I left the kitchen and went up to my room. Kate's scent lingered in the air, so with a curse, I left and headed down to one of the guest rooms. I dragged a chair by the window and sat staring out of it, though not seeing anything.
A few moments later, there was a knock on my door. "I'm not in the mood."
"I've got a bottle of scotch." Max's voice came through the door. There wasn't enough scotch in the world to drown out my pain, but that didn't mean I wouldn’t try.
"Door’s open."
He came in and handed me the bottle. In his other hand, he had a glass. "I wasn't sure you would want to use this, but I brought it."
He was right about not needing the glass. I pulled the lid off the bottle and took a long swig, savoring the burn as it went down my gullet.
"Are you sure you don't want to talk?"
"Nope."
"I'll leave you to it, then."
I was feeling a pretty good buzz when my mom knocked on the door.
She opened the door. "Sandra offered to leave, but I told her to stay. I hope that's okay."
I shrugged. "This isn’t her fault, at least not this time."
"Dinner is ready."
"I think I'll just stay here. I'm not in the mood to talk, and I don’t want to ruin dinner for the rest of you."
She walked over and looked down on me. "It's Thanksgiving, Sam."
I shook my head. "I don't feel very thankful, Mom."
I was right about the scotch. I woke up the next morning with a dry mouth and a headache, along with the excruciating pain and raging anger from the day before. But I decided I wasn't going to wallow in my misery anymore. It was time to get back to doing what I did best, and that was building clubs with my brother.
After showering and dressing, I went downstairs for coffee. When I entered the dining room, everyone, including Sandra and Chelsea, was at the breakfast table, looking up at me with eager eyes.
"We missed you at Thanksgiving, Sam," Chelsea said around a mouthful of pancake.
I went over and gave her a kiss on the head. "I'm sorry about that, kiddo. I wasn't feeling very well."
"Are you done being sick?"
No. I figured I'd have this sickness forever, but Chelsea wouldn't understand that. At least not until she was older.
"I'm feeling better today. Thank you." I poured myself a cup of coffee and snagged a pancake. Around the table, people were glancing back and forth at each other as if they expected me to act differently. "Max, I have a flight scheduled back to California this afternoon. Why don't you join me, and we can get started on all the club details today?"
He looked at our parents as if he thought they might have input on my plan. My parents shrugged, clearly, not sure what to do for me.
"Yeah, okay."
I scarfed down my pancake, took my plate into the kitchen, and then carried my coffee upstairs to pack.
Max came into my room a few minutes later. "What if I went back and started working on things, and you stayed here for a little while?"
I looked at him, arching my brow. "Pulling the twin switch isn't going to change anything."
"I wasn't talking about switching. Well, maybe I was, but not me being you and you being me. I was thinking I could take over the Los Angeles project and you could do the Las Vegas one."
I knew what he was doing, and a part of me appreciated it. But I needed to immerse myself in work, and there was no way I would let Kate run me out of town.