Good Morning Heartache (19 page)

“What's up, Riley?” she
asked, grumpily. Alexis was always grumpy. Riley hated to think about such
things, but she wished her sister would just get laid already and stop taking
it out on her. Sex with Jimmy always put Riley in a good mood. It made her feel
wanted, and that went a long way toward making her happy.

“Can we talk?” She posed the
question in her sweet voice. She didn't want to lay it on too thick, but she
had to try to lower Alexis's defenses.

“I was just about to take
Sam out for a run. Can it wait?”

“I don't know if I'll be
here when you get back. I'm going to the mall and lunch with Jimmy. I need to
get a few things.”

“Don't you have enough?”

Riley hated when Alexis
concentrated on the least important part of the point she was trying to make. “I
won't take much of your time. I just need to ask you a question.”

Alexis started moving to her
bedroom. “Fine, but I'm going to change while you're talking. Make it fast.”

“I want control of my trust
fund.”

Alexis disappeared into her
closet. Riley was optimistic about the silence. It meant that Alexis was
actually considering it. She returned to the bedroom and threw a pair of
running shorts and a tank top on her bed. “No.”

Riley was sure that she felt
her heart shatter. A piece ached in her sternum and another in her throat. Her
eyes stung, but she fought off the tears.

“What? Why not?”

“Can't do it. You'll have to
wait until you’re eighteen.”

Riley took a deep breath.
Okay, she thought, this wasn’t supposed to be easy. There were a few other
things she could try before this was over. There was still a good chance she
could change Alexis’s mind. “If you give it to me, I'll go away and you won't
have to deal with me anymore.” She was going to leave either way, but this fact
might help her sister say yes.

“Don't be ridiculous, Riley.”

Riley could feel her pulse
begin to quicken, and the pain she felt transformed into anger. This is why she
hated her sister. She didn't listen to a damn thing she said, and she dismissed
her like she was still eleven. Riley was basically an adult. In just a few
months it would be official. Why couldn't Alexis see that?

“Jimmy and I need that
money. It belongs to me. You have to give it to me.”

“Ahh…there it is. You and
Jimmy. Does he know about the money?” Alexis waved her hand dismissively at
Riley. “Never mind. Of course he knows. Don't you know that is sensitive information?
You can't just tell anybody that you have millions of dollars lying around.”

“Why wouldn't I tell him? He
loves me. He knows me better than anyone.” Riley hated it when Alexis tried to
lecture her. She was terrible at it and didn't know what she was talking about.
And again, they had strayed from what she really wanted. “Just give me access
to my trust fund, and you won't ever have to see me again.”

“Why can't you just stay
here? What are you planning on doing with the money that you can't do with your
allowance?”

“I don't want to be here. I
hate being here, and you hate me being here. We're going to get a place
together, where we can live and Jimmy can rehearse with his band. The band has
a few gigs lined up, and I want to be there with him instead of in this stupid
house with you.”

“What about school in the
fall? Is Jimmy going to stay at the place you bought while you finish your
senior year?”

Riley looked down. She was
hoping this part wasn't going to come up, but she figured nice and reasonable
wasn’t working anyway. Maybe if she pissed her sister off enough, she would
kick her out with a bank book in hand. “I'm not going back to school.”

Alexis put her hands on her
hips and took a step toward Riley. “Then the answer is a hell no,” she yelled. “In
fact, if you don't go back to school, you're not getting your allowance either.”

“What? Are you kidding me?
You can't do that. It's not allowed.” Riley clenched her teeth and pulled her
fingers into little fists.

Alexis gave her a
self-satisfied smile. “I absolutely can and will. We're done. Close my door on
the way out.”

Riley stepped closer to her
sister, and they were within a foot of each other. “Give me the money.”

Alexis, in turn, stepped
backward. “Riley, back off. You're not getting the money.”

Riley wanted to hit her, but
she couldn't. Alexis would call the police. She'd rather see her little sister
leaving in a squad car than willingly with what was rightfully hers. Riley
wasn’t about to give her that satisfaction.

Stomping out of the room,
Riley knew that she would have to figure something else out. She was leaving
and needed money. She'd do what she had to in order to get it. Riley charged
into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her then punched the wall next to
the door frame.

Alexis always had to do
things the hard way.

§

Alexis’s chest tightened as
she pounded down the stairs to the kitchen. “Sam!” she yelled down the hallway.
“Let’s get out of here.” She had changed quickly after her sister stormed out
of her room and decided to do some storming of her own, right out the front
door with Sam.

Knowing what was about to
transpire, Sam was waiting for her at the front door, tail wagging and tongue
dripping with saliva. Apparently no one could wait to get out of her house.

It was funny. Alexis always
wanted her sister out of her house, but it stung a little bit when Riley was so
willing to throw in her face that she was miserable around her. Alexis knew
that she was failing as a surrogate parent, but she hadn’t noticed that she was
also failing as a sister. She thought that she was trying, that she was giving
it her best, but that wasn’t the case—at least according to Riley.

She stepped out into the hot
midday sun. Even a tank top and a pair of running shorts would be too much clothing
to run in on a day like this, but she’d have to deal. She’d surely be driven
out of the small town with torches and pitchforks if she jogged down Main
Street in nothing but a pair of tennis shoes.

Alexis knew that Riley
struggled with making friends at Franklin. The place was piled high with snobs,
and while from Alexis’s point-of-view Riley should fit right in, that was never
the case. The quarterly report she got from Riley’s teachers and dorm mothers
painted her as a loner: “Doesn’t interact with peers…” “Spends time off campus
without schoolmates…” The school always assured her that they had a plan to get
her more involved, and to “integrate her with the Franklin community” so that
she would have “friendships that lasted a lifetime.” But that was a bunch of
crap, and Alexis knew it.

Alexis figured that Riley
would do as she had. Put her head down, complete the classes, and graduate so
she could move on to whatever was more acceptable to her.

Alexis picked up her pace,
and she could feel the frustration and anger begin to melt in the summer
afternoon. Sam matched her pace, and they both were panting after a few
minutes.

Two things that Alexis
couldn’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard she pushed herself, were that
Riley was ready to ditch school and was “in love.” Alexis was sure Riley had no
concept of the consequences of either.

The first was simple: people
would perceive her as an idiot when she wasn’t. It wasn’t hard to finish high
school these days, even at elite “college prep” schools. Anyone that wanted to
do it could. While it seemed pointless, it was a stepping stone and without it
there wasn’t much hope for anything better. After high school, Riley could sit
around and live off her trust, but that much money plus nothing good to do with
one’s life leads to self-destruction. Many of Alexis’s fellow Franklin alumni
had that problem. And unfortunately for them it wasn’t difficult to have “friendships
that lasted a lifetime.”

Sweat beaded along Alexis’s
hairline and Sam was beginning to slow. She had been jogging for thirty minutes
and now realized that she had jogged to the other side of town and was approaching
the town limits. Damn, now she had to backtrack the three and a half miles with
a tired dog and a pounding heart. She slowed to a steady walk.

Love, she thought. If Alexis
hadn’t known better, she would think her sister
was
an idiot. Falling in
love at seventeen was like saying you were going to hold on to an ice cream
cone and save it for later in the middle of August. It was downright messy.
Love. It could get the best and brightest of them, but one thing was guaranteed:
it would chew them up and spit them out. The longer someone thought they were
in love the more it would hurt when they realized the lie. As far as she could
tell there was no way of falling in love without getting your heart broken.

Sam tugged at the leash as
Alexis heard the crunch of gravel and the clap of a hammer thrusting a nail
into a piece of wood. She looked up at the mailbox. The white background had “Fitzgerald”
stenciled in green paint with decorative shamrocks bordering the surname.
Caitlyn's work to be sure. Her friend probably had the workers put it up while
she was on vacation.

She twisted her mouth around
a few times contemplating her options. It would be a good place to stop, at
least Sam thought so. Alexis didn't want to push it with Ryan, and she felt
like showing up in the middle of the day on a Tuesday, when she had spent
almost the entire long weekend exclusively with him, was pushing it. She had
already crossed a line by sleeping with him again, and while she regretted it
at first, it seemed more and more like the right thing to do. He was leaving
soon, really soon, and she might as well enjoy him while she had the chance. Because—by
God—he was enjoyable.

It was a long driveway, and
she didn't want to add more distance between her and home, especially if Ryan
was in work mode. Realistically if he was going to be of any use to her, she
needed him relaxed. That was the only way she would be able to talk to him.
Scratch that. She may use that as an excuse, but if she was going to be real
with herself, she wanted nothing more than to lick his stomach and chew on his
neck. She wanted him hovering over her, panting as heavily as she had been just
a few moments ago.

Without thinking about it
any further, she let Sam drag her up the driveway.

As they walked the curve of
the driveway, her dreams of riding him into the sunset were quieted. There were
a half dozen trucks parked at the end of the driveway, and several men walking
along the newly constructed roof. It was like a dream come true, and the
thought of sex didn't completely disappear from her head. Alexis felt like a
kid in a candy store, but this kid knew exactly what kind of candy she wanted
and doubted that anything else would satisfy her sweet tooth.

Sam tugged harder on the
leash and was soon demanding entry into his home. The inside door was open,
leaving the storm door as the only barrier. After swinging the door open, which
was difficult because the big dog was in her way, she unhooked his leash, and
Sam headed downstairs to his favorite chair, ignoring the commotion coming from
the top floor.

Alexis slowly ascended the
stairs. She was unsure of how this was going to go, but she was pretty sure
Ryan wouldn't be thrilled to see her. She got about halfway up the stairs when
she heard a deep, grainy voice. She stopped and listened for a moment.

“Didn’t you say that you
were starting to like it here?”

Then a voice that she
recognized as Ryan's retorted, “I did, but not that much, Daniel.”

“I still want you to
consider it.”

“It's been considered. I've
put in too many years, and I don’t think I can just abandon that.”

Alexis continued her climb
up the final stairs in the half flight, and then turned the corner. She lifted
her right hand up in a meek “hello” and the man she assumed was Daniel gave her
a wide grin. Shortly after, Ryan whipped his head around to see who had entered
the room. He wasn't as hospitable as the man he was arguing with.

“What are you doing here?”
he demanded. Alexis felt her breath escape her, and she knew that she shouldn't
have listened to that damn dog.

Daniel pushed past him and
reached out a hand and introduced himself. She reciprocated the gesture. He was
a gruff man who wore forty well. He was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans and had
a friendly demeanor. “Ignore my friend,” he mocked a whisper to her, but it was
pretty obvious that he wanted Ryan to hear him. “I've put him a mood that is
worse than usual. I fear I’ve brought up a topic that he’d rather not talk
about.”

Ryan, in contrast to the man
that claimed to be his friend, did not have a friendly demeanor. He had rolled
up the sleeves of his maroon dress shirt, and a shiny deep blue tie was tucked
in the gap between two buttons.

“It's not important, and I
obviously came at a bad time.” Then she used the same “whisper” Daniel used and
said, “It's never really a good time when he's working.”

Daniel let out a rumbling
laugh. “You'd be lucky to catch him when he's not working. So now's as good a
time as any. I'm going to go check on the guys.” He looked her up and down, and
then he turned to Ryan and said, “You be nice to her. And do some more
considering. The area appears to be real nice to me.”

They stood quietly as Daniel
walked down the hallway and out of sight. Alexis almost wished he stayed. He
was good at cutting the tension. She was about to turn and leave when Ryan
stormed toward her. He grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her down the hallway
and into the first bedroom on the right, slamming the door behind them.

His eyes tore into her
asking silently, “What's so important?”

Alexis gave a timid smile
back at him. “How are you?”

“You've got to be kidding
me,” he said still gripping her wrist tightly.