5. Hallie
HALLIE
The barn is not what I expected.
I don't know what I thought Caius's place would look like, but it wasn't this.
Exposed beams, Edison bulbs strung across the ceiling, a kitchen that's actually clean.
There's a vintage motorcycle in the corner that looks like he's rebuilding it, and bookshelves, actual bookshelves, filled with auto manuals and what looks suspiciously like classic literature.
"You read Steinbeck?" I pick up a worn copy of East of Eden from the coffee table.
"Sometimes I like to feel things." He's in the kitchen, pulling down wine glasses. "That a problem?"
"No, I just..." I set the book down carefully. "I'm learning all sorts of things about you."
"Yeah, well." He shrugs, and there's something careful in the gesture, like he's deliberately keeping it casual. "You never asked."
There's something in his voice that causes my chest to tighten. How many years did I spend seeing Caius as just Ryan's best friend, just the guy who fixed my car, just the mechanic with the crooked grin? How much did I miss?
That photo keeps replaying in my head. Sixteen-year-old Caius looking at fifteen-year-old me like I was something precious.
I take another sip of wine, gathering courage I didn't know I possessed. "That photo your mom showed me," I whisper. "The one from the lake house that summer... were you really looking at me like that? Like I was—" I can't finish the sentence. Like I was something you wanted. Like I mattered.
He doesn't answer right away. The silence stretches between us, filled only by the soft hum of the Edison bulbs overhead and the distant sound of wind against the barn's walls. When I finally work up the nerve to meet his eyes, the intensity I find there steals my breath.
"Yeah, Hallie." His voice is rough, raw with something that sounds like years of holding back. "Yeah, I was."
He brings over two glasses of red wine, settles onto the couch beside me. Close but not too close. The "safe" distance we've been maintaining since we left his mother's house three hours ago.
"So," he says finally, breaking the charged silence that's been building between us since we sat down. His fingers drum once against his wine glass before he takes a drink. "Strategy meeting. For the wedding."
"Right. Strategy." I take a sip of wine. It's good. Of course it's good. "The wedding is in three weeks. There's the rehearsal dinner, the ceremony, the reception. Multiple opportunities for Kyle to see me and feel smug about his choices."
"Or multiple opportunities for Kyle to see you with someone who actually appreciates you and realize he's an idiot."
The way he says it, flat and matter-of-fact, makes warmth bloom in my stomach.
"You really, truly despise him, don't you?"
"I never liked him." Caius stretches his arm across the back of the couch, not quite touching me. "Even before he pulled that 'finding himself' garbage. He always looked at you like you were... I don't know. A placeholder. Something comfortable while he figured out what he really wanted."
I swallow hard, my fingers tightening around the stem of my wine glass. The observation hits closer to home than I want to admit. "That's... that's really specific, Caius."
"I pay attention." His voice is quiet, almost careful. "To things that matter."
The weight of that statement settles between us, heavy and significant. I meet his eyes over the rim of my glass, searching his face for something I'm not sure I'm ready to find.
"Apparently you've been paying attention for a while now," I say, trying to keep my tone light.
His jaw tightens. We're dancing around it, the photo, the confession in the truck, all the things we're not saying.
"Hal—"
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" The question tumbles out before I can stop it. "Back then. If you... if you felt..."
"You were Ryan's little sister. You were fifteen.
And I was the charity case your family took in because my dad drank our rent money.
" He takes a long drink of wine. "What was I supposed to say?
'Hey, I know your brother is the only reason I'm not living in my car, but I can't stop thinking about you'? "
"You weren't a charity case," I say, and the words come out fiercer, edged with an indignation I didn't know I was feeling until this moment. "You were never that to us. To me."
"That's not how I felt." He sets down his glass, runs a hand through his hair.
"Your family gave me everything. A place at the table, someone who gave a damn if I came home at night, a future that didn't involve following in my old man's footsteps.
And you..." He looks at me then, really looks at me.
"You were kind to me. You saw me as a person, not a project. Do you know how rare that is?"
My throat constricts, the muscles pulling taut as if someone's wrapped their fingers around my windpipe and squeezed. I swallow once, twice, trying to force words past the sudden tightness, but his name comes out rough and frayed at the edges, barely more than a whisper. "Caius?—"
"I couldn't risk losing that. Losing all of you. So I kept my mouth shut and watched you date other guys and told myself it was enough just to be around you."
The words hang between us, raw and honest, and I don't know what to do with them. Don't know what to do with the way my heart is hammering, the way every cell in my body wants to close the gap.
"That photo," I say quietly. "Your sister was right. The yearning was very Shakespearean."
He laughs, but there's no real humor in it, just a sharp, bitter edge that sounds like years of swallowed words finally breaking the surface. The sound is self-deprecating, almost harsh in the room. "Yeah, well. I had it bad."
"Had?" The question slips out before I can stop it, barely louder than the whisper of my own breathing, and the moment it crosses my lips I feel it settle between us like a physical thing. Present tense. Past tense. The difference is everything.
Caius goes very still beside me. Not just motionless, but frozen, like even his lungs have stopped working, like he's holding himself in suspension, caught between what he wants to say and what he thinks he should say. The muscle in his jaw ticks, just once.
"Hal..." My name comes out rough, scraped raw, and there's a warning in it. Or maybe a plea. I can't tell which.
"Right. Sorry." The words tumble out in a rush as I reach for my wine glass, my fingers clumsy around the stem.
I take a too-big sip, the Pinot Grigio sharp and almost acidic against my tongue, and I force it down past the tightness in my neck.
"We should, um, we should focus. On the plan.
The wedding plan. The fake relationship plan.
" God, I sound like an idiot, repeating myself like a broken record.
"Right." The single word falls flat, final, like a door closing softly but definitively.
We sit there in the low light of his Edison bulbs, pretending we're not both thinking about that kiss in the truck that never happened, about sixteen-year-old Caius staring at me with heart-eyes, about what his mother said.
She looks at you the same way, love.
Do I? Is that what this feeling is, this constant awareness of him, this need to make him smile, the way my stomach flips every time he says my name?
"So." Caius clears his throat. "What are you most worried about? For the wedding."
I'm grateful for the subject change, even if my brain is still spinning. "The PDA," I admit. "Kyle and I were never... we didn't really do public displays of affection. He said it was tacky."
"Of course he did."
"And now I'm supposed to show up with you and be all couple-y and affectionate, and what if I'm bad at it? What if it's obvious we're faking?"
Caius shifts on the couch, angling toward me. "You won't be bad at it."
"You don't know that. I'm rusty. I'm awkward. I once missed a guy's mouth entirely and kissed his chin."
"You were probably twelve," he says, grinning.
"I was twenty-two," I counter, feeling my cheeks heat at the memory.
He laughs, his eyes light up the room. "Okay, so you definitely need practice."
"Practice," I echo, the word hanging between us like a challenge we aren’t quite ready to accept.
"Yeah." He sets his wine glass on the coffee table, and suddenly the air feels thinner. "We should practice. For the wedding. So it looks natural."
My heart kicks into overdrive. "Practice what, exactly?"
"The PDA." He says it so casually, like he's suggesting we practice parallel parking. "How to stand together. How to look at each other. The touching." His eyes drop to my mouth, just for a second, but I catch it. "The kissing."
I should say no. This is a terrible idea. We're already in dangerous territory, already blurring lines that should stay sharp and clear.
"Okay," I hear myself say, and my voice comes out breathy, uncertain, like I'm agreeing to something far more dangerous than a few practice sessions.
Caius's eyes darken, pupils dilating until there's just a thin ring of color left. The shift is subtle but unmistakable, something predatory and focused that makes my pulse stutter. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." I swallow hard, trying to sound more confident than I feel.
"For the mission. For the plan. So we're... convincing.
" The words tumble out like a justification, a shield against what this actually is.
What it might become. "We need to be believable, right?
Can't have people thinking we're faking it.
Kyle especially. He always could tell when I was lying. "
"Right. Convincing." He shifts closer, and I can smell him now, motor oil and soap and something else, something that makes my head spin. "First rule. If we're dating, I'm going to touch you. A lot."
"A lot?"
"Yeah." His hand comes up, fingertips grazing my jaw, and I stop breathing. "Like this. Small things. Casual things. Things that say you're mine without having to announce it."