CHAPTER 9
Apparently, Dad, in his zombie-like state, had enough mental awareness to politely invite Beck in for something to drink.
And apparently, Beck didn’t have the situational awareness to decline.
More like he didn’t want to.
If I had known the Brighton household was about to become Awkward Central, I would’ve risked Mom’s wrath and stayed at Daisy’s. It was a cosmic joke—because how on earth did I wind up sitting between Carter and Beck at my kitchen table, with Dad across from us?
The kitchen table had confirmed my suspicions, though—Carter had been inside talking to Dad. A cup of half-drunk coffee sat in front of him, long enough for the steam to stop billowing off it. My stomach cramped.
Dad’s hair was longer than he normally let it grow.
He’d shaved sometime between the night he’d gone down to the kitchen for a drink and now, but it was back to a subtle stubble against his pink skin.
The circles under his eyes were dark. Nothing like the hotshot Superior Court judge I would’ve preferred to introduce Carter to.
Dad wasn’t even focused on Carter, though. “It’s good to see you, Beck,” he said in a gravelly voice, like he needed to clear his throat. He eyed Beck with a little frown of confusion on his face. “You weren’t… always blond, were you?”
Beck chuckled. “Nope. I’m honored you remember so well, Mr. Brighton, given how long it’s been.”
“How long has it been?” Carter’s voice was a bit higher than normal. “I didn’t realize you and Eleanor knew each other well like this.”
Beck arched a brow. “‘Like this’?”
“For you to be driving her home from school.”
The jealousy in Carter’s voice should’ve pleased me. I knew that it should’ve. It would’ve pleased Lydia. Instead, it only left me feeling more like an anxious bird trapped in a cage.
“It’s been four years since I left Addison,” Beck said, leaning his elbow on the table and his head into his palm, eyeing Carter around me. “But we were friends for about six years before that. Weren’t we, Nellie?”
The nickname grated, mostly because he’d said it with such clear emphasis to contradict Carter using my full name a moment ago. A clear, See? I know her better. “We weren’t that close,” I told Carter honestly, turning to look into his blue eyes. “We only ever saw each other at club events.”
“We were close,” Beck argued to my turned back. “We’d sneak off every time together—”
I whirled back around, cutting him off. “To play chess.”
Beck arched a brow. “Of course. To play chess. Where was your mind going?”
I needed to backtrack off that conversation before Carter asked the right questions—and Beck gave him the wrong answers. I stared at the doorway that led to the kitchen, wondering what the heck was taking Jamie so long to pour a glass of water.
“What are you doing here, anyway, Carter?” I asked in a light tone, more surprised than accusatory, still pretending the boy over my shoulder didn’t exist. Heck, I was content to imagine everyone else at the table didn’t exist. “I didn’t see your DM.”
“I figured I’d drop by and see what you were up to,” Carter said, eyes softening.
“I—I had something to do today. I thought maybe you could join me. I forgot that you would be at school, or else I would’ve come later.
But your father makes a great cup of coffee—almost rivals that shop you took me to. ”
“You’ve been here a while?” I asked at the same time Dad said, “You took him to a coffee shop?”
Beck leaned back in his chair. “Can I have a cup of coffee?” he asked at the same time Carter said, “You didn’t tell your dad about our date?”
For the first time in ages, there was a light in Dad’s eyes. The only problem was that it was something like outrage. “Date?”
O-U-T-R-A-G-E, I spelled in my head. L-O-V-E-L-Y.
But something flared a little inside me too, matching Dad’s spark. “Yes, date,” I told him, lifting my chin. “I turn eighteen in two weeks, Dad. You should be more surprised that it hasn’t happened sooner.”
“Aw, that was your first date?” Beck sat back in his seat and stretched his legs out underneath the table, rubbing a palm across his mouth to keep his smirk from widening. “Adorable.”
Kill me.
Jamie, finally, waltzed back into the dining room, carrying two glasses of ice water. He set one down in front of Beck, the other in front of me. Carter still had his coffee, though it was almost gone. For the first time since we’d sat down, Jamie deigned himself to help me out.
“It’s not that you went on a date, Eleanor,” Dad said, directing the dark gaze to me. “It’s that I didn’t know about it.”
I felt electric under his stare, his oxygen feeding my fire. “When would I have had the opportunity to tell you?”
Dad’s eyes narrowed.
“I—I met Ms. Fontaine when I picked Eleanor up,” Carter said, jumping in to try to ease the tension. “She was very—”
“Your mother knew?” Dad asked me, and then turned to Jamie. He clearly knew which twin was the weaker link. “Did you know?”
Jamie hunched his shoulders a little under Dad’s attention. “Y-Yeah.” And then his eyes lifted to mine. I could practically read his mind. Do something. Apologize.
I tilted my head ever so slightly. Me? For what?
“Maybe we can talk about this later.” Jamie glanced around the table. “When our… guests leave.”
It was probably a good idea, because Carter looked like he was wishing he could blend into the wallpaper, and Beck looked like he was ready to search for some popcorn.
“Mr. Brighton.” Beck didn’t straighten from his slouch, His voice was warm. Conversational. Unlike Beck. “I didn’t see you at the last ADP social hour. I was hoping to catch up.”
For the first time since we’d sat down, I caught a glimmer of unease on Dad’s face.
At first, I chalked it up to the fact that this was forced social interaction, which he hadn’t had in weeks.
But the way he stared at Beck was strange, like he was putting on a brave face in front of a ghost. “I don’t get out to them much these days.
Are your parents back in town with you?”
Beck grinned. “Nope.”
“You know,” Carter began, leaning around me to focus on Beck. “I don’t know too much about you, Beck. Are you home for the summer from college?”
There was a long pause, and I waited for Beck to say I took a gap year. Because surely, with that blasé attitude, Beck didn’t go to college. I couldn’t imagine him taking studies seriously. “Yep.” And that was it.
“What school?”
Some community college. Some online school, maybe. Not someplace like— “Stanford.”
Everyone at the table turned to him. Including me. “You’re at Stanford?” I asked, with far too much shock in my voice.
“That’s what I said.”
“Good for you, son,” Dad told him, giving him a soft nod.
The hollows of his eyes seemed grayer in the dining room light, making the expression on his face as he regarded Beck look haunted.
“Stanford is a great school. I’m—happy for you.
You had a rocky go of it for a while with your parents, but I’m proud of how you turned out. ”
I wondered how often Dad had uttered those words in his career.
He’d mostly served on the juvenile and family courts in his career, so surely he’d used the phrase a few times.
He’d said those same words to Destelle’s rockstar boyfriend once upon a time, after having him in court when he’d been sixteen.
I could almost see something dig into Beck. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but it was something, curling its fingers into his skin and gripping on. “It’s funny.” A trace of a disdainful smile touched his mouth. “Hearing you say that—as if you mean it.”
I sucked in a breath as Dad frowned. “I do mean it—”
“You don’t. What you really mean is ‘I’m glad you’re no longer a problem.’” Beck rocked a little in his chair, the front legs leaving the ground. “That’s really what everyone thinks. People don’t realize how bad they are at hiding what they’re thinking.” He sipped his water, unbothered.
He also didn’t seem to notice we were all staring at him, even Jamie, who looked alarmed. Beck’s mood, though, had me feeling prickly all over, like I needed to hold my breath.
“I still remember the little speech you gave me before everything that happened,” Beck went on, still talking to Dad. “I think about it from time to time, and think, wow. Mr. Brighton, the hot-shot judge who corrals troubled kids, sure knows his stuff.”
Realization hit me slowly, and then all at once. Dad had talked to Beck before the night in the garden? About what? And Dad’s expression made more sense now, why he looked like he’d seen a ghost. Because whatever chat he’d had with Beck had haunted him as much as it’d haunted Beck.
Carter’s voice was hesitant. “E-Everything that happened?”
“I lit one of the Alderton-Du Ponte gardens on fire.” He lazily looked at Carter. “Burned their award-winning rosebushes to a crisp. Which is a load, don’t you think? How lame do you have to be to hold a contest for rosebushes?”
A strange buzzing filled the air, and it took me several seconds to realize it was in my head.
The topic, as taboo as it was, came up so easily on Beck’s lips, as if he didn’t know it wasn’t allowed.
As if he didn’t care. If it hadn’t been for the way his lips pressed together, I wouldn’t have realized he was tense at all.
“You… lit the garden on fire?” Carter balked. “Why?”
“Why?” Beck echoed, staring straight at me. No, it wasn’t an echo—it was the same question. Why? He couldn’t answer Carter’s question, not really, because it hadn’t been Beck who’d started the fire in the first place.
Beck and I stared at each other for a long moment, and the buzzing in my head was almost too loud to think around. His eyes were so fiercely green, but in that moment, transparent, as both of us were taken to a time in the past.