Chapter Thirty-Two
FOUR AND A HALF YEARS LATER
“I’m going to tear his head off,” Nate decided. “That’s the right thing to do.”
Kris rolled her eyes, a mixture of amusement and exasperation stamped on her face. “I don’t think your sister would appreciate you murdering her boyfriend on her graduation day.”
“Sisters never appreciate the things their brothers do for them. It’s a law of siblinghood.”
Nate glowered at Teague, who was chatting with Michael like he had every right to be there.
The fucker was four years older than Skylar and annoying as ever with his blond hair and Ralph Lauren polo. Nate had thought the blond was all right after he helped with the Gloria thing all those years ago, but that was before Teague started dating Skylar.
Nate didn’t care that Skylar was twenty-two years old and, as of today, a Stanford grad with a biology degree. She was his baby sister, and it was his job to protect her from privileged little shits.
He was still suspicious of how Skylar and Teague allegedly ran into each other “by accident” at The Grove when she came home for winter break a couple of months ago.
Judging by how quickly they jumped into a full-blown relationship, he was convinced they’d been talking before then.
“Stop. Breathe. Calm down,” Kris ordered. “Your sister’s coming.”
Sure enough, Skylar appeared in the crush of laughing, crying graduates and proud parents, her golden hair streaming behind her and her rolled-up diploma clutched in one hand. She wore the standard black graduation robes and cap, a red stole with the university seal, and a huge grin.
Some of the tension eased from Nate’s shoulders. It was hard to be upset when she looked so happy.
“You made it!” She tackled Nate first, as bubbly as ever.
He laughed, squeezing her so hard he lifted her off the ground. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
He was so damn proud of her. Keeping up with her classes, internships, and soccer at a school like Stanford was tough as hell, and it wasn’t like he—a college dropout—could coach her through it. But Skylar had handled it all with poise, aside from the occasional lapse in judgment—like that time she’d inhaled two pot brownies at a frat party and called Nate at two in the morning, rambling about Aristotle and Taco Bell.
Kris had helped too, guiding Skylar through the pitfalls of college and early adulthood not because Skylar had been her mentee but because the two had developed a true sisterly bond. Sometimes, it wastoosisterly—if Nate had a dime for every time they’d ganged up on him, he wouldn’t need to work another day in his life.
Skylar greeted their father next, followed by Kris.
Nate was gratified to see Teague was last in the receiving line, though the gratification morphed into disgruntlement when the little shit kissed Skylar on the lips.
“Come on.” There was laughter in Kris’s voice when she spotted the scowl on his face. “Let’s take some pictures.”
Nate grunted his agreement. His fist could meet Teague’s face later.
They shuffled around until Skylar had posed with everyone in their group in various groupings.
“Family pic last.” Kris held up her phone and gestured for Nate to join Michael and Skylar beneath an oak tree.
Once the photoshoot was over, they huddled around her and scrolled through the pictures, laughing at the ones where Skylar pulled a funny face or Nate made bunny ears above her head.
“Very mature,” Skylar said, playfully punching his arm. “I thought you outgrew that prank in middle school.”
“Old habits die hard,” he quipped, but he fell silent when the last photo came up.
It was a normal photo—just him, his sister, and his father standing together, beaming at the camera.
But it was its ordinariness that made it special. The Reynoldses looked like your average, functional American family—and, miracle of miracles, the appearance matched reality. Michael was strong and healthy, going on five years sober. He thrived as a construction site manager and lived in their old house in North Hollywood, which Nate had bought outright after the check from his first film cleared. He’d offered to upgrade his old man’s digs, but Michael refused, saying he didn’t need a big old house when he lived by himself. He spent his weekends fishing and watching sports with friends or working on home improvement projects. He said it kept him busy, though Nate heard through the grapevine—aka Skylar—that Michael had started dating again. She claimed she’d seen their father on an online dating site over the holidays, and that she’d overhead his whispered conversations with a woman named Diana.
Clearly, Michael wasn’t comfortable telling his children he was dating again, and Nate wasn’t going to push him. He and Skylar were on the same page when it came to their father’s love life—no details needed, thank you, but Michael deserved to find happiness again. No one could ever replace their mom, but Joanna Reynolds had died almost a decade ago, and she would’ve wanted them to move on.
Skylar, meanwhile, was enjoying life as much as a twenty-two-year could. She’d graduated magna cum laude, and she was leaving for Thailand in a few weeks for a gap year in Southeast Asia before putting her biology degree to good use as an environmental scientist. Teague was joining her for the first half of her trip, which ground Nate’s gears, but he’d long given up on trying to tell Skylar what to do. For all her smiles and bubbliness, she could be stubborn as a mule.