Chapter 38
thirty-eight
“We’ll be snowed in for days,” Cait says, watching an angry swarm of flakes drift past the living room slider door.
“Fine by me.” From behind, I wrap my arms around her waist and kiss her neck, then bury my face in her smooth hair, inhaling the smell of her sugary shampoo like a damn drug.
It’s January in Chicago. Snowberia at best, the Ice Age at worst. We’ve been lucky with little blasts of snow every few days, nothing that’s amounted to more than an annoyance. But this time, we prepared for a blizzard.
Cait and I made a run for books, a ten-pound canister of hot chocolate, DVDs from the dollar rack at Goodwill, and enough food to stock our kitchen for a month. Heck, I’d be happy if we were stuck here forever. At the very least, we have another week to enjoy each other before school starts again.
When I step to the window to check the weather, a black SUV with tinted windows stops in front of our building.
Its tire tracks ruin the untouched snowy scene.
I should take it as a bad omen, but instead I watch with curiosity as a driver jumps out and rounds the car.
He opens the back door and a stately figure steps out.
Beside me, Cait presses her nose to the window.
Her breath fogs the glass, but she smears the cloudiness away and looks again.
A bundled woman steps through the snow, around the building maintenance man, Mr. Gusterson, who’s shoveling the sidewalk, and then she climbs the front stairs. Two men escort her.
“Oh no.” Cait spins. Fear clouds her worried eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I jerk back a little.
“Get dressed, quick!” She shoos me away.
She’s having a panic attack with shaking hands and labored breathing, which has the opposite effect of what she wants. I stay planted and pin her arms to her sides, whispering relaxing words to calm her.
There’s a knock on the door behind us. We freeze and stare in the direction of the sound until Cait angry-whispers, “Go.”
Then it hits me. I know who it is, and this isn’t how I want to meet this person. Not in my underwear with we-just-had-sex hair and breath.
I scramble across the apartment and into my room, ransacking it for clean clothes that don’t exist. Knowing I’ve run out of time, I launch back to slam my bedroom door when Cait answers the front door. From across the apartment, I hear an exchange.
“Mom,” Cait says in a high-pitched, alarmed squeak.
Even though I can’t see them, I take the defensive, my muscles tensing and hackles rising. Cait hasn’t told me much about her family, only that they don’t get along. I don’t have to be a genius to understand that this visit is bad news.
“Did you think you could hide?” her mom barks. There’s more conversation I can’t make sense of, and then a sound I do. Heels clicking and traveling down the hall.
I thought I was safe when I closed my bedroom door, but I have only one leg in my dirty jeans when a woman with a serious case of TV anchor hair barges into my room without knocking.
She’s an older version of Cait, dressed in a purple pantsuit with a flowery scarf wrapped around her neck.
Attractive, but her presence is terrifying.
Or maybe I’m under that impression because Cait appears terrified standing behind her.
“And who’s this?” The woman doesn’t bother to look away as I tug my pants to my waist, hiding my boxer briefs.
When it’s clear Cait isn’t answering, I button my pants and cross the room to extend my hand.
Her mom doesn’t accept it. She simply stares at my hand until it falls away. Her coldness could be because I’m still half-naked, or maybe it’s that she’s a complete bitch. I’m betting on the latter.
I rest my hands on my hips and stand up straighter, feeling like I’m being challenged. Or worse, that I need to acknowledge her importance.
“Evan Wade. Nice to meet you, Senator London.” I nod.
“Ah, I see.” She glances to Cait, who’s folding into herself and staring at the floor, looking like she wants to disappear.
“We weren’t expecting you,” I say, surveying the mess in my room. We left the beer-can pyramid in the corner as a joke. Thinking back, that might have been a bad call.
“I guess you wouldn’t since my daughter didn’t even tell me where she lives.”
Senator London spins and continues her self-guided tour, and like an idiot I follow in the wake of disaster. She slips into Cait’s room, and I lean into the door frame behind Cait, whose arms are wound tight. Up to this moment, she hasn’t said much.
Her mom pauses in front of Cait’s vision board, rips down a photo, and stares at it. She lifts it and waves it at us. I can see it’s the photo of me, the same one I was admiring earlier.
“Looks like you can take this one down. Mission accomplished,” she says and tosses it aside. Her gaze bounces from our lack of clothing to the unmade bed to three empty condom wrappers on the floor.
I was very proud of that number before she arrived. But now? I still am, but again, this isn’t the way I wanted to meet her mom—as a sex machine.
“Thank God I waited to find you until after the election. What would my constituency think about my unwed daughter shacking up with a frat boy? What was your name again, Everett?” She eyes me.
“Actually, it’s Evan. And I’m not just a frat boy; I’m Cait’s husband.” I smile at the joke, hoping to lighten the mood.
Her mom’s predator eyes press into slits, but their attention doesn’t land on me. Instead, she’s inspecting Cait’s ring finger and then her belly, which Cait automatically covers as if she’s guilty.
“I’m not pregnant, and we aren’t married. It’s a joke,” Cait finally says before storming out of the room, her fists clenched tight at her sides.
“Well, you’re setting yourself up for it, aren’t you?” Her mom brushes past, tracking Cait to the living room.
I follow again, knowing full well what’s coming. Their tension is on a countdown to combust in three, two, one . . .
“And why’s that so bad? Because it’s not what you want for me?”
I enter the room as Cait’s voice rises and her arms slap her sides with frustration. The two face each other in a showdown.
“You’ve been ruining your life since you ditched Georgetown and snuck off in the middle of the night like a thirteen-year-old runaway.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t use the story to manipulate your voters, make them sad for the senator with a missing daughter. But, oh wait, that might reflect badly on you as a parent. So good thing you waited,” Cait hisses.
“My thoughts exactly.” Her mom agrees in a calm and quiet tone, the worst kind to receive. That kind of control signals a threat. That’s when you know the shit has hit the fan.
I move to Cait’s side for support, thinking that if I don’t do something to mediate, they may kill each other. “Let’s take a deep breath here.” I hold out my palms like I’m balancing between the two.
They pause for a moment and seem to be breathing, but it’s short lived, and they return to the fighting ring.
“I came here to take you home,” her mom says, already slipping into her coat and tugging on her gloves. “You can leave your stuff here. I’ll send someone to collect everything. Grab your coat; let’s go.”
My heart clenches at the terse instruction. I wrap my arm around Cait, pulling her close as if to say over my dead body.
Cait laughs and then says with an incredulous tone, “I’m not going anywhere. I love it here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Georgetown has agreed to readmit you to pre-law, and I’ve already put a deposit on an apartment a few blocks from campus.”
“You’re not hearing me. I’m. Not. Leaving.
” Cait gestures to her ears and stands her ground.
“And if you don’t leave right now, an anonymous caller will tip off the Washington Post, the New York Times, and whatever other political outlet will pick up the story.
I’m sure they would love a scandalous article about your out-of-control daughter who contradicts every platform you run on.
And if you think what you’ve seen here is bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. ”
Disbelief laces her mom’s laugh. “You’ve been threatening me with that for years. Thank God you don’t have it in you.”
“Underage drinking,” Cait says.
“Lots of kinky, unwed sex.” I cut her off with a serious expression.
“And drugs! A ton of illegal drugs. Shall I show you my fake ID? And wait until you see the sex tapes!” Cait places a hand on her hip. She’s lying about most of it, but I nod my head in agreement, regardless.
“This isn’t the end of our discussion,” her mom says.
“It is. Now, get out.” Cait points at the door and I rush to open it, relieved to usher her mom out. Two men in long wool coats stand in the hallway, waiting. Her security? Or backup?
Before leaving, her mom pauses in front of me. “You’d better watch her closely. She’s your problem now, Evan Wade.”
“The difference between you and me, Senator London, is Cait’s a problem I’m happy to have.” I slam the door just as her bitchy ass crosses the threshold.
I take a deep breath before turning to Cait. My brain’s still computing what happened, but the standout question is, “You didn’t tell your parents where you live?”
“Please, they’ve known. They had more important things to do than bother with me. The election was over a few months ago. You don’t think it’s strange she showed up after the holidays?”
“Has she always sucked this much?”
“Would I be here if she didn’t?” Cait laughs, maybe to relieve some tension, and then plops on the couch with a pillow clutched to her chest. “I want to make my own way, without someone forcing me into a mold. I’m not a bad person because I don’t want to be an attorney, because I want to live in Chicago, or because I’m not a perfect robot-child.
I’m good! I work hard, and I want to finish business school, have a kick-ass job I love, and get married.
But I want all those things on my terms. Not because that’s what someone else wants for me, or because it looks good for an election. ”
I sit beside her and rub a hand down her thigh. “I want you to have all the things you want too. I’m glad you confronted her. And also, it would suck if you left.”
“Is that so?” She moves closer and fits her head into the crook of my neck. Her breath warms my bare chest, and I place an arm around her, drawing her near.
“I couldn’t let you leave only hours after I told you I love you.”
For this comment, she kisses my jaw, my ear, and moves until she’s straddling my hips, facing me. Her arms circle my neck as she peers down at me with her hair spilling over her shoulders in a silky curtain.
“How long have you loved me?” She tilts her head.
“From the moment I opened the door and saw you the first time.”
She scrunches her nose like she doesn’t believe me. “Are you sure it wasn’t when you saw me with Steph at Mr. Moon’s the month before?”
“Steph told you?” I shake her lightly and laugh because I’ve been busted.
“Does it matter? It’s the first time I knew I loved you.” She pauses to glance at the ceiling. “Okay, maybe it was more like the moment you made me apple pancakes. Regardless, I knew you were a good thing when I saw you. But remember, we’re still only friends.”
This is our joke. We’re just friends.
“That’s okay. I’m not looking for a girlfriend.” I’m looking for my everything. My fingers sink into the flesh of her hips.
Cait leans into me. I lift my chin, my lips seeking the softness of hers. When they connect, she squeezes me tighter between her thighs. My hips rise and I press into her spot, wanting her to feel what she does to me.
“So, tell me about these scandalous sex tapes you’re releasing to the press,” I whisper between kisses. My hands sneak beneath her top and slide across her back. The movement activates her grinding hips, making her moan.
“We should make some naughty ones right now.”