Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
CASEY
Rory
You sure this is what you want?
Casey
Yeah. I’ve never been to Alaska, but it’s been on my list forever, and now I get to go. On someone else’s dime.
Nico
I love a deal, but we’re gonna miss you.
Owen
All of us will.
Anders
You have to make the best decision for yourself, but we’re gonna miss you like crazy.
Rory
And it’s not just ’cause you make the best hot chocolates.
Owen
But they are super good.
Jakob
How did Travis take it?
Casey
He was bummed, but he understood.
Rory
Well, if we can’t convince you to stay, then we’ll have to celebrate you before you go.
Owen
I vote that the Christmas party becomes a going-away party with a Christmas theme.
Anders
I think that’s a great idea.
Casey
I don’t need all that.
Rory
But you deserve all that.
Anders
And more.
Casey
I don’t want to ruin the Cuddle Crew Committee’s Christmas party.
Rory
It’s already been decided.
Jakob
Agreed.
Owen
Agreed.
Anders
Agreed. Unless you refuse to come, and then we’ll change it.
Right, Rory?
Rory
Ugh. Fine. Yes.
Casey
I appreciate you all thinking of me. Let’s have ourselves a party.
Rory and Gabe’s house was lit up like a Christmas tree.
Garland with lights ran along the front iron fence.
The actual trees were wrapped in lights.
The porch had wreaths, more garland, and even more lights.
Every window had a glowing candle. It was beautiful.
It was…a lot. A lot, a lot. But still beautiful.
I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other and climb the steps.
Rory told me to just walk in, but it felt weird not to knock.
The chill off the ocean was killer tonight, being this close to the water, but the cold in my chest wasn’t from the breeze.
It was because I was leaving Daddy behind.
I’d thought I was ready to give up my rolling stone ways, but the sheer force of panic that hit me when I realized that if I stayed, he’d want to build something with me…
yeah. It knocked the breath out of me. I’d said that’s exactly what I wanted.
But the reality of it scared the absolute shit out of me.
And he didn’t even close the door on me.
If it had been me, I would’ve slammed it shut and locked it.
I told him I was leaving by text because I’m a coward, and he just said thanks for letting him know and asked if I wanted to come over for a movie.
Of course I said yes because I love torturing myself.
I saw the sadness in his eyes, but he didn’t make me feel guilty for my decision.
The only thing he said was to remind me to pack warm socks because it got cold in Alaska.
Whatever I had done in my life, I didn’t deserve him.
He was too kind, too sweet, too everything I ever wanted.
Which obviously meant he was too good to be true.
Ugh. Tonight was not the time to circle the drain. There was a party, and apparently, I was the guest of honor. I needed to get inside.
I squared my shoulders, opened the door, and stepped into the warmth.
Oh damn. If I’d thought the outside was pretty, it was nothing compared to the explosion of joy Rory had created inside.
Right in the entryway was a whole collection of moose.
Meese? No, still moose. Whatever. They were adorable.
I shook the rain off my jacket and tossed it onto the pile in the corner.
The noise from the back of the house said the party was already in full swing.
I crossed polished wooden floors into the living room—then stopped dead. In front of the huge window stood a ginormous fir tree covered in white twinkle lights, red beads, and…my face?
“Surprise! Happy going-away party and Merry Christmas!” Rory shouted from across the room. His sweater—covered in tinsel—physically hurt my eyes, but he somehow still looked great in it. At the commotion, everyone turned toward me.
“Uh…hey. Thanks.”
Rory jogged over as I turned to the tree. “Why is my face on this? Oh my god, where did you get these?”
“Before I tell you, you have to tell me if you’re mad. Because if you are, then you don’t get to know.”
“Nope, not mad. Just…surprised? Shocked? Mildly horrified?”
“Fair. Those are all fine,” Rory said with a breezy wave of his hand.
“We got your server friend to take pictures of you without you knowing, then had them printed on ornaments so we could celebrate you. Do you know how hard it is to get photos of someone with no social media? It’s wild.
And I couldn’t ask you for any because then you’d know, and that would be awkward. ”
“That is quite the conundrum for you.”
Rory beamed at me. My sarcasm did not land. At all.
“Exactly! I’m glad you understand how hard it was. And let me tell you—trying to explain to Drew why I needed covert pictures of you? I think he thought I was undercover or something,” Rory whispered loudly.
“No, I thought you were stalking him, and it was about to get weird,” Drew said, walking into the living room with a plate piled high. “Either the other guys were gonna jump in on the stalking, or Rory was gonna get kicked out of the band.”
“So why did you help him?” I asked.
“Because I wanted to see which one happened,” Drew said with a shrug, like it was the most normal answer in the world.
“So you were gonna help my stalker stalk me?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”
I shook my head. The backward logic was unreal. “Thank you for not stalking.”
“Oh no, I totally did that too. Look at this one.” Rory pulled me close to the tree and pointed at a photo of me at the gym. “Anders said this was too much.”
“Anders is a smart guy,” I said. “It’s a lot.”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t let us follow you home,” Rory muttered. “Said he’d tell our Daddies if we didn’t knock it off.”
“Tell us what?” Gabe asked from behind us. Rory froze. His eyes widened like a kid caught stealing cookies.
“What?” Gabe repeated, sharper now.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Rory was just telling me how they pulled off the ornaments.”
Now that I was looking, the pictures were actually a wide variety—with one thing in common. They were all unflattering.
Every. Single. One.
“C’mon, let’s get some food in you.”
Rory took my hand and led me into the kitchen, around the ginormous island table.
The boys were poking and picking at the spread laid out in front of them.
Cookies, candy, sausage rolls, little snacky bites—every single thing was something I loved.
I had no idea how they’d gathered this much intel on me, but my heart was breaking at the idea that I was going to leave them.
I’d left friends before, and yeah, it had hurt, but I’d never left behind people who went to this much trouble for me. And these boys had. And I was leaving Daddy. And I didn’t even… I didn’t even know what to say.
We stood in the doorway for a couple of long moments before anyone besides Rory and Jakob realized I was there.
“Oh my gosh, you’re here! We were gonna surprise you,” Jakob said with a horrified look. He stomped his foot in frustration. “Could you leave and come back? The surprise might work.”
“I mean, I guess I could, but I’m already here, and I took my jacket off, and it’s raining.”
“Exactly the right answer, Casey. No one should go back out in the rain after they’re warm. Doctor’s orders.” Jakob gave a small nod, then fetched his paci hanging from a ribbon on his onesie and popped it into his mouth.
I took in the room properly then—the boys were openly drinking from sippy cups, or in Owen’s case, a bottle, as he sat on the counter leaning on Anders and slowly sucking on the nipple.
Drew had found a chair and was shoveling food into his mouth with both hands.
He saw me looking around and called out before I could even come up with an excuse for why these grown men were in…
oh wow, matching reindeer onesies using sippy cups and bottles.
“Dude, I do not care. Let that freak flag fly.”
“Thanks, man. I really appreciate that.”
“You’re welcome,” he said with total sincerity and returned to his plate.
What would it be like to be that unbothered by everything? It must be a trip. What would it be like to go through life like that? And was it too late for me to change my entire personality? Probably. But if I could figure out even a little of whatever magic he had, life would be so much easier.
A tiny seed of something rested in the back of my mind—small, but growing fast.
Daddy wasn’t here.
Daddy. Was. Not. Here.
“Is that a plane? I don’t get it. It’s a TV show, and your clues are a plane and a coconut tree,” Nico groused from the couch.
Levi was up at the whiteboard drawing…something.
Our game of Pictionary wasn’t going well.
Turns out none of us had any actual artistic talent.
Except Owen, but he was a terrible guesser, so even his pretty drawings didn’t help because none of us knew what the hell they were supposed to be.
“Fantasy Island,” Levi said. “I used to watch it with my mom. The guy would yell, ‘The plane! The plane!’ You know…reruns?”
Nico looked at him like he’d asked him to hike Mount Rainier at midnight. “No. No, we did not watch that show.”
Laughter burst around the room. Jakob was being way too generous with the wine he’d brought, and everyone was feeling it.
Everyone except me. Daddy wasn’t here, and that made everything feel…
off. Not fun. Not warm. Not right. Which wasn’t fair because I was the one leaving, and he was the steady one staying.
I had no right to be upset he wasn’t here.
Asking him to be here would’ve taken a hell of a lot of nerve on my part.
But I still wanted it. I still wanted him.
And it was ridiculous to be this conflicted, but I couldn’t get my brain to cooperate or slow down or make sense of any of this.
I needed air. Oh my god, I needed air.