22. Casey
CASEY
“Happy birthday, Robert.” I hand him a huge box as I walk through the door of our father’s house.
He takes it and beams at me from behind the package. “This might be the biggest one yet.”
I pull the corners of my mouth down, pretending to think. “I don’t know. I think last year’s was bigger.”
“No way,” Robert insists. “This one is heavier, too.”
Dad saunters into the front room, drying his hands on a towel. He throws the towel over his shoulder and claps me on the back. “Trying to show off with your big money from your hot-shot job, I see,” he jokes.
“Dad.” Robert rolls his eyes. “He’s not doing that. This one’s smaller than last year.”
Giving me an incredulous look, Dad huffs with mock exasperation. “They’re not paying you enough then if you can’t even outdo last year’s gift.”
“Which is it, old man?” I tease. “I’m either showing off or not spending enough. Can’t be both.”
Dad shrugs and motions me into the house.
We follow him through the living room and out into the backyard where a table is laden with snacks, paper plates, napkins, and plastic utensils.
Colorful balloons adorn the fence surrounding the deck, and I can smell Dad’s famous barbecue coming from the grill.
Over on one side of the yard, Robert’s roommates, Danny and Paul, are playing a game of bags.
Danny—a man about Robert’s age with a dark, scruffy beard and short hair—shakes his hands excitedly at his sides while he waits for Robert to toss his bag.
Paul, the oldest of the three at forty years old, smirks as he takes off his blue baseball cap and wipes some sweat off his brow, mussing his sandy hair in the process.
When he notices me enter the backyard, he waves excitedly.
“Hey, Casey! Watch me sink this shot.”
Danny tips his face to the sky and groans. “Quit talking about it and do it already.”
Using an underhand toss, Paul throws the beanbag a touch too hard. It slides over the hole and into the grass.
“Next time, I’ll get it.” He sounds confident.
“I know you will,” I call back.
Robert plops down on one of the chairs and sets the gift-wrapped box between his feet on the wooden deck. Danny and Paul pause their game and wander over to see.
“What’s in it?” Danny asks. “It looks impressive.”
“Don’t know,” Robert responds, then looks at me. “Can I open it?”
“Yeah,” I say as if it’s obvious. “I mean, unless you want to wait until the end of your party.”
“No way,” he says as he excitedly starts tearing into the wrapping paper. Erick and Lisa, the two staff members who work closest with Robert and his roommates, stop their conversation and turn their attention to Robert.
As soon as he gets the paper off, he looks disappointed. Underneath is just a large, cardboard box. “Did you trick me again? You did that three years ago with those boxes that got smaller and smaller and I had to unwrap each one.”
I shake my head. “It’s no fun to play the same prank twice. This isn’t a trick, promise.”
“Come on, Robert,” Danny urges. “Open the box!”
Robert starts undoing the tape one piece at a time, and Danny starts to fidget like he’s about to jump in and rip the box open himself, but he doesn’t. Once Robert pulls open the top, his eyes light up and he gasps.
Unable to contain himself any longer, Danny leans over and peeks inside. “Oh, no way! This is so cool!” He reaches in and takes out one of the video game cartridges.
“This is exactly like the one we had when we were kids,” Robert says, his voice thick with emotion. He looks up at me. “Thank you, Casey.”
“Yeah, it’s vintage, so be careful with it.” I eye Danny as he drops the cartridge on the table and snags another, then another. He flashes me a sheepish grin and starts placing them more gently on the table.
“I’m going to dominate,” Paul says, his eyes growing wider with each game Danny pulls out of the box.
“Nah.” Robert laughs. “Casey and I spent a lot of time playing these.”
Paul frowns and hums, unconvinced. “You’re probably rusty.”
Once the guys examine all the games and make a list of which ones to play first, Robert gives me a hug and the three of them go back to the bags set. Erick and Lisa return to their conversation, and Dad goes to the grill to check on the meat. I grab a can of soda from the cooler, then join him.
“I used to beat both of you at those games, you know.” He flips over a piece of chicken, then pokes at another.
“You should come play. Show us how it’s done,” I suggest lightly, as if I didn’t buy the game system almost entirely so he might have a reason to visit more often.
He nods, a pensive look on his face. “Maybe.”
Better than no, I think as my phone buzzes in my pocket.
Dad glares at me as I pull it out. “You such a hotshot that you have to be taking calls at family parties now? You know the rules.”
It was Mom’s rule—no phones at family functions—and she was beyond strict about it. I pulled out my phone one time when I was on a tight deadline, and she swatted it out of my hand with the back of her wooden spoon.
Based on the chuckle Dad makes under his breath, he’s remembering the same moment. Smirking, he clicks the tongs a few times in my direction.
“Don’t even think about it.” I take a step out of his reach, pointing to the prominent outline of the phone in his back pocket. “Don’t pretend like you don’t have yours either.”
A quick glance at my screen has me stepping even farther away and sitting in a chair on the other side of the deck because it’s Trina.
Over the past week, I’ve only heard from her to discuss business.
No pleasure. There’s no way I’m letting Dad and his tongs get in the way of me seeing what she wants.
Trina: Imani thought it’d be fun to fly out here and sign her contract in person. She already booked a flight with a friend and has no other plans. No lodging, no itinerary. Oh to be twenty-something again.
Another message comes in just as I’m about to respond, which makes me smile.
Trina: I think she’s expecting that we show her a good time.
Me: So she’s staying on your couch?
Trina: Absolutely not.
Trina: Come to think of it, it might be fun to paint each other’s nails and share secrets and talk about how much of a hardass you are.
Me: Sounds like you have an itinerary already.
The dots bounce at the bottom of the screen, then disappear, then start again. When her text finally comes in, I let out a laugh loud enough that all of our guests glance at me before returning to their activities.
Trina: No. Dear god, please help me. You did this. Had I known showing her around Chicago was a condition of me signing her, I would have refused.
Me: You would not have.
Trina: You’re right, I would not have. But I still don’t want to be solely responsible for her good time. I am not a good time.
Me: Yes you are.
Trina: I’m a good lay. There’s a difference.
I cannot acknowledge what those words do to me in front of my family and my brother’s friends, so I shove down any hint of desire and choose instead to focus on the comfort that Trina’s dry humor brings me. I love it when she jokes around likes this.
But the urge to push the envelope is strong. She was hesitant the other night in my office, and when it comes to her job and her boss, I can understand why. Still, I can’t help myself when it comes to her.
Me: I like hanging out with you, too.
Those dots bounce around for a while, but my dad clears his throat pointedly from the chair next to mine. I have no idea when he got there. I’ve been too engrossed in my messages.
“Those are what your mom liked to call ‘moon eyes,’” he says softly, circling his index finger in the general direction of my face.
I raise an eyebrow and set my phone face down on my thigh to give him my attention. “What are moon eyes?” I ask, even though I know exactly what he’s talking about. Mom used to tease him about his moon eyes for her all the time.
Dad shoots me a skeptical look as if he knows I’m indulging him, but he answers anyway. “Moon eyes are that dopey look people have when they’re looking at something they’re…” He narrows his eyes at me. “Infatuated with, I guess.”
He probably wanted to say, in love with, but I’m grateful he didn’t.
“People? Or men in particular?” I give him a knowing smirk.
Leaning back in his chair and breathing in the warm, early evening air, he looks up at the sky with exactly what I’d describe as “moon eyes,” almost as if he can see her up there looking back at him.
“She would have said men in particular. But I knew better. She had a way of looking at me that said almost the same thing.”
She did. I remember distinctly the way she’d look at him, as if he hung the moon.
Maybe that’s what she meant by “moon eyes.” If soulmates exist, my parents were them.
They fell fiercely in love very young and lived a whole different life before I came along.
Sometimes, I’d feel like an intruder if I walked into a room the two of them were in.
But it was an incredible thing to witness.
A once-in-a-lifetime love so big it could conquer almost anything.
I flip through my memory, wondering if Trina has ever had moon eyes for me. She’s so expressive, with her small smiles and her sassy smirks, or the way her lips part gently and her eyelids flutter when she thinks I’m going to kiss her.
“You’re doing it again,” Dad says quietly, knowingly. “So, who is she?”
My phone buzzes in my hand, but I don’t turn it over. I take a moment, trying to decide whether or not I should deny it completely, but I think I’ve passed the point of denial. I’ve been falling for Trina for a lot longer than I want to admit, and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore.
“She’s…” God, how do I explain her? I work with words for a living, and I don’t think there are words that would do her justice. “She’s a coworker. Sort of. An agent I work with.”
Dad nods. “Work-life balance a little hard?”
“It’s tricky to navigate,” I admit.
“Hmm.” He pushes himself to standing and claps me on the shoulder.
“If you have feelings for her, sometimes you just have to trust that the rest of it will work out. But don’t waste time on your way there.
Time is precious. And speaking of time”—he stretches and cracks his back—“it’s time to eat.
” He winks at me. “See? I can be punny just like you, hotshot.”
I chuckle, but there’s an edge to it because he’s right. Time is precious. I’m just not sure what my next move should be. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll be over in a minute.”
Flipping my phone over to read her message, my heart beats a little faster. Now that I’ve admitted out loud that I have feelings for Trina, it’s going to be a lot harder to pretend that I don’t. And I think she still needs that from me.
Trina: You’re in luck, then, because Imani is going to need some people to hang out with. Will you help me?
I send back a simple message, but I hope it conveys that I’d do that for her and much more.
Me: Of course.