Chapter 12
January
Three Months Until The Wedding
“I prefer the part where the Founding Fathers had a rap battle.” Yesenia sits on my kitchen counter, feet dangling and a textbook the size of her torso propped open on her thighs.
“That’s Hamilton.” I flip a pancake on the griddle. “Don’t think that part was ever actually confirmed by historians.” I snap my fingers at her. “Flash cards. Let’s go.”
She hops off the counter with a groan and digs in her backpack on the floor.
It’s all for show. I know her eighteen-year-old butt loves school just as much as I did.
In fact, at this point, I’m hardly a proper tutor.
More like a study partner, if anything. I hold my hand out and she places a stack of index cards in my palm.
Sabrina has no idea what the donations from her registry will mean for students like Yesenia.
While funders see individual data points representing college admission rates, test scores, and academic awards, I see the humans whose lives can be changed with just a little support.
I’m still floating on a cloud from our conversation at the diner last week.
A smile plays at the corners of my mouth, and I bite my lip so Yesenia won’t mock me.
I flip over the first flash card. “Site where the Declaration of Independence was signed?”
“Independence Hall.”
“And where is that?” I slide the finished pancakes onto a plate.
“Philadelphia.”
“Correct.”
“What battle signaled the end of the war?” I move to the fridge and grab a stick of butter and the bottle of maple syrup.
“Yorktown.”
“And do you want syrup on your pancakes?” I hold it out as an offering.
“Duh.” She snatches the bottle from my hand and takes her plate out of the kitchen.
“Good answer.”
I step toward the living room, but a tingling sensation creeps up my back, followed by my arm hairs standing on end.
He’s here. I turn back to the stove and sure enough, Trip leans against the counter, wearing brown chino pants and a black polo sweater with sleeves that end just at the widest part of his biceps.
Dear lord. The light catches on his earring and the smug smile on his face.
“Not wearing your at-home uniform, I see.”
I widen my eyes as far as possible and jerk my head in the direction of the other room. Please understand my miming.
His lips contract into a small circle. He furrows his brow and points toward the living room. “Visitor?” It’s a whisper.
I nod my head so hard I nearly throw out my neck. I hold my palms up in front of me and back him as far as I can into the kitchen. It’s never been a big space, but it feels unusually small with Trip pinned to the counter opposite me.
He cocks his head to the side. “Date?” He checks his wristwatch.
Does that thing even work?
“It’s early. Did they sleep over?”
I roll my eyes at him.
“Someone’s in a mood.” He smiles and crosses his arms, making his biceps bulge even more.
“No, as someone pointed out, it’s early.” I keep my voice as low as possible. “What are you doing here?”
“Perhaps it’s a relative? A meddlesome aunt? Or—tell me it’s not Carter. Is it—”
“What’s going on in there?” Yesenia’s voice comes from the living room.
His brow furrows. “A child?”
“Technically—legally—an adult. A high school senior.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Are you…?”
I slap him, but my hand glides right through his chest. “No! Ew. What are you even saying?”
“Hey!” He holds his hands up. “You just seemed awfully focused on the legalities of their adulthood.”
I huff a breath and a strand of hair falls in front of my face. “I am a lawyer.”
“So I’ve heard.” He raises his hand and swipes at the hair, only succeeding in sending a buzzy feeling down my skin.
I turn back to my own plate of pancakes and open the refrigerator door. “I’m her tutor…of sorts.” I grab the strawberry preserves. “It’s a volunteer program I’m a part of. Like—” I turn back around and Trip’s eyes move upward from the spot my ass was seconds ago. “What do you want, Trip?”
He swallows and his eyes shift from glazed to clear. “How did the thing with Sabrina go?”
I screw off the lid and start spreading the preserves on my pancakes. “I’m kind of busy right now, if you can’t tell.” Plus, I don’t want to tell you how I completely failed my mission.
“Putting jam on your pancakes, yes, I see that. Are you some kind of psychopath?”
“No, just a woman speaking to a man who isn’t really there. Excuse me.” I walk directly through him out of the kitchen.
“Finally.” Yesenia sits with her feet up on the coffee table and shuffles her flash cards like she’s playing poker. “Jam on pancakes?” She scrunches her nose. “Should I be worried that you’re some kind of serial killer?”
“My point exactly.” Trip’s smooth voice sounds behind me.
I whip my head around and stick my tongue out at him.
Yesenia’s eyes narrow. “You’re acting weird.”
“Nope!” I chirp. “Where’d we leave off?” I pull a notebook toward me and scribble are you leaving yet?
Trip reads it over my shoulder. “Not a chance.”
“Can’t we play Switch or something? Just for a little break?” Yesenia pleads.
“I don’t have any video games.”
“Lame.”
“I have…board games?”
She rests her elbows on her knees. “I’m listening.”
“Fifteen more minutes of flash cards. Then we break.”
—
I pour a bag of watermelon Sour Patch Kids into a bowl on the coffee table.
“What’s that?” Yesenia peers over her book at the bowl.
“Stakes,” I say. “We’re not playing for nothing.”
I open a worn cardboard box that’s traveled with me to three apartments since I lived at Babcia’s and start flipping up the game pieces.
Yesenia grabs the box lid and reads it. “Guess Who?”
“Yup. Prepare to be schooled, young grasshopper. I’m undefeated in this one.” I hand her a board. “Here’s how it works. We ask questions to try to guess each other’s person. You get one wrong, no watermelon. Get it right, yes watermelon.” I pop one into my mouth.
“You’re on,” she says. It’s silent except for the clack-clack-clack as we set up our boards across from each other.
“This seat taken?” Trip’s broad frame enters my vision, and he sits to my right, taking up half of my small loveseat. The throw pillows remain perfectly placed, the seat cushions un-dented.
“Still here, I see,” I mutter.
“What?” Yesenia asks. I shake my head at her.
“Don’t sound so disappointed.” Trip’s voice is so close to my ear it sends a shiver down my spine. He reclines and extends his legs. “I’ve been known to win a game of Guess Who from time to time.”
I shoot him a look that says, I doubt it.
—
Yesenia is, unfortunately, a natural. I don’t know if it’s beginner’s luck or if she is some kind of genius for facial descriptions.
“Does your person have a mustache?”
“Yes,” I groan.
She gleefully reaches for a watermelon gummy and pops it into her mouth. Trip lies there with an arm thrown over his face, as though he can’t bear to watch my horrendous gameplay. Yesenia flips down several more people on her board, until only three remain.
“That’s it,” Trip says, rising from the couch. Maybe he’s finally leaving. My heart sinks at the absence of him next to me.
But instead of making his way to the door (or frankly, any wall, since he can leave through all of them), he stands behind Yesenia. His elbow is propped in his opposite hand, fingers playing with his lower lip as he examines the board.
“Ask her if her person has glasses.”
My jaw drops and I make bug eyes at him. I am not going to cheat against a high schooler.
I clear my throat. “Does your person have glasses?” Then again, maybe I’m more competitive than I thought.
She frowns. “Yes.”
I narrow my options to fewer than ten people and pluck a candy from the bowl. Victory is sweet.
“Does your person wear a tie?”
Trip winces. “Dammit.”
“Yes,” I admit.
Yesenia flips one person down. She’s narrowed it to two and can win on the next turn.
“Ask her if it’s Claire.”
“Trip!”
“Trip?” Yesenia asks. Her face is puzzled as she looks at the board.
“Ask her.”
“I don’t see a Trip on the board…” Yesenia says, examining each of the pieces.
“Fine. Claire. Is your person Claire?”
Yesenia narrows her eyes. “I don’t believe it.”
I curl my hands at my sides, knowing guilt is written all over my face.
“Got her!” Trip’s voice is triumphant.
“You cheated!” Yesenia protests. “That, or an extremely lucky guess.”
“Fine.” I lower my head, dejected. “I saw your board. You got me.”
“Elz, why? We have her!” Trip holds his palms out in front of him.
“Wow. Taking candy from a teenager, Miss L. Pretty low.” Yesenia leans back in her chair. I think she’s more pleased to catch me in the wrong than to actually win.
“You’re right. I let my competitiveness get the best of me. Not an excuse. You keep the winnings.” I ignore Trip and get up to grab a paper bag for the candy.
Yesenia packs up, all the while lecturing me on integrity and cheating celebrities who met their demise. I half listen while ushering her out of the apartment. Trip leans against the doorframe as I close it behind her.
His hands are in his pockets and he has a sheepish grin on his face. “Got a little too competitive, didn’t I?”
“You think?”
“My bad. But Elz, you could have been a contender.”
He winks with a knowing smile, but Brando’s lines coming out of his mouth are like heat softening the butter of my heart. My insides feel fuzzy.
“Just—leave the tutoring to me next time.” I put distance between us and move over to the bench seat at my window.
Trip’s eyes follow me. “She’s a smart kid. Doesn’t seem like she would need a tutor.”
“That’s exactly the point.” I fold my knees up to my chest on the seat.
“This program gives her the opportunity to take classes and study for exams her school doesn’t offer.
AP exams, among others. Having those credits will put her in a better position for college.
She’d otherwise be limited to the standard courses offered by her school. ”
“So you’re a tutor for gifted students.” There’s a hint of curiosity in his tone.
“Gifted, and underresourced. Their families don’t have time or money to expand their education. This program makes it easier for them.” I shrug.
“I see.” He stares at me and doesn’t stop.
Heat weaves its way from my neckline up to my cheeks. My stomach twists. “Anyway, it’s really no big deal.”
“It is.” His voice is low, assertive. “What you do. It’s…meaningful.”
“Well, you know.” I fidget with my hands on the tops of my knees. “Pay it forward and all that.”
“Don’t do that.” He frowns.
“What?”
“Downplay it. Diminish it. Diminish yourself.”
I meet his eyes. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
He nods once.
“So why are you really here, Casper?”
He walks toward me, one deliberate step at a time, until he towers over the bench seat. “You know why.” He sinks down in a squat, elbows resting on his knees and shoulders straining against the fabric of his shirt. The fact it’s still in one piece is a miracle.
Trip lifts his eyes to mine and the softness there makes me loosen my grip on my knees. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. I take one hand off my knee and rest it on the seat, inching it closer to where he is on the floor. An invitation?
His eyes flick down to it. We can’t touch, but my need to get closer is unbearable in this moment.
At first, it was a desire to comfort him, like that day at the Plaza.
But something about his presence is soothing.
Even as knots tighten in my abdomen at the knowledge he’s Carter’s cousin and also not physically here, there’s an invisible force pulling me closer.
Trip licks his lips. “Did you find anything about the diamond, Elz?” His voice comes out hoarse.
Right, the real reason he’s here. Stop deluding yourself, Libby.
I pull my hand back to my knee and he flinches. I focus on a sneaker that’s been thrown over a power line outside. Anything to avoid eye contact.
“No. Sabrina didn’t know of any family diamonds, let alone lost ones.”
There’s an exhale somewhere to my left. The hairs on my arm lower, any static charge dissipating. He’s no longer beside me. Maybe if I keep looking out the window, he’ll leave. I won’t have to face him or his disappointment.
It’s been silent for too long. “Sabrina’s pretty amazing.” It’s like a reflex. I’m saying anything to check if he’s still here. To keep him here? I don’t know.
“I didn’t come here to talk about Sabrina.”
I turn, and he’s standing by the door. Is he about to leave? As much as Trip is able to come and go through whichever wall he pleases, he seems to still use doorways. Holding on to some semblance of normalcy, perhaps. I stand up and walk to him.
“Well, she is. Carter’s a lucky man.” Am I baiting? Maybe a little. Sabrina is wonderful, but I still want someone to prove me wrong. To tell me that she and Carter aren’t a perfect match. That he isn’t in fact marrying the most perfect woman in the world.
“Carter’s lucky for a lot of reasons.”
His stare makes me want to fidget. Or peel my clothes off, I can’t decide which.
One thing’s for certain, I can’t have him here anymore, mixing up my feelings for Carter.
Carter’s the reason I’m doing this. Carter.
I’m saving his life as much as Trip’s. Just because Trip looks like an underwear model is not reason enough to give up on my dream of sitting on the terrace doing crosswords with Carter till we’re old. This attraction is getting in the way.
And yet, Carter has never once called me out for downplaying myself or my job.
If anything, he feeds my fire by lamenting over how hopeless it is to change the education system or making some wisecrack about my ambition to single-handedly change the world.
He isn’t wrong for laughing. Or, at least, I never thought he was.
I need to call him. Check in. It’s been almost three weeks and I can’t remember going this long without speaking to him. All the curse-breaking with Trip and wedding appointments with Sabrina have kept me busier than normal. Maybe seeing Carter would help ground me a bit.
“Well, since I don’t have any updates on the reason you came…” I swing the door open and usher Trip out.
“That’s not the only reason I came.” He cants his head with a sly smile before I shut the door in his face.