Chapter 50
CHARLIE
Leaning against the wall at the corner of the house a few feet away from us, with his hand propped against his hip, shaking his head as he lets out a totally aggravating, condescending tutting sound is none other than my ever-charming cousin, Todd.
His red hair is shorter than last time I saw him—trimmed close on the sides but longer on the top so it falls in a messy, bedhead kind of look over his forehead.
He’s thicker than I remember too, like he’s started working out.
But what really jumps out at me is the paleness of his face.
The faint, bruisy looking circles under his eyes.
For a moment, a flash of worry snaps through me, even registering through my less-than-clear thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with him, is there? But I’m definitely not about to ask him. Instead, I make a mental note to check with Ellie.
Forever ago, before Todd turned into Todd, the two of them were as close as Gemma and I have always been, and I know, despite the fact that Ellie’s as put off by the new and (un)improved Todd as the rest of us are, she’d be the one most likely to have heard (from his parents if not from him) if there was anything going on.
“Now doesn’t that look like fun,” Todd smirks, eyes flicking between Myles and me as my brain struggles to catch up with what exactly I should be doing right now.
Ugh, I’d forgotten how obnoxiously, smoothly insincere he can make his voice.
“Don’t let me stop you.” He makes a carry-on motion with his hand, smirk widening as I step back from Myles, who looks more than a little embarrassed as he straightens his shirt.
“I’d ask if you wanted to be a generous cousin and share,” he grins at me with that insincere smile of his that I’ve hated so much, ever since he started it the year before we moved to Riverside, when he went from being one of the people I looked up to most in the world to his current state of unbearableness, seemingly overnight. “But I don’t do repeats.”
“Repeats?” I shake my head in confusion at the same moment as I mentally kick myself. The best way to deal with Todd is not to play into his jackassery. Unfortunately, I know I’m not filtering especially well at the moment; a necessity when it comes to surviving a Todd encounter.
While I haven’t had the misfortune of having seen him for almost five years now (since Alex and Ellie’s wedding which, come to think of it, I can’t understand why he was invited to) how to deal with someone like Todd is not something one forgets in a hurry.
Ugghh, why right now? I didn’t even realize Todd was here.
Todd pushes off from the wall, circling around Myles and me in that strutty, objectionably arrogant way he has, tipping his head as he runs his eyes down from Myles’s face and over his body before flashing them up again.
My hands ball into fists at my sides, and suddenly, I’m barely fighting back the petty urge to step in front of Myles to hide him from my sleazy cousin’s sleazy eyes.
Part of me thinks, petty or not, that’s exactly what I should do, but then again, I can’t tell whether that’s the tipsy, not filtering part of me, or sound logic.
Todd squints as he takes one more look at Myles’s face, like he’s trying to remember something, and then, “Didn’t I take you home from Wildrose last weekend?”
“No.” Myles shakes his head, staring in blank horror at Todd before glancing frantically at me, like the two of us hadn’t spent all of last weekend together, in and out of Myles’s bed.
“No?” Todd runs his eyes over Myles once more before shrugging dismissively as my too-slow brain scrambles for words to effectively tell off my git of a cousin for his stupidity. “I guess you’re taller than that guy. He had a better chin than you though.”
He tilts his head a little farther to the side, eyeing Myles’s perfectly lovely chin like it’s offending him, and ohmigod, if I didn’t positively suck at comebacks (even at the best of times), I’d have a million things to say to Todd right now; for his general Todd-yness, for interrupting what had been an absolutely fabulous kiss, for thinking that he’d hooked up with my Myles, for eye fucking him (because that was totally what he’d been doing), and for daring to imply that anything about Myles’s face is less than jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
Todd, it seems, is not done racking up my long list of reasons for wishing I could come up with something to properly put him in his place though, because, tilting his head in the other direction, he muses, “Maybe it’s because you look like a clingy one that I thought you were him.
That guy got all whiny when I told him it was time for him to call an Uber when we were done. ”
Clingy?! Well, I guess if Todd means sweet and caring and attentive and…and…perfect—
“Charlie,” Myles is tugging at my hand, like he already knows that I’m going to say something, regardless of the fact that whatever it is isn’t going to be especially clever or helpful to the situation. “Let’s just go inside—”
I shake my head, planting my feet as I round on Todd. Yes I’ll go inside with Myles. I will totally go anywhere with Myles that he wants me to go. But only after I tell my stupid jackass of a cousin exactly what he needs to hear.
“Maybe if you weren’t such a— a— slimeball,” I point a finger at Todd, totally not missing the way his grin only widens.
Ohmigod, maybe I should shut up now, except…
ohmigod, I can’t. “Maybe then, you wouldn’t have to kick guys out of your bed before they realized how much better off they are without you. ”
The grin falls from Todd’s face, leaving his expression oddly stiff. Like he’s frozen. Well good. Maybe I’m getting through to him. Maybe all he’s needed is someone to actually tell him the damn truth for once.
The thought only spurs me on. “Did you ever think of that? And by the way, Myles’s chin is the best chin,” I add petulantly. I know it’s petulant, but goddammit, it’s true.
And then something happens. Something so horrible and so totally unexpected that I know I wouldn’t know what to do, even if my head weren’t fuzzy-spinney.
For half a second, that weird, stiff expression morphs into something different; this totally broken, devastated look, and for that half second, it doesn’t matter that this is Todd.
Seeing that look on anyone’s face hurts.
And the fact that I’m the one that put it there?
Except, was I really? I don’t think it’s an excuse or trying to dodge the blame of whatever my words just did to him, but whatever I’m seeing, one tipsy, clumsy dig could not have been the primary cause of it.
A moment later, the expression is gone as Todd pulls his lips up into that nasty Todd sneer of his, but as he does, I distinctly see the lower one tremble. And there’s something wrong with his sneer anyway. It’s strained and forced and, ohmigod, are those tears gathering along his lower lashes?
There’s no time to fumble over what, if anything to do to fix my part in whatever’s going on behind the hard mask he’s just slapped back on though, because before I can even process, Todd’s turning on his heel, storming away from Myles and me, down the stairs from the deck and out of the yard with a slam of the garden gate.
Before my parents, Myles and I left at the end of the evening, I did manage to pull Ellie aside and ask her if she knew if anything was going on with Todd.
She’d been surprised he’d even been there tonight, which somehow made me feel even worse. I hadn’t seen him either before we’d been outside. Had he even come into the house at all? And if he hadn’t, what had he been doing, just lurking around in the backyard?
While I did not confess the entire series of events to Ellie, I did mention how unwell Todd had looked.
She’d only shaken her head, saying that, as far as she knew, he was fine.
She’d heard he had a new job, something high up in advertising for a major company.
It sounded high-stress and high pressure, she’d said. So maybe that was why he looked tired?
It made sense, and I’d tried to tell myself not to worry anymore about the situation. After all, I’d told myself, if it had been Myles or me that had left the interaction rattled and hurt by how Todd had acted, I know for certain he wouldn’t have been able to care less.
Unfortunately, I can’t exactly make myself turn around and feel the same way about the fact that it was him that left the conversation in pieces.
Maybe the worst part of how I feel though is, sorry as I am for whatever role I played in hurting Todd, and concerned as I am for his wellbeing after tonight’s interaction, I can’t help feeling beyond contented as Myles wraps his arms around me and the two of us settle into bed for the night.
The Todd business aside, today left me feeling whole in a way I hadn’t expected.
No part of me had been surprised by how natural it felt having Myles with me at Uncle Thomas’s party, but that hadn’t diminished how much it meant to me. Especially because I know it meant, if possible, even more to Myles.
For me, it was a for granted thing that my family would welcome Myles and our relationship, but watching his smile widen and his confidence build until he was laughing and chatting and every bit at ease as I was as the evening progressed filled something in me to the point of overflowing.
He’d needed this, and having the chance to watch him experience it was everything.
“I loved having you with me tonight,” I whisper, dropping a kiss on the back of Myles’s neck.
In answer, he hums out a quiet, sleepy sound of agreement that makes me feel warm and wonderful and ridiculously happy as he snuggles closer against me.
From his steady, slow breathing and the fact that he didn’t even properly respond, I can tell he’s more than halfway asleep. Not that I’m that far behind him.
We hadn’t left the party especially late, but afterward, my parents had insisted on taking Myles and me out for dinner, and, once we were back in the house, all four of us had lingered in the living room while Myles and my parents swapped travel stories.
Much to my relief, Myles spared us all the spider outhouse story, as well as any mention of the centipede house, which I have made him promise never to tell me about.
Sleepily, I reach up to stroke my fingers through his curls, thinking, not for the first time, about how much the two of us falling asleep together reminds me of that one night when we were fourteen and I’d climbed into my bed with him to hold him when he was crying.
I’d hated his pain so much that it had felt like it was going to shatter my heart, but it had also been, in a way, the best night of my life at the time.
Now, I can hold Myles anytime I want. I can touch him and kiss him and stare at him to my heart’s content, and all he ever seems to want is more.
It makes my head spin more dizzily than that drink I’d had tonight.
“Good night, baby.” My eyes are already closed as I nuzzle my face against the warm, soft curls at the back of Myles’s head, breathing in the scent of Riverside forests and fir trees he carries with him, even here in the city.
“Night, Charlie,” he mumbles, slipping his hand up to stroke over my arm where it’s wrapped around his chest.