4. Caius
CAIUS
Ryan's eyes sweep the office, landing on me, then Hallie, then back to me again. I lean casually against the workbench, putting another foot of distance while trying to look like I haven't just had my world tilted sideways by kissing my best friend's little sister.
"Hey, man," I manage, and thank Christ my voice comes out normal. "What's up?"
"Need your torque wrench. Mine's busted." Ryan's looking at Hallie now, frowning. "Hal? What are you doing here?"
"Car trouble," she says, and her voice only wavers slightly. She holds up the phantom insurance paperwork that doesn't actually exist. "Caius said I needed to file a claim for that weird noise."
"What weird noise?"
"The..." Hallie glances at me, panicked.
"Serpentine belt," I supply smoothly, pushing off the workbench to grab my toolbox. My hands are steadier than they have any right to be. "Told her last week it was going. She finally listened."
Ryan grunts, seemingly satisfied, and I hand him the wrench. He's already turning to leave when he pauses, looking back at his sister. "You need a ride home?"
"I can drive her," I say, too quickly.
Ryan's eyebrows climb toward his hairline. "You just said her car's broken."
Fuck.
"I meant after I fix it. Tomorrow. Tonight I'll drive her.
" I'm making this worse. Hallie's staring at the floor, her cheeks pink, and I need Ryan out of here before I say something really stupid like I can't stop thinking about kissing your sister or did you know Hallie tastes like cherry lip gloss and bad decisions?
"Sure. Whatever." Ryan heads for the door, then stops. "Hey, you still coming to Sunday dinner at Ma's tomorrow? She's been asking."
My mother. Sunday dinner.
The words hit me like a wrench to the skull, and suddenly I'm remembering the conversation at the bar, Hallie's miserable face, my big mouth suggesting this whole fake relationship disaster in the first place.
I'll be your plus one if you come to Sunday dinner and tell my Ma you're madly in love with me.
I meet Hallie's eyes. She's thinking the same thing, I can tell by the way her teeth catch her bottom lip, the same lip I was kissing thirty seconds ago.
"Yeah," I hear myself say. "Actually, I'm bringing someone."
Ryan freezes. Turns. "You're what?"
"Bringing someone. To dinner." I reach out and snag Hallie's hand before I can second-guess it. Her fingers are cold, trembling slightly, but they curl around mine like they belong there. "Hallie and I are... we're seeing each other."
The silence that follows could crack glass.
Ryan's face does something complicated. Confusion, then disbelief, then something that might be anger or might be shock or might be both. "You're seeing each other."
"Yeah." Hallie's voice comes out stronger than I expected. She squeezes my hand, steps closer, and I can smell her shampoo, something floral that makes my head spin. "We didn't want to say anything until we were sure, but..."
"But?"
"But we're sure," I finish, and the lie tastes weird in my mouth because it doesn't feel like a lie when she's standing next to me, her hand in mine, her lips still swollen from kissing me.
Ryan stares at us for a long moment. Then he shakes his head, mutters something that sounds like "fucking finally," and walks out.
We stand there in the sudden silence, hands still clasped, listening to his truck start up and pull away.
"Did he just say 'finally'?" Hallie whispers.
"Think so."
"What does that mean?"
I have no idea, and I'm too busy trying not to think about how perfectly her hand fits in mine to figure it out.
Twenty-four hours later, I'm pulling up to my mother's house with Hallie in the passenger seat, and my stomach is doing things that have nothing to do with Ma's cooking.
"Okay," Hallie says, smoothing her dress for the hundredth time.
She's wearing something blue and soft-looking that makes her eyes stand out, and I've been trying not to stare at her legs since she got in the truck.
"Remember the backstory. We've been secretly dating for three months.
You made the first move. I was the one who insisted we keep it quiet because of Ryan. "
"Got it."
"And we're taking it slow. No pressure. Just seeing where things go."
"Hallie."
"What?"
I turn off the engine, shift to face her. She's twisted her fingers together in her lap, worrying at her thumbnail, and I reach over to still her hands with mine. "Breathe. It's just my family. They're going to love you."
"Your mom has been trying to set you up for months. She's going to think I'm some... some opportunistic librarian who trapped you with my organizational skills and Dewey Decimal System."
I can't help it. I laugh, and she glares at me, which only makes it worse. "Pretty sure Ma's never worried about the Dewey Decimal System being used as a trap, but if anyone could weaponize it, it'd be you."
She swats my arm, but she's smiling now, some of the tension easing from her shoulders. "You're not funny."
"I'm hilarious. You laughed at my blinker fluid joke."
"I laughed at you, not with you. There's a difference."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Miller." I squeeze her hand once more, then let go and climb out of the truck before I do something stupid like kiss her again.
Because that kiss yesterday. That kiss has been living in my head rent-free for twenty-four hours straight, replaying on loop every time I close my eyes.
The way she'd grabbed my shirt, the little sound she'd made when I'd deepened it, the taste of her mouth, sweet and perfect and absolutely forbidden.
This is fake. Temporary. A favor for a friend.
I need to remember that.
Hallie slides out of the passenger side, and I round the truck to take her hand again because that's what boyfriends do, right? Hold hands? Except the moment our fingers interlock, it feels too natural, too easy, like we've been doing this for years instead of hours.
"Ready?" I ask.
She nods, takes a breath, and together we walk up the path to the front door.
I don't bother knocking. This is still my home, even though I haven't lived here in years, and Ma would tan my hide if I started treating it like a stranger's house.
The door swings open to the immediate smell of roasting meat and potatoes, something with roseMaura, and underneath it all the ever-present scent of the vanilla candles Ma burns in every room.
"Caius?" Ma's voice floats from the kitchen. "That you, love? You're early!"
"Yeah, Ma. And I brought?—"
She appears in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron, and freezes when she sees Hallie.
My mother is a small woman, barely five-foot-three, but she's got the presence of someone twice her size.
Her dark hair, streaked with gray she refuses to dye, is pulled back in a bun, and her eyes, the same green as mine, go wide.
"Hallie Miller," Ma breathes. "As I live and breathe."
"Hi, Mrs. O'Connor." Hallie's hand tightens around mine, and I give her what I hope is a reassuring squeeze. "Thank you for having me."
"Having you? Love, you're always welcome here, you know that." Ma's already moving forward, pulling Hallie into a hug that makes her drop my hand. "I haven't seen you properly in months. How's your mother? And that sister of yours, the one getting married?"
"They're good. Busy with wedding planning."
"I bet." Ma pulls back, hands on Hallie's shoulders, looking her up and down with an assessing eye that makes me nervous. "You look beautiful, dear. Doesn't she look beautiful, Caius?"
"Yeah, Ma."
"Yeah," Ma mimics, her accent thickening the way it does when she's working up to something. "That's all you've got? Your girl comes to Sunday dinner looking like an angel and you give me 'yeah'?"
Your girl.
The words hit different, coming from Ma's mouth. More real. More terrifying.
Hallie's blushing now, that pretty pink that starts at her cheeks and works down her neck, and I step closer, slide an arm around her waist because that's what I'm supposed to do, right? That's what a boyfriend would do.
"She always looks beautiful," I say, and the words come out more honest.
Ma's eyes sharpen, flicking between us, and I can practically see the gears turning in her head. "Well," she says slowly. "Isn't this interesting."
"Ma—"
"How long?"
"How long what?"
"Don't play dumb with me, Caius Michael O'Connor. How long have you two been courting?"
Courting. Only my mother would use that word in the twenty-first century.
Hallie jumps in before I can. "Three months. We wanted to be sure before we told anyone."
"Three months." Ma's voice climbs an octave. "Three months and you didn't tell your own mother?"
"We didn't tell anyone," I say quickly. "Not even Ryan until yesterday."
"Ryan knows?" Now she's looking at me like I've committed a cardinal sin. "You told your best friend before your own Ma?"
"He kind of figured it out," Hallie offers, and she's leaning into me now, her body warm against my side, fitting perfectly under my arm like she was built to be there.
Ma stares at us for a long, excruciating moment. Then her face breaks into the biggest smile I've seen in years, and she releases a noise that's halfway between a squeal and a laugh.
"Oh, thank the sweet Lord and all his saints!" She grabs both our hands, squeezing tight. "I've been praying for this. Praying! Do you know how many times I've told Caius he should ask you out, Hallie? How many times?"
"Ma—"
"Years! Since you were teenagers, I said, Caius, that Hallie Miller is special. She's kind and smart and she doesn't take any of your nonsense. But would he listen? No. Stubborn as his father, God rest his soul."
Hallie's trying not to laugh. I can feel her shaking against me, and when I glance down, her eyes are bright with suppressed giggles.
"Come in, come in!" Ma's already pulling us toward the kitchen, still talking a mile a minute. "Wait until your brothers hear. Tommy's bringing that awful girl again, the one who talks about her juice cleanse, and Patrick's coming alone, but this, this is news. Real news!"