The Boyfriend (The Boss 7)

Sasha’s expression froze. “Sophie...you’re Molly’s sister. You’re Susan’s sister. Of course, we want to share that with you. I know we weren’t in your life, but we’d like to be, now.”

I sat on the sofa, smoothing my down my long-sleeved black t-shirt. “I appreciate that. I just got the impression that...”

“That Susan doesn’t want you around?” Sasha finished for me. “That I don’t want you around?”

I cleared my throat. It was suddenly very dry and sticky. “Yeah. Something like that. Like, maybe I was a kind benefactor or something?”

Sasha nodded as though there was some truth to that. “I think Susan sees you that way. But she’s trying not to.”

“Susan’s a bitch,” Molly called from the loft above us.

“Molly Lee!” Sasha barked back at her.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to start something,” I said quietly. I glanced around. “This is a beautiful house.”

It was definitely one of the nicer log homes I’d ever been in. We’d entered into a foyer, where the open-backed staircase rose to the second level. Double French doors stained the same warm golden-brown shade as the walls and ceiling stood open into the living room, and the loft overhead appeared to be a hallway to the bedrooms upstairs. A huge fieldstone fireplace crackled cheerfully in a corner, the chimney rising to heat the upstairs.

“Joey built it,” Sasha said with a fond smile. “With help from my father. He gave us the land, too. I think he just wanted to get his grandkids closer. We were living in Iron River then.”

He’d built them a house. He’d loved and cared for them and ensured their comfort and survival through his own sweat and probably blood if I’d inherited my skill with power tools from him.

And he’d never once wanted to do that for me.

I almost choked on my anger.

I didn’t know what to say, and neither of us wanted silence, so she went on. “This started out as just this half and two bedrooms upstairs, but we remodeled shortly before...”

Before he died. She didn’t have to say it for me to understand.

“How do you remodel a log cabin?” I asked with overly enthusiastic interest. “I thought once they were all put together, it’s like Lincoln Logs and like, that’s it.”

“It is, in a way.” Susan looked at the ceiling high above us. “You can really only add on. The girls were happy to get their own bedrooms. And the laundry room. My god.” She crossed herself. “That was such a blessing.”

Molly came back, her feet in giant, fuzzy slippers shaped like Sully from Monsters Inc.

“How’s the diabetes, sick twin?” she asked, dropping onto the couch beside me.

“Managed.” I still hated talking about my diagnosis. I wanted to stay in the “ignore it, and it might go away” stage of chronic illness for as long as possible. But this was Molly, who’d been through so much more. It was probably nice to hear about something boring.

“If you ever a need a kidney someday, I’ll be able to walk you through it,” she chirped. “But I hope you don’t because that was not fun.”

“How are you feeling now?” I asked, still concerned about how frail she’d felt when I’d hugged her.

“It was a lot easier to recover than I expected. Even with the setbacks.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure if I’m going to go back to school this year. I’m kind of afraid of all the germs.”

“I told her we could homeschool if she thought it was necessary. But I really would like to get her back to socializing normally. The past few years have been challenging.” Sasha’s voice took on a melancholy note. Maybe she was like my mom, always blaming herself for circumstances that were out of her control.

A stab of guilt surprised me. Thinking of my mom here, in the home Joey Tangen had built with the woman and children he hadn’t abandoned, felt like a betrayal. Even though he and my mom hadn’t been in love—they hadn’t even been dating—his actions had negatively affected her life. The fierce loyalty I felt toward her—and the intense hatred I felt for him—somehow tricked my brain into believing I was in deeply dangerous enemy territory.

If it hadn’t been for Molly, and her excitement to see me, I would have jumped up and run out and never looked back. But I was willing, for her sake, to endure whatever I had to in order to stay in her life.

“I’m not really much for school dances, Mom. But I do miss drama club,” she complained, then immediately brightened up. “Thank you for the iTunes cards, though! I got the Spongebob musical and the Mean Girls musical, The Great Comet...have you seen any of those?”

I grimaced in apology. “Yeah, you’re going to hate me once you know this since I live in New York, but I don’t really go to the theater at all. I go to Fashion Week, but not like...Hamilton.”