Shelby
“Are you really doing okay, Shelby?” my cousin, Kaleb, asked with a frown. “I know you always tell us that you’re doing fine, but you’ve been there in San Diego for over a year now, and I’m still not completely buying it. I don’t think any of us are.”
I looked back at the beloved faces of my three male cousins and my Aunt Millie on my computer screen.
Am I really fine?
Maybe…not completely.
Things were definitely getting easier here in California, but I couldn’t say that the events in my history still didn’t haunt me.
There were parts of me that were still a little broken and might stay that way for the foreseeable future, but I was surviving better than I was a year ago.
That was something, right?
I tried hard not to worry my family with my bullshit.
I was thirty-five years old, and my cousins and my aunt had been there for enough of my past drama.
I was also normally an optimist, which had gotten me in trouble at times, and I really wanted to believe that I could stop thinking about my former life sometime soon.
I looked at Kaleb’s image and nodded slowly, trying to convey to him that I was okay.
While I was close to everyone on my computer screen, I’d developed a special bond with Kaleb over the last several years. He could read me a little better than his brothers and Aunt Millie because I’d opened up to him more than I had with the rest of my family.
The five of us had been meeting via video conference every Saturday afternoon when we could all get free for a little over a year now, ever since I’d relocated from Montana to San Diego.
I wasn’t sure whether it helped my loneliness or if it made it worse to see the people I loved on a computer screen. There were still times when I felt guilty every time I saw them because my mistakes had hurt them, too, but they had never judged me. It was more likely that I was the one who couldn’t get over it.
They all wanted me to be okay after everything that had happened in Montana, so I tried to tell them what they needed to hear.
My three cousins, Kaleb, Tanner, and Devon, were busy billionaires who ran a diversified multinational holding company.
The three of them were like older brothers to me.
Their mother, my Aunt Millie, was like a parent to me, too. She was now comfortably retired.
None of them needed to hear about how lonely and lost I’d been since I’d moved to San Diego.
Besides, things had gotten better for me recently. I was making new friends, and my head was on straighter now than it had been a year ago.
I took in the four concerned faces on my laptop screen and plastered what I hoped was an upbeat smile on my face. “I’m good,” I insisted. “My food blog is still growing, and I do as many events here as possible. It’s nice to be able to work for myself.”
“We aren’t just talking about your businesses,” Tanner scoffed. “We want to know if you’re really happy there in San Diego now.”
Happy?
I wasn’t entirely certain I even remembered what real happiness felt like anymore, but I was more…content.
Realizing they were more interested in my personal life than my career, I said, “I’m going to a barbecue at Tori Montgomery’s house later. I have some friends here now. Things are getting better. I promise.”
That much was true.
Becoming friends with Tori Montgomery was probably the best thing that happened to me in San Diego.
After a year of being alone in a city that wasn’t familiar to me with no real friends, I was grateful that I’d finally met someone as genuine as Tori.
“You met her at Chase’s wedding, right?” Devon questioned.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
I owed Kaleb for that profitable catering job he’d gotten me by recommending my services to a friend here in San Diego a few months ago. Not only had it helped my dwindling bank account, but it had introduced me to several female friends I now valued.
Being the caterer and chef for the wedding of a powerful billionaire here in California had been extremely good for business. I’d been offered several other profitable gigs I probably wouldn’t have gotten without that event on my resumé.
“So you finally met Wyatt in person,” Kaleb mused. “Did you figure out that he isn’t really an asshole?”
I had to force the smile to stay fixed in position after that question.
My aunt’s face suddenly lit up as she questioned, “Did you like him, Shelby? He’s such a nice boy.”
I tried not to visibly cringe as I thought about Tori’s oldest brother, Wyatt.
Shit! That’s the last person I want to talk about right now.
And only my Aunt Millie would refer to a man like Wyatt Durand as a nice boy.
My brief encounter with Wyatt at his younger brother Chase’s wedding hadn’t exactly gone well, and it had done nothing to convince me that I was wrong in my previous assumptions about the guy.
Wyatt Durand was an arrogant jerk, but that wasn’t something I was going to tell my cousins or my aunt.
They all thought the man walked on water.
Wyatt and Kaleb had been friends since college, and the two of them were still tight even though they lived in different states.
“I didn’t exactly mingle. I wasn’t a guest,” I said jokingly. “I was the hired help at that wedding. I didn’t really talk much to the groom or his older brother.”
That wasn’t exactly a lie. The groom, Chase Montgomery, had been the man who hired me and worked out the basic menu, but the women had gotten involved in most of the details. I’d talked to them more often than I’d spoken to Chase. And my one and only discussion with his older brother hadn’t lasted for more than a few minutes.
“You got friendly with Tori, Savannah, and the rest of the Montgomery women,” Kaleb pointed out.
“They were really nice,” I said honestly. “Everyone pitched in to help pull that wedding off quickly, and I talked with all of them fairly often. We all had the chance to get to know each other a little before the wedding.”
Wyatt hadn’t helped with the wedding planning. He’d simply loaned out his extravagant waterfront mansion in Del Mar for his brother’s reception.
Yes, I’d had a private encounter with Wyatt after all the guests at the reception had left, but it was nothing I wanted to discuss with my family.
He was just as arrogant and snobby as I’d imagined he was a year ago, when he’d refused to meet me on a blind date that Kaleb had tried to set up.