28th December

Dallas and Gabby have been in Dallas' old bedroom for an hour at least. Something major has gone down between Josh and Gab, from the little snippet of conversation I heard in the kitchen.

He just wants to see what's going on. Find out if there's another reason for this. . . behaviour.

It sounds like the bastard left her. It would explain why she's back in town, drinking herself into oblivion. Fuck, couldn't judge her for that. I'd spent plenty of my own time at the bottom of a bottle. Or balls deep in some nameless girl.

If Drayton is dealing with it, good luck to Josh.

That man is a force not to be reckoned with. It's always been a relief not to worry about Dallas when it comes to that aspect of her life. Drayton worships the ground she walks on, protects and loves her fiercely. She'd have never settled for less anyway. My sister always knew her worth when it came to the boys she hung around with.

I'll never forget the night I forgot to pick Dallas up from work when she was in high school. Alana, the pretty teacher aide at the school was over and I had my head between her legs when I heard the car pull up outside. It reminded me I was supposed to be in my own fucking car, getting my little sister.

Drayton, who found her walking in the dark, ripped me a new one and I couldn't be mad because he was right and it proved to me that her safety was so fucking important to him.

Dallas' bedroom door opens when I'm one and a half episodes into All American. Still in the same spot they left me on the sofa. Dallas appears first, talking over her shoulder.

"It'd be about four months. Like, I want to do it, but Drayton is about to finish up the season and we'll have time together at home. I don't want to disappear before we've even had that down time."

Gabby follows her into the kitchen, holding her empty cup. She makes a point not to look at me and I'm starting to wonder what the fuck is even going on. How did we interact five years ago? I mean, she annoyed me from time to time, but it wasn't like this.

She did stupid shit like, leave her shoes right in front of the door so I tripped on them when I came in. Or sat next to me and read the paper, turning the page before I was done with my article. She also had a bad habit of talking while I was watching the football.

She'd been a bundle of fucking energy all the time and it was irritating but now she's pissing me off for an entirely new reason and I can't figure out what the fuck it is.

"You can't turn down opportunities though," Gabby says, seeming. . . lighter. "Couldn't Drayton go too? You've worked hard to be a dancer. I mean, Bebe Rexha? I would go."

Dallas sighs, giving her friend a small smile. "Yeah I know. Drayton wants me to sign on but I don't know. I thought I was pregnant a few months ago. I was sort of sad when the test was negative."

I balk from the couch. "Excuse me?"

She peers over at me. "I wasn't talking to you."

Gabby ignores me as well. "You want to start having kids?!"

"I don't know," Dallas wraps her arms around herself. "Maybe?"

"You're only twenty three," Gabby quietly reminds her. Thank goodness she's here to talk some sense into my sister. Not that I think her and Drayton shouldn't have kids. I do think she should wait and live out the best part of her career first though.

"You were eighteen," Dallas gives her a flat look.

"That was a beautiful, wonderful and special accident. I wouldn't recommend it though."

Dallas waves a flippant hand and walks over to the TV cabinet where her phone is still propped up. I've been ignoring the text messages coming in at pace. Probably from her obsessive boyfriend. She slides it unlock and smiles.

"It doesn't matter," she tells Gabby, tapping out a response on her phone. "We're not trying. It just almost happened. Where is Lydia by the way? I want to see her."

"With mom," Gabby drops into the arm chair beside the door and I pause my show. Apparently I'm being bestowed with their conversation now. Great. "I can not live there for long. I know it. We're going to be at each other's throats soon."

Dallas puts her phone down and stretches, arms above her head as she stares at her best friend. "How come?"

"Mom is just— she's overbearing. I love her but it reminds me why I left in the first place."

Dallas gives her an empathetic smile, watching her best friend slumped in the arm chair with her hood on top of her dark brown curls. Gabby used to wear glasses. I wonder if she has contacts in now. My phone blips with a text from Cain.

How are you this morning? Did the lady get home safe? Come over for a coffee if you want. Maia found our old modem for you.

Lifesaver, I think. My modem box crapped itself a few days ago and a new one is too fucking expensive to bother with. I flick him back a text of thanks and don't bother commenting on 'the lady' part of his message.

"You should move in here," Dallas says, grabbing my attention. Gabby and I look at each other, the same expression of 'fuck no' on both of our faces. "You have a spare bedroom, Nathan, and the little office at the end of the hall. You're also not here that often."

True. I spent most of my time teaching sports and nutrition at the local high school, as well as coaching the football team. Still, I shook my head.

"Yeah, no, I'm good," Gabby says.

Dallas stands, watching us with a curious glare. "What's the issue?"

"I have Lydia," Gabby says, twisting the chords of her hoodie around her finger.

Dallas shrugs. "The room is big enough to share or like I said, there's the little office. This house is freehold. You wouldn't have to pay a lot in utilities."

"Did I fucking ask you to play real estate agent," I bite. "And the office has mom and dad's stuff in it."

Gabby sits forward, waving a hand at me. "I can't have Lydia around some man."

"Some man?" Dallas seems more confused than offended. I however, scowl at her accusing tone. "He's Nathan. You've known him since forever. What is up with you two?"

I slip my hand under my t-shirt, scratching my chest. Something insulting sits on my tongue but it dissolves when I spot Gabby staring at my exposed lower abdomen. She quickly averts her gaze.

"I'll be fine at my mom's," she mumbles.

"I don't like kids," I add, just to drive home how much I do not welcome the idea of a roommate.

Dallas scoffs. "Bullshit. You're uncle Nathan to Cain and Matt's children."

"Speaking of," I stand up and head for the coat hook, my beanie and the jacket Gabby dropped on the arm chair when she arrived. "I have to head over to Cain's and get a modem. I'll be back soon."

Gabby stands as well. "I should get back to mom's too."

"You don't want to hang out tonight?" My sister asks, the three of us hovering at the front door while I slip the jacket on.

Immediately, I'm enveloped with the sweetest smell of spice and honey. It's delectable and I do my best not to inhale. I look over at Gabby and resist the urge to lean into her nape, to get a taste of that smell in real time. I need to wash this fucking jacket.

"I can't tonight," she tells Dallas, oblivious to my inner monologue. "I went out last night and mom grilled me about it. Tomorrow? Or New Years Eve? You should spend some time with your brother anyway."

Dallas smiles at me and I just know she's got dance videos in mind. Exploiting me to her damn followers.

"How about I come with you and see Lydia?"

Gabby gives her a quick excited nod and I check my phone for the time. Almost eleven in the morning.

Dallas adds, "when Drayton gets into town, we'll all go out for dinner or something."

"No," I immediately dismiss that plan. "Not a chance."

"Oh come on," Dallas says, wrapping herself in a big jacket with purple, green and white patterns.

"Not after last time."

Gabby looks between us, her brow raised. Dallas says, "it wasn't that bad."

"For you perhaps. You're used to that shit. I'm not doing public outings with that man, ever. I mean, ever."

"You're a baby," she huffs.

"I don't care," I open the door and get slammed with a wall of cold winter wind. The front lawn is frosted, gleaming with half melted snow. No doubt a new layer will fall soon. "You couldn't pay me to do that again."

Gabby is grinning now, she has this dimple in her cheek and straight white teeth, her top lip curls up and makes this little shelf with her full pale brown mouth.

"What's this about?" She says, snapping me out of the staring I was doing. Fucking hell.

I head out and refuse to recount the way my sister's boyfriend sat at the restaurant table and told the waiter, albeit a rude waiter, that he'd had his asshole serviced better in a prostrate exam than the service we'd received that night.

I wanted to die when half of the restaurant looked at him. Because the man didn't say anything quietly. Dallas had merely shaken her head as if he were quite a character.

That was just the final straw. Every time he speaks it's like waiting for a grenade to go off.

I leave the girls to their morning, not bothering to find out if they follow me out of the house or not.

Cain has cool kids. His son Banks is eight and his daughter, Lola, two. He and Maia met in college and he knocked her up faster than either of them had been prepared for. Still, their life together is what most people dream of.

I sit at the table in their dining room, their top of the hill view offers expanse sights of Castle Rock and I cradle a coffee, watching cars move below. Banks follows his baby sister around while she waddles around the kitchen with wooden spoons and utensils, banging on all the surfaces.

"It was nice of Dallas to come into town for New Years," Cain pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his black coffee in front of him fogging the lenses.

"Yeah, I suppose. Keeps her humble I guess now that she's living lavish in California."

"I can't imagine her being anything but humble."

I tip my head in agreement. Drayton is earning big now and I know he spoils Dallas rotten. Still, she doesn't brag. She didn't even tell me about her massive beach house in Hermosa until I went to see her for thanksgiving just been. I know she thinks I can't handle being left behind but she's wrong. I'll never leave the house mom and dad raised us in.

Cain laughs at Lola who starts chasing Banks around the kitchen island with a whisk.

"What are your plans for the New Year?" I ask Cain.

"We're going to spend it with Kendra."

Cain and I give each other a knowing look, it's awkward but somewhat amusing. Kendra is Maia's sister and last time she'd come into town from Chicago, we slept together. I had no idea she was married at the time but I sure heard about it when Maia found us on the basement floor, naked and asleep with a quilt covering our entwined bodies.

I never asked for an update on whether her husband was informed and we hadn't crossed paths since that night four years ago.

I'd only been friends with Cain for a few months when that went down, we met through Luke who hired Cain as his lawyer for an unfair dismissal case. Cain was new to law then. Matt, Luke and I had been friends since college so the four of us ended up spending a lot of time together. For a while, Luke and I flew solo, both of us sleeping around. And then Luke met Christa and that was that.

I'm convinced whoever I'm meant to love isn't in this city and that's too bad because I'm never going to fucking leave.

Lola's little bare feet slap the hardwood floors as she runs at me and flings her whisk at my leg. Cain snaps into parental apologetics.

"Lola," he scolds, not harshly, just enough that she stops laughing and gives her father a blank stare. "No throwing."

"Sorry, uncle," Banks takes his little sister's hand. I give her a quick tickle on her ribs and she laughs.

"No stress," I tell him, his dark brown mouth lifting into a small thankful smile.

He's a quiet kid, content to read his books or scooter up and down his driveway. Watching him wonder off with Lola reminds me of Dallas and I. Our age gap never mattered, we were tight growing up. Even more so when mom and dad died.

Nan took good care of us until she passed when I was seventeen and then I was a dad for all it mattered. My little sister deserved a better parent than I ever was. I'd never be able to take credit for how fucking awesome she turned out to be.

Maia appears from the corridor carrying a small white box in her hand. Her hair is short, shaved close to her head and her smile is full of warmth. She's the sort of woman that will offer the clothes off her back if someone is in need. I'm glad she forgave me for sleeping with her sister because their friendship is something I wouldn't want to lose.

"One modem," she puts it in front of me and gives me a kiss on the head. "Cain tells me you have a special friend in town. She's quite beautiful I hear."

I screw my face up at the nosy bastard.

"Is she not?" Cain asks.

She is.

"She's. . . Gabby."

Maia walks over to the kitchen to find half of her utensils scattered on the floor. She sighs but she doesn't complain, not when she can hear the bubbly laughter of her little girl coming from the bedroom down the corridor.

"Have you had lunch?" She asks me, opening her fridge. "I'll make lunch."

"How is she this morning?" Cain asks, palming his mug, bringing the conversation back to Gabby. "Do you know?"

I slide down my chair a little, thighs spreading under the old oak table top. "Yeah she looked tired but she's fine. Having baby daddy issues it sounds like."

Maia sets a loaf of bread and some bacon on a big cutting board. "What do you mean?"

"Sounds like he's done a runner. She's moved in with her mom."

Cain shakes his head, anger brimming in his stare. Maia says, "scum. Can't stand such cowardice. How old is her child?"

"She's just turned five."

Both of them fall quiet, disappointment and frustration on their warm faces. These are good people, some of the best I know. I'm not surprised when Maia asks, "Is there anything she needs? Something we can do for her?"

"Not unless you're a bottle of booze," I mumble, taking a low blow.

"Nathan," Maia looks up at me while she spreads slices of bread on her board. "Don't speak like that. You can't understand what she's going through. Have some compassion."

"I got her home last night," I defend but I know she's right. "Whatever. She's my sister's and her mother's problem. I'm not getting involved."

Cain looks at me with a tight mouth, no doubt disappointed in my attitude. Taking on Gabby and her baggage isn't something I'm interested in doing though, not because I don't want to help or see her back on her feet. But because I don't trust how I feel when I look at her. Not one fucking bit.