Rolling my eyes, I drag myself into the bathroom and go about ‘cleaning myself up.’
“So …”
I groan, pulling the brush through my hair, and ignore my sister.
“Yeah, I second that so,” Nikki adds when I don’t make a move to speak.
I finish brushing my hair before dropping the brush down on the coffee table. I curl my legs up and wrap my arms around them before looking at the two of them sitting on the loveseat together, waiting none too patiently for me to give them what they want.
“So he just danced a little. What more do you want?”
“Uh … no. I want you to start with when he pulled you over his shoulder like Tarzan and you disappeared up those stairs. Then you can end with what happened when he ‘just danced a little,’ which in turn caused you to put so much alcohol into your body that you had to be carried out to the car and put to bed without so much as moving a muscle.”
I gasp at my sister in shock. “I had to be carried out? I don’t remember that.”
She laughs. “Well, I would think not since you were basically comatose when Cohen helped you in the back of his truck. You didn’t even move once. Which, bravo on taking your twenty-first down like a beast.”
“I’m never drinking again,” I vow.
“Sure … that’s what everyone says.” She laughs.
“Would you two shut up and get to the good stuff.”
I roll my eyes at Nikki, look down at my toes, and make a mental note to repaint them later.
“I’m not even sure I understand what happened,” I tell them honestly.
“How about you start at the beginning, and we can help you figure that out,” Maddi says compassionately.
With a sigh, I do just that and start from the beginning. Well, more like the middle since both of them know what started all of this—that being my humiliating graduation night.
I gloss over the night of Dani and Cohen’s wedding. I’m not sure why, but deep down, I know that moment should be left between Nate and me. “We had a run-in almost two years ago. It wasn’t pretty, and no, I’m not going to give you more than that. It’s been … hard, you could say, for me to be around him since.”
“I knew it,” Maddi exclaims. “I knew there was a lot more to why you weren’t coming around when the family was all together.”
I narrow my eyes. “Are you going to let me finish?”
She holds up her hands. “Sorry, proceed.”
“Anyway, I reminded him earlier this week why things had been strained and he’s been trying to get a hold of me since. I ignored him because I really wasn’t ready to face that stuff yet. Hell, I’m not sure I am now. Then … well, then last night happened.”
“I’m not really sure where to go with that, Em. That’s pretty vague.”
I drop my head to my knees at my sister’s words and try to organize my thoughts.
“He threw my love for him in my face years ago, Maddi. Then hurt me even worse a few years later. Then, without memory of even doing that, he hurt me again a few days ago. Until last night, he’s never even hinted at feeling anything more than a friendship type bond toward me. Now, my mind is running wild because last night he dragged me to his office, kissed me to the point of death, and then ended it with that dance. Then he left me standing there stunned stupid as he said to me, and I quote, ‘you are mine.’ So … where you might not be sure where to go with that, I can assure you that I most definitely feel even more lost than you do right now.”
Looking up, I stop avoiding them and take in two very stunned faces.