Chapter 10
10
Eleanor
I wake up alone.
The pang in my gut confuses me. This is a relief. Carson is gone, and I can reset the start of this trip.
Except when I enter the kitchen, they’re leaning over the stovetop. They have on last night’s tank with an apron tied around their waist and a dish towel slung over their shoulder. Music plays from their phone, and they hum along as they grind salt over a sizzling pan.
My heart makes an unapologetic leap as I think, with relief, There you are .
I clear my throat to announce my presence, and they look back, smiling with the kind of warmth that drizzles into the pit of my stomach. Excited to see…me?
“Did you sleep well? I’m making eggs.” They glance down at the pan in dawning horror. “Shit, do you eat eggs?”
“I eat eggs,” I say.
Their smile returns. “That’s good, because I have no alternative. What about bacon?”
“I don’t eat meat.”
“That’s also good, because neither do I.”
“You were going to make me bacon even though you don’t eat it yourself? How was that going to work?”
“I’ve done it before. It’s not hard. I put it in the pan until it looks crispy, and then I hope everyone is too polite to mention the quality of it.”
“I’d tell you if it was bad,” I say.
“Should I take it as a compliment that I received no critiques from you last night?”
The phrase last night usually precedes a departure. Last night was fun , or We should do last night again sometime soon . If Carson’s whole game is confusing me with their forward charms, I refuse to lose.
“You performed well,” I say.
“ I performed well? ” They bite back a laugh as they push a spatula through the eggs. “I’m gonna put that on my résumé.”
“Under special skills? Experience? Am I listed as a reference?”
“You’re asking all the right questions, Eleanor, as usual.”
This is the first time they’ve said my name. It crossed my mind when they asked last night who I was, and again when I wished to hear them call it out, breathless and low as I worked them up. I wanted to know how Eleanor would sound in their voice. If I’d like hearing it. And I do. It’s textured but soft, settling around me just right. Like velvet being brushed flat.
“How’d you learn my name?”
They push Tatum’s welcome note across the counter. “My sister lied to you many times in this, by the way. I’m not pure trouble, for one. I’m just impulsive. Somehow I’m not the one in the family who flew to New York on a day’s notice, though. And the banana cream pie isn’t the best thing at Rita’s. It’s the apple crumble.” They look at me with my arms wrapped around myself, and they sigh. “Let me fix the thermostat for you. Tatum is obsessed with keeping this place freezing.”
No hookup of mine has ever stuck around to whip up breakfast, and they’ve never cared about my temperature preferences either. I despise myself for being impressed by it. I’ve gotten very good at cutting my desires off at the source, refusing to allow myself to want things I can’t keep. That way it’s not some sad show when I’m incapable of managing my own disappointment. Look what happened with me and Anthony Teller. I never even liked him that much, and I still managed to lose my job over him.
“I promise you I can handle temperature-related issues all by myself,” I tell Carson, charging ahead to beat them to the thermostat.
They let me adjust it on my own, staying quiet as I turn the dial up. They continue to say nothing as we walk back to the kitchen. The nothing becomes its own conversation. They aren’t going to challenge me on this, because I will challenge them right back. Even in this game, they have made the better move. They are giving me my space.
“Is this the part where you ask me about why your sister’s in New York?” I offer, unable to withstand any more of this understanding quiet.
“I know why she’s there.” Toast pops up, and they plate it beside the eggs they’ve prepared. “She’s avoiding our Ward family reunion. The one that starts today.” My face must betray my surprise, because Carson smiles again, forever adept at getting the upper hand. “She didn’t tell you that, did she?”
“This entire plan was completely last-minute and thoroughly under-researched,” I say, trying to justify my own ignorance. “If I told you I don’t know your sister at all, it would be an understatement. I hadn’t even seen a picture of her until I arrived here. I didn’t even plan this with her. I planned it with June Lightbell, if you know who she is.” Carson nods, not as surprised as I’d expect by any of this. “I’m alarmed by your lack of reaction.”
“Tatum doesn’t do well with change,” they tell me.
“And that’s why she flew to New York on one day’s notice?”
“It’s complicated. We’re meeting our secret brother we just learned about.” It reads like a joke, but there’s no punch line. Carson prepares their own plate, then sidles up next to me at the island. “Ketchup? Hot sauce?”
“Butter.”
“Tatum freaked out. Not sure how that resulted in your living in her cottage, but it’s probably the happiest accident of this whole shit show.” They hand me a butter dish. “I’m meeting our secret brother in an hour. My parents are throwing a little get-together in the front yard.”
“The reunion is happening here ?”
“Today’s activities, yeah,” they confirm.
“How many activities are there?”
“Oh, this whole thing is a spectacle. My dad is overcompensating in his usual way. This cottage is actually a past overcompensation of his. It’s his pattern. I will say, in his defense, that this reunion is kind of sweet, in a roundabout way. Gotta make up for all the lost time with my bro, I guess.”
I set down my fork. The last thing I want is to be involved in yet another person’s personal drama. Even when I fled New York to a random Illinois town I’ve never heard of in my life, the energy followed me here.
“I should go,” I say, like I’m the one staying over at their house. I guess technically, I am. “This was a mistake.”
Carson shoots up, blocking my path to the stairs. “Hold on a second. You didn’t eat my eggs. I want to know if they’re good or not. I consider myself kind of a breakfast-food expert, but it’s entirely possible people have been lying to me my whole life, and you’re the only one who will be brave enough to tell me if they’re bad. And two, even though I’ve managed to learn your name, I still don’t know nearly enough about you.”
My cheeks heat again. It’s bad, this feeling. If Carson thinks they’re the impulsive one, they’re right, they don’t know me yet. They didn’t swap lives with a complete stranger on twenty-four hours’ notice. They should not be stoking my interest in them by being curious about me. And I shouldn’t be wondering about how they feel about the secret brother. Or who taught them to be this caring. Carson is trouble, just not in the way I expected.
Carson is the worst kind of trouble that exists—good trouble.
There was a time when I thought my situation with Anthony Teller was good trouble too. It’s considered bad form to sleep with a producer when you’re a press agent, yet Anthony and I managed to pull it off for over a year without incident. Up until learning about Kelsey, I considered our secret meetups to be a badge of honor. I knew how to bend the rules without making them break.
In the end, good trouble was my undoing.
“Besides,” Carson continues, “I was hoping to spend a little more time with you. It’ll be a nice distraction from the week ahead.”
Their words help straighten out my internal spiral. It’s not Carson who has gotten the wrong impression of this. It’s me . I was reading this whole situation between us as something sincere, and it’s not. Carson is trying to lock in a hookup buddy to pass the time during their family ordeal.
If there is one thing I know how to do in this life, it is how to be someone’s hookup. That’s where I thrive. Sometimes you need a body to keep you warm at night. It isn’t even personal. It’s primal.
“Are you dating anyone?” I ask, thinking again of Anthony.
“No,” Carson says with obvious offense. “I would never sleep with you if I was in a relationship.”
“That’s what a lot of people say.”
“If you keep staying here, my entire family will be around. You can stop any one of them throughout the week and ask if Carson Ward has a partner. They’ll probably laugh in your face, but if that’s what it takes to get you to spend more time with me, then so be it.”
Another pang hits me, square in the chest. My brain and body are having their classic disconnect. Why does it make me ache that I’m not the first person to touch Carson’s tattoos or probably even to wash them in the shower? After all, they’re not the first person to get down on their knees in front of me before they’ve even learned my name. Maybe they’re the best so far, but there’s still plenty of time to find other contenders.
“Fine. I’ll stay,” I say.
They grin with a dangerous amount of relief in return. But now I know. That’s just how they are.
“Now, move. I need to find out whether or not you know how to cook,” I say.
Carson stops me. Plants one firm kiss on my lips. “Thank you.”
For what? I almost ask, nearly choking on my own butterflies, but I think better of it.
It’s better not to know.