Waking up in your childhood bedroom after having been away for so long was surreal. The feeling happened every year Kimbra came back to Brittlesburg. She'd open her eyes, and lay in bed for several minutes. Try to process that she was here, actually here.
She sat up and wrapped the blanket more snugly around her shoulders.
Old posters of boy bands covered a wall. Framed photos of friends and family covered another. The room hadn't changed much since she left for college. She told herself to take it all down and update it, but she couldn't. Letting go of the past didn't come easy. Maybe it's because she didn't like change. Didn't adapt to it well.
You do need to get rid of those posters. You aren't seventeen anymore.
Kimbra groggily wiped her eyes as she slowly made her way down the staircase. The sound of talking echoed from the large dining room. At the table, sat Bud and her father. Loren flipped through an album of some kind, pointing out certain areas of the page, and then they'd laugh together.
Her lips curled in a flicker of a grin. But it quickly disappeared once she had realized what her father was showing Bud.
Kimbra quickly shuffled into the dining room, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair a mess. "What are you doing?"
Loren flipped a page. "Showing Bud your baby photos."
"Dad," she threw her head back and groaned. "Stop, that's embarrassing."
Teasing one another was often the source of amusement in the Wulfe family. Their favorite pastime (other than playing in the snow).
"Kimbra, there is nothing embarrassing about being the world's cutest baby." Loren smiled, knowing how irritated it made his only daughter.
Bud pointed at one of the photos and let out a small chuckle. "She looks like a little puffball here."
She folded her arms over her chest. "Bud."
Loren made it even worse. "As a toddler, Kimbra was always adamant about not wearing clothes. Here she took them off and ran off to play in a mudhole." He pointed at a photo of a little naked Kimbra, sitting in a mudhole.
"Okay, that's enough," Kimbra reached for the large photo album. "No more."
Her father shut the album, and held it out of her reach. "Fine, I'll stop and put it away since you're so ashamed."
"Thank you."
"I'll show him your high school photos instead."
"Dad. Don't you dare. Don't even go there." Kimbra said, as quick as she could.
He laughed. "Alright, I won't. I was only kidding, sweetheart."
Bud leaned over, quietly speaking to the older canine. "You will show me those later, right?"
"Absolutely." Loren nodded.
But Kimbra didn't hear either of them. She was too preoccupied in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee into a blue mug. She's always preferred her father's to the ones in St. Canard. It was more familiar. More comforting.
The backdoor of the cabin opened and shut, and in walked Grandma Carter. She almost passed through the kitchen without seeing her granddaughter. Not that Kimbra would have minded.
"Morning grandma," Kimbra called out as she set the coffee pot back down.
"Mornin' Kimbra." Grandma Carter stopped in the middle of the room, placed her hands on her hips, and sighed. "Who took my reading glasses!? I've been looking for them all morning! I even went by that sorry brother of yours place, and he swore he hadn't taken them."
"Michelle, no one did." Loren said, standing up from the dining table to put the album back up on a nearby bookshelf.
A brave man to have spoken up instead of retreating to his study. Kimbra almost admired him at that moment.
Grandma Carter looked over at him. "Well, I can't find them."
"They're on your head," he didn't even turn around. As if this were a constant occurrence in the Wulfe. Which it probably was.
The old woman threw her hand up on her head, and felt the glasses. She pulled them off with a surprise. " Oh, thank you, Loren."
"Uh huh." Loren moved to the living room, most likely to avoid speaking to his mother-in-law any further.
She then noticed Bud, who still sat at the table. "Ah, I see Kimbra's man friend is still here."
Man friend? Really?
Kimbra frowned. "Don't call him my man friend."
"What do I call him?"
"His name? Bud?"
"He looks more like a Robert."
Bud sat back in the chair, and said aloud to no one in particular. "Why does everyone say that?"
Grandma continued on. "Or a Bernard."
"That's his middle name."
"Oh, I'll call him that then. Bud is such a silly name for a grown man."
"That's fine by me." Kimbra snickered as she sat at the dining table, cup of coffee still in hand.
Grandma Carter had left just as fast as she dropped by. Not that anyone was complaining. They could only endure so much of the old woman. Perhaps she went off to torture another poor soul.
Or play bingo at the senior center. She swears she doesn't cheat, but the Carter family is known for their lack of honesty when it came to games.
"Kimbra, you cannot let her call me Bernard." Bud ground out between clenched teeth. He despised his middle name.
She raised her hands innocently. "It's out of my hands, sorry."
"No, no, I can't have her calling me that. Please."
Kimbra felt her lips draw into a vague smirk. "I'll see what I can do."
Not.
"Thank you."
The front door opened and closed. Bud stiffened in the chair, in fear that Grandma Carter had come back. But no, it was worse. Much, much worse.
Adam walked in. Snow clung to his hair and coat. He shook it off as he stepped into the dining room. Like a wet dog who had gotten stuck in a downpour.
"Dude, knock it off!" Kimbra flinched as she tried to shield her coffee from the flying specks of snow. "You're making a mess and getting me wet!"
He stopped. "That's the point."
"Adam, stop tracking snow on the floor. I just cleaned yesterday. I don't need you wrecking the place." Loren called out from the living room.
Kimbra leaned over, seeing he was engrossed in a newspaper. It covered most of his face, so she couldn't tell if he was actually mad, or just annoyed.
"Sorry dad!" After shouting out a reply, Adam's attention turned to Bud. "Let's head out, city boy."
A look of surprise flashed across Kimbra's face. "Head out where?" A quick glance between the two.
"He wants to show me the ski resort." Bud said. As if he were uncertain it was a good idea. Which it wasn't.
"Is that really a good idea?"
"It's a great idea," Adam answered for him. "I have the best ski resort in the whole country!"
Kimbra's brow raised with doubt. "Oh really?"
"Yes, really."
"All you do is brag about it." She sipped her coffee. "Can't be much of anything if you have to try and convince people it's something."
"It's rated five stars!"
"You probably bought those reviews."
"You know I'm not smart enough to do that." He gestured with a hand to the hound beside her. "C'mon Bud, daylight is burning, we don't have all day."
But Kimbra interrupted. "He might want to see the skating rink first."
"No one wants to see the dumb skating rink."
"Well, no one wants to see your dumb ski resort."
"It's not dumb, it's rated five stars. Sexiest ski resort in the whole state."
"Did you just call your resort, sexy?"
"It is."
"God, you're messed up in the head."
"You're just jealous."
"I'm jealous that you get to play in the snow all day."
"I have to run a ski resort! I don't just play in the snow all day." Adam huffed before speaking to Bud. "Meet me outside. I'll be waiting for you with the others."
" Others ?" Bud tried not to let his anxiety show in front of the other man.
"Al, Aspen, Ace, and Jax."
"Listen," Kimbra grabbed Bud's arm as he stood up, standing with him. "You don't have to go if you don't want to."
"I want to."
I don't. I really don't. But I'm trying to make a good impression on her family.
"I mean, if you do, then I won't stop you." Her hands moved upwards to cup his face. "Just be careful."
"I will."
"Don't let them bully you, either." She pressed a kiss against his mouth.
"I highly doubt I could defend myself from them."
"I'll beat them up if they lay a finger on you."
Bud chuckled, placing a hand over hers. "Okay."
She kissed him again, a little longer this time.
Adam threw his head back and groaned out loud. "Dad! Kimbra is being gross!"
A loud sigh from the living room. "Adam, if she buries you face first in the snow, I don't want to hear about it."
"I'll just bury her back."
"No fighting, behave. You're supposed to love each other. You're siblings."
"Why would I love that thing?" Adam's face contorted into one of disgust.
"That thing is your little sister."
"Yeah, I'm your little sister. You're supposed to love me." Mused the blue-eyed scientist with a smirk.
"Doesn't mean I have to." Adam then grabbed the collar of Bud's shirt, dragging the man to the door. "Come on lover boy."
"Don't rough house Bud, alright?" The author said from the other room, flipping a page of his newspaper. "He's not as sturdy as you boys."
"Aw, pop, you think we'd ever do that?" Adam leaned over to look into the living room with a dorky smile.
Loren raised an eyebrow, slightly lowering the newspaper in his hands.
"Never mind," he kept a firm grasp on Bud. "See you all later."
With the slam of the front door, Bud and Adam left. More like Adam dragged Bud out of there, against his will. Poor guy doesn't stand a chance.
"Do you think Bud will be okay?" Kimbra frowned, not completely believing her older brother. As if she ever did in the first place.
"They'll rough him up a bit, probably."
" Dad ."
"It's to see if he's good enough for you."
"They didn't do this with Derek!"
Loren laughed lightly, turning a page of the newspaper without looking up. "Honey, Derek grew up here. They knew and liked him. You have to understand, we know nothing about Bud. They're trying to get to know him in their own weird way."
"I guess you're right." She plopped down on the couch across the room. "You sure you don't want to go to the resort and goof off?"
Loren didn't say anything; he didn't like the idea.
"I'll take that as a no."
"Honey, I'm getting old. I can't play around like you and your brothers anymore." He folded the newspaper up, dropping it on the floor. "And they would end up killing me."
"And they won't kill Bud?"
"He's much younger than me, he'll be fine." He tried to wave off her worry, even if he knew the water bottle salesman wasn't currently in the best hands.
The phone on the end table beside Loren rang. He leaned over, his expression dropping once he read the caller ID. Picking up the phone, he stood from his chair. "Sorry sweetheart, I gotta take this call."
Kimbra gave him a nod, and watched as he walked off with the phone in hand. Loren answered it with a quick 'hello' as he stepped into the dining room. She then heard him give a frustrated breath of annoyance.
"Jimmy, I'm not agreeing to a Nightingale movie. I told you this last week, and the week before. And the week before that."
They were talking about the Nightingale series. The mystery novel series that Loren (better known under his pen name, L.R. Wulfe) created for his wife. Kimbra didn't think people cared about the series any more (besides die hard fans).
"Because it's fucking dumb."
A pause. Then Loren's tone sharpened.
"I told you, I don't want to do a damn movie!"
Another pause.
"They don't know how the story ends. They'll just give us some bullshit ending that makes no sense, like they'd want to make Markus turn out to be Ghost, and that's just plain idiotic."
It is pretty idiotic. Especially if you knew how the story actually ends.
Pause. Longer this time.
"I'm not publishing Everafter either!"
Everafter?
Everafter, the final installment of the Nightingale series. Where the identity of the serial killer (Ghost) who murdered detective Markus Nightingale's wife, Lorelei, would be revealed. Loren never published it due to Lucille's death. He didn't see a point in it if the person it was written for would never hear it. Kimbra had read it, with her father's permission. She liked the ending to it. It came as a shock and was probably one of the best twists in novel history.
And now someone was trying to get their greedy hands on it. Pressure her father into publishing it. If they could even manage that. He'd never give in. Nightingale meant far too much to him.
"I don't give a damn what they think. I don't want to publish Everafter and I don't want a movie made. Leave me out of this and stop calling me."
His voice grew more distant. Kimbra stood up from her seat, and quietly stepped into the dining room. Loren had moved to the kitchen, in front of the counter. His hand still held the phone against his ear. A firm frown on his mouth had formed.
You shouldn't be eavesdropping on your father. It's rude. Inconsiderate.
But Kimbra stayed because she worried about him.
"Wow, that's real nice, Jimmy. You're a class act. Insults aren't gonna get you anywhere." The frown deepened as he shifted the phone to his other ear. "I'm not approving the movie. I'm not publishing Everafter. That's the end of it."
His eyes glanced over to Kimbra's, finally noticing her. And he quickly ended the call. "I'm hanging up now, Jimmy. Bye."
A thick silence floated in the air.
Kimbra spoke first, unsure of what to say. Unsure of what to do. "Everything okay?"
"Those morons over at Sterling Publishing are getting on my last damn nerve." He said, pinching the bridge of his nose with the hand that wasn't holding the phone. "They want to make a Nightingale movie." He let out with a frustrated sigh. "Or publish Everafter. They say I have to make a choice."
They were? For how long? When was he planning to tell her? He always told her everything— well…he used to, anyway.
"Don't let them bully you into giving in."
"I'm not," he dropped the phone onto the kitchen counter. "I'll just have my phone shut off if I have to."
A slight tilt of her head, Kimbra cracked a joke. "Then, how will you talk to your favorite child?" Only to lighten the tension.
Well, it's mostly a joke. Everyone knew she was Loren's favorite.
He cracked a smile. "She could move back here like she had promised me."
"It's…complicated."
Too complicated.
"I know, I know," he held his hands up. "You have this big-city job now and a fancy new boyfriend."
Bud isn't fancy.
"I wanted to move back after we finished C.O.R.E…but…"
"But?"
"Bud happened, and I don't really mind living in St. Canard as much anymore."
The sleazy salesman made St. Canard more bearable. Actually, livable.
"Maybe he'll help you with other things." Loren said, leaving the words 'possibly talk you into getting tested' hanging in the air.
Kimbra opened her mouth, as though she would say something, but she suddenly stopped. Not wanting to spark a discussion about something she was trying to avoid.
Usually, at this point, Loren would have brought up Huntington's. He'd ask her when she planned on getting tested. She'd try to avoid the conversation. Change it to something else. He'd always turn it back around, and press on the matter further. Eventually, Kimbra would admit she never wants to get tested. Painful memories of the past would reappear, and they'd both be upset.
Today, however, was a good day, so neither of them would talk about it.
Kimbra knew her father meant well. Really, he did. He knew more than anyone what Huntington's did to a person. He knew the pain of losing someone he loved to it. He meant well and only wanted the best for his children. For Lucille's children. The author didn't want his daughter living in fear. It was unfair. Especially if there was a fifty-fifty chance that she didn't even have the gene.
Yet, there's also a fifty-fifty chance she does.
It can go either way.
Kimbra tried not to think about it anymore.