That wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped for when I’d decided to come here this summer but it was a lot more than I expected. Maybe Sawyer would find a way to move on soon. Besides, we needed time to get to know each other without Ashton between us.
“I’d like that too.”
Sawyer
Ashton’s eyes went wide with surprise when she spotted Lana and me walking toward them together. She was standing in front of Beau with his arms wrapped protectively around her. I tore my attention from her and quit trying to read her facial expressions. That was something I needed to stop doing. Beau’s head turned to see what Ashton was staring at and he raised his eyebrows then shook his head once before turning back to watch the stage where Little Big Town was singing Boondocks.
“I’m here with Ethan,” Lana said beside me.
“I know.” But that didn’t mean I liked it.
Her small hand grabbed mine and squeezed it before letting go quickly and walking toward Ethan who finally noticed she was back. His worried frown went from her to me and the angry glare directed my way wasn’t lost on me. He didn’t like she’d come back with me. I couldn’t blame him. I hated seeing Lana’s face all red and splotchy from crying. I’d walked with her to the bathroom after she retrieved her purse from the car. She’d gone inside and covered up a good bit of those adorable freckles.
I didn’t follow her. This was Ethan’s date. His only one. Because he was my friend and I really needed a little distance from Lana after the conversation we’d had by the car, I was going to spend the rest of the night talking to Leann and enjoying the music.
Leann studied me as I made my way over to stand beside her. Before she could open her mouth and ask twenty questions that were none of her business, I informed her, “Don’t want to talk about it.”
She closed her mouth and gave me a dirty look before focusing her attention on whatever Ethan was saying to Lana. I didn’t allow myself even to glance over at them.
Chapter Eleven
Lana
Music played somewhere in the distance as I spun in circles searching for it. Just before I twirled off a huge cliff and plunged to my death, my eyes snapped open. I stared at the ceiling. The music was much louder now. Colbi Caillat was letting me know I had a phone call. Groaning, I reached for my phone on the pillow beside me. I’d gone to sleep hoping to get a text from Sawyer but it never came.
Why was my mother calling at seven-thirty in the morning?
“Mom?”
“Hey honey, I’m sorry to wake you but I wanted to call you before your stupid father did. You need to hear this from me and not him. He has absolutely not one drop of compassion for others. He just goes around hurting people and doing whatever his sorry ass wants to do. Selfish man. He hasn’t called you, has he? Because if he has already called, I’m going to jump on a plane and fly to New York City and kick his—”
“Mom, could you tell me what’s going on please?” I’d pulled myself up to a sitting position while my mother had rambled on about my father. That was her favorite past-time. Coming up with names for my dad.
“Sorry. I got carried away,” she sighed into the phone. “Your dad is getting married Lana, to that new whore of his.”
I was prepared for this, maybe not so soon, but I knew he had moved away to be near some woman he’d met on a business trip. I was hoping to visit him one week this summer if he found time in his schedule. Sounded pathetic that I was hoping he could pencil in time for me but he was my dad. Up until last year, he’d lived in my house. I’d hated him at first but eventually I’d wanted a relationship with my dad again.
“Okay,” I began, trying carefully to filter my words while talking to my mother. She went crazy if I ever defended him. I didn’t like her reminding me that he’d left me too, whenever I tried to take up for him. Because she was right. He had left me too, but he loved me. I knew he did. He’d told me the day he signed the divorce papers that he’d stayed with her until I was grown. He had been planning to leave her the moment I went off to college but things had happened and he’d had to leave a little early. He’d said that none of it was because of me. He loved me and was proud of me. I needed to believe that. I held onto that at night when I lay in bed and heard my mother crying and screaming as she threw things across her bedroom.
“We knew he was serious when he moved out there to be with her. When is he planning on getting married?”
“I most certainly did not expect your forty-seven year old father to marry his twenty- three year old slut! What will people think? He’s ruining our reputation. People in this town will find out and they will talk. You won’t be able to walk around town without people whispering behind your back. This is going to RUIN us, Lana. Just ruin us!”
Twenty-three? I cringed. What was my dad doing engaged to a girl only five years older than me? That was just... gross. My mother continued to rant and call my dad names as I sat there staring at the wall in front of me. The message ‘Home is where the heart is’ was stenciled on a framed painting and hung on the pale blue wall mocking me. Home? What was home now? My mother’s house where there was never any peace? My dad’s apartment in Manhattan? It was about 500 square feet and he was about to move in his college age wife. Tears stung my eyes as the smell of coffee wafted down the hall. I could hear my aunt and uncle chatting happily in the kitchen and bacon frying on the stove. This was a home. One like I’d never really known.
“Did you hear me Lana?”
Shaking myself out of the pity party I was having, I cleared my throat. “Sorry Mom, what was that?”
“He wants to fly you to New York City to be in the wedding. Can you believe that? My baby in New York. I told him no way. You wouldn’t want to be in his ridiculous wedding. But he insisted that he’d talk to you first. Be ready for that call today. The little floozy wants you to be the maid-of-honor. You haven’t even met her.”
“Okay, mom. Thank you for letting me know. I need to go. I’ll call you later. Ashton is waiting on me to go for a morning run.” Mom bought my lie and I fell back against the pillow as I ended the call.
Could this get anymore screwed up? The house phone rang and I heard my aunt answer it. I didn’t have to pick-up to know it was my mother telling my aunt everything she’d just told me. If mom mentioned the lie I’d told her about running with Ashton, I knew my aunt would cover for me. She understood. She always had. I snuggled down into the covers and closed my eyes. For now, I could pretend this was my home. That I had a safe happy place.