Good Girl Complex(Avalon Bay #1)(86)
“I don’t love not being on speaking terms with them,” she admits. “But they’re the ones being stubborn. Choosing to live my own life is hardly grounds for excommunication.”
I’ve been worried that the longer this dispute with her parents rages on in silent conflict, the more she’ll come to regret her decision to leave school. To buy the hotel. To be with me. But so far, there’s been no sign of remorse on her part.
“They’re going to have to get over it eventually,” she says, turning to look at me. “I’m not stressing over it, you know? Rather not give them the satisfaction.”
I search her face for any traces of dishonesty and find none. As far as I can tell, she is happy. I’m trying not to let myself sink into that paranoid place. I have a way of spiraling with anticipation of catastrophe. But that’s always been the rhythm of my life. Things start looking too good and a house falls out of the sky.
This time, I’m hoping she’s broken the curse.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
MACKENZIE
Well, it’s not winter in Jackson Hole or Aspen—the weather’s been in the seventies all weekend like Carolina’s stuck in autumn—but shopping for a Christmas tree with Cooper and Evan has thus far been an adventure. Already we’ve been chased out of three tree lots because these ruffians are incapable of behaving themselves in public. Between challenging each other to see who can bench press the biggest tree and holding a jousting contest in the middle of a grocery store parking lot, we’re running out of options to find a tree without crossing state lines.
“What about this one?” Evan says from somewhere in the artificial forest.
To be fair, one of the lots we got kicked out of was for Cooper and I getting caught making out behind the Douglas firs. Proving he hasn’t learned his lesson, Cooper sneaks up on me and smacks my ass while I try to navigate my way toward his brother.
“Looks like your eighth-grade girlfriend,” Cooper remarks when we find Evan standing next to a round spruce that’s big on the top and bottom but noticeably naked in the middle.
Evan smirks. “Jealous.”
“This one’s nice.” I point to another tree. It’s full and fluffy, with plenty of evenly spaced branches for ornaments. No gaping holes or apparent brown spots.
Cooper sizes up the tree. “Think we can get it through the door?”
“Can bring it in through the back,” Evan answers. “Pretty tall, though. We might have to poke a hole in the ceiling.”
I grin. “Worth it.”
I’ve always been a big-tree girl, though I was never allowed to pick out my own. My parents had people for that. Every December a box truck would show up and unload a mall’s worth of decorations. A huge, perfect tree for the living room, and smaller ones for nearly every other living area in the house. Garlands, lights, candles, and the whole lot. Then an interior decorator and a small army of help would transform the house. Not once did my family get together to decorate the trees; we never looked for the perfect branch for each keepsake ornament like other families seemed to do. All we had was a bunch of expensive, rented junk to accomplish whatever motif my mother was interested in that year. Another set dressing for their life of parties and entertaining influential people or campaign donors. A completely sterile holiday season.
And yet despite that, I find myself a bit emotional at the idea of not seeing my parents for the holidays. We’re still barely speaking, although my father did courier over a stack of Christmas cards and order me to sign my name under his and my mother’s. Apparently the cards are being delivered to hospitals and charities in my father’s congressional district, courtesy of the perfect Cabot family who cares so much about humanity.
That evening after dinner, the three of us scrounge for decorations and lights in the attic, buried under years of dust.
“I don’t think we’ve decorated for Christmas in, what?” Cooper questions his brother as we carry the boxes to the living room. “Three, four years?”
“Seriously?” I set my box on the hardwood floor and sit in front of the tree.
Evan opens a box of tangled lights. “Something like that. Not since high school, at least.”
“That’s so sad.” Even a plastic Christmas is better than nothing.
“We’ve never been big on holidays in this family.” Cooper shrugs. “Sometimes we do stuff at Levi’s house. Usually Thanksgivings, because every other year for Christmas they go see Tim’s family in Maine.”
“Tim?” I ask blankly.
“Levi’s husband,” Evan supplies.
“Partner,” Cooper corrects. “I don’t think they’re actually married.”
“Levi’s gay? How come this is the first I’m hearing of it?”
The twins give identical shrugs, and for a second I understand why their teachers had a tough time telling them apart. “It’s not really something he talks about,” Cooper says. “They’ve been together for, like, twenty years or something, but they don’t flaunt their relationship. They’re both really private people.”
“Most folks in town know,” Evan adds. “Or suspect. Everyone else just assumes they’re roommates.”
“We should’ve had a dinner here and invited them.” I feel glum at the lost opportunity. If I’m going to be living in Avalon Bay and staying with the twins, it might be nice to form deeper connections.