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“Thanks…” I trailed off, forgetting her name. Linley had told me.
“Charlie,” she said.
“Right, Charlie. Thanks, Charlie,” I said, waving as I headed out the door.
She wasn’t exactly what I expected, but I had the feeling we were all going to get along just fine.
* * *
“This iswhat your website would look like, and you’ll have the gallery here,” Natalie said, scrolling on her laptop.
“You’ve been busy,” I said, astonished. Everything looked so professional.
Natalie blushed. “Yeah, I just kind of got carried away. I may or may not have ordered some stuff for photographing and a ring light.” She gave me a sheepish smile.
“What’s a ring light?” I asked.
“You’ll see. Oh, and Piper said if we wanted to do some really beautiful shots, we could use her house. I’ll make sure Preston’s toys are cleared up first, though.”
“That’s really nice of her,” I said.
One of the downsides of living in my little dark cabin was that it wasn’t exactly a good place to take beautiful, bright pictures. It was just on the wrong side of rustic.
“Now I just have to make a bunch of shit,” I said, starting to sweat.
“Hey, it’s fine. You can always do limited edition stuff. People will pay for anything that’s exclusive. You just have to create buzz and create scarcity.”
“I won’t need to create scarcity,” I said.
“Hey, it’s going to be fine. No pressure. If you decide you don’t want to do any of this, you don’t have to.” Natalie kissed my cheek and I felt a little better.
“I’m sorry. I know I should like, believe in myself or whatever, but it’s hard.” I shrugged.
“I get it,” she said. “Neither of us is the favorite child.”
That was part of the reason we’d bonded so much when we were younger. We’d recognized something in the other one that we saw in ourselves.
“How old do you have to be before your parents stop fucking up your life?” I asked.
“I’ll let you know,” she said.
* * *
“Oh,I met Linley’s cousin. She has pink hair,” I said later, as we were getting ready for bed.
“Yeah? She sounds cool. People with pink hair usually are.”
“I didn’t talk to her for very long, but I think she’ll probably fit right in. She looks a lot like Linley, minus the hair and glasses,” I said.
“Nice. I can’t wait to meet her. I’d rather do that than be Gretchen’s bitch this weekend.” She rolled her eyes.
“I would save you if I could,” I said. In some ways, she had it worse than I did in terms of sibling drama. At least Wyatt had decided that he didn’t want much to do with me. Gretchen would go from ignoring Natalie to desperately needing her. It gave me whiplash, and she wasn’t even my sister.
“I know,” she said, putting her arms around me. “You’re the best.”
“I try,” I said.
“You succeed,” she said, kissing me.
