Kaelin’s eyes teared up again and she swiped at them. “I don’t know if I can figure him out. I don’t know if I want to figure him out. Oh god, I don’t know what I want.” She stood too. “I’m sorry, Ave. This is your wedding weekend and everything got so messed up.”

“Not because of you. My family had all this shit we needed to get out in the open. Who knows, maybe things will be better after this.”

“Things won’t be better if they don’t look at Tyler and see who he really is.”

“Who is he, really?” Avery’s voice was gentle.

“He’s strong and smart and charming and energetic. He’d do anything for people he loves. He’s determined.” Avery’s eyes grew warm as she watched Kaelin and listened to her. “He put himself through college after your parents threw him out.”

“You know, he never came right out and told me that, but I knew things were tough for him financially. Shit.”

“And look where he is now.”

Avery nodded, and smiled knowingly. “Yeah.”

“Anyway. If your parents value their reputation and image more than they value him, well, it’s their loss. But I don’t think you can expect him to start coming to a lot of family reunions.”

Avery nodded, her mouth turning down at the corners. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“I’m going home now,” Kaelin said.

“Thank you again for all you did.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “My mom would have had things so over the top. I couldn’t handle getting sucked into that old pattern, of her taking over and telling me what to do. I wanted it to be my wedding, and I was afraid I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to her.”

Kaelin bent her head. And Avery thought she was? “Oh, Avery. Of course you are.”

Avery shook her head. “I know it was a lot of work to deal with her, but she loves you.”

Kaelin snorted. “Probably not anymore.” They hugged tightly.

The long drive back to Chicago was mostly silent. Nick flipped through copies of trade magazines as Tyler drove. His jaw ached, his neck and shoulders so tight every movement was painful.

He thought. A lot. About all kinds of things. About his parents. About the glum realization of how much he’d contributed to the discord between them. How stubborn and stupid he’d been.

He thought about Avery and her confession, a sad admiration filling him at her courage. Of course, years later, there wasn’t much that was going to happen. His parents would still love her. Nobody was going to throw her in jail over that now. But she’d done it for him and she hadn’t had to, and that filled him with a funny warm glow.

But mostly he thought about Kaelin and how crazy brave she’d been to walk in there and spill her guts. God. And he thought about the hurt look on her face when he’d yelled at her, and especially when he told her he’d deliberately set up that scene so she’d see it. She’d looked ready to fall on the floor.

Shit.

“Gotta stop for gas,” he said to Nick. Nick just grunted.

He pulled off the interstate when he saw the sign for a service station, stood there filling the Jeep as sunshine warmed his face and the June breeze ran soft fingers through his hair. Nick got out and used the bathroom and he did too after he paid for the gas, then they climbed back in and resumed their drive home without saying more than a few words.

And he had to think about Nick too. Nick sitting there beside him, quiet, unreadable. Was he pissed at him? Disappointed in him? Feeling sorry for him? He thought about Nick’s comment earlier, about how insulting it was to him that Tyler thought Kaelin was too good for him–but Nick wasn’t. The guy drove him crazy, had pushed him into doing that, and look what a mess it had turned out to be. Yet he couldn’t blame him and he knew Nick was right. He had to get this chip off his shoulder and move on.

He’d actually thought he had, over the years, that it had just faded away, until he’d gone home and all those old emotions had resurrected it, a big hulking chip monster sitting on his shoulder, making him say and do things he knew were so fucked up.

Nick was right. It was time to grow up. He’d tried to tell his parents. It hadn’t worked. Oh well. At least he’d done it. He’d come clean with everyone. He’d hurt Kaelin, but once again, that was for the best. Sleeping with her hadn’t been the smartest thing he’d ever done. But it had been the hottest. And the most incredibly emotional and moving and…forget it.

Maybe after his parents thought about it, they’d realize he was telling the truth. Or maybe not. But at least he’d done it, and whatever the outcome was, he’d deal with it. Having the respect and love of his parents would be nice, but he could live without it and at least he now had the satisfaction and self-respect of knowing he’d made an effort and tried to set things right.

The only thing that worried him was what the fallout was going to be from Kaelin’s impetuous confession. If word got out about her, she was going to find life in Mapleglen difficult. He gnawed on the inside of his cheek as he drove and thought about that. About what he could do about that.

Not much.

Dammit. Why the fuck had she done that? Pressure built inside him again, thinking about it, wishing she was there so he could turn her over his knee and spank her cute little ass. Gah.

Once they were home and in their apartment, Nick opened the refrigerator and stared into it. “Got nothing to eat,” he said.

“Order pizza,” Tyler said, heading into his bedroom to change. He tossed jeans and T-shirt into the hamper and found a pair of baggy shorts and a clean shirt. When he returned to the living room, Nick had changed too, into similar clothes.

“Pizza’ll be here in forty minutes,” he said. He threw himself onto the couch. “You ready to talk yet? I thought your head was gonna explode on the way home, you were thinking so hard.”

Tyler smiled reluctantly and sat beside Nick. “I don’t want to talk.”

“I know.”

Tyler eyed his buddy. “I did what you wanted me to.”

“Yeah.” Nick nodded. “You faced your parents, told them the truth.”

“I don’t think they believed me.”

Nick held his gaze. “You can’t control that. But at least you manned up and did your part.”

“Yeah.”

After a pause, Nick said, “What about Kaelin?”

“What about her?”

“You were pretty hard on her.”

“I was pissed at her! Why’d she do that, the stupid little idiot!”

“She’s not stupid. And you know why she did it.”

Tyler blew out a breath. “Yeah, I know, and like I said, she’s a stupid idiot to even think of doing something like that for me.”

Nick sighed.

Kaelin sat on the small deck off the back of her house on Monday, the house she’d grown up in, the house her parents had left her after they’d both died. She could have sold it, bought herself something that was her own, and in fact she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t. It was an older house and there were always things that needed fixing that she didn’t know how to do. Money had been tight with her dad not working and she’d had to do a lot of fixing up over the last few years.

Yeah, there were happy memories there, but there were some tough ones, too, the despair and frustration of realizing her dad was never going to be the same, the embarrassment of him acting like a child sometimes, so difficult to handle for a teenager who didn’t like to attract attention to herself. Eventually she’d come to terms with it, realized she still loved her dad because he was her dad, even though he was really a different person, and no longer felt embarrassed but just accepted him for who he was.

She’d have the memories of her happy childhood no matter where she lived, so that wasn’t the reason she didn’t sell the house and move. She knew it was just because she was safe and secure there, with a roof over her head that was paid for, and that selling the house and finding a new place was scary.