Letter Five #3
Hal chuckled. “You were about five when I first started driving for your dad, and you didn’t like me, either. Took me a whole year to get a smile out of you. And now look at us—we’re great friends.”
Okay, so maybe I had four friends in addition to the squirrels.
“Whatever.” I smiled as he pulled up to my school and parallel parked across the street. In my bag, I located the square of dark chocolate I’d stashed there especially for him and tossed it onto the center console. “Eat it slowly.”
He twisted around to face me. “Katie’s onto us—she caught a speck of chocolate on my sleeve last week.”
“Okay, so maybe not that slowly.” Hal’s wife had put him on a low-sugar diet months ago, after a less-than-stellar checkup at the doctor where he confessed to drinking copious amounts of hot chocolate with me on a weekly basis.
“Just tell her the truth—that life without chocolate isn’t a life worth living.
But since Elliot doesn’t want you to have diabetes, she’s limiting you to one piece per day and reserving hot chocolate for special occasions. ”
Hal winked. “I’ll do that,” he said, tucking the chocolate square into the empty cupholder beside his tumbler of coffee. “And I can still take you to get hot chocolate after school sometimes. You don’t have to give it up because of me.”
“Sure I do. We’re in this together, remember?” Drinking hot chocolate was our thing, and I refused to do it without him.
“Hey,” Hal said, stopping me before I could open the door and leveling his gaze with mine. “Give the boy a chance, Ell. Casey might surprise you.”
The following weekend, my dad held a special brunch for Eleanor’s birthday. While she and her nosy old-lady friends sipped champagne and sampled fancy canapés in my house, the younger of us hid out with Garland to avoid them.
You walked in with a drink and plopped down on a wingback by the fireplace, facing Michael and Sienna.
The stupid lovebirds were cuddled up on the sofa across from mine, her legs draped over Michael’s lap as she ran her fingers through his hair.
You shook your head at them. “Three different ladies in there asked me if I had a boyfriend.”
They laughed.
“It’s funny,” you said, smiling. “I never get that question at home as often as I do here. Do I give off a certain kind of…vibe?”
Tinsley tossed her napkin in my lap and shot me a look.
She had this idea, Casey, that you liked boys, too.
In the kitchen one day after school, she’d pulled up a picture of a guy on her phone, and you’d agreed with her: the guy was hot.
While zooming in on the boy’s photo, you’d said, “Oh, yeah. Look at those dimples.”
That’s what Tinsley said, anyway. I hadn’t witnessed it for myself.
Tinsley thought you living in my house was the greatest thing to ever happen to me—to her, too. She found everything about you fascinating, especially the topic of your sex life.
Me, though? I tried to pretend you didn’t have one. What I didn’t know wouldn’t make me feel this terrifying cascade of emotions. Thinking of you with someone else made me feel out of control. Unbridled. Too loose.
Michael tossed a smirk your way. “Maybe it’s because of the way you dress.”
“What’s wrong with the way I dress?” you asked, mock-offended. “And these are your clothes, by the way.”
“Yeah, but you know how to wear them,” Michael said, gaze sweeping down your body. You’d styled his pink Oxford underneath a hunter green cable-knit sweater and brown blazer. “You pull them off better than I do.”
You grinned, dragging a finger across your bottom lip. “I could help you pull them off, too—if you’d just let me get my hands on you.”
What the hell?! That’s what I screamed in my head. Tinsley pinched my arm, her brown eyes flung open wide when I looked at her.
Smiling, Michael shook his head at you.
Sienna turned to me. “Elliot, why’d you take Casey’s clothes, anyway?”
“I’m wondering the same thing myself,” you said, leaning over your lap. “And when do you plan on giving them back?”
“When do you plan on leaving?” I snapped.
Your responded with a sigh of defeat.
“I bet I know where they are,” Bree said, glancing up from her phone. On the wingback opposite yours by the fireplace, she toyed with the diamond-encrusted B on her necklace.
“I bet I do, too,” Michael said, looking straight at me.
You glanced between them. “Where? I’ve searched this entire house.”
Michael said, “There’s this—”
“You better not, Michael,” I warned. “Don’t you dare.”
“You’ve known this entire time?” you asked, gaping at him. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I had to let her get it out of her system, man. It’s the only way to deal with her. She has to win a little to give a little.” Michael tossed me a knowing look. “Don’t you, Elliot?”
I rolled my eyes. “Even if I give his stupid clothes back, I won’t win anything. He’ll still live here. He’ll still be an invader in my house. How am I the only one who finds this living arrangement strange?”
“He’s helping your dad because you got the nanny fired,” Bree pointed out. “So, technically, this is on you.”
“Actually,” Sienna said, her claws still embedded in Michael’s hair, “your reaction to Casey being here is stranger than the arrangement itself. It’s like you’re so determined to prove you hate living with him that you’re hoping no one will notice how much you’re loving it.
” She shot me a malicious grin. “Do you have a crush on Casey, Elliot?”
“Do you have a death wish?” I fired back. “You stupid bitch.”
“Wow,” she said, eyes sparkling with amusement—but anger, too. “I definitely hit a nerve there, didn’t I? You little—”
“Sienna,” you said sharply. Not Michael. You. When she turned, you speared her with a gaze more formidable than Garland’s. “That’s enough. Stop it.”
The look you gave her was a warning, and she heeded it. She shut her mouth.
You leaned forward again, pointing your gaze at me. “Elliot,” you said, speaking softer now. “I know having me here is a big adjustment, and I hate that it’s been so hard on you. I want us to get along. It doesn’t have to be like this. Can’t we please start over and make the best of it?”
“Sure,” I said sweetly. “But first—will you please answer my question?”
“What question?” you asked.
“Earlier, while the caterers were setting up for Eleanor’s brunch, I asked you a question and you ignored me. So I asked again. And you said, ‘I don’t have one.’ But that’s a lie, Casey. That’s not possible. If you want us to get along, then answer my question.”
I’ll never forget it—the way you slowly leaned back in your chair. And, yeah, I shouldn’t have called you out, but I’d taken Hal’s advice that morning. I’d lowered my defenses enough to ask you a personal question. I’d tried getting to know you.
And when you hadn’t answered—when you’d refused to give me an honest reply—I’d flushed with embarrassment. Thank God you hadn’t noticed as you’d walked away, leaving me all alone in the kitchen.
I’d finally offered you an olive branch, Casey, and it had ended with me feeling snubbed and hurt.
“What’s the question?” Michael asked, dragging his gaze away from you to look at me.
“When is your birthday?” I repeated. “For some reason, he can’t answer it.”
Everyone in the room looked at you, Casey. They waited.
“I can answer,” you said, your dark blue gaze burrowing into mine, “but I don’t want to.”
“Everyone has a birthday,” I said. “Why does yours have to be a secret?”
“Do you not…know when it is or something?” Tinsley asked.
“Of course I know when it is,” you said. “I just don’t celebrate it.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“I’d rather not say,” you said, dragging a hand across your face.
And I saw it, Casey—that slight tremor in your hand.
I’d struck something raw. But you’d struck a wound in me, too, whether you realized it or not.
Too many people in my life hid things. Too many of them evaded my questions.
And when I caught them doing it, they made me feel crazy for wanting a straight answer.
I wanted Hal to be right. I wanted you to be different. But you weren’t.
And I couldn’t let that slide, even though I should’ve.
“Why? What are you hiding?” I demanded. “I find it interesting how I finally ask you something personal, and you clam up. Just tell me your birthday, Casey, and I’ll give your clothes back.”
You stared back at me, a smile slowly creeping onto your handsome face. The only hint you were bothered at all was your hand, curling into a tight fist on the arm of the wingback.
“You know what?” you said calmly, rising from the chair with your drink, blue eyes digging into mine. “If it makes you feel better to keep my clothes, then go ahead, Elliot. Keep them.”
But it didn’t make me feel better. In fact, as I watched you stride from the room, I only felt foolish. Like you’d just bested me instead of the other way around.
After school the next day, when you weren’t waiting for me on the stairs like you usually were, shame twisted through me.
Not because you’d given up, though that part stung more than I’d ever admit—the deeper shame came from knowing I’d pushed you to that point, like I pushed anyone who threatened the control I craved over my life.
I searched the entire downstairs before finally locating you in your bedroom, kicked back in bed with a book, a steaming cup of tea sitting on your nightstand.
I paused in your doorway with my arms crossed, trying to act casual. “I’m home.”
But you merely flipped a page without glancing up. In a clipped tone that pricked my heart, you said, “Great. Let me know if you need anything.”