THIRTY-EIGHT
Nathan
I glare at my phone as the last text from Mina comes in.
Mina
When you’re ready, I’m here.
I’m not fucking ready to talk to her and I don’t know if I ever will be. She knew how I felt about Fallon. She knew! I should have been made aware of their friendship from the very beginning.
All those articles.
All those terrible things Fallon said about me.
And Mina just let it happen.
Or worse, she was in on the game.
How many times do I need to get my heart trampled before I fix this idealistic streak of mine? I’m a prime target for manipulators. First Blossom. Now Mina. I’m so ready to believe people are mostly good that all they have to do is pretend to be decent and I’m hooked. I even defended her to Dom when he was trying to keep me from making this very mistake.
Fuck!
I run my hands into my hair and pull.
I wish Nick were here…
The thought is a nuclear blast of anxiety. Nick’s lost. Maybe hurt or dying. Maybe already dead…
And here I am wishing he could make me feel better. How pathetic can you get?
I check my phone in case I missed a call or text with news, then toss the thing onto my coffee table when there’s nothing to see, only to pick it right back up to call Micah.
“What?” my cousin barks, just before the call goes to voicemail.
I lean forward, grimacing. Micah doesn’t bark greetings. “Wow. Okay. Hello to you, too.”
“What do you want Nathan?” Again with the clipped tone. Something’s crawled up his butt and made itself comfortable.
“Why are you being such an ass?” I grumble when what I should have said is what’s wrong?
It’s like I’ve gone back in time and am everyone’s favorite villain again. If I’m not careful, I’ll start spouting the dreaded barbed wire speech again.
Micah scoffs and it’s like anger shoots through the phone to slap me in the face. “Maybe because I’m pissed with you? Your timing could be better, you know. Nick going missing is a lot to deal with. I haven’t slept since we found out. Now we find out you’ve been lying to us about falling in love, faking a relationship. And how did we find out about it? Because some stranger posted about it on the internet.”
“I wasn’t lying.” Even I hear how defensive I sound, so I take it down a notch. “I was genuinely falling in love with Mina.”
Micah sucks his teeth. “So the relationship wasn’t fake?”
This is not how I expected the conversation to go. For some reason, I thought I’d be able to fill Micah in on the story from my point of view. It never occurred to me that he might have already read it. Now, I have to battle his preconceived ideas about how it all went down. I stand and pace to the sliding glass doors. One hand on the glass. Gaze on the horizon.
“I’ll take your silence to mean it was a hundred percent fake.”
Fuck me…
No…
Fuck Fallon.
“It was at first but—"
“Shit, Nathan.” Micah lets out an angry growl. “You are the last person I expected to do something this dumb. I actually thought you’d found something good with Mina. I like her so much, I told Ivy I’d be stoked if you guys got married. And now, since everything was a lie, I’m not sure if I know the real her.”
“That makes two of us.” I press my forehead to the glass and close my eyes, then I’m pacing into the kitchen for no reason other than I can’t stay still.
“What’s that even supposed to mean?”
I explain Mina’s connection to Fallon. My words come out jumbled, one on top of the other as the story rushes forth. “I’m just…”
Lost.
Scared.
Alone.
Hurting.
Drowning.
I scrub my face. “I just don’t know what to do.”
Micah sighs. A long, sad thing that cuts me to the bone. “Man, look.” Another sigh. “I love you. You know I do. But I don’t have bandwidth for this right now. You pulling this kind of shit would be a lot all by itself, but with Nick gone? And no news for days? You got yourself into this mess. You’ve gotta be the one to get yourself out of it.”
The line goes dead and I stare at my phone, jaw dropped. There has never been a time when a Hutton wouldn’t step up for family. I consider calling Angela but pull up Dom’s contact info instead.
“Why didn’t you tell me the whole thing was fake?” he asks in lieu of hello. “I would have backed off with all the ‘she’s playing her role so you should play yours’ shit. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“It started fake but didn’t end that way. At least not on my part, but that’s because I think you were right the whole damn time.” I explain the whole story one more time. Dom huffs in indignation at every point along the way, feeding my righteous fury.
“That’s fucked up, brother,” he says when I tell him about finding myself face-to-face with Fallon fucking Mae in Mina’s bedroom.
“So fucked up.” I bob my head, thrilled to have someone take my side.
There’s the clicking of a keyboard on Dom’s end. “You doing okay?” he asks, mildly distracted.
“No. I’m not doing okay. I’m pissed. And I swore I’d take down Fallon and everyone who was connected with her and now that includes Mina and that is seriously fucking with my head.”
“I hate to say I told you so, but…no, actually I don’t. I love saying ‘I told you so.’’ It’s the best feeling ever.” Dom laughs. “People play their roles, Nathan. I’ll say it ‘til I’m blue in the face if that’s what it takes for you to hear me. Mina played hers. Now you should play yours.”
