Small Town Gossip

Chapter 12

   “She’s your fake girlfriend. Emphasis on the fake, Danny! We had to pay her to come here. Mom and Dad both know that she’s practically a paid escort.”

    Danny waved his hand in the air trying to brush off his brother’s concerns. “Yeah, but just think about how this could play out. I stop drinking and credit Addy for the help. Mom and Dad would be grateful and would back off. They’d eventually give us their blessings.”

    “Are you high? You have to be high!” Skylar’s voice broke in agitation. “That would never work out, and you know it.”

    “What if I got her pregnant?” Danny asked. “That always works.”

    Skylar opened his mouth and then closed it again. He didn’t have the words to express himself. He clenched his fist and was fifteen seconds away from punching his brother in the face when Danny started to laugh.

    “Oh, man. You have it bad, my brother. Real bad.”

    “Shut-up,” Skylar said through clenched teeth.

    “Shut-up,” Danny teased. “This is too funny. You know, this might make us even for Trisha Bullworth.”

    Skylar snorted. “That one was not my fault. I have no idea why she showed up outside of my door that night. I didn’t even like her. She had this nasally voice and-”

    “But you like Addy?” interrupted Danny.

    Before Skylar could again deny any such thing, Addy opened up the car door. She stuck her head in and yelled, “Hey, jerks. You gonna help me unload your crap into the hotel or not?”

    “Sorry, honeybear,” Danny crooned. “I can get the bags. You want to check in with Sky? I think he needs to talk to you.” Danny smiled with all his teeth, and Skylar was reminded of their sister when she was planning something evil. Thankfully, Amber was always smarter than Danny.

    Skylar left Danny to bring in the bags and marched up to the front desk with Addy. She was busy ignoring him, silently fuming while she checked her reflection in the lobby window, and Skylar didn’t bother to make amends. The clerk at the resort pleasantly welcomed the Deswood-Clarke wedding party and handed over the room cards along with a wedding itinerary. Skylar impatiently nodded along and stormed over to Addy when he was done.

    “Here,” he said. “These are the room keys.”

    “There’s only two. Didn’t they give us extras?”

    “The second one is the extra one. You have to share a room with Danny. It doesn’t look right if you two got different rooms.”

    She paled a little. “But at your house-”

    “That’s different. My mom is known to be a little old-fashioned with overnight guests. Even Abe isn’t allowed to share a room with Amber in that house.” He watched her pained expression. “It isn’t meant to be scandalous, Addy. He can sleep on the couch.”

    She whipped her hair back. “I know that. I just forgot that we have to make it look like... I mean...”

    Skylar frowned. “Are you a virgin?” he asked.

    “Shut-up” she hissed at him. Addy blushed and pulled him over to an alcove for privacy. “I’m not a virgin, but I just don’t like the idea that people think I’m automatically sleeping with your brother.”

    “Why?” he asked. “I mean, people gossip about you a lot. That Travis guy, for instance? My brother got punched in the head by that lowlife.”

    “I know that. But that’s Addy Harper-Dewitt from Glanson. Nobody remembers me from high school or what they think I did with Travis or any other loser. They think I’m Addison Dewitt from Tinsbury, and I just want to hold onto that just for a little while longer.”

    “Oh,” Skylar said.

    “Please,” she whispered.

    Skylar didn’t think he had ever heard Addy say please or thank you to him. She usually muttered a few sarcastic remarks towards him and then rolled her eyes. But he watched Addy fidget with her hair, and he saw something else. She looked different. She wasn’t scowling or slouching. In her new clothes, Addy looked nice. She was a nice girl, and Skylar couldn’t help saying no to her.   He knew this was a bad idea, but he opened his mouth anyways, “Okay. Here, we’ll switch rooms. I’ll bunk with my brother. If anyone asks, we’ll say you’re even more old-fashioned than my mother.”

    “Thanks,” she sighed. She grabbed a hold of the card key and Skylar felt her cold hands briefly touch his. It made his heart beat faster. He cleared his throat and showed her to the elevator. He promised that he would let Danny know when he came in, and watched the mirrored elevator doors close in on his face. He checked his appearance again. He really needed a damn shave.

                              _________________________________________

    Thankful for the early check-in, Skylar finally got his nap. It didn’t help much. He woke up groggy and with a slight headache. He stumbled over to the minibar and took out a five dollar bottle of artisan water. He chugged it and then let some of the water run over the top of his head to help him fully wake-up.

    When he got up to shave, he saw the note taped to the side of the mirror. Danny and Addy needed to go pick up a couple’s gift for the wedding and would be back for lunch. Danny, the bastard, had underlined the words couple’s gift several times in an attempt to piss of Skylar. It merely made him grunt.

    Downstairs, more guests had been checking into the resort. Skylar graciously smiled at his relatives and put up with a few jokes about locking away the bridesmaids for safekeeping. Sklyar hated the jokes. It was his family’s way of dealing with the uncomfortable tension of him eloping when he was twenty-one and then divorcing a year later. He never gave a reason for what happened so they just assumed it was his fault. That was the way things worked in the family. Everyone protected Danny and everyone blamed Skylar. Amber was lucky enough to escape the mess of family politics.

    “So how excited is Amber for tomorrow?” asked a distant cousin.

    “She’s pretty excited,” Sky replied. “And if you excuse me, I think I see the lucky bride over there.” Skylar slapped the cousin on the shoulder and held up his hand to wave goodbye to some of the other relatives that had joined the conversation huddle.

    Amber was in the lobby listening intently to a bridesmaid complain about another girl. Amber shook her hair back and sighed impatiently. “Bree, can you just try to get along with Cheyenne for this weekend? Everyone is tired of hearing about what happened during Rush. Just let it go.”

    Skylar waited for a few moments before Bree marched off from Amber. He watched his sister roll her eyes and pull out her smart phone to angrily text someone. He walked up behind her. “Amber, I need your help.”

    She kept texting. “Well, I’ve been saying that for years.”

    “Ha ha, very funny. I’m serious.”

    Amber finally raised her eyes and looked at her brother. She frowned and let him lead her into the cafe attached to the resort. They sat at the bar. Amber ordered a mimosa for herself while Skylar downed a glass full of bourbon.

    She laid her phone down on the bar between them and crossed her arms.

    “Don’t get upset-” he started to defend himself.

    “Just tell me what you need.”

    He raised a hand to order another bourbon. He whirled the ice around in his glass and tried to think of the words that would make Amber understand without telling her everything. Amber had never been very good at that. She loved her brothers but she needed to know the details, and it was the details that got messy.

    “How do you stop feeling something for someone?” he finally asked.

    “Who are we talking about?” she asked.

    “It’s not important.”  He lifted the empty glass to his lips and let the ice hit the front of his teeth. A tiny bit of bourbon hiding under the ice met his lips. Skylar kept looking for the bartender with his second drink.

    “Are we talking about Danny’s trashy new girlfriend?”

    The bartender finally came to the rescue. Sklyar took a drink and then placed it gently down on the square napkin. He didn’t want to reveal the plan about Addy or involve Amber in any way, but he did need help on restraining himself. Last time he was in love, he had made a mess of things. His sister was there to help him pick up the pieces, so she knew how he could get.

    “You don’t have to say yes,” she said. “I can tell when you like someone. Does Danny know? Does mom know?”

    Sklyar didn’t want to lie to his sister, so he settled for a half-truth. “There’s just a lot going on...I shouldn’t even be bothering you with any of this, but I can’t mess up this weekend.”

    “Does that girl even know how you feel?”

    Finally something he could be truthful about. “No. She doesn’t know. She’s supposed to be with Danny. And that’s okay. I’m not asking for help on how to get her, Amber. I’m asking for help on not feeling anything. I think it’s just because it’s been a while, you know.”

    Amber made a face. “Oh god, please don’t talk about your sex life with me.”

    Skylar glared at her. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

    “Well, maybe that’s what you need. You need a meaningless hook-up to get your mind off this girl.”

    Sklyar smiled at his sister. “And it is the weekend of your wedding,” he prompted.

    She slammed her mimosa down and held a finger up to his face. “No!” she emphatically yelled. “No! Absolutely not, Sky. My bridesmaids are off-limits. And I cannot believe that’s what you’re asking for my help with. I’m not a wedding pimp!”

     “I didn’t think you’d hook me up with anyone. I just know that before you met Abe, you used to have feelings for-”

    “Okay, okay,” she interrupted. “Don’t say his name. I get your point. You want to know how I stopped feeling anything for him.” She finished the rest of her drink. “I don’t know what to say, Sky. It took time. A lot of time. And I was lucky enough to have met Abe afterwards.”

    “So no magical formula?”

    “Alcohol. And karaoke.”

    Skylar rubbed his face. He knew his sister had struggled in the past with something similar and he had assumed that her experience would have helped him come up with a solution. Alcohol he could do. But karaoke was out of the question. What did his sister think? A couple of honky-tonk songs wouldn’t rip these feelings out. Maybe he had made a mistake in asking a girl on how to handle this situation.

    Amber’s phone buzzed and she sighed. “I have to go. We have to meet with the caterer for tonight’s reception.” She slid off the stool and readjusted her skirt. “My best advice is to just stay away from her as much as possible. Make yourself unavailable.”

    Skylar nodded and finished his drink. “Here, I’ll go with you. Help you run interference when Abe’s mom shows up to make any last-minute changes and has us eating ducks shoved inside of turkeys.”

    “Don’t make jokes like that. It might be true.”

    Skylar shared a tight smile with his sister and walked out of the bar with her. He kept thinking about how he might make himself stay away from Addy Harper-Dewitt. He hated himself for realizing the real problem. He didn’t want to stay away from her.