Chapter 12
TWELVE
CASEY
Rory
All right, boys. Everyone knows their assignments for tonight?
Nico
I have the cartons and the candy.
Owen
I’ve got the graham crackers and more candy.
Rory
I’ve got the frosting stuff and even more candy.
Casey
I know you said I didn’t need to bring anything, but I’m bringing candy and some extra candy.
Anders
Guys, I’m sorry. I can’t stay tonight, but I’m dropping off the bases and some frosted Shredded Wheat because it looks cool. And a little cady.
Rory
Why exactly are you not joining us, Anders?
Anders
I need to work. I know I said I’d be there, and I really am sorry.
Rory
Are you serious? That asshole is making you work tonight?
Anders
It’s not his fault. I just need to get the books handled.
Rory
It’s always his fault. He can’t give you a single night off?
Anders
That’s not how it works, and you know it. I don’t want to fight in front of the children.
Nico
For what it’s worth, I think he’s an asshole too.
Owen
I’m sorry you won’t be there, Anders.
Anders
Me too. I’ll make it up to you.
Rory
I’m sorry. I was being grumpy. I’ll make a village, and you can come live with us.
Anders
Thanks, Rory. You’re the best.
Rory
You think so?
Casey
Are you batting your eyes at your phone right now?
Rory
Maaaaaaaaybe.
Casey
I like it
Rory
I knew it.
Jakob
Have you all forgotten me?
Rory
Never. But when you’re doing lab stuff, you can’t always answer. You’ll be there?
Jakob
Yep. I’m bringing the wine.
Rory
YAYYAYYAYYAYA, see you all at seven.
Even surrounded by all the noise, I still felt that small pull in my chest that wondered when I could see Daddy again. Hearing Anders explain himself made me think about how easily I bent over backward for people. I always overdid it, hoping someone would notice in a good way this time.
“Are they jellybeans? Are they rocks?” Jakob mused as he studied the pebble in his hand. With a grin, he popped it into his mouth and bit down. His lips parted to show us where he held it between his teeth. “Candy.”
“Oh, good, I was worried,” Rory responded dryly.
When the boys invited me to their gingerbread party, I hadn’t expected it to be such a big deal.
They took their houses seriously, even though they skipped the gingerbread and used cartons and graham crackers instead.
The table was piled high with every type of candy imaginable, plus the obligatory healthy element, which was the Shredded Wheat.
The boys used the wheat to make shingles for the houses, and we plastered on as much candy as possible.
Owen’s artfully styled home was an absolute mess, but it was the best evening I’d had in a long time.
There’s something to be said about finding your people and your place. If I wanted to give myself a little therapy, which I didn’t, I might argue that fear of settling down kept me at arm’s length from people.
But there was no keeping myself at arm’s length from these boys. They were a force of nature, pulling me into their club and their embrace. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have kept my distance.
“Is Anders okay?” The question had been on my mind all evening, and I hadn’t figured out how to ask without being nosy about things that weren’t my business. Rather than answer right away, the boys looked around the table at each other before their eyes landed on Rory.
“He’s not in danger, but he does have questionable taste in men.”
The more the wine flowed, the more talkative everyone became. Soon, we were trading stories about horrible dates, every asshole we’d ever gone out with, and how glad we were to have them in the rearview.
“Dating sounds awful,” Jakob said, propping his chin on his hand like he was making some grand declaration.
It was hard to take him seriously while he drank wine out of a sippy cup with a pacifier clipped to his shirt collar. His feigned innocence didn’t last long after the other boys threw candy at him and he cackled with glee. “Well, it does!” he huffed before pouring another round of wine.
We all gathered at the round dining table at Owen’s house.
When we arrived, we all properly oohed and aahed over the candy offerings, but I still wasn’t sure how it worked.
The boys had immediately started talking and drinking, so the house-building portion of the evening had been pushed to the side.
“Okay, boys, let’s get to it.” The rest of them started assembling items in front of themselves, but I was at a loss.
“Casey, you good?” Owen asked me from across the table.
As always, his soft-spoken voice cut through the noise. All eyes turned to me, and I squirmed under the examination. As loud as I could be in a crowd, it was the quiet moments that made me uncomfortable.
“Sorry, I’m not sure exactly what I’m doing,” I answered with a self-deprecating laugh.
It was controlled chaos across the table between candy, empty cartons, and frosting bags, but that wasn’t great for figuring out directions. The boys had dived right in, as if they’d been doing this for years, although maybe they had.
“Oh, easy,” Rory said. “Just slap some frosting on the bottom of your carton, stick it on your board, and then cover it in graham crackers. You might have to nibble the edges to make them fit. If you put enough frosting on them, they’ll stick, and then you put more frosting and cover it with the candy. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy, right?”
“Yeah, that’s simple enough, I think.”
“Don’t forget to cut out windows and the door so your pretend people can get inside,” Owen added.
A quick glance at his house let me know mine was never going to look that good. He’d cut out the openings with real precision and was lining up his graham crackers, so they all had even lines and even the eaves were even off the roofline. His house was fancy.
“Or, and hear me out with this one,” Nico said, “you just slap it on there, put a wreath where you think the door would be, add a red hot for the doorknob, and call it good.”
“I guess that’s an option too,” Owen sniffed, then ruined it by laughing.
For the next little bit, we all concentrated on putting our houses together, but not so much that Jakob didn’t keep our sippy cups full of wine, except for Owen, who drank his from a bottle.
Our houses got less precise as the evening went on.
By the end, our makeshift village looked like a candy factory had exploded in the center and had been rebuilt by drunk elves.
“Casey, I gotta ask you a question,” Rory giggled. He was creating frosted branches on his tootsie roll woodpile, but he kept smearing it so it looked more like snow drifts piling up next to the house.
“What’s the deal with you and Travis? Are you two, like…together?” Rory asked before flopping back in his chair and hugging his knees to his chest. His eyes went soft, and he stared at the ceiling before adding, “Because Travis is kinda hot.”
“Aren’t you taken?” Nico asked with a grin. “Does your Daddy know you’re out there looking at other men?”
Rory waved him off. “He knows I’m not dead. A little look never hurt anyone as long as I’m not touching. He doesn’t care.” Nico gave him a look that said he clearly didn’t believe him, so Rory added, “ Daddy is an architect. He appreciates pretty things.”
“How would that work? Like, you point someone out to him? What do you do?” Jakob asked.
“Heeeeeeeellllllooooo,” Rory drawled out. “None of this matters. All I wanna know is what I asked Casey.”
“We are kind of sort of maybe a little bit,” I said with a definitive nod. I went for more wine but sloshed it down the table in front of me.
“Oh, party foul. That means you gotta drink double,” Nico said.
He reached over to refill my cup, but spilled more himself. He took a swig directly from the bottle. Rory decided that seemed like a good idea, so we passed the bottle around the table. Our village was momentarily forgotten while we tried to finish it off because wasting wine wasn’t cool.
“Ohhhh, Owen, your house is spinny,” Jakob said when he tried to stand, couldn’t manage it, and tumbled onto the floor. That sent the other boys and me into peals of laughter. It took a few tries, but Jakob managed to crawl back into his chair. “You gotta talk to Barrack ’bout it.”
“Barrack? I don’t know him,” Owen teased, but then he ruined it by burping. His hand flew to cover his mouth with eyes wide.
“Yeah, you do. Big guy, lots of tattoos, sleeps in your bed,” Nico added helpfully.
“Ohhhh…Barrack…Barrett…Bear,” Owen said with a laugh.
“That’s the one!” Nico said proudly. “Jakob, I think he found ’im.”
“What are we talking ’bout?” Jakob asked.
“I don’t ’member,” Nico answered with a sad shake of his head. “Kinda sleepy. I think I need a nap.”
“Yeah, me two,” Rory chimed in.
“Me three,” I agreed.
Rory pulled his phone from his panda onesie and started texting.
Nico then Jakob followed him. It struck me that my first instinct was to text Travis a.k.a.
Daddy, but had we reached that point? Yeah, we’d said dating and exploring, but driving my drunk ass home seemed extra.
It was his night off, and he could be busy.
He had lots of irons in plenty of fires. Uber it was for me.
Boo.
Cars were plentiful in the area, so I figured I’d call for my ride after their Daddies were on the way. It was too much fun just hanging out with the boys to leave earlier than I had to. This was what I’d been missing since I’d moved here.
Usually, I hung out with my local friend, but that hadn’t worked out this time, and I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t branched out. But tonight my tipsy…okay, drunk…ass didn’t need to figure it out. All I had to do was have fun until it was time to go.
I’d call in a minute.
“Hey, sleepyhead, it’s time to go home.”