The Hookup Plan, page 26
“You know your clientele best,” London said. “Pick out the ones you think will appeal the most to them.”
She checked the time on her phone and reasoned that they would have to head back to Kenneth and April’s soon. Her mom, stepmom, and Koko were all back at the house decorating for Miles’s Marvel Comics–themed birthday party. Kenneth had taken her little brother to the batting cages, because hitting several buckets of baseballs into a giant net was exactly how a nine-year-old wanted to spend his birthday. London decided that she deserved extra birthday cake for managing to keep her eye roll to herself when Kenneth carted the poor child out of the house.
Fine, she was going to eat extra birthday cake, no matter what. But at least she now deserved it.
The moment her dad and Miles were gone, Janette suggested London and Nina drive over to the big-box hobby store to buy a piñata for the party. Her mom had followed up the suggestion with a series of rapid winks that had London wondering if maybe she had an eyelash stuck in her eye before realizing Janette was trying to subtly send her a message. As if that woman had ever been subtle a day in her life.
London had set out with Nina, determined to finally discuss the incident with the nude photos. She’d made at least a dozen attempts to bring it up over the past forty-five minutes and had chickened out each time.
She was beyond frustrated with this uncharacteristic lack of gumption. London prided herself on being forthright—beating around the bush was for people with too much time on their hands. But when it came to this particular conversation, she’d danced around the subject so much her feet hurt. Her usual bluntness just didn’t seem like the best tactic.
Or maybe it was? Maybe a frank, candid talk about the repercussions Nina could have faced if she’d sent out those photos was exactly what her little sister needed to hear.
London debated waiting until they were back in the car to bring it up, but the house was only a few minutes away. This discussion warranted more than five minutes.
She looked up and down the aisle. They seemed to be the only two people interested in making jewelry today.
“So,” London started. “Oh! This is cute!” She picked up a miniature pewter owl, then cursed herself for stalling as she set it back on the shelf.
Just say it!
“So, I…umm…heard about your little photography incident.”
“Huh?” Nina’s forehead furrowed in confusion.
Great, she really was going to make her say it.
London mimed snapping a photo. “You. Buck naked. Your mom walking in.”
“Ugh.” Nina rolled her eyes. “I should have known she’d tell you. Go on and laugh. Call me names. Whatever.”
“She didn’t tell me to make fun of you, Nina. She told me because she was concerned. I’m concerned too. This isn’t something to joke about. It’s serious.”
Nina folded her arms across her chest. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Look, chick, this isn’t fun for me either, but I told April that we would talk about it, so here we are.”
“I didn’t send the pictures! Mom made me delete them—and yes, I deleted them from the deleted files folder too. They’re gone. What else is there to talk about?”
London didn’t know which irritated her more, the flippant tone or the eye rolling. Both had her on the verge of losing it. But she wasn’t about to end up in another viral YouTube video, this time for being a parent who goes off on her kid in the middle of a freaking store. Especially when it wasn’t even her kid.
When Nina turned and started walking down the aisle, London caught her by the shoulder and went around her so that they faced each other.
“What if April hadn’t walked in on you?” London asked. “Would you have sent those pictures? It’s obvious you haven’t grasped just how…how dangerous it could have been for you if you’d sent those photos out, Nina! What would you have done if this boy had sent them to his friends, and then if they’d sent them to their friends?”
She shrugged. “Maybe that’s what I wanted.”
London’s head snapped back. “Excuse me?”
Another shrug. “I would be the girl everybody’s talking about around school.”
London’s mouth fell open. She stood there in stunned silence, completely gobsmacked. “Are you out of your fuc—ever-loving mind?” she asked when she was finally able to pick her jaw up off the floor.
“I am not out of my fucking mind,” Nina retorted. “You wouldn’t understand what it’s like to be invisible, because you went viral and had millions of people watching your video.”
“I went viral because the guy I was dating was cheating on me,” London said. “That’s not the kind of attention anyone wants. It’s not as if I’m Instagram famous or anything.”
“Nobody goes on Instagram anymore,” Nina said.
“TikTok then,” she said.
“You’re always on the news too.”
“I’ve been on the news twice,” London said. She thought about it. “Three times.”
“Stop rubbing it in. We all know you’re the perfect fucking daughter.”
“Okay, one more fuck out of you, and things are gonna get ugly,” London snapped.
Of course, another shopper picked that exact moment to turn down the jewelry aisle. The woman quickly backed away.
London leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “And what do you mean by the perfect daughter?”
Her sister leveled her with a look of brass and sass that would have made London proud if said look weren’t directed at her. Now it just pissed her off even more.
Folding her arms over her chest once again, Nina did a remarkably accurate impression of Kenneth Kelley’s deep baritone. “‘London got straight As all through high school. London was the class president. Why can’t you join the debate team like London did? London graduated valedictorian. If you don’t pull your grades up, how will you follow in her footsteps?’ I constantly have to hear about how I don’t measure up to you.”
The nerve of that son of a bitch! After the way he’d ignored her for her entire fucking life, he had the audacity to pull this kind of shit!
London needed a minute to collect herself. She blew out a calming breath and lessened the death grip she had on the piñata she’d picked out for the party. She would not get into a discussion about her issues with Kenneth in the middle of a craft store. And it wasn’t her place to bad-mouth their father to Nina, no matter how much that bastard deserved it.
“It is completely inappropriate for Kenneth to make comparisons between the two of us,” she said. “It pisses me off to no end. And you can trust that I will be speaking to him about it, but—”
“No!” Nina shrieked.
“Yes,” London said. She held up her free hand. “Don’t worry. I won’t mention that you told me anything. I’ll tell him Janette overheard him or something.”
The relief that flooded her little sister’s face revealed just how concerned she was about Kenneth’s opinion of her.
Was it possible…?
London approached this as delicately as she could. “Nina,” she started. “Did you take those photos to get Kenneth’s attention?”
Her sister’s eyes widened with horror. “You think I would send my own dad nudes? That’s so gross.”
“I didn’t mean that you were going to send him the pictures,” London said.
How in the hell had they ended up having this conversation in the middle of the jewelry-making aisle? Oh, right. Because she’d started the conversation here.
“Look, I know what it’s like to jump through a thousand hoops in the hopes of getting just a little bit of Kenneth’s attention.”
“That is not what I was doing,” Nina muttered. “I don’t even care what Dad thinks.” She flicked the huge hoop earring on her right ear. “He hates when I wear these big earrings, but I’m still wearing them.”
London wasn’t buying her defiance act.
“Are you sure you don’t care what he thinks?” she asked Nina. “Because if you wanted him to take notice of you, having those pictures get out and cause a stir around school would certainly accomplish it, especially if it made him look bad in front of his colleagues. If that is your goal, there are a million better ways to go about it, Nina. That is not the kind of attention you want.”
“You are reaching,” her sister said. “Nudes are not as big a deal as they were back when you were in school.”
London wasn’t about to tell her that nudes going viral wasn’t even a thing back when she was in school. She felt old enough around her little sister.
She was done dancing around this.
“Here’s the deal,” London said. “Once you turn eighteen, you are free to splash your coochie all across the Internet. It’s yours, do what you want with it. But at fourteen, this”—she held the piñata shaped like Captain America’s shield up to Nina’s crotch—“needs to remain behind the shield.”
“Seriously?” her sister drawled.
“I was going for dramatic effect,” London said. “Look, I’m not here to lecture you—although, I now realize this entire conversation has been one huge lecture. I just don’t want you to get hurt. And if you’re doing these things in hopes of getting your dad’s attention, please don’t. Take advice from someone who spent way too much of her life seeking his approval. It isn’t worth it, Nina.”
London knew she was overstepping, but she couldn’t stand by and watch Kenneth put yet another daughter through the emotional turmoil he’d put her through. She would protect Nina and Koko.
“You know that you can always come to me, right?” London said.
Nina nodded. “When you’re not working,” she said. “But you’re always working.”
It was true. And if she took that fellowship in Chicago, moments like these, which were already few and far between, would become nonexistent. She could promise to fly her younger siblings up to Chicago for fun weekends in the big city, but she wasn’t in the habit of making promises she knew she wouldn’t keep. She barely made time for them now, and she lived only twenty minutes away.
For someone who’d asked Santa Claus for a little brother or sister back when she was in kindergarten, she’d sure turned into a poor excuse for a big sister. She had to do better, whether she stuck around Austin or moved to parts yet unknown.
“You can come to me,” London repeated. “If I’m in surgery, I’ll call as soon as I’m done. That’s a promise.” One she was determined to keep.
London wrapped an arm around Nina’s shoulder. “Now that my chances of being the supercool older sister are shot to hell, what do you say we go back to the house and fill this piñata with candy?”
“You still have a chance to be a cool older sister,” Nina said. “I get my driver’s license in two years, and your Mini Cooper just happens to be in my favorite color.”
“Hands off the car, chick,” London warned.
Nina laughed. Then she tucked her hands into her back pockets and rocked on the balls of her feet. “Actually, there is one other thing.”
London’s heart began to beat faster. She hadn’t expected the requests to start this soon. “What is it?” she asked.
“I made the junior varsity volleyball team. Mom was able to come to the first two matches, but now she has to take Koko to her math tutor on Saturdays. And, well, Dad said that he finds girls’ volleyball boring.”
“What an asshole,” London groused.
Nina’s eyes widened with shock.
Okay, so calling their dad an asshole in front of his impressionable younger daughter was probably out of bounds, too, but London didn’t give a shit.
“Text me the schedule for the volleyball matches. I’ll make as many as I can,” London said. She would also talk to April about tutoring Koko. There was no need for Koko to see a math tutor when her older sister had never met a math problem she didn’t love.
By the time she and Nina arrived back at the house, London was certain she’d gotten her anger under control. But the moment she spotted Kenneth’s black Mercedes-Benz in the driveway, her jaw clenched.
She pushed her Mini’s door open with more force than necessary, and yanked the bags from the back seat. She caught herself marching toward the front door and forced her feet to slow down. This was neither the time nor the place for a confrontation. She should at least wait until Miles’s birthday party was over.
“Oh, good! Y’all are back,” April said as soon as London and Nina entered the house.
London headed straight for her father. “I need to talk to you,” she said. “Now.” She started for the hallway that led to the bedrooms, not bothering to check to see whether he was behind her.
She went into Koko’s room. The bright pink walls plastered with K-pop boy bands should have lifted London’s mood, but not even the cuties from BTS and Got7 could break through her haze of fury.
The minute her dad entered the room, she whirled on him.
“How fucking dare you!” London said.
“Hey, watch your language, young lady!”
“Don’t pull that paternal bullshit with me. You don’t get to pick and choose when you want to play father. Not anymore.”
“You need to watch your tone, London.”
“And you need to stop using my accomplishments to denigrate my little sister. How dare you!”
Kenneth folded his arms across his chest. That superior look on his face grated the last of London’s nerves.
“Nina doesn’t apply herself,” he said. “You should take my comparing her to you as a compliment.”
“The nerve of you,” London gasped. “When was the last time you complimented me about anything? The only time you care about what I do is when you can use it to make yourself look good to your friends.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I wasted so much energy on you. I’ve spent my life just trying to get on your radar. But you know what? I’m done. I no longer care whether you’re proud of me. I no longer care what you think. Period. But I will not stand by while you manipulate my sisters the way you did me.”
“You are not going to speak to me this way in my own home,” Kenneth said.
“Actually, I will,” London said.
Don’t! her mind screamed, but the last thing London wanted to do right now was listen to the reasonable part of her conscience.
“I’ve never told you this because you are my father, and at one time I thought that granted you at least a bit of respect, but you don’t deserve any respect. You are a chauvinistic, sexist asshole. You treat your daughters like they’re shit on the bottom of your shoe.” She pointed toward the door. “I don’t understand how you convinced those two intelligent women out there to even give you the time of day. Because you bring home a big paycheck? Because you play in some stupid cover band?
“And you know what else? I don’t understand what kind of twisted psychology goes on in that brain of yours where you think showing your daughters any kind of affection or even just…just simple regard…makes you less of a man. It’s sick. You’re sick. And you are no longer worth my time.
“Oh, and thanks for the hypertension. Because you may not have given me any attention, but you did give me your shitty genes.”
“Are you finished?” Kenneth enunciated the words slowly. Coldly.
Fuck you was on the tip of her tongue, but apparently somewhere in her heart, she had a modicum of self-preservation.
Instead, London raised her hands in an I’m done gesture.
“You will not disrespect me in my home,” he said. “I want you to leave.”
London didn’t say another word. She simply turned and walked out of the room.
“Where’s Miles?” she asked when she entered the family room, where April was stuffing the piñata with candy.
“Right here!” her baby brother said, coming up behind London.
London turned and did her best to smile. “Honey, I hate to miss your party, but I have to go.”
“But I thought—” Janette started. The look London shot her way shut down whatever she was about to say.
London reached into her purse and pulled out the birthday card with a hundred-dollar bill tucked inside. “I promise to make it up to you,” she whispered into his ear as she leaned over for a kiss.
London felt her dad’s presence as he walked into the room. She ignored him.
“Have fun at the party,” she said to the room in general.
Then she walked out the door.
30
London left the party on autopilot, getting into her car and driving straight to Drew’s apartment. She sat behind the wheel of her Mini and sent him a text.
I’m outside. Bad, bad day. Can I come up?
He was waiting for her in the lobby of the building when she walked through the sliding glass doors. She walked straight into his waiting embrace, both stunned and relieved at how at home she felt in his arms.
But she shouldn’t feel stunned anymore. Over these past few weeks Drew had proven to be a steady, calming presence in her world.
“How does a party for a nine-year-old put you in this kind of mood?” Drew asked.
London lifted her head and looked up at him. “I called my dad an asshole to his face. I need a drink.”
“I think you need several drinks. Let’s go.”
They walked wordlessly to the elevator. Drew held her hand in a firm, comforting grip as they rode up, but he didn’t press her for details. She appreciated that innate sense of his; it was as if he knew without her saying that she needed some time before she could speak about what happened.
He let her into the apartment and headed straight for the kitchen. London looked on as he slipped one of the wines they brought back from the Hill Country last weekend from the wine rack. He grabbed a couple of wine stems and poured two glasses of the Malbec, then directed her to follow him to the couch. They sat, and London immediately settled her back against his chest. Once again, a rush of contentment flowed through her.
Who would have thought that Drew Sullivan’s arms would become her happy place?
