Page 61 of Just for Tonight

The silence in the car echoes. I can feel my sister getting smaller, as if she’s trying to become invisible, and I hate that I was responsible – even indirectly – for this ending to her trip.

I’ve always felt protective of Abbie. She’s always been petite, a baby born very small, and one who barely knew our mom. She was delicate as a kid and often sick. I halfway thought she was a fairy stuck in among us because she was so different from the three of us. Her eyes seem bigger and bluer than is humanly possible, and now, with her hair cut short, she’s as cute as a pixie – and seems as fragile as dandelion fluff. It’s easy to imagine that no one has ever raised their voice or sworn in her presence, and I feel guilty that has changed in my company and because of my actions.

I get through the tangle of traffic and into a stretch of open road. There are planes overhead, crossing the highway on an angle, on their final approach to the airport. The sky is blue, the smog over the city far to the right is visible, and some idiot in a black Honda with a hole in the exhaust roars in front of me, zigzagging through traffic like he’s immortal. I hope he’s right, because one day, someone is going to zig when he zags and the result won’t be pretty at a hundred and eighty klicks per hour.

“Was that Mackenzie?” Abbie asks in a small voice.

I have to lie. Mackenzie’s own policy for sex demands it. Even if I’m never going to be with her again, I can’t betray her. It doesn’t matter if I never see her again. I promised to follow her code of conduct and that holds forever.

“Who?” I try to sound confused.

“Mackenzie Rhodes,” Abbie says, her tone more firm. “You know. From Empire.”

I frown as if navigating to the collector lanes is tougher than it is. “That was Rachel from Accounting,” I lie, hoping I do so with authority. “I wonder what went sideways while I was away from the office.”

“Obviously something she thinks is your fault,” Abbie says and I breathe a sigh of relief because she’s bought my bluff.

“Rachel thinks everything is someone else’s fault,” I say, even though there is no Rachel in Accounting in my office. Abbie laughs a little. “I’ll check in with her once I’m home and get it sorted out. Sorry you had to hear that.”

“Just a day in the life of my super-successful big brother?” she teases.

I smile. “Something like that.”

I double-park outside Departures. (Yes, it’s illegal, but I’m not leaving my car. No one is going to ticket or tow it without dealing with me first. Right now, you don’t want to be anyone crossing me.) “I can never understand why they don’t have short-term parking here,” I grumble as I wrestle her bag out of the car – the boxes have shifted – knowing that’s not why I’m in a mood.

Mackenzie is pissed at me.

Worse, Mackenzie is right.

No one has told me off in so long that I’ve forgotten how humiliating it is, with or without witnesses. I have to call her back. I have to apologize. I’ll even grovel.

Once I figure out what to say.

“You can’t understand?” Abbie laughs. “It’s about the money, of course. They want you to pay to park.” I put down her bag and she gives me an even tighter hug than the last time. “Thanks, Jake, and not just for the ride.” She smiles up at me, her eyes sparkling. “Thank you so much.”

This is about Grandma’s house. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“But you will. You always come through.”

“Remember it was Luke’s idea.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” She pulls out the retractable handle on her bag, reaches up to kiss my cheek, then tugs the bag toward the entrance. She even stops to wave when the doors slide open and I can only wave back.

She’s wearing me down. Resistance is futile. My sister is just too damn cute.

Mackenzie, now, is another challenge. I have no plan of returning to Empire and little hope of seeing Mackenzie again. Of course, a line from Pride & Prejudice expresses my conundrum perfectly.

It’s only reasonable that I want to say it to Mackenzie.

16

Mackenzie

They probably spread the rumor that I’m on my monthly on Saturday at work. I’m on the warpath, that’s for sure, picking nits, crossing t’s, dotting i’s and mixing every metaphor I can lay hands on. I am furious with Jake Cavendish and if he was in my vicinity, I would do him physical harm.

How could he be such an asshole?

He was probably not even as far as London when I had heard from three different people what he did at the Cavendish house. The entire town is talking about the way he humiliated his father’s second family, how he left them without transportation or any money, how he took everything back to Toronto with him, abandoning them completely. Everyone is sure that Jake Cavendish is the biggest dickhead in the world, a nastier piece of business than even his father ever was, and that whatever horrible thing happens to him in future, it’s deserved.