“Do you want me to explain everything to the family?” I ask. They are the first words I’ve uttered in hours. “I mean, I can tell them for you, or we can do it together—whatever you want.”
“I don’t really care what you tell them,” Cherry says softly. “I think I want to just get a room at the lodge for tonight.”
“Reid has your apartment exactly how you left it,” I tell her. “The key is under the mat. I thought you might need a…a place to retreat.”
“Thank you.” Cherry’s eyes are wide with surprise, but her voice is hollow. “I don’t know how long I’m going to stay though.”
“Why?”
“I can’t just move back here now, Nate! Not after everything that’s happened. Eventually, everyone is going to figure out that not only am I an Orso, but I’ve been messing around with my brother the whole time I was here. I can’t live such a public life under those circumstances, Nate. I can’t even imagine facing your family right now…”
“It’s your family, too. You came here to find your family, Cherry, and you have. I know...I know it will be a little weird—”
“A little weird?” A single burst of laughter erupts from her mouth. “You think?”
“I just meant it will take some time to adjust to everything.”
“I can’t adjust to this, Nate. There is no adjusting to this.” She waves her hand back and forth between us. “I can’t even say the words. I feel so sick—you don’t even understand.”
“Yeah, I do.” Does she think I don’t feel the same way?
“No,” she says quietly, “you really don’t. Anyway, the idea of facing anyone with this knowledge is too much for me.”
“I just…I meant…” I stammer over my words, unable to form a complete sentence. “We should at least try to work it all out.”
“To what end?” Cherry asks, turning toward me with cold eyes. “You want me to step up and be a part of the family business? I’ve barely come to terms with what all you do, and I only made those concessions because I wanted to be with you.”
“You…you have options. You are an Orso, and there are benefits to that.”
“No. I don’t think I want any part of it.”
“You need some time to think about it.”
Cherry sighs and stares out the window before she finally responds.
“I still love you, Nate. I love you, and not like a brother. I can’t do this. I just can’t. I thought being a part of a large family was going to be wonderful. I thought my loneliness was the worst thing in the world, but it wasn’t. This is worse. I’m here to sort things out with the Ramsays—to tell them I want nothing to do with any of this—and then go back home where no one knows anything about all of this.”
Tears stream down her face, and she turns away to look out the window again. I don’t know what to say, so I just drive her to the front of her apartment building and stop. Cherry grabs her overnight bag from the back seat and opens the passenger door. Before she closes it again, she leans over and looks me in the eye.
“You were right, you know that?”
“Right about what?”
“The first night we met, you asked if I was sure I wanted to know who my real parents were. You said I might end up disappointed, and you were right. I wish I had never come to Cascade Falls at all.”
She closes the car door and disappears into her apartment building. I drive off slowly, trying to hold back my own tears as I wonder if I will ever see her again.
“Hey there!” Antony waves from the porch. “You got back fast! Did you find a PO box? Did you guys get caught in that storm? Did you…”
Antony continues to ask rapid-fire questions, but I don’t even hear them. I walk past him, and he finally closes his mouth as he looks at me with confusion.
“Nate? What happened?”
“Get everyone together,” I say. “Everyone—Kate included—in my office in an hour. I’ll explain then.”
I head into my office, still fuming. I slam the door open and then stop in my tracks as I hear a sharp cry from across the room, followed by a flurry of motion.
Andrea is lying on her back across my desk with her feet in the air. On top of her is Mark—the guy who cleans the pool.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Andrea scrambles to try to get out from under him while simultaneously yanking her skirt down and grabbing for a bottle of household cleaner. “I was cleaning the desk, and I fell over, and Mark was just trying to help…help me…uh…”
“That doesn’t work when his dick is hanging out of his shorts!” I yell back at her.
Mark covers himself up and then gives me a stupid grin.
“I think I’ll go finish skimming,” he says as he starts to trot off.
“You’re a fucking cliché!” I yell at him, then turn back to Andrea. “The pool boy? Really?”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Orso!” She wipes her hand across her reddened face. “He just came to help me move the desk so I could vacuum under it, and it was just an accident, and—”
“Andrea!”
“Yes, sir?” she mumbles sheepishly.
“Clean the fucking desk again.”
“Yes, sir! Right away, sir!”
I stomp off to my bathroom to take a shower. No matter how much soap I use, I can’t seem to scrub off the creepy-crawly sensation all over my skin.
My sister.
I swallow back bile, rinse off, and head out of the bathroom with a towel around my waist, nearly slipping on a puddle just outside the
