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She’s the only person he’s caring with, or at least he doesn’t growl in her direction like he does with the rest of us.
Alana bursts into the kitchen, her arms full of tomatoes from the garden. “Oh good, you’re here. Go help Dad bring in more chairs to the dining room.”
“Nice to see you, too.” I stick my tongue out at her.
“Nonna needs help getting in from the car,” Alana also informs us.
“Liam, go help her. She’s supposedly made fifty individual tiramisus for us all to try,” Mom doles out the order.
My brother goes without hesitation, because we’d all lay down our lives for our grandmother and her tiramisu.
“Alana, stay. I need to tell you what Mrs. Peters said about her son who is coming in from California.” Mom moves to the cutting board and begins dicing carrots.
“Oh God, save me.” Alana cowers.
Warren walks in, and I’m not surprised in the least to see him here. Warren has basically been our adopted brother since he was eleven. Alana brought him home to do some group project, and he’s been here ever since. Not only is he her best friend, but my mother became his mother after his own mother was …
Well, she was murdered by his father, who has been serving life at a prison in Michigan ever since. When that happened, shortly after we first met him, Warren began living with his very well-off adoptive parents, but they didn’t know much about raising a little boy. So he’s been a staple in our house ever since.
“Sorry, gotta go, don’t want to be roped into the ‘when are you getting married’ talk.” I salute my sister.
“Haven’t you almost done that like six times now?” Warren taunts me.
“Twice, but who’s counting.” I scowl.
“We all are. Taking bets on it, actually. I have one with this guy, he bet me two hundred bucks you’d marry the next girl you fuc—”
“Alana!” Mom swats my sister’s head with a kitchen towel, while Warren has the decency to turn bright red.
“Assholes.” I flip them off.
“Out! Before I wash your mouth out with soap,” Mom orders, and I go off to find Dad.
He’s carting folding chairs to the already sixteen-person dining table, and I know we’re in for a night of decibel levels that will shatter the windows. My family loves to talk, and when you include the extended family? Watch out.
“Hey, need a hand?” I take some of the load out of his arms.
“Your mother almost ready?” he asks.
I shrug as we place chairs around the table. “I don’t know, she’s got seventeen things going on in there.”
“Yum.” He rubs his stomach, deferring to whatever his wife wants to do.
He knows when to argue, and that’s never when it comes to Mom.
“You ask the Mauer girl for the land yet?” One bushy eyebrow raises.
His mention of Cassandra transports me back to our kiss and her completely dressing me down. I deserved it for the part I played in why she left Hope Crest High. Fuck, I’d been such a follower back then. A useless coward who had stood by and listened to my friends as they tore her apart secretly and openly. I’d been in that lunchroom when someone spilled her milk down her shirt. I’d been there to see her eat grass when two girls in our gym class tripped her.
I was the lowest of low, the guy who said he’d watch out for her and then gave into peer pressure and did nothing. Then the rats … fuck. I’d seen her face that day, ghostly pale and horrified. She’d been embarrassed, traumatized, and it was like a knife through my heart as she fled to the bathroom. People were fucking cruel, and I was lumped in because I’d done nothing.
Aren’t I doing the same thing now that I did when I was fifteen? Staying silent? Allowing this town to make their assumptions and place their blame on her?
Allowing my father to bully her into handing over land that is rightfully hers.
“Her name is Cassandra, Dad. And yes. She says we can put in an offer.” I try to keep my tone neutral.
“An offer? Why is she even listing the house? Did you tell her we’d pay whatever she’s asking and much more? Why go through the trouble—”
