I clear my throat, “Um, good morning.”
Cici whirls around from her spot at the stove, “Oh!” She slaps a hand to her chest. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Sorry,” I grimace.
She waves my apology away, “The boss said you’d be sleeping in late so I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
I lift my shoulder. Not sure how to say that when I woke up alone, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. “Is he…here?”
She shakes her head. “He said to tell you that he’d be back tonight. And that he had your art stuff delivered to your studio.”
Art stuff. I mouth the words before I realize what he means. “Oh!”
He must’ve sent someone to my rental studio to collect all my pieces.
Cici holds out a coffee mug, and I take it with a grateful smile. “Thanks.”
She bites her lip. “Hey, we’re sorry if we got you in trouble the other night. With the, ya know.” Cici widens her eyes.
It’s my turn to refuse an apology. “King wasn’t mad about that. And even if he had been, I think running away pissed him off more.”
Cici’s snickers follow me down the hallway as I head to the studio. If King’s gonna be gone all day, I might as well get things organized.
I’m sitting on the floor, back against a wall of windows, soaking in some afternoon sun, when someone knocks on the studio door.
“Come in!” I holler from the far corner, assuming it’s Cici again with yet more food.
Seriously, that woman’s snack game is on point.
I stretch my neck out as her shoes tap across the tiled floor.
I spent the past several hours arranging every piece of furniture to maximize the lighting and functionality of the space. And I’m beat.
Most of my pieces for the next show are already done, but I have a few left to work on, and those are currently taking up space on each of the easels.
It’s not until I can see the feet approaching from under one of the easels that I realize it isn’t Cici approaching.
No, this person is wearing strappy wedge sandals, and I can see a bright red skirt flitting around her calves.
Who is…
The woman starts to round the large canvas, and the second I spot the tell-tale Vass hair color I start to scramble to my feet.
My bare thighs peel off the floor with a wince.
I’m burning these damn jean shorts the first chance I get. They’re cursed!
My hand slips as I use the wall to push myself the rest of the way up and I almost fall, but I catch myself at the last possible second.
My new bestie, panic, settles behind my ribcage as I dart in the opposite direction of the intruder, ducking low to try and hide myself behind the big table in the center of the room where I put all my paints.
At least last time, when I encountered my biggest hater, I had King at my side and I looked somewhat put together. This time I’ll just end up dying in a stained t-shirt and no makeup. Goodie.
“Oh, um, hi there!” A sweet voice, that’s definitely not Aspen, calls after my fleeing form.
I stop, hunched over, then slowly straighten and turn to find a pretty girl, probably in her twenties, smiling at me.
“Hello.” I lift my hand in a weird wave then shrug a shoulder. “Sorry, I uh, saw your hair and thought you were someone else.”
The girl’s face shows delighted surprise. “Aspen?” she laughs. “Sure, I can see the similarities. If she gained forty pounds and took about a thousand chill pills.”
I can’t help but smile at that description. I think the girl might be exaggerating the weight difference for dramatics, but she is a shorter, curvier version of my current worst nightmare.
“I’m Val, King’s and Aspen’s half-sister.” The girl lifts her shoulder, drawing my eye to the canvas bag hanging there. “And I brought margaritas.”
My eyebrows raise. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Val. I’m Savannah, your new sister-in-law.” I pretend to hold the edges of a skirt as I give her a little curtsey. “And I think tequila sounds wonderful.”
She grins. “Good. I was hoping you wouldn’t be one of those anti-margarita types.”
I lift three fingers. “Scouts honor, have never, would never.”
Val sets her bag on the empty corner of the large table between us and starts to pluck things out.
I watch as she sets down a bottle of tequila, two insulated metal cups, a bottle of mixer, a Tupperware with lime wedges, a round metal container of rimming salt, and lastly, a thermos that sounds like it’s full of ice.
“Wow, you don’t mess around.” I’m instantly impressed with this woman.
Val snickers. “When I heard what happened, I figured I should bring the full spread.”
I scoff, “Which part are you even referring to?”
She pauses using an ice cube to dampen the rim of the glass. “I guess I was talking about the whole dinner party thing, but I suppose there’s probably a few moments to choose from.”
I can’t help my snort. “Are there ever.”
“Care to fill me in while we imbibe?” Val asks as she expertly twirls the top of the glass in the container of salt.
Just then, Duke walks past one of the floor-to-ceiling windows leading into the backyard, and I don’t miss how he turns his head away from me.
“Never thought I’d get the cold shoulder from a dog.” I shake my head.
Val laughs, “Duke?”
“Yeah. I think he’s pissy about me running away yesterday.”
Val clunks ice into the cups. “You ran away?!”
“He’s not all bad.” Val’s grimace as she says it makes me laugh. “I mean, I get it. That’s pretty bad. But, like, in general, he’s pretty alright.”
“Pretty alright,” I repeat.
We’re on our third round of margaritas with partially full Chinese takeout containers littering the space around us.
I started the storytelling from the very first meeting at Mandi’s house, and our drinking has steadily increased since then. She knew there was something about Lee cheating and King and I getting married, but she’d apparently missed most of the gruesome details.
Val shared just a few bits of her own information, enough that I know she shares the same father as Aspen and King, and it’s clear they must take after him. I seem to remember King saying something about how they found out about Val back when all the Alliance stuff went down. And I’m not sure what he meant by that, but even with all the stuff I’m sharing, it didn’t feel right to ask.
But I did find out that Val is twenty-five, twenty years younger than King, which made me realize I hadn’t known how old my husband was. But now I do.
When I got to the part in the story where I ran away, I decided to stay vague. I don’t know how much she knows about what King really does, so I just said that I overheard something and ran before I found out that I’d misunderstood. And that King brought me back home.
Home.
I also left out the part about Dom and his apartment and the sex, because that might be a little too much information.
“You gotta know that none of it was your fault.” Val’s head lolls to the side, so she’s looking at me. “You couldn’t have known that Leland was married.” We pulled a pair of the Adirondack chairs inside, that had been around the firepit, and situated them in front of the big windows. This way we could enjoy the sunset in the comfort of the air-conditioned room and not worry about bugs.
Val waves a hand around as she continues. “And Aspen will get over it eventually. She doesn’t really hate you. She just needs time to accept that you didn’t know, when you, you know…”
I roll my lips together, then give in to the urge to tell someone.
“I never slept with him,” I blurt out.
Val’s brows furrow. “King? I wouldn’t expect you––”
I cut her off. “Lee, er, Leland.” I don’t feel like explaining that yes, I have already slept with King. “I never slept with Leland.”
Her mouth drops open. “But, I thought… Hadn’t you guys been dating for a while?” She shakes her head. “I don’t mean that there’s like a time limit. And don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to bang Leland either…” She fakes a gag.
I want to gag, too.
After having King between my legs… I can’t even imagine having sex with a man like Leland.
“We’d only gone out three times.” I did let him kiss me after the second date, and even though there was no tongue, I decide that’s a detail I’ll take to my grave. “He was starting to get kinda pushy about it, honestly, and I was planning to break it off with him that day.”
“I hate pushy men,” Val murmurs. “But wait, if you didn’t sleep with him, then why is Aspen so riled up? I mean, obviously, fuck her husband for cheating, sex or no sex, because I kinda doubt this was his first indiscretion. But she shouldn’t be this riled up.”
“Because no one would listen!” I toss up my hands, forgetting about the glass in my hand and sloshing margarita onto my wrist. “I tried to say something when it was all blowing up, but no one would listen to me. And I tried to tell King, but he was being a dummy…” I trail off, thinking that I’ve probably had ample opportunity to tell him but I’ve had a few other things on my mind.
“King doesn’t know?!” Val leans too far over the armrest, making her chair start to tip.
She shrieks and leans back, dropping all four feet back to the floor.
We both snicker. “I tried to tell him,” I repeat with a shrug. “But if he wants to make dumb assumptions, then he can live with dumb consequences.”
“That’s so typical of King,” Val cackles. “And so very fucked up.”
I roll my eyes, “Understatement.”
Her face turns serious. “I know this is all super unfair, and I don’t like that King just, well, took you. But I really like you. And I’m happy to have you as a part of the family.”
“Thanks, Val.” I swear she’s the only normal person I’ve met since this all started and the thought of her being family makes something calm inside of me.
“So…” Val smiles over at me. “Do you think you’ll stay?”
I take a big gulp of margarita and turn to look out at the final rays of sun. “I know I shouldn’t.”
“But…”
“But… I like Duke.” I lift my glass and drain the rest of the drink. “And I’m starting to like your stupid brother, too.”
