth gapes open for a second.

“Yeah, my mother sold herself to save me. And she got what she thought she wanted too. But she never loved my father. And once I came to terms with that, I started to doubt her love for me as well. It’s a shitty thing to be lied to under the pretense that it’s for your own good. And you did that to me too. Did you even like me? Or was I just another project? Was I just another girl you needed to fix to make yourself feel important and in control of your own destiny?”

“That’s not what it was,” he sneers.

“That’s because you and I see it from opposite sides, Fletcher. And you’re so goddamned sure that you walk on water, you can’t even be bothered to wonder if my point of view is even worthy of your consideration.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

I don’t stop her when she walks out.

I don’t stop her because everything she just said hits me in the chest like a brick. It stops me dead.

Instead I sit back down and stare out at the water, wondering if Samantha feels the same way about me as Tiffy does. Wondering if, in the process of trying to fix things, all I did was fuck them up more.

I pull out my phone and tab Sam’s contact. She picks up on the third ring, kids laughing in the background. “Hey,” she says, a little out of breath. “How’d it go?”

Samantha moved out of the mansion last September. She graduated from nursing school and sat me down that night, thanking me for all my help, but anxious to take control of her life and make it on her own. “Got an offer,” I say without much enthusiasm.

“Great!” But my silence betrays my thoughts. She knows me too well. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fletcher,” she says in that stern voice she uses with me often these days. “We’ve been over this. I don’t need that house. And you’re selling for all the right reasons. I don’t want you to keep it because you think you owe us. Or,” she adds quickly, “because you think your granddad would be disappointed. He had no way of knowing how it would all turn out. He doesn’t want you to struggle. He wants you to live a good life and put the past to rest. And even with the Hollywood money, it’s a big commitment to keep that property.”

“I know,” I say. But my fight with Tiffy is weighing on my mind right now.

“You don’t need to take care of us anymore, Fletch. We’re good. And I’m so thankful. But I can’t steal your life away just because you feel obligated.”

Her words are just another brick hitting my chest. “I’m gonna take the offer,” I say.

“Good.” She laughs. “Good. I’m so happy for you, Fletcher. Really.” There’s some squealing of girls in the background and I know she and Shells are at a friend’s house for a pool party.

“Well, I’ll let you guys get back to the fun.” I force the cheerfulness into my voice so she won’t ask any more questions. “I just wanted to let you know.”

“Congrats, Fletcher. Talk to you soon.”

I end the call and lie back on the sand, letting the wind whip around my body. It’s hard to let Samantha go. And I bet it was even harder for her to take her life into her own hands and trust that she had what it took to make it on her own. Walker is still hanging around and part of me suspects that Sam wanted some distance from me so she could sort out her feelings for him.

That hurts too, since I was the one who was there for her and Shelly. He walked out, just like his name implies. Too many big dreams to be saddled with a high school girlfriend and a new baby. Walker and I had this competitive gene that hooked us when we were kids and never let go. So I wonder… did I step in for Samantha and Shelly? Or did I just want to prove to my brother that I was a better man than him?