Page 22 of Choosing Her
“Their names are Aspen, Alivia, Peyton and Emerson.”
Saylor raised her eyebrows. “Crossy doesn’t really go with any of those names.”
It probably would have been a good time to clarify that my name was actually Caleb and I just went by Crossy—a nickname I did not usually give out so willingly—but instead, I said, “I don’t think any of their parents were worried about matching their names to mine.”
Saylor raised her eyebrows. “Any of their parents? Colour me intrigued.”
“My parents met in college and only dated for a few months. By the time I was born, they’d already broken up.”
Saylor was running her tongue along her lip as she listened to me and I wondered if she even realized she was doing it, or if it was an unconscious habit of hers. I tried not to stare at her lips as I spoke, although my eyes kept drifting down of my own accord. They were glossy and pink and looked so soft. I wondered what it would feel like to kiss her.
The thought kept popping back into my head. Every time it did, I dragged my gaze back up to her eyes—her deep, brown eyes filled with so much depth—but somehow, they kept drifting down again.
“My dad always says my mom is obsessed with the honeymoon phase,” I said, hoping that continuing my story would help distract me from the thought of diving across the room and kissing Saylor. I wondered if her lipgloss was flavoured… I cleared my throat. “So, uh, pretty soon after Iwas born, my mom moved on and had a summer fling with a bodyguard.”
Saylor raised her eyebrows, looking genuinely impressed. I had a feeling that was a hard reaction to pull from her. “A bodyguard? You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “A serious bodyguard. He actually works for a major band right now.”
I twisted my mouth as I considered if I should tell her the name of the band. Telling people that my sister’s dad was the bodyguard for the Valentine Brothers usually made girls a lot more interested in me—that was, as long as Tino wasn’t around, since he trumped that fact with being the younger brother of the Valentine Brothers. He was the only one in the family wasn’t musically inclined in the slightest, so he was also the only non-famous one. We often joked that he must have been adopted because none of us could wrap our minds around how a hockey player could come out of that family.
“Okay,” Saylor said. “So, she had a summer fling—what came of it?”
“My little sister, Aspen,” I deadpanned. I was rewarded with another laugh. “But it gets better. Because after him, she kept having tons of other short relationships, though no other children for a while. We didn’t get to meet most of the guys, but Aspen and I used to watch from the windows when she’d leave and come home from dates, so we would name the guys.”
“Name them?”
“Yeah, like we would make up stories about what they were like because she never told us. There was Awful Moustache Guy. And Never Blinks Guy. And my personal favorite was the Never Gets Out of His Car Guy.”
I smiled at the memory. Since Aspen and I were so close in age, we’d grown up as each other’s best friends. Partners in crime in every way. It was hard to leave her behind when I cameto boarding school, but even though being at Hartwell was my dream, it was her nightmare. We made up for it by texting and calling almost every day but it wasn’t the same as seeing my little sister every day. It was the reason I’d convinced her to come down to Florida with me for this week, instead of staying home with Alivia and their dad. She’d put her foot down on coming to this party with me, though, since she didn’t want to be trapped at this stranger’s house for hours if I wanted to stay out for longer than her.
“Anyway, every once in a while, Aspen’s dad would reappear,” I continued. “And Mom would make us some story about how it was important for them to keep up a friendship to co-parent well, stuff like that. But as we got older, it became obvious that they were going out. And then suddenly, he would be out of the picture again—I mean, he would still see Aspen, but he and Mom wouldn’t go out anymore. It was a total one-eighty.”
“Do you think she loved him?” Saylor asked, looking thoughtful.
“I think she loved every man she ever dated,” I replied honestly. That was what she always told me—she fell head over heels in love too fast, every time. “But there was something special about it. Everyone else would disappear and never come back again, but Aspen’s dad was different. So yeah, I think she loved him. And I think she still loves him to this day.”
Aspen and Alivia both thought so too. I’d heard them talking about it more than once, conspiring about how maybe one day, their parents would get together for good. I hated to see them get their hopes up again and again, but secretly, I hoped for the same.
“So, how did it go from there?” Saylor asked.
I smirked. “Along came Alivia.”
“Ah, another sister,” Saylor said, then took a swig of her drink. “Don’t tell me all four of your sisters are from these flings?”
“Alas, no,” I said. “The other two are my dad’s side of the family.”
Understanding dawned her face. “Okay, four sisters across two sides of the family makes more sense.”
“Are you regretting calling me a liar so quickly?”
“You gave me limited information!”
“All I said was that I had four sisters. You made your own assumptions based on that.”
She rolled her eyes and looked away with a shake of her head. I thought she was going to argue with me again, but instead, she smiled softly and said, “Four sisters—and here, I thought I was unlucky with one.”
“You don’t get along?”
