I could practically picture it like I was there. I’d have been sitting with my legs up, staring out the window or trying to read because I hated airplanes so acutely, I could never rest, and Dad would have no need to talk to me.
“How are you?” she asked again after a long pause.
I swallowed. “My feet hurt.”
That wasn’t what she was asking me, and I knew it. But it was about all I could get out right then. Everything else was too much. Much as I adored my sister, I wasn’t sure she’d understand that. Or Bridget, if she’d been on the phone. I was the only one in the family outside of Justin who might be too lost to count at this point. Maybe I was, too.
Was I?
“Where are you?” Her voice wavered. She was upset. I mentally kicked myself for doing that to her. I’m sure it had been a terribly long day for her, too. And she had to put up with Dad.
I looked around. “In Zeke’s guest room bathroom. Soaking my feet. Seriously, Hope, they hurt like hell.”
She ignored my comments about my feet. “You’re in Zeke’s house? When I called him, I thought he would help you, put you on a plane back to us, not take you in. I’ve never heard of anyone being in that house. Is it huge?”
I made a hmm sound in my throat that I hoped she interpreted as yes. I didn’t want to talk about his house, although I stored away in my mind the piece of information she’d just given me about no one coming here. Zeke said no one stayed here, but I didn’t know that meant he’d never had guests at all.
Of course, that might not be accurate. He didn’t have my family over. That didn’t mean people like the woman in the hotel who had wanted him right then and there hadn’t been. I shook my head. I was talking on the phone. I needed to focus.
“Yes, he took me home.” I should tell her what he’d said about Dad betraying him, about wanting something from me, except I didn’t. I chewed on my lip and considered why I wasn’t announcing what I knew right this second. Truth was I had no idea. Maybe because I’d been abandoned on a park bench.
I forced my mouth to work. “I’m not sure what happens next. I have all my stuff. I’m soaking my feet. What happened, Hope? Why are you and Bridget on a plane? And fuck, Justin. He… Well, I guess you know what he did.” I let myself say what I didn’t even want to think, let alone vocalize. “I wouldn’t have left you here.”
Her voice hitched and guilt assaulted me again. Why did I always feel like I couldn’t make them upset? In what way had I been reared to believe making my sisters upset was the worst thing I could possibly do?
Hope’s tears became my tears. I could hear her cry, and so I cried too. Was it all triplets, or was I the worst codependent person on the planet? It would be easier to talk to Bridget. She never cried. Not since we were children.
“Dad lost his mind. He ranted and raved the whole way to the airport. He was saying very weird things. I mean… I understand the business the way we all do.” I didn’t, but I wouldn’t get into that at the moment. “But he was saying things, and suddenly he seemed like he might have a heart attack. I was terrified to leave him. Justin got out of the car at the airport and told us what he’d done right before he took off. I was terrified, not sure what to do. And then I thought of Zeke. Dad said that if we didn’t get on the plane, he was cutting us all out. Justin ran off. I…I panicked. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t…”
I stopped listening. I actually understood. Plus, she thought Zeke would put me on a plane. Very little muss, very little fuss. She’d have helped me back in New York City. Hope wasn’t abandoning me.
And Bridget would have just trusted Hope to handle it because that was what Hope did. Guilt weighed on my shoulders. “Hope, you didn’t make me do what I did today. And you sent Zeke for me. I’m sorry I just…emotionally bashed you.”
She laughed, and I was able to take a deep breath again. “I’m so glad you didn’t marry that man. I hated Kit the second I met him. He’s not good for you. Doesn’t see you for all your beauty on the inside. I don’t know anyone who gives and gives the way that you do and expects nothing in return.”
I closed my eyes. “That’s not me. That’s Mother Theresa.”
“Oh, Layla. Hold on a second.” There was noise in the background. “Sorry, listen, they’re asking us to sit. I love you. Come home tomorrow. I’ll come and be with you. Until we get this all sorted out. I know we can fix things with Dad.”
That was the thing. I didn’t want to sort things with Dad. Not anymore. Maybe not again. “I love you.”
I disconnected the call and managed to take off my undergarments without too much pain before I lowered myself into the water. The next time I ran from a wedding, I was going to make sure I was wearing sneakers. I let my hand hang over the side of the bathtub so my phone didn’t get wet. With a sigh, since I felt about two hundred years old, I leaned my head back and tried to relax. My poor feet were throbbing.
Or better yet, if I ever had another wedding—and sitting where I was now, I doubted that would ever happen because I was going to be paying my father back for this one for the rest of my life—I was going to go barefoot on the beach. With a car waiting to whisk me away right next to the sand should I have to make a run for it.
The tears I’d been holding back, sometimes well, sometimes not so well, since the drink at the hotel, flooded my eyes. I’d blame Hope for this. Her tears had brought my own. Even as I thought that, I knew that wasn’t true, but I wasn’t good at handling emotions. I’d had no examples on how to do so in my life.
My mother certainly hadn’t managed hers very well.
I pushed that away, way back in my mind. I wasn’t her. I’d been proving that my whole life.
When the water went cold to match the frozen direction of my thoughts, I pulled myself out of the tub. The towels had been laid out nearby, and I grabbed one. Considering he never had guests in here, the house must be in a constant state of ready just in case someone showed up. They must open the rooms every day, air them out, make sure everything was clean. It was quite an undertaking, but it must have been worth it to Zeke.
A house that was instantly ready to house a stranded woman with nowhere to go.
It was time to doctor my feet. I winced at the thought. This was going to hurt, big time, but lately, most things did. I got to it.
My phone dinged as two messages came through, and although I was quasi-dripping and really uncomfortable, I picked it up to look at it because I was basically leashed to the thing, and I had no idea what to do about that.
Bridget: Just heard you’re at Zeke’s. Wow! That’s like getting invited to the Batcave.
I doubted I would find him somewhere beneath the house inventing materials to go eliminate the Joker somewhere in Paris. That was a sweet thought, though. He would look seriously gorgeous in all black, running about in the night saving lives. Bridget couldn’t know what her remark would do to me. My crush on Zeke was a secret I’d take to my grave. If my sisters had men they fantasized about, I didn’t know about that either.
She was trying to be funny.
But my humor fled the second I saw the next message.
Justin: I’m sorry, Layla. I’m really fucked up.