31. PAIGE
THIRTY-ONE
PAIGE
Apparently the recipe for a temporary friendship bandage is a grilled cheese, two and a half margaritas, and a musical theater playlist.
We drowned out the uncomfortable moment from before by singing and dancing —not unlike when we were kids— and now we’re just tapering off with, “Happy Days are Here Again,” while I cradle Cheeto in my palm.
A serenade.
Just as the song ends, Ellis plops on the couch and I sit next to him. “Agh!” he scoffs. “Can you put that thing back in its little box now?” He eyes Cheeto with a glare.
She’s curled up in my hand, being perfect, and with the pad of my finger, I give her a gentle rub. “I don’t want her to feel left out.”
“Oh, God,” he groans. “Fiiine. But just sit over in the chair. If it moves too quickly I’ll spill my drink and this sugar-crack-mix will be a bitch to get out of the couch.”
I snort, picking up my drink and walking over to the chair across from the couch, which faces out toward the big windows, while the chair I plop into faces inward, on an angle facing the TV on the wall.
“Don’t you get a glare?” I ask, my eyes flicking to the TV.
I mean, who needs a TV when you’ve got this view? I think if I could, I’d just listen to music all day and watch the mountain.
“There’s a remote for the shades, but we almost never use them.”
Reality settles among the showtunes dust, and I take a big gulp of my drink.
We. Them.
And then there’s me.
Goddammit. More tequila.
Although, that could be a recipe for disaster.
Linc will be home at some point, and it’s probably wise if I’m not sloshed.
Plus, I have to hold Cheeto.
Still, I take another sip of my existing drink, then try to cozy back into the chair. After a few seconds pass, I chew my lip, then ask, “So how’d you and Linc meet back up?” I try to sound as casual as possible.
“Smooth,” he jabs, and my eyes narrow.
He chuckles and I watch him. The two-year gap between when everything fell apart and they found their way back to each other is itching at the underside of my brain, but I already know he won’t tell me about that.
I shrug, giving him an expectant look and he pulls in a long inhale, rubbing the back of his neck. “Desmond and I were up at his property in Maine and we—uh—ran into Linc.”
“Maine?” It escapes before I even have time to process.
Why was he in Maine?!
He’d literally never mentioned anything about Maine to me.
The word Maine is starting to sound weird in my head.
But not in our entire lives had I ever heard him mention anything about it. Though, he’d never mentioned Chicago either and he was at least there for a little bit.
Chicago, then Maine.
It’s slightly more information than I had before, so I poke a little more. “What was he doing in Maine?” I ask, my voice is tighter this time.
Ellis takes a sip, and his eyes float down to his glass before he lifts them back up, the emerald color only sinks into my gaze for a second before he shrugs. “Filming something.”
Lying.
Why is he lying?
New plan. Stop drinking and offer to play bartender. Get Ellis smashed and collect intel.
In an attempt to not appear too eager with my new plan, my eyes drift for a second, absently wondering whether or not Linc still films anything. He was just . . . so fucking good. Money-Shot Morrow, as Ellis always called him.
I suddenly take note of some small . . . posters on the coffee table. A photograph of five different people, but it’s been edited so that their skin has some landmarks imposed through a grainy filter. My eyes float to the text that reads The 5, then see the name attached to it, and my eyes shoot up.
Ellis is already looking at me, but then his eyes flick down to the posters. “Linc did the cover shot,” he says, pulling his gaze back up. “Shot a bunch of exterior stuff too.”
The pang of jealousy doesn’t even compare to the warmth that immediately floods through me.
The idea that they’re still shooting stuff together speaks to the us before and I just . . . I can’t be anything but over-fucking-joyed about that. That some part of us is still trying to float to the surface.
I smile. A real one. “You really did it. You really made a documentary.” With Linc’s help.
My chest tightens again and he sighs with a nod. “I mean, it really is the product of a ton of fucking people, but yeah.” He smiles and God, it hits.
A flash of the boy who organized “Pennies for Primates” in second grade flutters past my vision. Outraged that monkeys had been moved to the local zoo without proper space, Ellis took action.
It was just the start, I think. But that deep part of me fills a bit, knowing he’s still at it—feeding his hard opinions and anti-establishment ways. And I’m so goddamn proud of him.
“That’s amazing, Ba—” I stop myself. Holy shit. I almost called him Batman. I shake my head and quickly say, “I—uh—I can’t wait to watch it.”
And I mean it. Another margarita or two, and I’ll watch it and cry later. But I already feel my eyes misting and my head shakes.
God, do not become the weepy, tipsy girl.
Ellis is kind enough to not insult me by asking if I’m still acting or singing. Clearly, my performances are of a different variety these days.
After a few more seconds, I fill the slightly awkward pause with, “Are you working on anything new?”
He takes a long pull on his drink, nodding. After he clears his throat, he says, “Yeah, but I’m still researching shit at the moment. I keep hitting walls, so I hired a tech guy to help.”
“Like a hacker?”
Ellis nods, a smirk pulling up. “Yes, but that makes it sound more nefarious.”
A laugh pushes past my nose. “Nefarious, huh? You been watching Dawson’s Creek ?”
“ Fucking no ,” he groans. “I only ever watched that shit because you and Darlene made me, and ’cause Linc couldn’t take it.” I laugh again just as his watch beeps and he looks at the screen, eyes squinting, then stands up and walks over to the counter to check his phone.
I take the moment to appreciate —no, fucking relish— that the thought of Gram isn’t filling me with despair —for once. And the warmth isn’t from some pathetic, fake voice filling my head either. Don’t get me wrong, thinking about her—imagining her voice—it makes me feel good too, but . . . Buffy bless, this feels great—that she just gets to exist amongst the conversation.
This exchange—hanging out with Ellis—is interesting. Our past, our familiarity, our connection—it’s almost like it keeps coming up for air in between awkward waves in the room. The current wading around everything we’re not talking about.
Just as Ellis comes back to the couch, I put my drink on the small table next to me and try to keep the conversation going—keep it easy. “What are you researching? Must be kind of crazy if you’re enlisting a hacker.”
His mouth slopes as he runs his fingers over the edge of his glass. “That’s the thing, I’m not really sure. It sort of happened by accident. I was looking into—something else,” he says, a bit jaggedly and then stands back up, wobbling a bit this time as he tilts his glass toward me. A silent offer for another.
I shake my head, standing too. I should probably sit this round out seeing as that grilled cheese is the most I’ve eaten in two days.
I leave Ellis to make his next drink, and return Cheeto to her terrarium. Placing the sweet little nugget just beside her rock, I close it up and leave her to her nap.
She’s probably tired from running back and forth for three hours early this morning. I felt so bad. She was probably freaked out. But now she’s more than happy in her corner just beside the bed.
We can’t get used to it, I think to myself and telepathically tell her on my way out of the room.
“ Why not? It could be like a ’90s sitcom? But dark and twisted, ” Gram’s voice slurs through my head and I chuckle, wondering if that’s the booze or if she’s somehow a little drunk too. The thought makes me giggle.
I wish I had taken part in more wine nights with her.
“ It made the few times we did special, ” I think—or maybe she says . . . I don’t know. Standing up seemed to shoot all the alcohol straight to my head.
I stagger back toward the kitchen, seeing Ellis back in front of his laptop as he waves me over, sipping on a fresh drink. But I suddenly feel like I’m trying really hard not to look fucked up and it’s making me look fucked up.
You were fine literally a minute ago. Still, I grab my water bottle from earlier off the counter and walk over to him, taking a sip as I look at the screen.
It’s a nondescript website—just a red symbol in the center. There’s a small diamond sitting in a half-circle, floating just above something that looks like the letter M.
And the website doesn’t have any links or tabs; it looks like it’s just a single page with no other content. My eyebrows pinch as Ellis clicks on the symbol, and a prompt comes up for a password.
Hm. “Weird. What do you think it is?”
Ellis shrugs. “I can’t find the symbol circulating anywhere and I’ve sent the image off to a few semiotic specialists. I’m collecting it all to go through together. But it’s fucking weird that you can’t see anything on their website without a password and there’s seemingly nowhere of regular consumption where you can find the password. So, that’s where Wade comes in.”
“The hacker,” I confirm.
He nods, taking another sip, then says, “Even he’s having some trouble—I don’t know, we’re meeting tomorrow to talk about it. Who the fuck knows. It may all be for nothing.”
It does look weird—maybe cult-ish? But I’m barely an expert on this shit. For lack of anything better to say, I ask, “What led you to it?”
His thumb taps a couple times on the counter. “Just a hunch.”
My chin dips with a lazy nod as his eyes stay on the screen, but his focus drifts in a way that tells me he’s not really looking at it anymore.
Another silence passes—but I swear, I can feel it shifting—to what, I’m not sure, and it dims the energy around us. Something only made more clear when Ellis sucks on his lower lip, turning the skin red, before he finally releases it and sighs. “Paige. At The Window last night. Did . . . did they—”
“No,” I answer quickly, then say it again, “No.”
Shit. I feel terrible. I can only imagine the assumptions he made when he saw me outside last night.
Your estranged friend—now a stripper—shows up at midnight with a busted lip and twirled up in leather.
It’d be fair to make some assumptions.
And still, even after ghosting him for seven years, he welcomed me into his house and didn’t make me explain myself.
“ Like family, ” I hear Gram say distantly.
Sighing, I continue telling him, “They—well, it was mostly just Tariel—”
Ellis stands on the base of his chair and leans over the counter, swiping another glass and pouring some tequila in it for me. Straight. And I take it.
Whoops.
My mouth clenches back and I go on to explain the insanity of what happened in the Veranda, but I conveniently leave out the money I stole.
Ellis’s face fills with disgust and I suddenly feel itchy, but then he says, “Ew, it was like . . . a demonstration?”
Cringing through my shrug, I blow out a heavy exhale. “I honestly have no idea.”
Ellis’s eyes squint. “And he—Tariel—he knows the owner? Beck?” I nod, timidly, and he clicks his tongue. After another second passes, he says, “Linc is only working at The Window to help Desmond. I guess my dad knows one of the owners, who suspects there might be people doing some kind of shady dealings. I guess the guy asked my dad for help.”
“Owners? Plural?” I ask.
Not that I know anything about anything, but I thought Beck Davis was the only owner of The Window.
Ellis shrugs. “I don’t know. Either way, it sounds like there could be something going on. I mean, last night sounds pretty fucked.”
I want to ask him what he meant by shady dealings, but I also don’t really want to talk about The Window anymore. If difficult conversations were to be had, they didn’t need to be about a burlesque club that meant nothing to me.
Another silence stretches. This one is less comfortable as what Linc said to me last night scoots to the edge of my brain, the words flicking their curious toes in the pool of tequila sloshing through my head.
“He—Linc,” I stutter. And like the fucking champion that he is, Ellis pours another shot into my glass.
I knock it back. My mouth stretches, hissing until the shot drops to my stomach—coating the words. I take a breath, then look up at Ellis. “Linc thinks he raped me.”
A sharp inhale is his only immediate reaction. But slowly, his eyes darken to a deep hunter green, his stare hollowing as he finally says, “I know,” his voice gravelly.
My stomach rolls as a burn ignites in my chest. It’s a full ten seconds before my mouth even moves to say something. “You know about what happened?”
“No,” he says quickly, then tilts his chin. “I mean, I don’t know. But I know enough.”
I stare at my empty glass, wishing I could just see what he knows—summon it to appear like a crystal ball so I don’t have to ask him.
It doesn’t work, so I have to ask, “What did he tell you?”
Ellis takes a shot himself, shaking his head a bit and then swiping a palm down his face. He fidgets a second more by ruffling his hair, before he says, “Look, Paige. I told you—I don’t feel right talking about this. If you want to ask him about it, you can, but . . . you—need to be careful. Take it slow.”
My heart deflates at his resolve, but my face scrunches when the last part of his sentence registers. “Careful?”
Another warning. Though, he’d warned me about touching Linc, and I did it anyway.
Ellis’s weight shifts on the chair, taking another breath. “He was in really rough shape when he moved in here,” he says.
“Four years ago?” I confirm, mostly for my drunk mind.
He nods. “A few nights after he moved in, we were hanging out on the porch, and he—” He tugs on his lip with his teeth, then gives a quick shake of his head. “I was just trying to—jog his memory a bit. But . . . something happened, and I —pushed too far.”
My eyes blink rapidly. There’s a lot of vagueness in what he’s saying, but I guess that’s to be expected seeing as he’s already told me he won’t talk about this.
And I just can’t understand why. I understand wanting to protect Linc’s privacy but . . . I’m the other party involved here.
Which makes me feel like I’m missing something . . .
And I also know there’s absolutely no breaking Ellis’s moral code. It’d be admirable if it wasn’t information I was absolutely starved for.
Deciding to see how far I can push it, I ask, “Wh-What happened?”
Ellis’s face winces and I swear I even see a chill sweep through his shoulders. He sits silently for a few seconds before he quietly says, “Blackout rage. Literally . . . like a light blew out. I’ve—I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The cold look in his eyes feels like ice in my own chest, and I silently wonder if Ellis has ever talked about this with anyone. It has the raw emotion of secrecy—a haunting I know well.
But the other part of me just can’t believe this is Lincoln Morrow we’re talking about.
I’m almost afraid to ask, given the disturbed look still on his face. “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” he says immediately, then adds, “I mean, not really. He did swing a couple of times but he was too disoriented to really do any damage.”
I gasp and my eyebrows scrunch. There’s . . . there’s no way Linc would hit Ellis. Not intentionally.
He stares off for a moment, just out in front of him on the counter, and his eyes grow darker—almost like he’s watching the memory replay in front of him.
Have a few memories like that myself.
A heaviness rolls through me, and my voice shakes a bit as I ask, “S-So what did he say?”
Whatever images Ellis is watching still hold his focus for a few seconds, before he blinks, then clears his throat. “I think he thought I was . . . someone else.”
His speculative eyes weave something silently, and I can’t be sure, but I don’t think he’s being intentionally vague.
I swallow hard and dread prickles under my skin in the same way it has for the last twenty-four hours. There’s something in Ellis’s eyes that tells me he knows exactly who Linc mistook him for during his episode—but he says nothing.
And honestly, I’m grateful. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know, but I have thoughts on who Linc thought Ellis was too, and I can feel my body temperature rise as my throat works to swallow the idea.
Another beat passes and Ellis sighs. “Look, nothing like that has happened in a long time,” he says, carefully. “But the reason I’m telling you is—his memory recall can be . . . temperamental. He really has been doing okay —good— and I think reconnecting with you will help. All of us. We just have to be—”
“Careful,” I say, but I’m already standing, wrapping my arms around him.
How can I not?
I’m not used to seeing him stumble over his words. Ellis has always been the very definition of someone who never let you see them sweat.
But my hold around him tightens, hoping —nearly believing— that he’s letting his guard down only because he’s talking to me.
The familiarity of his arms, his smell. Mint. And tequila, but I think that’s both of us.
God, I missed him.
I know we’re not fixed, but it feels like we are in this moment. The hugs feel the same. Stronger, even.
“You’ve been working out,” I tell him. If it hadn’t been evident in the big muscles that rival his roommate’s, it’d be apparent in his embrace.
He’s always given the best hugs.
His slightly sad chuckle tickles my ear. “I love the blue,” he murmurs, sifting some of my hair between his fingers, and I hug him tighter.
We stand, silently holding each other for long seconds—maybe a minute, but I’m in no hurry.
My mind tries to work through everything he’s said, exploring between the words when I realize, “You don’t believe he raped me either.”
He sighs, holding me tighter. “I knew whatever happened must have been . . . fucking awful.”
I can feel the regret in his limbs. Ellis is a do-er. He takes action. And his two shattered best friends might be one of the few things he can’t fix.
It’d be poetic if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.
My body tenses at the thought, but I hum to clear it from creeping too far in, and Ellis lets me. My mouth ticks up at the corner, but he can’t see me since I’m pretty much buried in his chest.
Right now, I’m safe. Batman’s got me.
I’m happy Linc had him.
The gratitude surprises me, but it’s there. Despite all my hurt—the jealousy, the anger—in this moment, I find myself grateful. I had Gram and Linc had Ellis. And now, maybe . . .
We can rebuild. Carefully.
My eyes mist again and I groan. “Goddammit. I’m the drunk weepy girl.”
He gives me a small squeeze. “All right. Then, enough of this.” He just as quickly unlocks from me, swipes the bottle of tequila, and starts toward the living room.
He grabs a blanket off the couch, and then opens the sliding door. “Let’s get wasted-er and sing on the porch.”
Just today, I remind myself again. Just take today.
The stubborn tears stay in my eyes, but my mouth lifts.
I don’t know what I did to deserve Ellis Casper . . . but I’ll keep him.