Page 25 of Philly
“Come in. You’re letting the heat out,” he said, stepping away and gesturing her inside.
Her eyes darted to his, then dropped to the floor as she scooted inside, walking straight to the back of the house without looking at him again.
“I just got out of the hot tub. Let me change,” he said. She gave a jerky nod, drawing another smile from him as he left the room.
He returned less than five minutes later, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She stood in the middle of his living room staring at the flames through the small window of his woodburning fireplace. She didn’t look up when he entered the room.
“Can I take your coat?” he asked.
Startled, her body jerked, and her gaze flew to his. Her eyes quickly traveled over him, as if to assure herself she wouldn’t be faced with more nudity, then she nodded. “Thank you,” she said, removing her black coat and handing it to him. He hung it on one of the many coat hooks scattered throughout the house.
“Should I take off my boots?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter now. In the winter, once the snow comes, that’s a different story.”
She nodded again; this time, her eyes held his. He waited. She had something to say to him, and he didn’t intend to make it easy. Finally, she took a deep breath and spoke. “You bought this house, under-market, from Laura Nolan’s parents, Kenneth and Diane Olmstead.”
He cocked his head but said nothing. He’d expected her to bring up Laura, but this was a new angle.
She let out an annoyed huff. “Are you still going to deny knowing Laura?”
“The paperwork listed a trust as the seller,” he replied with a shrug.
“And the fact that they financed your purchase?”
She really had done her homework. “The real estate agent said they wanted to support a veteran, and they had the money to do it, I guess.”
“How did you find this place? It wasn’t ever listed.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the sofa. “The agent I was working with got the listing. She put it together. The sellers got a quick sale without any hassle, and I got a good deal on a house I might not have otherwise been able to afford.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“No, but I do for this.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she stared at him for a long pause. Then, surprising him, she blinked and turned away, defeat clear in the way her shoulders drooped and her head bowed.
When she spoke next, her voice was soft, and her eyes remained fixed on the flames. “I know you hate me, Gabriel. And you have every reason to. But please, this is important. If you want to flay me or yell at me or let out whatever anger and hatred you feel, I’ll take it. I deserve it. We’ve been avoiding this conversation, but I’ll do anything, take anything you have to give, if it means you’ll talk to me about Laura.” She paused, then added even more quietly, “Even if you won’t talk to me about Laura.”
Every muscle in his body tensed at her words, and his skin heated with the memories of that night, of the shame, anger, and confusion. But even as he recognized the desire to lash out, the same weariness that plagued him the night before pressed in on him. They needed to have this conversation, but he didn’t need to hurt her, too, in the process.
“You could have just said no, Callie,” he started. “When I asked you to prom, you could have just said no.”
To her credit, she looked up and held his gaze.
“But you didn’t. You hurled words at me. Called me trailer trash, told me you’d never go out with me because I was nothing, that I’d neverbeanything.” He paused, reliving the night in his mind, remembering everything she’d said. “Do you know what the worst part was, though, Callie?” He stared at her until she shook her head. “They were nothing but words. Words I’d heard a thousand times before from my father. But coming from you? Coming from the girl I’d grown up with, the girl I trusted, the girl I loved, the girl I’d laughed with, the person who knew me better than anyone else in the world? You didn’t just say no, Callie, you shattered my hope. My hope that I was different—that I couldbedifferent—from my father. My hope that I could make a different life for myself. Because if the one person in the whole world who knew me thought I was nothing, then surely that meant I was nothing.”
He’d disappeared into his memories as he’d spoken, but the tiny sound she made pulled his attention back to her. Tears tracked down her cheeks, but she remained silent.
“You sat up there in your perfect house with your perfect family and your perfect clothes and friends and private school and told me you’d never be caught dead with me. Which made everything before, our decade of friendship, mean nothing. You tore my world apart that night, Callie. You made me doubteverything.I recovered. I built a life I like, and I have a real family now. But that, that betrayal? I never forgot that.”
More tears trailed down her cheeks, dropping onto her arms, which she’d crossed in front of her. But she didn’t look away, she didn’t defend herself. He hadn’t expected her silence. And when she finally spoke, he realized how unprepared he’d truly been.
“My life, that perfect life you thought I had? It didn’t exist. I hid that part of me from you in the same way you hid yours from me. My parents…” She paused and took a deep breath. “They never hit us, but they, they were hard on us. Those perfectclothes we had? Do you remember when we were about eleven and twelve and we went wildflower picking to bring a bouquet to my grandmother?” He nodded. “I got grass stains on my jeans that day. My mom made me scrub them out with lye, then I was locked in the closet under the stairs for three hours.”
Her words hit him like a sucker punch. What the hell?
“I can’t tell you the number of meals my parents withheld from me and Daphne. If I got an A-minus and not an A, there was no dinner for me. If I didn’t smile the way they wanted in a family picture, then no dinner for me. God forbid I get a B in a class. I did once and spent five hours locked in the closet under the stairs. It was the last B I ever got.” She still held his gaze, but the tears had stopped. “I hated them. They controlled everything we did, and perfection wasn’t an option, not unless we wanted to be punished. And we were. Over and over again. The closet, the withheld meals…I spilled a glass of lemonade once on our patio out back, and my mom made me scrub the entire thing with a toothbrush. It took me seven hours on my hands and knees in the August sun with no water. I passed out once, and still, she made me finish.”
