Hated (Hearts of Stone #3) Read online

  My eyes narrowed in recognition, and I shook his hand. “Right. Andrew Weatherby. I remember you.” Andrew Weatherby. The fucking douchebag who took Frankie out to Sailor’s Point in ninth grade. He’d been her first kiss. I’d wanted to kick his ass back then, and it took all my willpower not to crush his hand as I shook it now. “Sorry, man,” I said, begrudgingly.

  “Right. Well now that we’re playing nice, can Drew get back to work?” Frankie tilted her head, humor in her gaze as she stared me down.

  I lifted my hand in apology. “Yeah. Sorry,” I told Drew again.

  He chuckled as he turned back to the ladder. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make Frankie pay for it later,” he said, shimmying up the rungs as if he was eager to get away.

  Frankie huffed at him over her shoulder. “Like hell you will, Weatherby. I’ll buy you a beer at Brews and Cues on Friday instead. We’ll call it even.”

  I watched him until he stepped out onto the roof of the porch and then I lowered my eyes to find Frankie staring at me, hands on hips, eyebrows raised.

  “What did he mean he’ll make you pay for it later?” I growled.

  She shook her head, sighing. “Cool it with the caveman vibes. I’ve had enough of that from my brothers my entire life. Besides, you should know by now I can take care of myself. Drew is helping me with some home improvements,” she said, lifting her eyes to find him on the roof. She twisted her mouth into a wry smile. “Thanks to you, he’ll probably try to charge me extra for a hazardous work environment.”

  “He’s helping you with home improvements?” I repeated.

  She shrugged, a sad look shuttering over her face. “If I put it on the market as is, I’ll get robbed blind.”

  Shock hit me like a punch to the chest. “You’re selling the house?”

  Frankie tucked her hands into her pockets and refused to meet my gaze even though she held her chin high. “Yeah.”

  “You can’t sell this house. Your grandfather built it. How could you do that to Nana?” I was disgusted. If there was one thing I thought I could always count on, it was that the DiGorgio house was a constant. No matter what else changed in my life, I felt comfort knowing that the DiGorgios would live next door.

  I knew it was a low blow, mentioning her grandmother’s name when I just recently discovered that she’d had a massive stroke two months ago. But the fact that Frankie couldn’t even be bothered to tell me about it herself made me not care. I’d gotten a letter from her brother Pauly after Nana had been released from the hospital and admitted to a nursing home. What bullshit.

  Nana Ruth had been like a grandmother to me too, and I was pissed at every last one of the DiGorgios for keeping me away. Even after Frankie disappeared without a trace, I kept in touch with Nana. She might have been sworn to secrecy about Frankie and what she was up to, but she’d always been there to support and encourage me. She’d always promised that everything would eventually work out. And despite my anger, I’d always wanted to believe her.

  Frankie’s piercing gaze swung back to me. “There are a lot of things I’ve had to do that I didn’t want to,” she snapped. She opened her mouth to say something else and then released all the fire that backed her words in a defeated breath. “Go home, Austin.”

  Then she turned and trudged up the back steps, letting the door slam behind her.

  — FRANKIE —

  5. RIGHT SHOES & A DEBRIEFING

  The door slammed behind me, and I angrily wiped at my eyes, frustrated with myself. Why was it that the act of walking away from Austin seemed to be the trigger for my tears?

  I hadn’t cried in a long time. Not once in four years. Not even after Nana had a stroke and she was unable to talk. I missed the old Nana, of course I did. But every time the doctors told me that there had been no improvement in her condition, that the paralysis and memory loss were just as bad, that she couldn’t speak coherently anymore, I told myself that at least she was still alive. There was still a chance. I wouldn’t cry because that would feel like giving up.

  Nana had always been bigger than life. For her, being a slave to her body would be more painful for her than death itself. That’s why I was so desperate to find a way to help her improve. She’d loved and laughed and squeezed every last drop of joy out of the time she had, and I couldn’t stand to think that there was something holding her back. She always said she had no regrets, that she had lived the life she wanted to, and that I shouldn’t be sad to see her go when the time was right. But to me, it wasn’t time yet.

  I wasn’t ready to give up on her because she’d never given up on me.

  All she wanted was for me to be happy—to live the life I wanted. I could never make her understand that the life I wanted wasn’t the life I’d earned. And there was a definite difference. I’d made choices and sacrifices for those I loved, and I had to accept the consequences of those choices. Like Nana, I had to continue with no regrets.

  As much as I didn’t want to sell this house, my brothers and I had made the painful decision to do it because we knew the money we raised could help Nana improve. We could get her life-changing therapies and medications that weren’t covered by Medicare. And she deserved that. After everything my father hadn’t done for her—or our family—she deserved the best we could give her. Nana would have been sad about our choice, but she also would have been proud because it meant something she had treasured could take care of someone we loved.

  Reaching for the cabinet over the sink, I took out a glass and then filled it with water from the faucet, taking a long drink, willing my emotions back under control where they’d been for four years.

  I hadn’t cried when we decided to sell the house, so why now?

  Because Austin’s accusation—the idea that I wanted to sell the house—that was so unexpected it hurt. He knew what this house had meant to me. To all of us. In my mind, I knew that it wasn’t the house that was important, it was the memories we made while living here. And yet, deciding to sell felt like I was giving up my childhood. Like we all were. The truth was, I was afraid that once the house belonged to someone else, so would all those happy memories. I knew it was just wood and stone and wires and pipes. But this house, Nana’s house, was the foundation for most of my favorite memories. Saying goodbye to it would almost be like a death in the family.

  I swiped forcefully at my eyes, angry at myself for getting emotional. I knew before I came home that this was going to be hard. Crying over it wasn’t going to make it any easier. I forced a breath through my mouth and swallowed back the lump in my throat. A moment of weakness. That’s all I would allow myself. Nana always told me when I got upset, “You can have this moment to cry. Get it out and then get back up.” And that’s what I was going to do.

  Setting the empty glass in the sink, I turned and blew out a breath as I surveyed the kitchen and the dining room beyond. I reached up and gathered my hair into a ponytail, wrapping it with a rubber band. As I left the kitchen and walked through the dining room, I looked around, making mental notes as I finally came to the formal sitting room in the front of the house. Dust covered almost every square inch of the first floor, and the sunlight had to battle to get in through the dirty windows. Nana had only been in the nursing home for a few months, but it was clear that it had been much longer than that since the house had been properly cleaned.

  My teeth worried at my bottom lip in guilt as I realized Austin wasn’t the only person I’d abandoned when I didn’t come home four years ago. I’d abandoned Nana too. I’d left her all alone in a house that had become too much for her to handle by herself.

  Why didn’t she say something? Why didn’t she ask me to come home?

  I released a deep breath. Because Nana would never have asked me to do something if I wasn’t ready. She always looked out for her family, even to her detriment.

  I bustled around, throwing open the windows to let in some fresh air. I could sit here and wallow in guilt all day, but that wasn’t going to do any good. No
progress would be made on this house without a little elbow grease. It was time to just get to it.

  While Drew was going to do the big repairs—the ones I had no experience doing—I was going to work on the inside, cleaning out sixty years’ worth of living. My gaze traveled over the familiar furniture and the shelves. Antique butter domes, a coveted bell collection, and breakable knickknacks covered every square inch of wall shelves and table tops.

  I shook my head, laughing to myself. In all honesty, I was the one who should have been getting paid instead of Drew. I definitely had the harder of the two jobs. Nana was a hoarder of epic proportions. She was never bad enough to require intervention like those people on television, but she had a weakness for pretty glass things, and she hated the idea of throwing something away that she might need again.

  Seeing all the dust-covered treasures, I knew I wasn’t ready to tackle the main floor yet. I might need a drink or two before I attempted to sort Nana’s collectibles. I ascended the stairs and walked past her room and decided I wasn’t strong enough to deal with that either. Cleaning out that room would be like removing the heart of the house. Instead, I slipped into my room and grabbed the old fan before walking up the stairs to the third floor.

  Half of the third floor was a room my brothers used to share, but the other half was the old attic. The attic was the worst of the hoarding nightmare since that is where Nana stored everything we had owned that she couldn’t bear to throw out or donate. I figured I might as well get that out of the way first. Clean the place out from the top down.

  After plugging the fan in, I started hauling things down the stairs from the attic to the first floor-foyer that I planned to take to the dump. Anything else that was still in good shape would be sold at a yard sale I was planning. I shoved those things to the side in orderly piles.

  I had made so many trips up and down the three levels of stairs that my legs started to ache after an hour. It didn’t take long before boxes of junk were almost reaching the ceiling and blocking the front door. Apparently, I’d done more sorting the night before than I’d realized.

  Seeing that the hallway was filled, I decided to fill up the truck so I could make a trip to the dump. I lugged the boxes outside, the sun quickly rising in the sky and turning the mild morning air into a soupy, humid, mess. I carefully stacked everything in the bed of my truck, amazed, and a little sad, at how easy it was to get rid of things that Nana had held on to for so long.

  But I couldn’t think about that because then I’d think about the house.

  When the hallway was empty, I trudged back upstairs to gather the random pieces of trash still littering the floor. I was filling a large, black trash bag with junk to toss out when I heard the soft, sensual sounds of a cello trickle in through the window. I stopped dead in my tracks, feeling like I’d fallen under a spell. Or into a memory.

  I only needed to hear the first few sweet slides of Austin’s bow to know he was playing “I Will Wait.” And I knew it was Austin because his style of playing was forever imprinted on my brain and ingrained in my heart. The song was missing the fast-paced notes of Dallas’s part, but I could still hear the echoes of those notes in my head because I’d heard it so many times before.

  Dallas had always been the heartbeat of the songs—the rock and roll, the passion. But Austin had always been the soul. Dallas could make you want to rock your body and sing along. Austin could make you weep and swoon and feel. And that’s why they’d so easily become the Dueling Cellos. They might have been twins, but they were opposites in every way, their styles battling through every song, making you desperate to hear it over and over again. I never got tired of listening to them play together. I never got tired of watching Austin play.

  I’d heard this song a million times before, and the lyrics flowed across my thoughts in time with the music—sweet words about coming home and falling into someone’s arms.

  My heart ached. I wanted to believe that Austin was playing that song for me. For us.

  I tiptoed to the window that faced his house, stood to the side where he couldn’t see me, and peered out. He was sitting on a desk chair in his room, the old cello nestled between his legs, his body curled around it as his fingers danced expertly across the strings along the neck. The old wooden body of the cello was still covered in Red Hot Chili Peppers stickers, and I smiled when I remembered how his mother had gone apeshit when she saw it.

  Austin’s arm muscles flexed and tightened as the bow slid across the strings in perfect strokes. His eyes were closed, and his body swayed as if the music was a breeze tossing him around.

  There was no one to sing the chorus, but the words filled my mind—he would wait for me. He would wait.

  The notes were sad and accusatory. They’d never felt that way before. I’d always thought them to be hopeful and loving.

  I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and bit down hard, wondering how long Austin had waited in Vegas for me to come. I wished I knew how long it had taken him to finally give up on me. Days? Months? Years? How long had it taken him to hate me as much as he did now? And could he possibly hate me more if he knew the truth—the reason I never came?

  After the way he’d been treating me, the answer was a big fat “yes.”

  Soon the music was speaking about faltering steps and giving in, forgiveness and never forgetting. It sounded so lonely and emotionally decadent. So full of pain and heartbreak. And I couldn’t listen to another note.

  Grabbing the half-filled trash bag, I hurried down the steps and out the front door. I tossed it into the back of the truck with the boxes I’d already brought out and then threw myself into the front seat. I stared at the steering wheel trying to convince myself to go back up and gather the rest of the trash. It was stupid to make more than one trip when I didn’t have to.

  But I did have to. I couldn’t listen to another second of Austin’s heartbreak. Of my heartbreak.

  I twisted my keys in the ignition so violently that it threatened to rip the key in half. Thankfully, the engine roared to life, drowning out Austin’s music. With a yank of my hand on the gear shifter, I was reversing out of the driveway, a cloud of dust kicking up into the air around me. I threw the truck into drive before it had even come to a stop. Pushing the gas pedal down in a frantic need to get away, I sped down the road, through town, toward the dump.

  But no matter how far away I got, no matter how far away I drove, I could still hear the lyrics echoing in my head, clawing at my heart. It seemed the music was a declaration, a promise that from now on he would be strong and listen to his head instead of his heart. That he was done with me and my lies.

  It was his way of telling me that everything had changed. That he didn’t feel the same way about me as he did four years ago.

  But no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much it felt like a goodbye, part of me never wanted the music to fade because even the pain of Austin’s hatred was better than not having him in my life at all.

  ***

  Austin didn’t talk to me for the rest of the week. He scrubbed his patio clean and had a guy fix the mess I’d made of the pool, but he didn’t host another party or play his music loudly again. I didn’t get a wake-up call with a pie to the face, and his windows were closed tightly—no more sounds from his cello for me to hear.

  Drew fixed my air conditioning and had spent the last few days replacing the shingles on the roof. The front step was still broken, but he said he’d fix that with the rest of the porch. I’d started cleaning and painting the inside of the house one room at a time. So far, I’d finished a bedroom and a bathroom on the second floor. Things were going well. I should have been happy.

  But all I could think about was Austin and how much I still owed him the truth. I wished I hadn’t told him to go home. Instead of running away when I heard him playing the cello, I should have gone over to explain things to him. I yearned for him to talk to me, even if it was things said in hatred. At least if we were talking, I could mak
e him understand. Maybe. But now that it had been a few days, I couldn’t bring myself to confront him again.

  I hadn’t forgotten the promise I’d made to him for prank revenge, that was still going to happen. I had my pride to think of after all. And if I was honest with myself, the prank war was a connection I still had to Austin no matter how much he hated me, a connection I very much needed. But I was biding my time. Part of the fun of a prank was watching the other person anticipate the retaliation.

  Austin was making the wait downright amusing. If he was outside when I came out of the house, his gaze would immediately find me, his eyes narrowing, wondering. When he was out running, he’d approach his house carefully, inspecting his surroundings. I sometimes caught him peeking out of his windows if there was a loud sound from my house. And with all the repairs Drew was doing, that was often.

  It was clear that the anticipation of a retaliation prank was killing him, which made it a thousand times more fun for me. The kind of fun distraction I desperately needed.

  Being alone in the house, and sorting through my past left me with a lot of time to think. I reminisced about my childhood, my time with Austin, his time on Rising Stars, and all the promises we made to each other.

  Rising Stars was the reality talent show that Austin and Dallas competed in during our senior year. After they won it and were offered a residency in Vegas, the entire Stone family moved out to Vegas the following summer. I had promised to come to opening night. Austin and I had sworn that the show would never come between us, that our love for each other could withstand anything.

  But those were the promises of dreamers. And when I’d been faced with an impossible choice, I’d chosen to give him what I thought he wanted most.

  Like I’d done so many times before, I questioned my decisions, wondering if I could have done things differently. All I’d ever wanted was for Austin to be able to follow his dream and be happy. But now, he didn’t seem to be doing either of those things. I couldn’t puzzle out what he was doing back home. He didn’t seem to leave the house much, and I wondered where Dallas was and why they weren’t performing together. If the show was on a hiatus or vacation of some sort, Dallas should be here too. He and Austin were always together.