“But you kissed your professor,” Jackie interjected. “So ergo, complicated.”

Kate grinned. “Ergo?”

Jackie rolled her eyes, her voice teasing. “Stop giving me shit so we can get to the good stuff, please. Let’s start with what it was about him that made Blair jump him.”

That was the easy part.

“His voice. His eyes. His confidence. The way he carries himself. His great hair. How scarily intelligent he is.” I gulped down the rest of my mimosa. “I told him I was confused in my con law class and he actually explained the Commerce Clause to me. So if I’m going to go with an excuse,” for the second kiss, at least, “it’s definitely going to be, the Commerce Clause made me do it.”

Jackie snagged another mini-croissant. “Sounds legit to me. What’s his name?”

“Gray.”

“Ooh good name. And he’s cute?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t go with cute.” I searched for the right word and still felt like I came up short. “He’s intense. In a way that makes you think you have to kiss him. Even when you shouldn’t.”

“Because he’s your professor,” Kate said, her voice tinged with judgment, her eyes full of worry.

“Partly. There’s more. He’s kind of a mess,” I admitted, feeling like saying it aloud made it that much more real. I knew it, I’d seen it, I’d heard it, and yet here I was.

“How?” Kate interjected. I might have been two years older, but she had a hell of a protective streak.

“He has some baggage. He was married.” Jackie and Kate just stared at me. “Divorced now. There were some girls when they were separated. And some substance abuse issues.” I sort of ran the last words together as if that would hide the ugly truth.

Kate shot that hope down instantly.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

I winced. “I told you it was bad. He didn’t cheat when he was married, but when he was separated, and after, apparently he went a little off the rails. And before that, during, and after, he had some substance abuse issues. But he’s clean now.”

Kate shook her head. “Fuck that. You just had a guy cheat on you. At your wedding. Getting involved with another cheater, even if they were separated, even if you are just kissing one, is stupid.”

I scowled at her. “Thanks. I kind of realized that when I told you things were messy.”

She made a face like she’d swallowed something foul. “I expected you to know better.”

My eyes narrowed. “Why? Because I never get to take a risk or make mistakes? Because I’m not supposed to feel something as simple as attraction and act on it? I didn’t say I was marrying the guy. I didn’t even say I was dating him. I just said that I kissed him and things were complicated.”

“He’s going to hurt you.”

The image of Gray’s face in the car, the look in his eyes, hit me again. “You don’t know that.”

“Once a cheater, always a cheater,” Kate snapped while Jackie looked on, an uncomfortable expression on her face.

She’d been raised an only child, so I figured she was completely unprepared for a knockdown, drag-out sister fight.

“You don’t think that’s a little closed-minded?” I challenged. “They were separated. They weren’t actually together.”

“Please,” Kate scoffed. “Tell me you didn’t have the same thought.”

She was right; I’d had the same thought. And now I was vaguely ashamed of it.

“He made a mistake, Kate. A huge mistake. I’m not saying I feel sorry for him or that he didn’t deserve the consequences of his actions. But at what point does that end? Should we have him in the stocks at noon? Ask him to self-flagellate? Should I really judge him for something in his past that he’s trying to put behind him?”

“A good man doesn’t cheat,” she said, her lips in the stubborn line I recognized from our childhood. “In any way. Period. If you’re willing to forgive Gray his infidelity, what would you say about Thom? He cheated on you on your wedding day, your professor cheated on his wife. How are they any different?”

“Is it really cheating if they were separated?” I countered.

“Would you call it cheating if it had happened to you?”

Kate had the strongest sense of justice of anyone I knew. She was determined to work in intelligence after graduation—I’d bought her a spy kit as a joke for Christmas last year—but if anything, she would have been a better fit for law school than I was. I hated conflict with every fiber of my being, whereas Kate jumped into battle with her sword ready.

She didn’t sugarcoat anything, not even with someone she loved, and she had an annoying habit of being right.

“Thom hasn’t apologized for what he did. For all I know, he isn’t sorry at all.”

Okay, maybe I wasn’t taking his calls, but I just didn’t know what was left to say. I figured sex on our wedding day said it all.

“So remorse makes it okay?”

Jesus, she really should reconsider her future career path. She’d kill in a courtroom. Being on the receiving end of this was kind of torture.

“I think there’s a difference between doing something wrong and being sorry for it, and doing something wrong and not giving a shit and continuing to screw people over,” I snapped, my voice rising with each word. There was something about fighting with my sister—no one could push my buttons like Kate.

When we were kids, we’d bickered frequently, the two-year age difference between us close enough to often be too close. I would have given my life for her in a heartbeat, but sometimes she really pissed me off. Probably because she knew me better than anyone.

Jackie fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat as though she wanted to be anywhere but here.

“That’s why we’re angry at Dad, isn’t it?” I added. “Because he lies and cheats and doesn’t care who he hurts? The difference between someone like him and Gray is that Gray recognizes that he fucked up. And he’s sorry. Dad isn’t ever sorry.”

Kate made a disgusted noise in her throat that was either her way of disagreeing with me, or her attempt to communicate her loathing for our father. I wasn’t sure which. Kate’s problems with my parents had begun way before news of our father’s affair and Jackie’s identity had come out. Kate had a bigger reason to hate him, one I wasn’t sure she would ever get over.

“Besides,” I continued, taking a deep breath to steady myself so I wasn’t too harsh with Kate. “I think you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it is. I just wanted to talk about it. I’m not having babies with the man. It’s not a big deal.”

“So why are you kissing him?” she challenged.

Jesus.

“Because I wanted to. Because I felt it and I’m so tired of not feeling anything. And because maybe he is the monster you think he is, but maybe he’s someone who made a series of bad decisions and now needs someone to believe in him. Maybe people deserve a second chance.”

Kate glared at me, her mouth tight. “You’re going to regret this.”

“You might be right. But he was honest with me from the beginning. He laid all of his sins, all of his secrets out for me when he didn’t owe me a fucking thing. He trusted me with that, and if he were an asshole, he could have said none of it and tried to get me into bed. So I’m going to give him a chance. Because everyone deserves to be forgiven for their mistakes.”

Kate stood up, setting her champagne flute on the tray resting atop the ottoman. She pulled up the zipper to her hoodie and grabbed her messenger bag from the floor. “I have to head out.” She turned back to face me. Her expression was still hard, and in that moment she looked like a warrior, but her voice softened slightly. “I love you. I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

I hated fighting with her, hated the permanent anger in my sister’s eyes. And more than anything, I hated the hurt that drove her now. I missed the sister who’d been a daredevil, occasionally a pain in my ass as only younger sisters could be. The sister who had laughed louder than anyone. The sister who’d smiled.