“All right then.” I kicked off my shoes in the small entryway where there was already a pile of shoes. “Let’s cook.”
Angie grabbed my hand, dragged me to the kitchen, and showed me where everything was.
It was in the middle of peeling the third potato when something poked me in the thigh. I glanced down, right into the face of a little boy wearing a scowl, narrowed eyes, and lips pushed out into a pout. “Hi there.”
“Mikey. That’s not nice,” Angie chided in that way she thought he was adorable.
Adorable he was, dressed in a button-down white and tan plaid shirt and khaki pants with an elastic waistband.
“I’m Lilly.” I squatted down so I could be at his eye level. “Who are you?”
“I live here. You don’t. You answer first.”
I choked down my laughter and nodded. He had a point. “I’m Lilly, your sister’s friend. She invited me for dinner today. Is that okay?”
His full lips pushed out into a fuller pout before he grinned. “You pretty. You can stay.”
He turned, ran out of the kitchen on bare feet while shouting, “Vena, Vena! Pretty girl here! I kiss her soon!”
I laughed, tilted my head back to Angie who was shaking her head. Mikey looked about four years old. As I pushed to my feet, I said, “Boys in this house get started young?”
“What can I say? Between Mikey’s dad and Josiah, he’s gonna be a ladies’ man, or at least think he is.”
I’d seen Josiah a lot on campus. We didn’t have classes together, but ever since I first met Angie and she asked me to talk to him, I’d noticed him. Always with a crowd that looked like they’d rather be getting high in someone’s basement than hitting the books, but at least they were in school. They were trying. I couldn’t fault them for that.
“Speak of the devil,” Angie muttered, right before she turned back to dicing up bread for homemade stuffing.
“What?”
“Mornin’, Ang. Who’s your friend?”
I turned at the sound of a masculine voice and everything Angie had said became clear. Crystal. Josiah was there, shoulder against the doorframe to the small kitchen. He wore pajama pants and nothing else and you could tell, especially by the way he was rubbing his bare stomach that he didn’t only work hard for those abs he was trying to keep warm, he really enjoyed impressing women with them.
I arched two brows at him, unimpressed. “I’m Lilly. Nice to meet you, Josiah.”
I spun back to the counter, went back to peeling potatoes and ignored him.
I’d just spent hours running my hands all over Hudson’s body. Nothing was comparable to that, least of all a boy just turning into a man several years younger than me. I pushed thoughts of Hudson’s body I memorized even in the dark out of my brain and narrowed my focus to potatoes.
“He thinks he’s the shit,” Angie muttered, irritated and not in that adorable way she used with Mikey. “And he’s getting worse.”
“I had a brother with a drug and alcohol addiction,” I said, because stupidly, I liked this girl and I was tired of secrets. She’d earned mine through patience and no judgments. “Went to rehab a lot. Never wanted to stay clean. I know I hurt you that first day you asked for help but I’m being honest Angie, the only thing you can do for Josiah is love him, because he’s going to make his own choices and he’s going to have his own problems and unless he’s willing to change, you can’t force him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I am too. Josh was a great guy. My best friend. And I miss him every day, but nothing, nothing I could have done could have saved him. Even when I tried.”
Damn. Five minutes into their house and I’d gotten teary-eyed over Hudson and now Josh.
Fortunately for my emotional overload, Mara returned to the kitchen, dressed in a floral dress that accentuated her full-bodied frame and joined us. Soon she was snapping out orders to everyone, including Vena and Mikey, who helped set the table.
Once the turkey was in the oven and everything else was prepped, Angie grabbed my hand and dragged me so quick to her bedroom I almost stumbled over my feet.
“Okay.” She closed the door and locked it while I took in her small room. A twin-sized bed, a smaller, crib-sized bed without the sides I assumed was for Vena who was only two. Her walls were covered with posters and sketches and artwork and her floor was meticulously cleaned, unsurprisingly.
I’d already learned Angie was pretty type-A and that was putting her need to be organized nicely.
“What happened?” she asked. “Tell me everything.”
She was sitting on the edge of her bed, arms straight behind her, propping herself up and she was so short, her slippered feet swung in the air.
I plopped down next to her and picked at a frayed string on the cuff of my sweatshirt.
“He hid something important from me, something he knew I’d want to know, something I should have known. All of them did.”
I thought of that picture of Melissa and closed my eyes.
She’d been the first pure kindness to touch me outside Candace since Josh’s death. The first person I truly opened up to.
I wish you would have had a dad like mine.
And what sucked is for a few weeks, I did. Now?
Now what did I have?
I shuddered at the thought. Had it truly only been a few hours ago, I’d woken up next to Hudson, stretched out and thought of all the things I’d been thankful for?
“They didn’t just keep it from me, Angie. They hid it. Intentionally.”
That picture of Melissa. Had Hudson always hidden it when I came over? I’d surprised him last night but what about all the other nights and all the dinners at David’s. Or their offices. What pains did they go to in order to keep the truth of how they’d heard of me from me?
“It must have been important to leave you this upset,” Angie said. She draped one of her arms over my shoulders and pulled me to her. I went easily. Collapsed my head onto her shoulder and closed my eyes.
“It’s a really, really long story. I can’t even explain it all.”
“You don’t have to. I’m here for whatever you need.”
God. She was so good. Who was I to deserve such kindness? And hadn’t the Valentines just spent weeks, months teaching me I was worthy of it? Now everything was topsy-turvy. I gritted my teeth against the thoughts running rampant. If I was worthy of truth… why didn’t they give it?
“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. “They gave me a job. A decent place to live, my first since…” My voice trailed off as I sucked in a breath and took a risk. “I went to prison when I was eighteen.”
Angie’s arm tightened around me. I never spoke of this to her. None of it. But one thing I was learning from David was that I’d served my penance. And I’d been innocent. “I got out not even a year ago. Do you know what that’s like? To go from a home and high school and then to prison and then freedom as an adult who’s old enough to now have all her shit figured out?”
“No one has their shit figured out. Hell, my mom is the best woman I know, and she still struggles.”
“I just thought I was getting there though, you know? That I was building this life I could finally be proud of and now it’s just…” I blew out a breath and sighed. “Gone.”