My lips cracked into a little smile. “Hard?”
“I think my knuckles still hurt.”
Connie leaned forward and put her hand out for a high five. “Attagirl.”
Cam looked at her wide open legs and then her hand. “Is it a high five or a low two you want?”
“There’s a person’s head in my pelvis. Do you want to go there?”
Needless to say, my sister got her high five pretty swiftly.
“Right, clear the coffee table.” Raven hauled a third cooler into the living room and set it down just away from the others. “I’m going to mix drinks while you tell me what he did.”
I moved my phone off the table. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“But you’re gonna. Even if I have to get you drunk to do it.” She flashed me a grin before she shoved the small box of glasses at Camille. “Unpack those.”
Camille saluted her and got to work.
“Just do it,” Connie said. “You can’t listen to me or Camille because we’re biased. Raven isn’t.”
I felt like I was in the middle of an ambush. Like they’d planned thi—bitches. They had. Somewhere along the line, Connie and Camille had planned this. It was no damn coincidence.
“Fine.” I launched into a rundown of my conversation with Brett earlier today.
Raven nodded as she mixed both normal and virgin cocktails. By the time I was done explaining, she was pouring the drinks into four glasses. “Wow. What a douche.” She put the caps back on the cocktail shakers. Then she pushed a glass toward each one of us.
“They were eighteen,” Cam pointed out.
Raven side-eyed her. “I didn’t know age excused being a douche.”
“It doesn’t.” Cam sipped her drink. “I was just pointing it out.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“That’s a mean question. I’m on everybody’s side.”
“You can’t be on everybody’s side,” Connie said.
“Sure I can.” Cam kicked off her shoes and crossed her legs. With a flick of her hair, she said, “What my brother said was wrong, especially since he didn’t mean it. But, equally, Lani shouldn’t have left without confronting him about it. All of this could have been avoided if she’d just said something.”
“Wait. So this is my fault?” I looked at her. “I’m not saying that me leaving the way I did was right, but he hurt me more than you can imagine, Cam. I didn’t just not want to talk to him. I couldn’t.”
“It’s not your fault.” She sighed. “I just...I don’t know. This could have been so easily solved, but I guess emotions fuck it all up.”
“The thing you’re all forgetting is that this happened a long time ago,” Connie said, stirring her drink with her straw. “For it to still be such a big deal today means that neither one of them is over the other.”
“I’m sitting right here.” I waved.
“They’re not,” Camille continued. “He told me that earlier. He said he never had closure where she was concerned, so instead of getting over her, he just buried his feelings, but now they’re back.”
I sipped my drink. I didn’t need my heart to beat as quickly as it was.
Connie snorted. “Right. Just came back like the flu or something.”
Raven smirked. “Agreed. They haven’t just reappeared overnight. Hell, if you’d asked me when you were in the bar, I could have told you he was head over heels in love with her. I’ve never seen him look at anybody that way.”
“I’m still here!” This time, I said it too loudly. “Would you prefer if I left the room so you can continue discussing me?”
“Technically we’re talking about Brett,” Raven pointed out. “But if you want to leave, you can. But you won’t hear my stunning life advice.”
Camille groaned. “The last life advice you gave involved vibrators.”
“That was solid life advice.”
“Solid.” Connie giggled.
I licked my lips and, fighting my smile, said, “All right. Stunning life advice, Raven. Hit me.”
Raven swallowed a mouthful of cocktail and set her drink down. The glass hit the table with a light clunk, and she rubbed beneath her nose before she met my eyes. “Eight years. You’ve held on to that hurt for eight years, Lani. Now, you have the answers to your questions. What you choose to do with them is up to you—and nobody will blame you if you choose never to speak to him again—but, girl, you can’t hold on to the pain anymore.
“Camille’s right. All of this could have been solved if you’d just talked to him, but I get why you didn’t. Running away from problems is so much easier than facing up to them. You can’t do that anymore. You have to tackle this problem face on, because no matter how you look at it, it’s a problem. If he’s admitting that he’s in love with you, then you have to deal with that. You don’t owe him anything, but you owe yourself a lot. Even if all you do is say goodbye.”
“Makes sense,” I replied quietly.
“But you have to figure out whether or not you’re in love with him first.”
“I’m pretty sure right now I hate him.”
“Love and hate go hand in hand. Just because you don’t like or hate somebody doesn’t mean you don’t love them.” Her lips quirked up to one side and she flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Only you can answer that question, but until you do, you’ll be stuck in this place because you’re probably going to make the wrong choice without the right answers.”
I looked down into my glass. The bright red liquid stared back at me, glinting in the late afternoon sunlight that streamed in through the window. My stomach was coiled tighter than a snake ready to pounce. Did I love Brett? I knew the answer to that. It’d been the same answer for years, because she was right. Love and hate went hand in hand. I knew that because I’d felt those things exist in perfect harmony since the day I heard him say those words.
“Lani?” Camille said my name softly, touching my knee.
“You know where he goes when he disappears?” I peered up at her through my hair. “Where he took me?”
She shook her head.
“There’s a women’s shelter in Key West. He writes them a check every Christmas to make sure they can stay open and makes sure every kid there with their mom has a birthday present and party.” I put my glass down on the coffee table. “He goes regularly to hang out with the kids. He bakes with them and all kinds of shit you can’t ever imagine him doing. The first words he usually hears from the women there are ‘thank you’ because he’s making a difference in their lives.”
“Holy shit,” Cam whispered.
“And he doesn’t tell anybody because he doesn’t want the recognition. He doesn’t want the validation of anybody because he doesn’t do it for that. He does it because he loves the kids there.” I rested my chin on my hand and looked at my sister and Raven too. “He’s letting me publish one of the articles on what he does, as long as I keep the shelter anonymous. He’s letting me tell everybody what he does because he knows how badly I want to.”
Raven smiled.