Chapter 13
CHASE
“So are you guys a thing?” Wilder asked me in an undertone as we stood around with paper plates piled high with tasty food we couldn’t name and watched Sam shriek with laughter at the ugly goose I’d bought her. “You and Lee?”
“I guess.” I shrugged. “We’re dating.”
“Good for you,” Wilder said. “Gracie, no. One slice at a time, sweet pea.”
Whatever Gracie was loading her plate up with did look amazing, though, so I couldn’t blame her for trying to build an entire tower of it.
I was glad Wilder was here, even if I wasn’t glad we were having this particular conversation.
But with Wilder here, Lee got to take some time to talk to his family without having to feel like he had to babysit me.
As it was, he kept throwing me glances across the room like he was checking in.
It should have been annoying, but it was kind of nice to know he was thinking about me and making sure I was okay.
Or checking that I wasn’t a millisecond away from yelling at everyone to fuck off.
Whatever. But I liked to think it was the first one.
And it wasn’t as though I could get too annoyed anyway since I wouldn’t have known how often he was looking at me if I hadn’t been looking at him too.
To me, he was Lee the baker, Lee my boss, Lee my secret fuck, and now Lee my boyfriend.
But he was different with his family, or at least he showed sides of himself that he didn’t those other times.
He was Lee the big brother, the son, the grandson.
And it was sorta funny watching his grandma fuss over him like he was a tiny baby instead of a man who could pick her up and snap her like a twig if he’d wanted.
I almost expected her to get out a handkerchief, lick it, then scrub his face.
He would have let it happen too probably.
Sam grabbed me after we’d had cake. “Holy shit. Chase! I love the goose! It’s so ugly! And I mean that as a compliment, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I said, pleased I’d gotten something good.
“It’s just—” She shoved the goose in my face. “I can’t look away. It might be a legit cursed object and now I’m about to open a portal to hell or something.”
“Goose hell,” I said. “That’s worse than regular hell. They always go straight for the nuts. No easing you into the torture at all.”
Sam laughed, delighted.
Gracie flagged after the cake and candles, and Wilder took her home. Sam’s friends left pretty soon after, and Lindsay fussed over Sam for a bit, checking she wasn’t too tired.
“I’m fine, Mom,” she said. “Honest.”
But she went and sat in the living room while Lee helped clean up and put away the leftovers. I hovered there for an awkward moment until Lola gave me two glasses of water and told me to go give one to Sam. I sat down on the couch with her.
“So, you’re Lee’s boyfriend now,” she said.
“Yeah.” I wondered if she was about to give me the little sister version of the shovel talk or something.
Instead she snorted. “You’re cute. You could do better.”
I guessed little sisters, just like twin brothers, were assholes. But it made me laugh.
“I figured I’d cut him a break,” I said.
Sam laughed too.
Lee’s grandpa came and joined us. He was so quiet when he spoke that I had to lean forward a little to hear him.
He shook my hand and said it was nice to meet me, and then he did the weirdest thing and pressed a five-dollar bill into my hand.
I tried to give it back to him, but he shook his head and wandered out of the room.
“Lolo always gives us money when he sees us,” Sam explained. “You can consider yourself officially adopted, I guess.”
My fingertips tingled against the bill and I folded it in half and shoved it in the pocket of my jeans.
I could still feel it there, though, like it was burning a hole in the denim.
I wasn’t opposed to being given random bills for doing nothing—I was a fan of it—but I didn’t know what to do with the twisting mess of complicated feelings swirling around in my gut because of the way all these people treated me like it was totally natural that I was here, like I was one of them.
One of the family. Nobody had done that before except Jane, Danny’s grandma.
We were all her boys. This felt the same as that had except that Cash wasn’t here.
It didn’t feel right that he wasn’t a part of this.
Like I was stealing something from him just because he hadn’t wanted to come to the party.
Just… it felt like any step I took when he wasn’t there was the same as taking a step away from him. Leaving him behind.
He’d tell me I was an idiot. He didn’t even want to be here.
I drew a deep breath and tried to forget about the five dollars in my pocket. It wasn’t a big deal, except that I was making it one because my stupid brain could never just let me enjoy something without yelling, But what about Cash?
Pretty sure that was my first ever thought, from whenever I was old enough to start having them. And maybe not those exact words, because the thought had been there even before proper words. It was written on my fucking bones.
Like, once, we’d been the same zygote. Fuck if I even knew what a zygote was, but we were the same thing. And even when we split into two embryos, we held hands. So before I was even anything, before bodies and words and thoughts and existence, there was Cash.
And the dumbest part was that Cash had things and people in his life that I didn’t, and I didn’t resent it.
I was glad he had a job he liked, and his old lady friends to watch movies with on night shifts, and Grandma Jane slipping him candy bars.
Because Cash deserved every good thing life could give him.
I just couldn’t seem to apply those same rules to me.
Lee came into the room carrying two plates and handed one to me. He sat in the armchair and said, “Lola says you need more cake. She likes you.”
“See?” Sam said. “They’ve adopted you.” She turned to Lee. “Lolo gave him money.”
Lee grinned like it was the best thing ever. Then he stood up and wedged himself on the couch between Sam and me.
“You’re squashing me!” Sam said.
He was squashing me too, but I wasn’t complaining about it. I ate my cake even though I was already fit to bursting, because it was just so good.
“You’re gonna take home a bunch of leftovers, right?” Lee asked me.
“Hell yeah.”
He gave me a smile so fond that it made my stomach flutter. “You want me to pack them up now or tomorrow morning?”
For a second I wrestled with indecision, but only just for a second.
Because I wanted to be here, with Lee and with his family, feeling like I was a part of it too.
And there was a small glimmer of hope in Lee’s eyes, and I was surprised to discover that I didn’t want to disappoint him.
He wanted me here, and I wanted to be here, so there was only one answer I could give.
“Morning sounds good to me.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon playing board games, which was apparently a Torres family tradition.
Lola and Lolo left before dinner to drive home to Hampton Roads, and Lola pinched my cheeks just like Lee had said she would.
It was weird, but I didn’t mind. And then, even though nobody was hungry at all, Lee made grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and we ate them in front of the television.
It was nice.
I sent Cash a text telling him I was staying the night at Lee’s and got an eggplant emoji in return.
Asshole.
After dinner, Lindsay told Sam to take me upstairs so I could borrow some pajama pants. “Because Lee’s would fall right off your ass.” She looked at Lee. “No offense, hon.”
“Wait, which one of us are you trying not to offend?” Lee asked.
“She said your ass is fat,” Sam said.
“I did not say that!” Lindsay protested.
“I like your ass, Lee,” I said. “I think it’s pretty perfect.”
I let Sam drag me upstairs before Lee could answer. But an hour or so after that, when we were cuddling in his bed, Lee’s hands cupped my ass over my borrowed Hello Kitty pajama pants, and he murmured, “Your ass is pretty perfect too.”
“Yeah,” I said, knocking my chin against his jaw. “I know. I’m hot.”
I liked the way his whole body shook as he laughed quietly.
The room was dark except for a narrow strip of light in the gap between the curtains from the streetlight outside.
It was a nice room. It was bigger than the one I shared with Cash, and Lee’s bed wasn’t a twin, which meant there was plenty of room to spread out.
Not that we were. Not that I wanted to. I liked lying here like this, Lee almost sprawled on top of me, his knee between mine.
I wasn’t hard, but his thigh was right there if I needed some friction, and the thought of lazily frotting against him was a nice one.
Though, if I was honest, I’d eaten so much that any repetitive action like that would probably lead to motion sickness.
Plus these pajamas were way too nice to get jizz all over.
It felt strange settling down in a bed that wasn’t mine, with a person that wasn’t Cash.
Lee didn’t rest his head on my chest so he could hear my heartbeat, and he was bigger and heavier than Cash.
But the bed was comfortable, so it didn’t take me too long to fall asleep.
I woke up once or twice when I heard cars in the street—we didn’t get much traffic down our street in Goose Run, though the sort we did get was almost guaranteed to come with modified mufflers which made them loud as hell.
I also heard the stairs creaking at some point, like someone was going down them, but I fell asleep again before they came back upstairs.