Episode 38: Tart Truths
“Mom and Dad knew him before me,” Sugar admitted. “He owns that restaurant they love going to at the Docks. The one we kept telling them to stay away from.”
Sully’s nostrils flared. “So, Dad knows about y’all two?”
“I said Dad knew him, but I don’t think he knows about us.”
“It’s good to know that I wasn’t the only one worthy enough to be kept in the loop,” Sully scoffed, lifting up three fingers. “So, the final total is me, Dad, and Kat.”
Sugar winced at the mention of Katrina’s name, and he caught it immediately.
“Kat knows too? So, not only have all y’all been keeping secrets from me! You got my wife keeping secrets from me, too?” he growled angrily. “That’s just icing on the damn cake.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, exhaling deeply. “I asked her not to tell you.”
“Why?” he snapped. “Why didn’t I deserve to know?”
“Because I knew you would act like this, Sully! I knew you would overreact if you found out about him.”
“This isn’t overreacting. This is me reacting to the fact that some dude I don’t know was balls deep in my sister, and I had the misfortune of listening to a few seconds of it,” he said, slamming his fist down on the desk.
The suddenness of it made her jump.
“This is me reacting to the fact that everyone in this goddamn family knows about this dude except me. You trusted my own wife over me. You trusted everyone except your own fucking twin, Shug,” he voiced. “Do you understand that? Do you?”
Sugar nodded her head but said nothing.
“I am your twin. The one person who has been by your side since day one. I’ve done everything for you. I still would do anything for you, and this is how you do me, Shug? This is how you do your twin brother who picked you up when you were down? Patched you up when you were hurt? Helped you fight your battles?” he growled.
Hot tears swelled in her eyes, burning and stinging. Her bottom lip quivered at her twin brother’s questions, but again, she said nothing.
He jabbed a finger at her. “But you don’t have the guts to tell me about some dude you’re having a no-strings relationship with?”
“I was scared.” Her voice cracked.
“Of me?”
“Of what you would think of me,” Sugar answered, trying to dab her tears away. “You’re the one person in my life I’m terrified of disappointing, Sully. Everyone told me I needed a casual relationship and to let loose, but I knew you would think the opposite. I knew you wouldn’t approve of me sleeping with some stranger.”
Sully closed his eyes, sighing as he ran his hand over the dome of his head. “I wasn’t going to approve, not because it was a stranger, Shug. I wasn’t going to approve because casual relationships aren’t your thing. You love too hard. I don’t want you to get your heart broken again.”
“It won’t,” Sugar said. “He’s the one that wants a relationship, but I’m not ready yet. I’m starting to think that he’s the one who might walk away with his heart broken.”
“If you know that, then why are you with him?”
“He’s teaching me a lot of things.”
Sully groaned aloud in disgust. “I didn’t need to know that.”
“No, no, no. It’s not like that, Sully. I mean, he’s teaching me to have fun and to stop thinking so much. He’s teaching me to indulge and to be a little selfish sometimes,” she corrected.
Her twin brother pursed his lips and gazed at her carefully, his unsaid thoughts swirling in his eyes. “He sounds like an alright guy, and now that I think about it, if something was off about him, then all y’all wouldn’t have kept him a secret,” Sully said as he finally decided to open the bakery box and retrieve a cupcake. “I’m inviting him to the annual Hartwell four-day weekend get-together.”
Every year in June, the Hartwell siblings made it a tradition to drive two hours south to a beach house and party throughout the weekend.
“What?” Sugar blinked.
“You heard what I said, and I expect him to be there too,” Sully said before he took a bite of his cupcake. “I want to meet him face-to-face. Will that be a problem?”
“I don’t think he’d be into that kind of thing, Sully. Plus, he has a business,” she tried to reason.
“All I hear are excuses,” he said. “Ask him first and see what he says.”
“Fine, I’ll ask him as long as you agree to put this behind us,” she proposed.
He took two more bites of his cupcake. “I’ll put this behind us when I meet this guy face-to-face. Damn, these are good.”
Sugar nodded in agreement. “Fine then.”
“And be sure to tell him about the no-sex rule on this trip. The walls are too thin at that damn beach house, and I’ve heard enough from you two this morning to last me a lifetime. I will probably get an ear infection.”
She rolled her eyes sharply. “Shut up, Sully.”
“Speaking of infection,” Sully said, ignoring her previous statement. “This guy is clean, right? He showed you some papers?”
Sugar stared at her brother, utterly mortified. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Did you make sure this dude has a clean bill of health?”
“He’s clean,” Sugar assured, though she had yet to see ‘papers’ to be sure. It was a little too late to ask after the night and morning they’d just had, but she definitely would ask him later to be sure.
“Did he wrap it before you let him tap it?”
Sugar started to pinch her nose but hesitated.
Oh, shit!
Her taking too long to answer gave Sully the answer he needed. “What the fuck, Shug? Have you lost your damn mind?”
“We were in the heat of the moment.”
How fucking stupid was she?
“You trying to get pregnant?”
Sugar frowned. “Sully, you know I can’t get pregnant.”
“You couldn’t get pregnant with Lance,” Sully said. “Something was probably wrong with his junk.”
“And yet he and Mariah had a perfectly healthy baby boy,” Sugar reminded him.
Sully gave her a be-for-real look. “Are you absolutely positive that ‘perfectly healthy baby boy’ is his?”
In return, she shot him a probably-not look.
“Uh-huh, be honest!” He pointed a finger at her. “You don’t think the baby’s his.”
“There’s a fifty percent chance he is Lance’s,” she lied, then told a truth: “Regardless, I can’t get pregnant, Sully. I went to so many fertility doctors who all sang the same tune. I’m not built to carry a baby to term.”
“You’re built just fine, Shug,” Sully assured her. “Just be sure you and this dude use protection. Doctors get it wrong all the time, and we don’t want any little Chefs or Sugars running around just yet.”
Sugar rose and walked to the door. “There’s no need to worry. There will be no little anything running around, Sully. I’ve accepted that, and you should, too.”
He hummed a hm, crossing his arms. “We’ll see.”
“There’s nothing to see,” Sugar returned, stepping out of his office. “Bye, Sully.”
