31. Chapter 31
Chapter 31
Cedric
W e spend the rest of the morning suspended in a bubble.
This feeling, like I can’t have her close enough, is electrifying, and the best I’ve ever felt.
I’m not a homebody, or at least, I never thought I was. But being in her house, her home, the one place where she’s completely, unavoidably herself? It’s a privilege I don’t take for granted. We’re sprawled on the couch, talking and trading idle kisses, when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pretend not to hear it until it stops, but it’s less than a minute before the noise resumes, my eyes closing against the urge to murder whoever is interrupting us.
“You can take that,” Delilah says against my chest.
“I’m sure it can wait.”
“Maybe it can’t, if they keep calling,” she insists.
I huff a breath and take the phone out, thinking about all the ways I could tell my brother to kindly piss off.
Joe’s Office .
“Cedric?” Delilah asks, her brows pinched in worry.
“Yeah, sorry, it’ll be a minute,” I say, hoping I don’t look as pale as I suddenly feel. Joe never fucking calls twice. Not unless he has threats to make.
“Yes?” I say as I get up, putting some space between Delilah and I, and urging my voice to be steady. The only version of me he knows–the only version I can afford to show him.
“My patience wears thin, son.”
“I sent your assistant an email with my updates days ago. I thought your goons kept you informed of everything?”
“Your brother seems unable to stop making a spectacle of himself,” he replies, as if I hadn’t spoken. “I want him gone, and our deal fulfilled.”
“It’s a matter of days,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Days for you to frolic in that god-forsaken place?”
I’m torn between shutting down this phone call and laughing so hard in the receiver his eardrums are permanently damaged. And what the hell has Marcus been doing? After I told him, no, begged him to lay low.
“Might I remind you of my terms of the contract?” I ask, futilely hoping to change the topic. “Once Marcus is here, I’m done with you. You’ll have to find someone else to pick on.”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head,” he says mockingly .
“I don’t worry about you–in fact, I think about you as little as possible.”
Joe snorts on the other side of the phone. “Fine, son. I’m feeling generous, so I’ll indulge you. Enjoy your stay until the last second, if you so wish, but ensure your stepbrother makes himself scarce until it’s time for him to get out of my life. I hear another whiff of trouble from him, and I’ll have both of you bound and gagged and sent to the fucking Bermuda triangle. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” I say quietly.
“Lovely to catch up.”
I’m not entirely conscious of moving the phone away from my ear and back into my pocket. I still feel unsteady when I turn, and Delilah is standing in the living room hugging her arms.
“What happened?”
Delilah
Cedric opens his mouth but closes it soon after, his eyes cloudy even as he avoids my own.
“Hey,” I say, stepping closer. “You can talk to me. I mean, you don’t have to tell me if it’s too personal, but I’m here.”
He swallows, closes his eyes, and in a matter of seconds it’s like the trouble has been wiped out of his face, the tense lines around his mouth smoothed out.
“It’s nothing worth discussing,” he says, and I don’t believe him one bit. I don’t want to be pushy, but I also understand him enough by now to know when he’s being dismissive because he doesn’t want to burden me .
“Cedric, I can see you’re not okay. Please don’t pretend you are for my sake.” I place a gentle hand on his forearm.
His brows furrow, and a moment later, he has me enveloped in a lung-crushing hug.
I fold my arms around him, massaging his back lightly. He’s the opposite of okay.
I lean back and look up at him, resting my chin on his chest. “There’s black coffee in the pantry,” I say.
“What?”
“I hoped you’d be back, you know, after the rain incident. I got some, so I’d have something to offer you in case you did. Can I make you a cup?”
His eyes soften, though above all, he suddenly looks bone-deep tired. I can’t imagine what that phone call might have been about, not specifically, but I take a breath to dispel the overwhelming urge to claw the face off whoever is making him feel this way.
“Alright,” he says, letting me go.
He helps with the coffee, focused on every step.
“It was my father,” he says while I pour the dark brown liquid in the gingerbread mug, the one he selected, the one he used the first time he was here. I nearly spill the coffee over the lip, though he places a steady hand above mine to avoid that.
“He is–” Cedric stops, as if at a loss for words, and wraps his long fingers around the mug gingerly. “He’s a terrible parent, though I’m sure you’ve been able to glean that much.”
I nod, not wanting to interrupt him.
“And he hates a lot of people, though nobody nearly as much as he does my brother.
“I would do anything for Marcus, truly. But he keeps getting himself into trouble, which in turn reflects poorly on our father, and he’s not willing to put up with it anymore,” he says, expression sour, a weight and carefulness to the choice of words that gives me pause.
“So you’re taking the heat for the both of you?” I ask.
“I take it gladly. I always have, but I just wish–” He shakes his head, takes a sip of his coffee, licking a stray drop off his lips. “I wish Marcus would make things easier. I wish my father would never speak to me again.”
“I wish those things for you too,” I say, because what else can I do if not offer him comfort? I don’t know these people, and I don’t know the predicament they’ve put him in. All I know is that he’s been smiling so much more lately than when he’d just gotten here.
“You are too good to me,” he says quietly.
“I could be better,” I say with a small laugh.
He clicks his tongue. “I don’t think so.”
“You could stay,” I blurt out, the connection between my brain and my mouth obliterated. Maybe I’ve momentarily forgotten about my capital p Problem, the same that had me reluctant to get close to Cedric in the first place. Maybe being with him feels so right that I don’t care anymore. “You know, permanently.”
He fixes me with a long, pained look. “I couldn’t.”
“Why? I mean, I know you have your work, but–”
“Only a myriad of reasons,” he says with a humorless huff of breath.
“I promise I’m not going to go berserk if things don’t work out between us,” I say with a weak laugh, wondering if that’s a thought that crossed his mind. You might not go berserk, but you might turn into a werewolf, which is pretty much the same thing , my brain unhelpfully provides.
“That’s not it,” Cedric says. “At all.”
“Then– ”
“Delilah, please.” His voice almost cracks on the plea. But it’s what he says next that has my mind spinning in circles. “I am legally bound, do you understand? I can’t explain this to you. I cannot .”
I search his face, a sudden, small but terrible pang of fear for him churning within me.
“Why do I feel like this is not about rare plants anymore?”
Cedric’s expression stiffens ever so slightly, but he looks more helpless than upset.
“Because you’re smart, and caring, and kind, and try as I might, I don’t belong here.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I think you should belong wherever you want. I think whatever your father is doing is messed up, if it makes you feel so wretched. I wish I could help.”
“You do,” he says, though it’s hard to believe that. What could possibly be hanging over Cedric and his brother’s heads to make him so nervous? What kind of trouble has Marcus been getting himself into, exactly?
My mind is going a million miles an hour trying to catch up, but I simply don’t have enough puzzle pieces to put it together. All I have proof of is how subtly scared he looks. And I realize that what I’m feeling, even more than fear of losing him, is the fear that he’s not going to be able to be happy. To live for himself.
I look up, my gaze landing on the clock on the wall. I’m supposed to be at work in thirty minutes, but I’m prepared to call Myrta and tell her I can’t make it, if that’s what Cedric needs.
“Do not worry about me,” he says as if he’d just read my mind. “I’m fine. ”
“You look remarkably not fine for someone who claims to be a lot. I mean, you are fine in the physical sense, though I don’t really speak like that, so I don’t know why I said it—"
His small smile to my rambling feels like a tiny but precious victory.