Page 33 of The Grump I Loathe (The Lockhart Brothers #3)

EDDIE

“ A m I moving or is it the building?” I asked, feeling like I was on one of those airport travelators as Leigh and I stumbled through the hotel to our shared room.

“Still feel like you’re on the dance floor?” she asked, her smile falling away as she tried and failed to open the door.

“That’s your credit card, not your key card,” I said, batting her hand away.

Leigh turned to me, wide-eyed. “What the hell was I paying for my drinks with then?”

I laughed, tapping my hotel key, and the two of us fell through the door. Leigh nose-dived onto her bed, sighing contentedly while I made my way to the bathroom to change and wash the makeup from my face before I lost the will to move.

“More of the office came than I expected,” Leigh said. “It was fun.”

I walked out of the bathroom, toothbrush in my mouth. “Probably thanks to Max. He’s good at rounding people up. ”

Leigh snorted. “He’s good at peer pressure.”

“And buying shots!” I was glad we’d had tonight to cut loose and have fun. I’d need to be on my best behavior tomorrow at the wedding, considering all the networking I planned to do.

I spit and rinsed in the sink, then walked over to my bed. Leigh had kicked off her shoes, her arm tossed over her eyes to block out the light.

“Hate to do this,” I said, adjusting the settings on my phone, “but my alarm’s set for eight. I need to be awake in time to rally for Alannah’s competition tomorrow.”

Leigh waved me off. “S’fine.” She yawned. “I’ll probably sleep through it. You know, I’m kind of surprised Connor didn’t come out drinking with us tonight.”

My pulse skipped. Why had she said it like that ? Did she know Connor was the one I’d hooked up with in the office? Darius told me he’d been discreet.

I cleared my throat. Play it cool . “I’m sure he’s too busy to hang out with the LockMill gang. Plus, Grace is here. He can’t exactly ditch her to party with his employees.”

Leigh buzzed her lips together. “Always with the excuses. You guys just need to face your feelings. It’s obvious you’re together. I don’t know why you bother sneaking around. You should just go for it. Tell him you love him. Bring it all out into the open.”

My heart lobbed at the base of my throat. “You’re drunk.”

“I am.”

“You need to sleep.”

“I do.” Leigh rolled onto her side .

I tossed the comforter over her, then turned off the lights and climbed into my own bed, hoping to fall asleep right away so I wouldn’t have to think about what Leigh said. Next thing I knew, bells started ringing. Warning bells? Sirens?

I bolted upright and grabbed for my phone.

Alarm? No, a call. Alannah’s name flashed across the screen.

“Hello?” I asked, the word garbled as I glanced over at Leigh, hidden beneath a mountain of covers.

“Eddie?” Alannah sniffled.

I stiffened. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to. I could hear Simon and Valentina screaming in the background, making me flash back to my own childhood. The promise I’d made that Alannah would never have to deal with that pounded through my hangover.

“I’ll be right there,” I said, kicking off the sheets and rushing out the door in my pajamas. The hotel where the gymnastics team was staying was a twenty-minute drive away. When I reached her room, I texted. I doubted she’d be able to hear me knock over all the shouting.

Alannah pulled the door open slowly, looking exhausted, scared, and teary-eyed.

“You okay?” I asked, grunting as she threw herself into my arms. She was half ready for her competition, her hair pulled into a tight knot at the top of her head.

Alannah inclined her head in the direction of the adjoining room where the door was open a crack. “It’s been like this all night,” she admitted. “I barely got any sleep because they were fighting so much.”

I leaned down, a hand on her shoulder. “Get your stuff. ”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

I nodded. Dad and Valentina were supposed to be here to support Alannah on a huge competition day. This was the last thing she needed. And what were they even screaming about, who got to take her to her competition? Who’d taken more days off work to take her to practice? What a freaking joke.

“I need my leotard,” Alannah was saying, throwing clothes into a duffle bag. “And my sweats for between routines.”

“Grab everything,” I was saying as the door swung open. Valentina stood there, her curly hair wild and unkempt, like she’d been tugging at it out of frustration. Truth was, Valentina and I had never really connected. She was nice enough to me, but there’d always been a polite distance between us.

“Eddie?” she snapped. “What are you doing here?” Dad appeared at her shoulder, arms crossed, looking exhausted and fed up. I stared at them flatly.

“I just followed the sound of screaming across town.”

“ Eddie ,” Dad muttered.

“What do you think?” I said. “Obviously, Alannah called me.”

Valentina glanced between us, clearly unimpressed.

“Now’s not the time,” Dad said abruptly. “Alannah needs to prepare for her competition.”

“Exactly. And you two are doing a great job of helping her,” I fired back.

“ You’re not helping,” Dad grumbled.

“Me?” I put a hand on Alannah’s shoulder. “You’re kidding, right? The two of you are fighting like one gymnasium isn’t big enough for both of you. The entire hotel has heard your drama by now.” I turned to Alannah. “Come on, grab your bag.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Valentina demanded.

“ I’m driving Alannah to the competition,” I said. “I’ll help her get ready and have her there early. If the two of you can sort yourselves out long enough to show up, great. If not, your loss. But I hope we’ll see you both there, ready to get over yourselves and support Alannah.”

That stifled the argument momentarily. I took Alannah’s duffle from her, swung it onto my shoulder, and led her from the room before they could protest. If Valentina and Dad couldn’t see how much this was messing with Alannah, then they didn’t deserve to be there anyway.

Two hours later, I’d fed Alannah while she explained her routine to a very hungover Leigh and got her dressed for the competition before I delivered her to her coach. Now I sat in the stands with a black coffee, wedged between Dad and Valentina, their sullen moods stifling.

They’d arrived separately, refusing to even look at each other, and I sort of wished they’d chosen respective corners to sit in on the opposite side of the gymnasium. But they always sat together in the stands where Alannah could see them. It had been that way since she’d started competing.

Thankfully, neither of them were interested in talking much, so I focused on sizing up Alannah’s competition. With each floor routine, one thing became clear. None of these kids were anywhere close to Alannah’s skill level. She had it in the bag.

Alannah stepped onto the mat for her floor routine, and I jumped to my feet, whistling loudly. Dad and Valentina stood up, tense and expectant. Valentina grabbed my forearm, squeezing it tightly as a pop-infused instrumental started.

Alannah flew across the mat, a whirl of tumbling prowess.

I cheered as she landed the first pass, her arms shooting into the air as she beamed.

Next, she danced her way to the other corner of the mat, and I clapped as loud as I could.

Valentina’s grip on my arm intensified as Alannah lined up her next pass, taking a steadying breath. Then she broke into a sprint.

Faster.

Faster.

Her body coiled for the next set of tumbling moves.

I watched her twist and turn in the air, my jaw dropping as she stumbled out of the pass, falling off the edge of the mat.

“Oh my God!” Valentina gasped, cupping her hand over her mouth. “ No! ”

“She’s never fallen during this part,” Dad said.

“Shit,” I muttered. This was bad…but if she made a good recovery, it might be salvageable. I watched in horror as Alannah blinked, her head snapping in the direction of the judges, then sprang to her feet and raced off the mat, past her coach, past the team, disappearing into the locker room.

Double shit.

Valentina released me and rushed off in the direction of the judges, Dad trailing after her. I hurried after Alannah. I found her crouched in the back corner of the locker room, her head pressed to her knees.

“Hey,” I said softly, sliding down next to her. “Just me.”

She didn’t respond .

“You okay? You’re not hurt or anything?”

“M’fine,” she muttered without lifting her head.

“Right. Well, the good news is, that’s the worst-case scenario out of the way, so it can only get better from here.”

Alannah snapped her head up, scowling, unshed tears in her eyes. “How?” she demanded. “How is anything going to get better?”

“Come on.” I nudged her shoulder. “What does your coach always say when you fall? The sooner you get back up, the sooner?—”

“I don’t want to get back up!” she snapped. “I’m sick of getting back up and looking on the bright side and smiling when everything is falling apart! So if that’s what you’re here to tell me to do, you can just leave!”

The force of the outburst shocked me. Alannah had never yelled at me like this before. But when my surprise wore off, I realized she was right. It wasn’t helping her to tell her everything would be okay when I didn’t know if it would.

“I’m not gonna leave,” I said softly. “But if you want to sit here and be sad, we can do that.” I opened my hand, laying it next to her, palm up, and after a beat, Alannah took it, sobbing silently.

“I don’t know if I can go back out there,” she admitted after a while, wiping her nose on her arm. “Every time I close my eyes, all I hear is Mom and Dad fighting. It’s louder than the music.”

“Then we can leave,” I said. “We’ll find something else to do. Something fun.”

Alannah sighed. “Fun isn’t going to fix how I feel.”

I stared at her, blinking back the weight of my own tears. I related to that more than I wanted to admit. “You’re right, you know. Fun helps for a bit, but the pain is still there. Even this long after Dad and my mom got divorced, it still hurts.”

Alannah’s lips turned down.

“But,” I said, still scrounging for some bright side, “that doesn’t mean it was all bad. If my parents had stayed together, I never would have gotten to meet you. So I know you don’t want me to tell you to look on the bright side. And I totally get that. But you are a bright side for me.”

That got a small smile out of Alannah.

“But however you want to handle this,” I said, “I’ll support you. If you need me to sneak you out a side door, I’ll do that. If you want me to drive you back to the hotel, I can. If you want to keep sitting here, we can do that, too.”

Alannah caught her lip between her teeth, her shoulder lifting. “I guess I still have to do my beam routine.”

My eyes widened. “You want to go back out there?”

She ran her hands over her knees. “I think so. But maybe I want to change my music. The bouncy music doesn’t feel right. Not today.”

“Okay, music I can definitely help with,” I said, pulling out my phone to scroll through Spotify. When we’d narrowed down the song choice, we made our way back to her team, and I watched from the sidelines as Alannah climbed onto the balance beam.

I held my breath, hoping her earlier mistake wouldn’t affect her performance now. As I watched her move through position after position, I was caught by the emotion of the ballad she’d chosen.

She was right. Bouncy pop music didn’t match how I felt, either.

My little sister was miserable. I was being forced to watch my dad torpedo another family he’d built.

And maybe part of me was dreading this wedding tomorrow.

Not because I didn’t want to go, but because I wanted to be attending with Connor.

As his plus-one.

As the person he’d gaze at on the dance floor as the rest of the world fell away.

The music crescendoed, and a knot caught in my chest. I rubbed at the ache, a terrifying realization dawning. I’d fallen for Connor. I was in love with him.

I’d promised to get out before I compromised myself, but it was too late. I was already compromised. And just like Alannah felt like she was losing everything with this divorce, I knew I could stand to lose just as much if my relationship with Connor fell apart.