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“No, Hunter. She has you, Kristen, Damien, even Chase. Besides, I gave her all the equity left in the house. When I’m gone, the house will go to the bank and she’ll get a fresh start. I want her to do this. I need her to do this.”
I disagreed. She wouldn’t want her father making these snap decisions for her. He was coming out of left field, and I had no idea what to do with this information.
“Does she know, about any of it? Your heart, the house?”
“No. She found some bills I haven’t paid, and she made some good guesses, but she doesn’t know the rest.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. I was going to have to be a good actor to keep this up. She could read me like a book. I had things of my own I wasn’t prepared to tell Taylor Jane and now this. It was worse than a sewing circle of gossip.
“All right, well, what are we hanging up first? Curtains or pictures?” I stood up and waited for the man who was giving up everything for the girl I loved when I couldn’t give her any part of my heart. I wasn’t sure who the biggest fraud was between the two of us.
“Thank you, Hunter.” Mr. Bryant knew I’d keep this secret to my grave, but I had a few conditions of my own. One being sure that Taylor Jane didn’t lose the house she loved.
6
Taylor Jane
I’d been home for two weeks, busting my hump getting ready to dive into the house flip and scrounge up what I could to pay bills at the house. Dad wouldn’t let me pay rent, but I could at least buy groceries and cook dinner.
However, if one more person in town asked me what was going on at the house whenever I stopped in the grocery store or the post office, I was going to lose my mind. It was time to call my bestie for backup to meet me for drinks. Kristen knew how to let loose and take my mind off pressing matters. As long as she wasn’t looking to drive an hour away to some strip club it would be all right. Okay, I may have been avoiding her since I got back, but I let the excuses pile up, and it was now or never, ripping off the Band-Aid.
Memories surfaced like old movie reels. I would never get over the look Hunter gave me the night he drove to Albany picking us girls up. Kristen hit a curb and popped the wheel off her mother’s vintage car. We weren’t drunk, not even close, but the tongue lashing he gave us both was enough to make me be the designated driver anytime I went out with her again. That was the night I learned how much Hunter Hart hated changing tires. His past was a mystery still, but it was no secret his dad had been a colossal asshole. My heart hurt for him and yet, he still showed up when I called. He never failed to take care of us girls. He never let me down and the last thing I wanted was for him to be hurting. There was a tire wrench somewhere out there in a ditch that had taken the brunt of Hunter’s classic quiet rage.
“There’s my baby bitch!” Kristen smelled like green apples and bright flowers as I hugged her fiercely, getting a face full of her long, dark hair colored an ombre of half fire engine red.
“KC! It’s been forever! I love the new hair! Stunning!” Dropping my purse onto the seat of the booth, I slid in next to the girl who knew me as well as myself. Hugging her hard, I missed her this past year. We had a friendship that time or distance never affected. She greeted me like it had been yesterday and not months since I saw her last.
“Did you just Tim Gund on me?” Winking, she tugged on my long locks. “Go see Louisa. She just bought out the Highlights of My Life Salon and calls it something like Vodka and Wash.”
“That new place on Main Street?” Mentally I drove down the main drag of town, remembering where each little shop was located. I was away at school for four years and even though NYC was close to home, Dad came to visit me, and I rarely made it back to New Paltz. I’m that bad friend. Some days I still feel like running away to the city.
“Yes! She’s the best. I love what she did with the place. Maybe you can redesign the space for her. She just got back from LA and opened the place when it came up for sale. She even talked Tommy into working with her.”
Louisa and her brother, Tommy, went to high school with us, though we didn’t really hang out back then. She was more Kristen’s speed, but I always thought she was a nice person.
“I want something for summer, so yeah, I’ll give her a call.?
? Mentally calculating what a highlights would cost if things worked out flipping the house.
“What have you been up to besides traipsing all over New York and Parsons without me? I see you didn’t hit me up to hang out the hot second you got your skinny ass back up here!” Kristen opted to stay local while I took the opportunity to hit the big city and follow my dreams in interior design.
“Pretty much just that. I auditioned for a TV network for a design show and ended up getting into a contest flipping the house you’ve probably been hearing about.”
“Lucky slut! And here I am slaving away doing the fundraising for the Women’s Club and working part-time accounting for my aunt’s antique shop. Crazy woman has me reupholstering more chaise lounges than I care to think about in between the income and expense columns. I have no idea how she makes a profit each month.”
“KC, I really wish you would start your PR company we talked about. You’ve got some of the best ideas for fund raising and with your degree in accounting you could make it happen. Remember that time you organized that petition for the potato bar in high school?”
“Yeah, those were some kick ass spuds. I’d had enough of those frozen tater tots that never really got warm or crispy. Just that frozen crap once you got through the burning outside.”
“See! You’re the best social activist I know.” And Kristen was. She could argue an oasis in the desert she was so good. She got that from her mom, the lawyer, but none of us were brave enough to tell her that. I just wished she used her powers for good instead of evil, you know?
“Well, unlike you, Taylor, I didn’t exactly come into a windfall of money. But I love it. Everyone comes and tells me all the gossip while they beg me to review their taxes. God, the tourists are the best.” When Kristen mentioned the money I got I winced, thinking about how much Dad sacrificed all these years without telling me.
Flipping this house was going to hopefully become the windfall of money I needed to pay off my student loans and the second mortgage my dad had taken on the house. It would pay for all the debts incurred by letting me go to New York. My EBay account had seen a lot of traffic this past week selling off whatever I could. All the handbags and fancy shoes I didn’t need barely made a dent in the debts, but it was a start giving me money while I worked on flipping the project house.
“All right, enough reminiscing, tell me all the gossip you’ve got.”
“Ladies, some drinks?” Interrupted by our server, we both looked up at Remi Kennedy, another familiar face, and we ordered strawberry basil martinis to start off the night. Easton’s Pub, our regular hangout, had gone through several upgrades since the Easton brothers had bought out their dad and begun making improvements.
