Page 45 of Text Appeal

“That’s awful.”

“Dad had slept with his wife and one of his daughters looked an awful lot like Stu and me.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah,” he says. “The family left town a couple of years later. I don’t know what happened to her. But she’s probably not the only half sibling we have out there. Dad couldn’t keep his dick in his pants if his life depended on it.”

“That’s a lot for you to deal with at such a young age.”

“Stu got angry and leaned into his bad reputation. He was always smoking pot and drinking out at the old lighthouse on the point. Nic and him got into all sorts of trouble. Then she was pregnant and decided to keep the baby.”

“Good that she had a choice.”

“Yeah. Stu talked a neighbor into giving him a job at his car repair shop and Nic stayed in school. She busked around town on the weekends to make money. They made it work. While I did the opposite,” he says with a grimace. “You couldn’t find a more polite and helpful person in existence. I smiled till my face hurt. Did anything to disprove the shit they were saying behind our backs.”

“I’m really sorry that happened to you.”

“It wasn’t all bad. School wasn’t my thing outside of playing ball. But Stu got me some hours at the repair shop, and I worked my ass off. Then as soon as I graduated, I went full time,” he says. “My obsession with being accepted used to drive her wild, though.”

“Ava?”

“Yeah. We fought about it a lot.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

“No.” His smile is brief. “I spent two decades being the nice guy. My life looked exactly how I thought it should. And I realized, I wasn’t happy.”

“Was that last Christmas?”

He nods.

“Nice is such a strange thing. It’s a social lubricant that doesn’t mean anything. Not really. Nice is just performative. Kindness on the other hand…that’s harder. I struggle with that one sometimes.”

He grunts.

“Do you think perhaps you overcorrected with the cranky?”

“It’s possible.” He thinks it over. “I spent so much time trying to prove I wasn’t my father that I never got around to being me.”

I stare at the ceiling and listen to the rain pattering against the window. Things sound calmer now. Not so bad. “It’s funny because I picked up on the exact opposite thing about you. I even told your grandma that you seem so genuine and real that it freed me up to be completely myself when we’re together. Maybe I felt that connection because we’re both searching for happy. That’s something we have in common.”

Another grunt.

“What would make you happy, Connor?”

“You coming with me to the high school reunion.”

I perk right the heck up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he says. “After last night’s demonstration, we’re probably going to have more people on our side. I didn’t want to take up all your time this weekend. But having you as my date would really hammer it home.”

Hope really is a heartbreaker. Just an all-round jerk. I take a deep breath and paste on a smile. “That does make sense.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

“Sure. Why not? It’s all good research, right?”

“Thanks, Riley,” he says with a smile. “You’re the best.”

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