Chapter 23 #2
William passes around slices plopped on paper towels. I slip a bite between my lips and let the delicate spongey texture melt on my tongue. It’s sugary and buttery and everything I could ever want in a dessert.
“Do you bake?” I ask as he cuts a slice for himself.
“Heavens, no,” William says. “But the kitchen staff was quite helpful in assisting me through the instructions of boxed cake.”
“It’s perfect,” I assure him.
I’ve never had anyone go to these lengths to make me feel special—other than my family.
When I was younger, my dad would blast music as my mom made pancakes from scratch, and Jared used to chase me around to confetti-bomb me with glitter so minuscule it would take several washes to rinse out of my hair.
Madelene, of course, always had a special performance—a monologue or song she’d learned.
Money was always tight, but it didn’t matter.
I couldn’t have asked for anything better.
This effort feels meaningful in a different way.
William reaches over and thumbs my cheek. “Frosting,” he explains.
A warm hum zips through my belly and ignites sparklers in my brain. It’s not just the accent. Or the charm. This subtle crush is stretching and expanding far beyond my capacity to contain it.
Sumner clears his throat, averting his gaze. Lionel cuts himself another heaping slice, then says, “Happy birthday, Delaney” through a bite.
“Oh, it’s tomorrow.”
“Which is in two hours,” Sumner says. “Technically.”
William’s phone chimes. He peers down at the screen, mouth frowning with regret. “I’d forgotten the fencing team extended me an invitation to their movie night.”
“Well, we’ve hit another wall until we can piece together the next steps, which require those equations,” Lionel says. “Should we call it?”
Sumner looks between us, face unreadable. “I may stick around longer.”
William insists we should head to movie night with him, but only Lionel agrees. As much as we’ve butted heads and baited each other, I don’t want to leave Sumner here alone. It doesn’t feel right. Besides, I want to prove I can concentrate on reading despite the celebratory interruption.
“I’ll see you at dance lessons on Wednesday, I presume?”
“You’ll want to bring your thickest pair of shoes,” I say. “And ice, probably. Might be similar to waltzing with a blindfolded bull.”
“Doubtful,” William says. “I have faith in you.”
Once they leave, the light rapping of the Expo marker resumes, interrupted occasionally by clicks when Sumner enters numbers in his graphing calculator.
The heater’s steady drone provides white noise through our silence.
I flip a page in the journal, dipping my fork into the cake and savoring the frosting on my tongue.
I can’t tell if it’s the sugar or William’s presence that brings on this full body buzz, but I let myself settle into it. A sliver of joy.
After several minutes, Sumner goes, “Dance lessons?”
“For the presentation ball.” I turn another page. “He’s my escort.”
“Oh.”
Aggressively hard knocks from the marker’s felt tip puncture through our silence.
“Which I wouldn’t need,” I add several seconds later, “if someone hadn’t announced my presence to the entire Segner hallway.”
A faint snap sounds as he recaps the marker. “I’m not apologizing for that.”
“Didn’t ask for one.”
Another weighty pause.
“But it had to be my roommate again?”
When I dart my gaze in his direction, I find he’s already looking at me. Adrenaline rushes up my spine, as if preparing me for a standoff. “What do you mean?”
“Last year it was Brayden, this year it’s him.” He twists the marker in his hands. “I’m just saying there are other people, who are not my roommate, that you could have asked.”
My face burns. “I didn’t ask,” I snap. “He asked me.”
Now Sumner looks uncomfortable. “When?”
“A few weeks ago.”
Another very long, very awkward silence.
Sumner has no right to be pressed, especially after what happened between us.
If anything, I should be mad. But that anger only proves I still care, and I don’t.
Besides, he’s had his fair share of situationships and hookups over the years.
I see the way Hailey Collins acts around him now.
And he’s going to sit here passing judgment over me?
Neither of us has broached what happened in my backyard before he returned to New York with Jared.
If I’m being honest, I don’t know what to say.
He spoke plainly when he rejected me. That was my answer.
We don’t owe each other anything. We never have.
Our communication style has always been in the form of jabs and barbs, roasts and taunts.
It was a mistake for me to think it could transform into something different. Instead, it crumbled.
My phone tells me it’s closing in on ten thirty, which means we have fifteen minutes to make it back to our houses for weekend curfew.
I gather the rest of the cake, which I’m going to have to trash since outside food isn’t allowed in the houses unless it’s prepackaged, and I dig my fork into another heaping scoop.
Between the four of us, we’ve put a healthy dent in it.
My tongue collects the spongey sugar as I savor another few bites.
Sumner collects his belongings and slings his bag over his shoulder. He eyes the remaining cake in my hand, so I extend it in his direction. A peace offering. We’ve been thrust into an impossible situation together. I don’t want to be at his throat any more than I am.
Instead of going at it with a fork, he cranes his neck to take a giant bite, and I get a split-second idea to gently shove the lumpy mass of sugar, flour, and butter toward him. The frailest of nudges.
He straightens, frosting smeared down his chin and on the tip of his nose. “That,” he chides, “was uncalled for.”
“It’s my birthday,” I counter. “I can do what I want.”
His eyebrows rise as he takes the cake platter from my hand. “Are those the rules?”
“Don’t,” I warn through a laugh. “I swear!”
He scoops a glob with his bare hand and waves it toward me. I duck away and sprint toward the door, but he follows.
“You know you want to.”
I take two tentative steps closer, and he holds the platform toward me. I move for a bite, fully expecting him to shove the whole thing in my face, but he doesn’t. The cardboard remains balanced on his palm as I mimic his move and claim a mouthful.
I get frosting all over my face. It’s worth it.
“Candles are overrated,” I decide. “This is how cake deserves to be eaten.”
His mouth hitches into a tilted smile as he discards the rest in the trash before rinsing his chin and frosting-filled hand in the water fountain. I do the same when he’s done.
Somehow, it feels like we’ve reset.
Once we’re greeted with the gusty night chill, I expect we’ll merge along our separate paths. But then he stops. “I have something for you.”
Before I can say anything, he pulls something flat and thin out of his backpack and hands it to me.
His eyes are trained on my hands as I tip a delicate bookmark with gilded golden edges from the envelope.
In the center is a quote I recognize: “Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for last.” Below this, there’s a stunning sketch of two figures resembling Holmes and Watson.
It’s a gift. A gesture so lovely and unexpected, my words escape me.
“You were reading the books all summer.” The words topple from his lips in rapid pace. “And when I saw this…”
I trace the glinting edges with my fingertips. He’d been paying attention. This realization causes my heartbeat to stumble. Deeper in my chest, a sense of sadness and happiness exist at once. Those books were my dad’s escape, our shared joy, and Sumner knew that because I’d told him.
My eyes leap to his. He looks nervous. That’s new. I’ve seen flickers of combativeness and nefariousness and cracks of vulnerability as of late, but never hesitation.
“Thank you,” I say. It’s incredibly thoughtful. I’m surprised he remembered my birthday, let alone went through the effort to get me this.
His hands slide into his jacket pockets. “Maybe candles are overrated, but birthday wishes aren’t.”
Cold air expands in my lungs. I still haven’t told Sumner about my wish night revelation, but he must see something in my expression, because his brows lift.
“I need to tell you something.” I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but a flicker of hope grows behind his eyes. “You’re going to think I’ve lost it.”
“Carmichael, that ship has sailed.” A lopsided smile appears. “And I’m the captain.”
I plow forward. “I think I know why William is here.”
Sumner just stares at me. “You think you know why an aristocrat from nineteenth-century London has somehow mysteriously transcended time and space, not to mention all the laws of physics, to set foot in the northeastern boarding school that he founded?” He folds his arms. “Enlighten me.”
I take a breath. “I think—I wished for this. At wish night, I mean. It was right after we overheard Ellerby and I wanted a way to save the school, and when I talked to William about it, he told me that same night he’d wished for more time for his studies.
What if he’s here to help save Ivernia?” It tips from my tongue in a rushed whisper.
“What if it’s the universe’s weird way of fixing this enormous problem? ”
He smirks. “The earth revolves around the sun, not you, Carmichael.”
“Thank you, Copernicus.” I roll my eyes. “I am, in fact, being serious.”
“Right. Fine. And William,” Sumner says, disbelief in his tone, “is the physical manifestation of your wish?”
“Wasn’t it his idea to have us host the gala?”
His eyes flatten. “I think you would have come to that same conclusion.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you believe what you’re saying,” he says, “but no, it’s not a logical explanation that’ll fix this issue.”
Hot uncertainty prickles my skin. “What if it is?”
“All right, fine.” His glasses slip down his nose as he studies me. “Wish him back.”
I shift in place but say nothing.
Upon my wavering, he releases a heavy sigh. “You don’t want to.”
“I do,” I insist. “But he has to stay through the gala.”
“Because he’s your date.”
“Because we can’t do this without him,” I contend. “I mean, what are the chances he appears the exact night we hear about the closure? And you were the one saying there has to be an anchoring point. A connection. Couldn’t this be it?”
Sumner takes a step backward. I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but he looks…wounded? His hand rubs the back of his neck. “You want to give up building the isoborometer?”
“No,” I clarify. Because truthfully? Despite all our frustrations and disagreements, I love it.
Researching, the trial and error, soaking in the silence and debating insight.
It’s challenging and often infuriating, but it’s also one of the things I look forward to every week.
“But if we complete it before the gala—”
“He stays.” His mouth tenses. “Got it.”
“What’s the harm?” I press. “Right?”
His Adam’s apple moves through a swallow. “Yeah.”
I admire the bookmark in my hands. I still can’t imagine Sumner thinking of me as he picked it out. “I love this. Genuinely. That’s not sarcasm.”
The smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Happy birthday. Almost officially.” He glances down at the time on his phone. “We are both about to get in a lot of trouble.”