17. The Midnight Dip Dare
DECEMBER 2040
AFTER CHAPTER 23 IN NOBODY LIKE US
We listened to "Loud Like Love" by Placebo while writing this scene.
Character List:
Connor Cobalt - 51
Rose Calloway - 51
Loren Hale - 50
Lily Calloway - 49
Daisy Calloway - 44
Eliot Cobalt - 21
Tom Cobalt - 21
Audrey Cobalt - 15
**
ROSE CALLOWAY
I CANNOT BELIEVE I slept through the back door's camera notification. Those digital windchimes can go to hell. What’s the point of keeping my phone on at night, if it can’t even break my sleep cycle?
It’s plaguing me during my morning routine in the cramped lake house bathroom. We’re not in the main suite this holiday. Daisy and I agreed to let Loren and Lily have the largest accommodations. To which Loren said, “Wow, thanks for the pity offer. I’m touched.”
“This is purely for my sister,” I snapped back, “who’s still in physical therapy and on crutches. So don’t worry, I have no pity for you.”
“Good,” he said.
“Great.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder.
We glared at each other, but there was a small understanding that I’m not coddling Loren. He’s more upset when I try, and after the assault and kidnapping (don’t even get me started—murder seems too pleasant for those disgusting, vile pigs) I’m doing my best to remind myself he’s not fragile. That I need to come at him with a fucking sword and not a butter knife—but I just hope he’s not looking to be cut.
I played rock-paper-scissors with Daisy for the next best room, and I pride myself on having a great win-to-loss ratio for that particular game. I’m even better than Connor, but Daisy went away from her usual strategy of always choosing rock.
And I lost.
This room is only good for the views of the lake. The shower is tiny, and we need to replace the outdated vanity lights. We plan to hire a contractor to do some small repairs and renovations before the summer. It’s always better to have it happen at once so a million people aren’t learning the location of the house.
This is our one solitude from paparazzi, and that’s never changing. I will personally stab the person who breaks their NDA and ruins this for me and my family.
I finish combing my hair and place the brush in a bathroom drawer. “You didn’t hear the phone notification either?” I ask my husband beside me.
Connor brushes his teeth without a care in the world, which simultaneously aggravates every bone in my body and attempts to douse my simmering hostility.
He angles closer to me, just to spit in the only sink. “No one did,” he says like he can’t be held accountable for his mortal hearing.
“You’re coming to that conclusion on what grounds?” I cross my arms, and my silk black robe tightens against my body.
Connor’s eyes flit to my hips, then ascend slowly up to my eyes. The brief once-over is as commonplace as spring pollen, and yet, it still heats my skin.
He arches a brow. “From experience, darling. If someone heard it and saw the video, they would’ve called us.”
“Wrong,” I tell him. “There are a handful that would’ve simply brushed it off as our son’s nature to be traipsing outside in the middle of the night like a mischievous sprite.” I hear the iciness of my voice.
Connor leans against the bathroom counter, providing me with his full attention. “Are you more concerned about sleeping through the notification or about what our son was up to last night?”
I scowl. “I can multi-task, Richard. I hold it in my heart to be concerned about both. Seeing as how you’re concerned about neither.” I hate my words as soon as they breech the air, but I can’t take them back.
Strain protrudes my collarbone, and a knot forms in my ribs. The first thing Connor did when he saw the video was jump out of bed and check on our son.
Eliot Alice Cobalt. He might be twenty-one now, but he’s still the son who will crash a car, walk away like it’d been intended—like it’s all part of some master plan, and then he’ll sleep in misery. Broken bones, bruised soul—he's the son who won’t tell me when he’s truly hurt. He’ll laugh like pain can’t touch him. It’s just an adversary he’s made friends with.
And while admirable, as his mom I want to know when he’s suffering. I want to take away his pain, however I can.
So Connor needed to have eyes on Eliot. To ensure he was breathing and not hypothermic. He did that without me prompting. He came back and assured Eliot was okay and sound asleep.
Of course Connor cares about our children.
But maybe I care too much.
Maybe my care has ballooned enough for the both of us and is absorbing the very air we’re breathing. Is that why I feel so undone?
Connor opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off, “You care. I don’t know why I said that.”
His blue eyes soften on me. “You’re worried. I don’t hold that against you, Rose.”
“I hold it against myself,” I say coldly. “My worry shouldn’t cause me to say cruel, needless things, and I would really like to filter my thoughts.”
He winces like that’s the worst insult he’s heard all morning. “Don’t. Ever,” he tells me. “I want you unfiltered, darling.”
“Even if my words stab you in the heart?”
“Especially then.” He looks me over. “Where does your excess worry come from?” He frames the question like we’re a team about to unearth these mysteries together.
I comb my fingers through my hair and tie the strands into a pony. “Eliot is up to something,” I say, more to the mirror.
“He’s always up to something. And he’s our child that yells fire to test whether we’ll jump up and run to him.”
“The boy who cried fucking wolf,” I snap the hair tie and then grab my eye cream. “He’s going to be the death of us.”
“So you’ve said a hundred times?—”
“A million,” I argue, dabbing cream near the creases of my eyes.
I see Connor’s burgeoning grin in the mirror. “And yet, here we are. Very much alive.”
I glance at my phone on the counter. “This one feels different.”
It’s been a balancing act with our children. The idea that I could become my overbearing mother hangs over me and shadows every decision I make. It’s a war within myself not to fiercely protect them from every slight danger. To not make their decisions for them. To not blind them under a scalding lamp and interrogate them for their strange behaviors. Especially now as they’ve left adolescence and entered adulthood.
I don’t want to be her, and in the same breath, Connor doesn’t want to become his neglectful mother and miss moments in their lives where they truly need us. It’s a push and pull, and I’m always fucking terrified we’re not getting it right.
That fear has never really left me. I’m not sure it ever will.
Connor motions me with two fingers. “Play it again.”
After rinsing and drying my hands, I sidle next to him and replay the footage from the backdoor camera. Eliot’s face dips down into frame.
“Bonsoir.” He shudders, clearly cold—and not just from the caustic winter winds. “Do not be alarmed. I took a midnight dip. A dare of my own creation. You would be absolutely horrified, Mom. Which is…to my delight.” He flashes a teeth-chattering grin.
I glare at the screen, unamused.
Our son continues, “Donnelly, here, went first, as prompted by yours truly. He withstood the ice better than I. Luna, you chose a strong one. Hugs and kisses.” He mimes two cheek kisses. “Nighty night, heathens.”
Connor has an unreadable expression. It’s annoying. Until he says, “He’s lying.”
It’s a definitive answer.
“Eliot has been known to partake in ridiculous dares,” I remind him. “There’s a chance he’s not lying.”
“If it were a dare, Tom would be with him.”
He’s not wrong. I stare harder at the phone. “Maybe it was an initiation.”
“Into what?”
“Into their friend group.” He knows I’m referring to Tom, Eliot, and Luna. “Eliot would want Donnelly to feel included.”
Connor considers this. “It’s not impossible but improbable. With everything Donnelly has been through, Eliot would be more likely to waive that kind of charade.”
I agree.
I hate that he’s right. “Only one way to find out,” I say.
I have two tasks.
One: Prove that someone else heard the notification. Which will in turn prove that Connor is not immortal. His hearing is the first thing to go.
Two: Find out why Eliot was in the lake last night.
My son is the talk of Christmas Eve morning. Everyone heard about the midnight dip dare, and Ben even asked, “how did you not get frost bite?”
To which Eliot replied with a wry grin, “I’m immune.”
Ugh. He’s too much like his father for his own good. Though I’m sure Connor could say the same about me and Eliot’s flair for dramatics.
I need to simmer considerably before focusing on task two, so I find my sisters in the kitchen baking banana bread. The smell of charred Teflon immediately greets me.
“What are we burning this morning?” I ask, glancing at the freshly baked loaf and a tray of muffins. Unless the bottoms are singed black, they don’t appear to be burnt.
Daisy scrapes a frying pan in the sink. “Nothing to see or smell here.” She gives me a bright smile that I take as bullshit considering Lily’s brows are so furrowed, she might be causing permanent forehead wrinkles.
“Lily,” I say.
She caves instantly. “I didn’t think it was possible to burn eggs. Aren’t they un-burnable? I thought they just turn into rubber….rubber eggs.”
“Totally,” Daisy says into a nod. “I think it’s the frying pan’s fault.”
I offer my support by saying, “The muffins look edible.”
Lily beams. “They are. We didn’t burn those.”
I open the fridge. “Do you need me to help? I can make…” I try to find something in here I’m coordinated enough to whip up. Bacon. No. Last time I tried, grease flung at my face. I see the strawberries. “Fruit.”
“A fruit bowl would be fantastic,” Lily says, trying to scoot Daisy out of the sink so she can wash the pan, but Daisy won’t relinquish the task.
“I have it,” Daisy says, hiking her leg on the counter, basically bear-hugging the sink so Lily can’t intervene.
“I’m the one who burned the un-burnable eggs,” Lily says. “You hate washing dishes.”
“We all hate washing dishes, and I’m enjoying scrubbing this bad boy.”
I give Lily a sharp look. “You should be reveling in this time where we take these menial tasks off your hands.”
“Rose would be milking this all year,” Daisy tells her.
“Into the next year,” I add.
Lily nods slowly, trying to shelve her misplaced guilt.
I wish she would embrace us trying to pamper her. “This won’t last forever, so soak it in now.”
She smiles more and finally backs away from the frying pan. “Thanks,” she says to both of us.
I would do anything for my sisters. Relinquishing the fight for the best bedroom and helping in the kitchen is basic.
I open the container of strawberries, then grab a cutting board and a knife. “Did either of you get the camera notification last night?”
“I have my notifications turned off,” Daisy admits, elbow-deep in soap suds. “Ryke does too because they’ll usually wake me up.”
Lily slides the muffins onto a serving dish. “I slept through it. So did Lo.” She frowns. “You and Connor didn’t hear it?” The way she says it—like we’re gods with bionic hearing—makes me hate admitting the truth.
“The windchimes are a horrid choice as a sound tone,” I say. “I’ve already switched it to a siren.”
Daisy winces. “RIP your sleep.”
“I don’t need sleep.”
Lily nods. “She’s a vampire,” she says to our little sister like it’s known I commune with fanged creatures and will be around for centuries.
“I thought vampires still sleep.” Daisy steals a strawberry off my cutting board and grins when I shoot her a look. “In coffins.”
Lily processes this information with a faraway expression. “When’s the last time any of you have seen a vampire sleep in a coffin?”
“I don’t watch vampires sleep,” Daisy says. “Werewolves, on the other hand.” She wags her brows.
“I’m serious—serious about fictional vampires,” Lily says quickly. “Twilight, The Vampire Diaries—no coffins.”
Daisy rinses the frying pan. “Modern-day vamps must realize beds are superior.”
“Rose is a modern-day vamp,” Lily concludes.
I nearly smile seeing their smiles grow. It’s been a hard past couple of months, and this time together feels therapeutic for us all.
Thunderous laughter suddenly resounds from the living room, and I picture Eliot laughing big, boisterous laughs among his cousins—reveling in last night’s misdeeds. Not today. I quickly finish cutting the strawberries and wipe my hands on a dish towel.
“I’ll be back,” I tell my sisters.
In the living room, nestled under a window, Eliot and Tom sit on a cushioned bench, a Backgammon board between them. Audrey has scooted up an ottoman and observes the game.
Okay, so he’s not among his cousins. Just his siblings.
As soon as I approach, all three twist towards me, and I don’t give my sons a second to blurt out some witty quip.
“Eliot,” I say. “We need to talk.”
Tom winces.
Audrey lets out a shocked gasp. “Is he in trouble, Mother?”
“To be seen,” I say.
Eliot stands with as much nonchalance as his own father carries daily, and he turns to his little sister. “Take my spot, Audrey.”
No, I will not soften by the sibling love.
Though my icy heart nearly melts when Audrey grins and says, “I’ll win for you.”
“Win for us,” Eliot tells her with a fanciful wave goodbye. He walks backwards towards me and most definitely is mouthing something to them.
Still, I feel myself getting mushy and the rise of a traitorous smile. Ughh. When Eliot faces me, he follows me to the back deck. I don’t bother grabbing a coat. I’m in a long-sleeved black sweater-knit dress.
The icy cold wind hits my face, but I feel at home. Eliot also has long sleeves, but he shivers as soon as the door slams closed.
I thread my arms. “I’ll wait for you to get a coat.”
“A coat?” He hops on the railing, his legs so long that they nearly touch the deck. “I’ve never needed one. Coats are purely for fashion, not function.”
“That must be why you’re shivering.”
“Your eyes deceive you, Mom. I haven’t been shivering.”
I try to see through his wiseass smile, but it’s a little difficult, admittedly. Connor says it’s because joy, merriment—it’s a part of Eliot. It's not all a facade. But sometimes, it can be.
In truth, I’m hoping it’s not now. I’m hoping there is nothing tragic he’s hiding from me, and he simply did a stupid dare last night for shits and giggles.
“My eyes don’t deceive,” I tell him plainly. “Yours, however, will be in a glass jar fermenting on a bookshelf if you think to deceive me.”
Eliot touches his heart. “You would blind me.”
“For being a little shit, yes.”
He grins, a softness in it—which I see as his love for me.
If he’s trying to make me soft...it might be working. I let out a long sigh. “Really, what happened last night?”
“I thought you saw the video,” he states. “It was a dare.” He holds out his hands, as if it’s as simple as that.
“Just you and Donnelly?” I question. “Where were Luna and Tom?”
“Asleep.”
“If this was an initiation?—”
“What?” His brows shoot up. “No. No.” He’s waving his hands at me, and he seems a little offended that I’d think it.
“You put Thatcher through more than an ice plunge in the lake,” I remind him.
Eliot lets out a tight noise, then comes off the railing. Bare feet on the deck. “That was because he was dating our big sister. The first to enter the fold. This...him...now...” He’s referring to Donnelly, the kidnapping, Luna dating him. “It’s different.”
I stare at my adult son.
He’s getting older. It’s both terrifying and comforting. Especially after nearly losing Luna and Lily...
I blink away a rush of emotion. The wind grows fiercer, and goosebumps form on his skin, the only giveaway now that he’s cold.
Eliot studies my unbending, stiff posture. “You’re really not cold?”
The backdoor opens just as I say, “My blood is made of volcanic matter.”
“Which part of the volcano is that?” Connor asks, slipping outside.
“The lava,” I snap. “To smother you with.”
He grins.
“Two against one?” Eliot asks with a rising grin. “I’m flattered you knew it’d take you both to unseat me.” He leans an elbow on the railing.
Connor comes to my side, and he hands Eliot his peacoat. “Even if you were only talking to one of us, it’d be two against one.”
Translation: We’re a team. Always.
Eliot accepts the coat and fits his arms through it. “I told you both the truth, you realize. There is nothing to uncover.”
“It was just a dare?” I say in disbelief.
“Lie better, and we’ll believe you,” Connor adds.
Eliot puts a hand to his chest. “But you’re a lie detector. I can’t beat a machine.”
“Then don’t lie,” I counter. “That’s your other option.”
Eliot intakes a deeper breath, eyes flitting to the house, then to us. Heavy concern weighs on his broad shoulders, but he just says, “There are some things I’ll take to my grave. It’s rather full. I might need an extra coffin or two.” His smile is sadder. Solemn. “It was just an accident. The ice broke. I fell waist-deep in the water. Farrow checked on me that night. I was fine. That’s all you need to know, and I’d hope you’d respect that.”
I exhale. “I do.” Only because I'm certain now he’s protecting someone.
“We do,” Connor concludes.
“But we’re always here if you want to talk,” I remind him. “You’re okay?”
“I’m okay.” He looks from me to his father. “All ten toes intact.” He rocks on his bare feet. “And if it makes you feel any better, Uncle Garrison texted me last night to stop doing dumb dares.”
Last night!
Garrison must’ve heard the camera notification.
Task one and task two completed in unison. I deserve extra credit for this. “He’s right,” I say.
Eliot slides his hands in the peacoat’s pockets. “I know.”
“And so you also know,” Connor says, “we always appreciate the truth when it concerns you.”
Our son’s smile is one of admiration and love. “I also know, but never stop reminding me. I love being of your concern.”
I roll my eyes. “Dear God.”
Eliot gasps shrilly and mimes a pearl-clutch. “Don’t you mean, dear Connor?”
His dad is laughing.
I glare. “Go inside before your toes do fall off.”
Eliot happily takes the exit with a curtsey and a farewell twirl of his hand. As soon as the backdoor swings shut, I turn to Connor. “Who do you think he’s protecting?”
“Donnelly.”
I think about this. “How sweet of our son to secret-keep for his best friend’s boyfriend,” I say.
Connor nods slowly, but he’s staring off at the lake in thought.
“What?” I ask.
“He reminds me of you, willing to go down with any metaphorical ship if it means he’s protecting the people he loves. The problem is...he loves far too many people.”
“It’s not a bad thing,” I assure him. “Would you rather him love no one?”
“I’d rather him love few and strong. But that’s between you and me.”
I nod, my lungs filling at the look he’s slipping me. I know the depth of Connor in ways that no one ever will, and he sees vulnerable parts of me that I have trouble showing.
Another gust of wind barges through, and Connor steps closer to block me from it. He fits his arms around my shoulders. I glare. “I like the cold.”
“I like you alive.”
“Lily thinks I’m a vampire, so that means I’m already dead.”
His brows rise. “I’m into many things, Rose, but necrophilia isn’t one of them. You are very much alive.”
“That is a shame,” I tell him. “I had a list of people to haunt.”
“You can burn that list,” he tells me into a kiss.
I start to smile.
Translation: You’ll never die.
I should really rub in the fact that Garrison heard the notification when he didn’t. I could remind him that he’s getting old. I’m, unfortunately, getting older too. But I don’t say anything. I sink into the kiss and into the weight of his arms. I let him block out the wind for me.
And I let myself believe that he and I, we’ll live forever.