Fakely HIS

Chapter 28

"Understandable," he said, nodding his head, "But don't take too long to tell him everything."

"I thought you didn't like him," I mused, smiling just the slightest, "Since when are you suddenly Team-Nicholas?"

"He makes you happy, doesn't he?"

I shrugged, choosing to not say anything.

"If it makes you happy, I'm Team-Whatever-makes-you-happy, Hayley."

"Thank you."

"Hey, what're brothers for?" he smiled, before frowning a little, "Before I forget though - what the hell is an emotions bucket?" he asked remembering the exact words that I'd said Elijah.

My shoulders were shaking with mirth as I shook my head, "If only I knew."

Half an hour later, I was still in my brother's room, still snuggled to his bed as I showed him all the pictures that I had taken in my phone. I don't know why, but my brother wanted to see them – maybe he was trying to get a scope into how pathetic my life was. Which was not the case, considering that my life was not pathetic at all, well, kind of.

"And that's Sky and me at the café some time back trying to look cute and energetic after a crappy heavy day of work," I showed him the picture that I'd taken with Sky, with Rebecca in the background scowling at us.

"Look at her nose," my brother said, pointing to her red nose, "Why is it so red? And who's that girl glaring at you girls from behind?"

"Sky ran into a door just before we clicked this picture," I said laughing, "And her nose being so red was the reason I wanted to take this picture in the first place. We could look at it and laugh later on," I pointed to Rebecca and continued, "And don't even ask me about that girl. That's Rebecca and she's the café's version of a cliché story book high school cheerleader."

"Neither Alana nor Dale were that bad when you were in high school," he said and a sudden pain coursed through me at the mention of both of them, one for a different reason than the other.

"Yeah," I agreed, my voice low, "That's why I said cliché story book cheerleader."

Not wanting him to pick up on my foul mood, I slid a finger across my phone's screen changing the picture. The picture changed to the day when I'd gone shopping with Nicholas and Matthew and had ended up at Log's for lunch. I smiled.

"You know Nicholas, that's Matthew, his elder brother," I pointed to him, "This was after a long shopping trip so he looks tired.

Hunter silently observed the picture, his hand slowly reaching out to trace the name board of the restaurant. "You went to Log's."

I nodded, "We drove past that and I asked them if we could have food there. They absolutely loved it," I recalled.

"Hayley, can I ask you something?"

"Anything," I vowed immediately.

"Will you tell me what happened to our company, our home, our farmhouse and all of our wealth?" for the second time that day Hunter had caught me off guard with his question. I mean I didn't understand how his brain worked, we were talking about my day at Log's with Nick and Matt and suddenly he was asking me about how our wealth had disappeared.

I sighed, swallowing, "A week after the accident Mitch, one of mom's partner and few other people found me in the hospital," I started, choosing to ignore the way my little brother flinched at the mention of the accident, "They said a few technical terms and then summed everything up saying that our company was going bankrupt. They also added the virtual cherry on top saying that we were already in debt and that they were going to take everything from us – the house, the farm house, mom's entire collection of jewels. Everything. Our bank account was also wiped clean with just bare minimum left for us. They were bloodsucking leeches who didn't wait a day to let me get a hold on myself after throwing something like this at my face. I asked them what I was going to do for yours and Alana's medical expense – not their concern they had said. You know what was worst? Even after I gave them everything we were still in debt. Mom's lawyer explained to me more technical stuff, and then in a gist told me that we were screwed for life. He advised that the only way out of this was signing the company off to someone else. You need to understand, Hunter, I had no choice. I had no knack for business, I had no way to pay off all this debt and then there were you and Alana. I didn't know what to do – so I chose the easy way out. I'm so sorry."