CHAPTER 18
G-R-O-U-N-D-E-D.
Neither Jamie nor I had ever been grounded before in our lives. Destelle had been a few times, but I barely remembered it. I hadn’t even known what a grounding entailed, honestly, only that it was a different sort of brand on my skin, similar to the mud. F-A-I-L-U-R-E.
Maybe falling in the mud had broken something in me, because even when I’d walked through the door, covered in dried mud, I only thought of what Beck had said. It’s okay.
Mom hadn’t even seemed surprised to see me dirty from head to toe.
Instead, she’d just given me a flat, no-nonsense look.
“You’re grounded,” she’d said. “I have your phone, and I will have your phone until your birthday on Saturday. Jamie is driving you to and from school, and you’re to stay in the living room or the dining room until after dinner.
No TV, no laptop, no Daisy. Nothing. You’re lucky I’m not canceling the birthday party, Eleanor. ”
I’d wondered what she knew. What Dad had told her. She hadn’t confronted me on any of it, and I’d been too afraid to ask. “Okay,” I’d said, and went to shower.
The joke was on me, though, because Mom had one chore waiting for me as the perfect punishment—cleaning the entire house for my sister’s potential arrival.
She probably snickered at the irony.
I’d made it to Wednesday. Two days of washing sheets after school, scrubbing the bathrooms, and vacuuming the floors.
Two days of dusting and mopping and going to bed smelling like bleach and detergent.
Two days of quiet, because Mom was working late on a big case, Dad never came out of his room, and Jamie was busy with his nose stuck in a book.
And then I caved.
“Just call him for me.”
“Nellie, no.”
“Jamie. Mom isn’t home for another hour at least. It’s fine.”
“Yeah, but Dad is home. You seriously want to get in trouble with him again?”
Right. Dad was lurking somewhere upstairs, either in his study or his bedroom. “I’ll take the phone outside. I’ll be five minutes. If we get caught, just say you left it on the couch and I took it. Jamie. Please.”
Jamie finally lifted his head from his book, expression flat.
He was curled up in a chair in the living room, and I hovered over him, hand out, breaking the law.
He’d cave eventually, especially because he could see on my face how serious I was.
I needed to call him. I needed to know where everything stood between us.
Jamie’s fingers loosened on his book, in tandem with his shoulders. That was it. He was about to say—“No.”
I kicked his chair. “Are you seriously going to hold a grudge about Sunday? I said I was sorry for making you worry.”
“Our party is on Saturday,” he grumbled, resuming his attempt to pointedly ignore me. “Talk to Carter then.”
I kicked his chair again, falling onto the couch with a huff. Why was my brother choosing now to be a goody-two-shoes? What would a phone call hurt? It’d be quick. I just had to ask Carter one question—are you secretly dating Lydia?
While I’d cleaned these last few days, I’d been obsessing over two things, and one of them had been Carter’s intentions.
He claimed he liked me, but showed up to Ms. Jennings’s birthday party with Lydia.
He said he wanted me to meet his parents, but would take a call from Lydia in the middle of our date.
Something was going on. I needed to find out what.
And honestly, I kind of hoped he was into Lydia.
I still wanted to meet Dr. Pembleton, but there was no longer that crushing need to.
I’d never win Dad’s approval back now, even if I’d gotten under Dr. Pembleton’s wing.
And the other thing I’d been obsessing over?
Beck. I thought about the way we’d parted, and all the things I wished I’d told him.
Like how I thought about him all the time.
That I’d kept his number in case I ever got too selfish and allowed myself to call him.
That was when I had run into him Senior Night, I’d hoped he’d been Mr. ASMR, because that would’ve meant he’d missed me as much as I’d missed him.
But those words wouldn’t touch him now, I knew.
Not when we’d been in this same situation before, and the words I’d promised—I really, really like you—were contradicted not even a minute later.
No, I needed a different strategy to reach him. I just hadn’t figured out how yet.
I shoved to my feet. “Thanks for being helpful, Jamie,” I muttered, closing the conversation in my head.
He called after me, “Ever and always.”
I fought the urge to stick my tongue out at him.
When I got to the front door, pivoting to pace the house again, the sound of a car door shutting had me stopping. Nosey, I peeked out the window, and my heart jumped into my throat.
Carter, walking across the street from where he parked his car, was clearly coming toward my house.
I flipped the deadbolt and pried the door open far enough that I could squeeze my head out. “Stop,” I whispered to him, shaking my hand.
Carter stopped in his tracks on the path that led to the front door, eyebrows raising.
If Jamie heard him come to the front porch, I wasn’t sure what he’d do. Call Mom? Tell Dad? I wasn’t going to risk it. “Go wait at the gate,” I told Carter, pointing in the direction where he could round the house.
Carter gave me the OKAY signal, inching forward as if he were in some spy film. Quietly, I shut the door, grabbing my shoes in the foyer. I glanced up at the landing of the stairs, half expecting to find Dad peering down. He wasn’t. Good.
“I’m going to get some fresh air,” I told Jamie, heading to the patio door that led into the backyard. “Am I allowed to do that, prison guard?”
“Knock yourself out.” He flipped a page, clearly not about to follow me.
Good. After slipping on my sandals—and double checking that Jamie wouldn’t be able to see out the window from his chair—I slid open the patio door and stepped out.
The only windows that looked out into the backyard were mine and Jamie’s, so I didn’t have to worry about Dad peeking out, either. I hurried down the wooden steps to where the gate was set into the six-foot fence. Unlatching it, I pried it open just enough to see Carter. “Hi.”
Carter was wearing a cream-colored linen shirt, tucked into a pair of khaki-colored chinos, with his brown hair styled back effortlessly. I’d almost forgotten how handsome he was after a week of not seeing him. “Hi,” he whispered back, and then smiled. “You smell like cleaner.”
I knew my skin still reeked of it. “I’m grounded,” I told him, taking a step back so he could enter the backyard. “They’ve turned me into Cinderella. Send me the mice to do it for me.”
Carter laughed. “Does that make me Prince Charming?”
“Oh, uh, sure,” I allowed, tucking my arms awkwardly behind my back. “I probably can’t talk long. I’m technically not supposed to have visitors.”
Carter inhaled through his teeth. “It’s quite serious. Is it because you ran away?”
“Is that what Jamie told you?” I asked, horrified. Was that what he’d told everyone? “I didn’t run away. I just… my dad and I got into an argument. I took a breather. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“A big enough deal for you to be grounded.”
I didn’t have a reply to that one.
“Do you have… maybe… five minutes?”
I brought Carter to a little area against the house, out of view from the patio door, and we crouched down to talk. He didn’t seem to mind kneeling in the grass, the fabric of his chinos darkening with a new stain.
“I feel like we keep just missing each other,” he said. “I think the universe is conspiring against us.”
“No kidding.” I rubbed my arm, feeling awkward. The last time we’d technically saw each other had been last Wednesday, when we’d played chess while Jamie was at book club. It felt like a lifetime ago. “I, uh. Well. How did it go at Ms. Jennings’s party?”
“Oh, we didn’t stay long. After Dr. Conan threw up into the punch bowl, we made our exit.”
I slapped a hand over my palm. How had that gossip not reached me? Being grounded sucked.
“I was a little bummed because I’d been bragging about you to my parents.” Carter gave a forced chuckle. “At this point, they probably think I’m making you up.”
“Why do you want me to meet them so badly?” I tried to keep my voice sounding playful, but true inquisition slipped through. “Are they trying to push someone else on you or something?”
Carter didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Okay. I hadn’t expected to hit that nail square on the head.
“This is what I’ve been trying to say for a while—trying to work up the courage to say.
” Carter rubbed his palms together before laying them on his lower thighs.
“My parents think I’m too reserved, too…
well. The word they use is eccentric, but I know they really mean strange. They think I need their help… dating.”
Which was why they’d brought him to Alderton-Du Ponte’s Senior Night, then. Ms. Jennings had used that same word. I have heard they’re looking for their eccentric son someone to settle down with. “Why do they want you to date so badly?”
“To prove to their friends that their son is just as successful as everyone else’s.” Carter smiled down at the dirt, but it wasn’t a happy one. “I don’t do that well in school. I don’t date. In their eyes, I’m… less than acceptable.”
“But your ASMR channel—”
“They don’t know about it. It’s a secret from everyone. If they found out, it’d just make it worse. Their… disappointment.” He shook his head a little. “Which, like—I don’t really care if they’re that disappointed, I guess. I can handle that. But in the dating world… I wish they’d butt out.”
I studied him for a moment, piecing things together. “Lydia.”
Carter looked over. “Yes. My mom’s pick is Lydia. I’m not really sure why. She’s nice, she’s fine—her parents are in realty, have a house in the Hamptons. But you—” His eyes brightened as he picked up my hand. “They’d love you.”