Page 78 of Neat
When we all stood to make our way back inside, Jordan nudged Mikey with a smirk. “So… you and Ky are hanging out again, huh?”
Mikey frowned with a noncommittal shrug. “So? We’ve been friends forever. Why is it weird that we’re hanging out?”
“No reason,” Jordan said, but he and I exchanged a knowing look. That girl had been in love with our brother since they were toddlers, and I had a feeling Mikey was going to discover that real soon.
I just hoped he could give her a chance, open his heart to that possibility after Bailey.
And I hoped that maybe, one day, I could do the same with mine.
Mallory
I shouldn’t have been as angry as I was that Christmas decorations still lined Main Street when I woke up the next morning. Of course, no one was going to take them down over night. In fact, I knew they’d still be up for another week or so, spreading joy through the new year.
Damn them.
It was just that it didn’t match my mood as I flew down the road in my old Camry, the one I had insisted on buying with my own money that I saved up before I went to college. It was a piece of shit. It needed a new air conditioner and a new radiator and a new everything.
But it was mine.
I wondered briefly why I never saw my situation now the way I saw buying this car when I was seventeen, but I tried not to dwell on it. What was done, was done.
I only had my actions and choicesnow.
It was a little harder to breathe when I pulled through the gate at the end of my parents’ long driveway. I didn’t grow up in a house, I grew up in a giant, southern-as-can-be Tennessee estate. It sat on one-hundred-and-fifty-two acres on the north side of town, which was entirely too much land for a family of four. Of course, my father needed land to entertain — to shoot skeet, have a driving range and putter course for business talk, and, for some reason, horses. I never did figure that one out, since he wasn’t a rider, and neither was Mom, nor were Malcolm or myself.
And where Dad wanted the land, Mom wanted the large house. She wanted enough room to have servants’ quarters, where those who worked for her could live and be readily available. She needed multiple kitchens, dozens of rooms to house guests who were too inebriated to leave, and, as she would tell anyone who would listen, “Plenty of room for future grandchildren to have adventures and get lost.”
It was always too much for me. I’d felt suffocated in that massive home, and when I parked in the driveway next to the elaborate fountain, I found myself struggling for air once again.
I pushed through the front door without knocking, handing my coat and scarf to Larry — one of our butlers — before I made my way into the dining room. Mom lit up when she saw me, clapping her hands together, whereas Dad just barely glanced at me over his newspaper. Malcolm was there, too, but he was on his phone, and I was pretty sure he didn’t even realize I’d walked in.
“How nice of you to finally join us,” Dad murmured. “Sit. I’ll have Amada bring your breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry. Can we talk in your office?”
Dad waved a hand over his half-demolished plate, not taking his eyes off the newspaper. “I’m eating.”
“Looks like you’re done to me.”
“Mallory,” Mom scolded, in the sweetest, most unassuming voice. It annoyed me more than if she would have yelled at me. “You missed Christmas Day and now you won’t even eat breakfast with your family? What has gotten into you?”
“Sorry I missed yesterday, I wasn’t feeling well,” I said, then I turned back to Dad. “Your office? Or do you want to do this here?”
Dad gave an exaggerated sigh, taking his sweet time folding up the newspaper he was reading before he grabbed his coffee, kissed Mom on the forehead, and assured her and Malcolm that he would be back.
Again, Malcolm didn’t seem to notice any of it.
Dad followed me down the hall to the west wing of the house where his office was. As much as I hated the business done within those walls, I absolutely loved the office. Three of the four walls were covered with books — which was laughable, considering the only books my father had ever read were end-of-the-year reports on the distillery — and the last wall was a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the rolling hills of our property, the Smokies peeking out over the horizon far in the distance.
He closed the door once we were inside, taking a seat behind his desk.
I remained standing.
“What is it that you’re being so dramatic about?”
“Stop acting like you don’t know,” I said. “What the hell was all that about at the Christmas party? I’ve worked at the distillery for amonth, Dad. I’m still in training. I’m not fit to take that job from Uncle Mac any more than you’re fit to be a good father.”
“Watch your tone, young lady.”
