“Tell me what made you mad enough at him that you haven’t spoken to him in six months.”
“I wanted him to be with me when I told you what Lex wanted. I thought it would be better coming from him.”
“Not even Lex put him in that position.”
“But …”
“No buts, Will. Lex knew that if he asked Pete to go to me with his plan he’d be shifting the responsibility of representing Lex to me. He didn’t want to do that because he knew how Pete felt about you. He knew you’d be pissed as hell at Pete for going along with Lex’s plan. He was trying to give you guys a chance.”
“Oh, I get it now,” Willa said, laughing harshly. “This is about you trying to make Lex into the good guy.”
“Ugh!” Lu groaned in frustration. “Do I look like I’m trying to hold on to Lex? Shit, Willa, you are wrong! I know it’s hard for you to see that, but you are. You put Pete in an impossible situation of choosing between you and Lex right after he lost his father. What did you expect him to do?”
Willa suddenly looked as if she’d been hit. It finally sank in. “I didn’t do that.”
“You most certainly did.”
Willa sat in stunned silence, trying to figure out if she’d truly put him in that position. She tried to explain. “I just thought it would be better coming from Pete. His delivery is so much more appropriate.”
“No. That’s not what happened. You wanted him on your side. You wanted him to agree with you that Lex was making an outrageous demand. Had you come in there with Pete behind you, you assumed I would assume that he agreed with you. You were testing him.”
Willa shook her head, trying to make that statement not true.
“Willa, I love you dearly. But you love hard. It’s all or nothing with you. You think that if you’re with Pete you’ll be giving up part of you. I think my history has tainted your view of things. You wanted to make sure that he would love you as much. It was your way of pushing him away before you let him in. I get it. And I think Pete gets it. But you were wrong. And you need to forgive him, because he’s the only person in the world that gets you like you need to be understood.”
Willa looked at her little sister for the first time in a long time and thought, Holy shit, my girl is all grown up. “You think you’re so damn smart!” she said without any rancor.
“So my IQ says,” Lu responded with flair as she got up and started toward her room.
“Lu,” Willa called out to her. When Lu turned around she said, “I love you.”
Lu shrugged with a smile. “I know,” she said.
23
Pete unlocked Lex’s door and jumped in surprise when he found Lex standing on the other side of it.
“Shit! What are you doing here?”
“Last I checked, I lived here,” Lex said drolly.
“I know, but you weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I came straight home.”
Pete followed him into the kitchen. Feeling uncomfortable about where he had been, he blurted out, “I just came from Lu’s.”
If Lex was surprised or angry, he didn’t show it. “Nina will be here tomorrow. You didn’t have to go see her,” he said, explaining his lack of a response.
“Well, I wanted to see Lu too.”
“Yeah,” Lex replied, waving him off. “So how was the night?”
Pete felt trapped. He’d completely avoided any discussion of Lu whenever he talked with Lex. He’d tried for months to get Lex to talk to him and had finally thrown in the towel when he noticed Lex calling less frequently, trying to avoid any unpleasant discussions. “It was interesting. Nina’s amazing.”
Lex smiled that trademark smile. “Yes, she is.”
“How’s it going with you two?”
He ran his hands through his longer hair. “Slow.” He walked over to a bar stool and sat down. “We have fun together, but I don’t necessarily feel like her father. I mean, I don’t know what to say all the time, and I feel like she sees me as a fun uncle rather than her dad. Which should be lots of fun when we get to the teenage years.”
Pete studied his brother. “Gotta be the first time in your life that you’ve been unsure of how to act around a female.”
Lex chuckled. “Yeah. Most important one. Go figure.”
Pete let that thought linger between them. It dawned on him that he was worried about Lex. He just didn’t seem to be himself. Even when he watched his brother play soccer, he seemed to be lacking that luster that had made him so much fun to follow. “You OK?” Pete asked.