Page 12 of Faking Forever
“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“You won’t talk to me regardless,” he said with a careless shrug, before tossing back the rest of his drink. “Now if you don’t mind, I need another drink. I’m gonna need it to get through this fucking ordeal.”
He turned and sauntered away without a backward glance. Abandoning Kenny without a second thought.
She stood watching his broad back for a long while, despair settling over her like a thick, suffocating blanket. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so alone.
Chapter
Two
Kenny driftedthrough the rest of the evening in a daze. She spoke when spoken to, smiled and laughed on cue, but if pressed would not be able to recall a single conversation.
They were all seated in the tiny, cramped living room with plates perched on their knees.
The conversation was peppered with laughter and teasing commentary about Fern and Gideon’s recent interview on theHolmes@Hometalk show. Kenny was only half listening, most of her focus going to her surly husband, who’d somehow managed to place himself as far away as possible from everyone else despite the limited seating space.
His head was down, eyes glued to his paper plate. He’d piled it high with food but didn’t seem particularly interested in eating any of it. It was only when his head snapped back up and his eyes narrowed on Fern that Kenny tuned into the conversation again. Fern was glaring at their father, while Niall who was incongruously seated at her feet—so uncharacteristic of her straitlaced oldest brother—had craned his head back tolook at Fern. Her brother had a look bordering on adoration in his eyes.
What had she missed?
“Now see here, young—” Her father began in his most intimidating voice.
He was interrupted by Niall’s quiet voice.
“Dad, leave her be. I won’t let you intimidate her.” The dark warning in his voice was unmistakable.
Kenny’s eyes widened. Her brother hadnevertaken that tone with their father before.
“I’m not trying to intimidate the lass,” her father said, sounding chastened. “Just educating her as to how this family works.”
“Maybe this family doesn’t work as well as you think it does,” Fern said, and Kenny’s jaw dropped. Beth often challenged the old man, but this was wholly unexpected from the sweet, timid-seeming Fern. “I may be the new addition and I may not know much about anything, but it’s pretty clear to me that Cade has some hang-ups about this name business. No matter how much he might deny it. Our marriage may be a sham—” Kenny’s mind drifted to the doubts she was starting to have about the other couple’s belief that their marriage would be temporary. In fact, theirs would probably last a hell of a lot longer than Kenny’s. She tuned back into what Fern was saying, but caught only the tail end of it. “…I have no idea why the rest of you are so hellbent on ignoring that.”
She winced and cast an apologetic look toward Kenny, who was still too stunned by the way she’d spoken to their father to react.
It was about Niall’s name. Fern had questioned them about that before. Fern called him Cade. When Kenny had first heard the other woman calling her brother by that name, it jolted her.
Cade. Her big brother who’d always looked out for them all. He’d become so distant after their mother’s death.But even before that, when their father had insisted on calling him Niall after his divorce from their mother, Cade had changed. He’d seemed separate from them. And now, looking at him with that fierce glow in his eyes as he stared up at his wife with naked joy on his face, Kenny could see her big brother again. The Cade who’d been lost to them for so long.
She momentarily forgot her own problems, so happy for her brother she ached with it.
Fern was stammering apologies now. Everybody looked shell-shocked. Gideon had that same looked of awed recognition on his face that Kenny felt.
Beth was comforting Fern. The other two women were already firm friends and Kenny felt a pang at being excluded from their burgeoning friendship.
“Anybody want some dessert?” Gideon asked, the consummate host, trying to ease the awkwardness of the moment.
Their father had been quite comprehensively shut up, but he was also casting uncertain, searching glances at Nia—no,Cade. He would be Cade to Kenny from now on, as he always should have been.
The evening had been overwhelming and emotional, and Kenny needed to get out of thererightnow. She needed to have an honest conversation with Smith. She couldn’t continue pretending that everything was okay in front of her family anymore.
“We have long drive, so I think we’ll give it a miss,” she said, casting a quick glance at Smith, who’d once again lost interest in everything around him.
“What is going on with you two?” her father asked in his usual blunt way.
Kenny winced. She’d hoped to get out of here before the inevitable questions.
“Dad, it’s fine. We had an argument, that’s all. Isn’t thatright, Smith?” She met his unfocused gaze, silently begging him to go along with her excuse. His lip curled.
