Kaden opens the door and appears genuinely surprised to see me. “Uh, Lana? Hi.”
I swallow nervously. “Hi.”
I search his face, looking for signs of me in its features, but don’t find any besides the flaxen shades in his hair. There may be too much of my mother in me to allow much room for my father. Other than my eyes. And although Kaden’s are a hazel-grey, they aren’t brown. Still … genetics can be funky.
“Everything okay?” he asks. Then, as if correcting himself, he asks, “Want to come in?”
I don’t take a step to enter. Instead, words tumble out in a nervous rush. “Did my mom … ever talk to you? I know she stopped talking to you for a long time, for whatever reason, but did you ever see her again?”
Kaden averts his eyes, shifting uncomfortably. “Yeah, I saw her a couple times over the years. Last time … at the cemetery after Maggie’s funeral.” He glances back to me. “Why?”
I shake my head, not knowing how to ask if she ever told him about me. If he’s my father. But if he is, shouldn’t he be the one telling me?
“I’m sorry she hurt you.” The sentiment is as unexpected to me as it is to Kaden.
When he recovers from his shock, he says, “It was a long time ago. We’re different people now.”
“Do you still …” I stop myself, finally using a filter.
“Love her?” he finishes for me. I offer a slight shrug, leaving him the choice to answer. “Never stopped.”
It’s then I see the pain and sorrow reflected in the flecks of grey and blue of his eyes. “I don’t know what she’s told you, but I never knew the truth. Not until after Maggie died. And I’m still sorry for …” He shakes his head with a humorless laugh. “That’s not important anymore. She’s happy, right? With Nick?”
I swallow, not wanting to add more to his suffering. I offer a brisk nod. He breathes out and tries to laugh off the seriousness again. But it’s strained.
“Good. It was … nice to meet you, Lana.”
“Yeah, you too,” I say, my voice barely audible. I spin around and resist the urge to run back to the main house.
“Lana,” Kaden beckons as an afterthought. I pause with my back to him. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions. And I’m sorry I can’t be the one to answer them. Only she can.”
Grant senses, in the way only he does, that something’s off when I rush by the guys on the patio to enter the house. He closes the door to the bedroom right after I enter. “What happened?”
“How can you read me so well?” I ask, laughing awkwardly to hide my nerves.
He lifts the corner of his mouth. “It’s our symbiotic bond tethering us together. You know that.”
Laughter bursts out. “I love you,” I say with a sigh.
But I know exactly what he means, how we’re wordlessly able to communicate or sense what the other is feeling with barely a glance—just needing to be in the vicinity of the other. It would freak me out if I wasn’t so in love with him.
“So?” he prompts, returning to my strife.
“I visited Kaden.” I press my lips together, the unease of the conversation lingering.
“And …” Grant continues to coax.
“Who the fuck is my father?” I blurt, throwing my arms up in exasperation. “I stood in front of Kaden, basically begging him to tell me, but he didn’t claim me. Or wouldn’t. I don’t understand why this is such a big secret!”
Grant walks over to the nightstand on his side of the bed and removes the folded paper from the drawer.
I let out a small laugh. “You brought it?”
“Of course,” he says, unfolding the chart of what we do and do not know and laying it on top of the made bed. “Figured we’d find answers on the island where everything started.”
The only questions left unanswered involve the weekend the families were here, at this exact place, seventeen years ago.
“I think you know part of the answer, Sweets. But you’re afraid to face it,” Grant says, coming up behind me and encircling me in his arms. He leans down and kisses my cheek. “So do you really want to know?”
I close my eyes and collapse against him, wishing right now he couldn’t read me so well. “No matter who he is, I need to know—”
“Oh shit, hide the beers,” Lance yells from the patio.
We look out the window to find the guys scrambling to pick up empties.
“Who do you think’s here?” Grant asks, the only obvious explanation to the panic outside.
When we leave our room, the sound of a woman’s voice floats down the hall. “Don’t worry. We’ll let you have your weekend at the house. We’ll be staying across the island at the Murphys’. Your father and I wanted to check on you and your brothers to see how you’re coping with everything. I haven’t seen you much since …”
Olivia redirects her attention from Joey to me and Grant when we enter the living room. She smiles in that affectionate way that she does that convinces me she can right the world.
“Lana?”
My chest tightens at the sound of my mother’s voice. Something I’ve only heard over voice mail during the past two weeks.
She steps into the room, relief flooding her face. “I’m so happy you’re alright.” I’m in her arms before I can resist.
Nick is loitering by the entrance until he catches sight of Lily coming down the stairs.
“Dad?”
His entire face lights up at the sight of her.
“Can we go somewhere to talk?” my mother asks me.
I glance at Grant, not sure if I’m ready for this. He gives me a reassuring smile.
“The bedroom is pretty quiet,” he offers.
I realize he doesn’t say our bedroom, not wanting to freak her out. I’m trying to remember what may be lying around to indicate we’re staying in there together but can’t.
Before we can move in that direction, Niall and Brendan pass by us, talking quietly. Brendan flashes me a quick glance, and for the first time, I register uncertainty on his face. And fear in his eyes. We follow down the hall after them. They divert into the office while we continue to the bedroom.
I quickly scoop up Grant’s conspiracy chart and stuff it in a drawer.
“We can sit over here,” I say, indicating the love seat in front of the fireplace.
My mother lowers and forces a nervous smile. I stuff my hands in the back pockets of my cutoffs, unable to sit.
“So, um, what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you,” she says, blinking the emotion away. “I was worried after everything that happened. And I know Niall’s been checking in, but Olivia thought this would be a good time to see you. To talk. Away from school.
“Did you … meet Kaden?” she asks tentatively.
I nod. “He seems like a nice guy.”
She nods. Her lip quivers slightly. “He is.”
I watch as she composes herself, releasing a deep breath from the pain that’s just as raw to Kaden after all this time.
“What are you really doing here, Mom?” I know she didn’t come all the way to Nantucket just for a hug.