My parents looked so young.
They were young, I guess. I can’t help but wonder what was going through their heads back then. How ready they were to live. How excited they were to dream about the future—vacations, their home, laughing, family, holding each other… The years spread out before them, and it was only going to be gold, right?
Did they know they were going to do bad things to each other?
Would they go back and do it again?
I walk into the dining room, Tucker holding my chair out for me.
“Thank you.” I sit down.
Taking my napkin, I pull it off the ring, but my mother stops me. “Clay.”
I stop, realizing myself. I set my napkin down and look to my grandmother. She gives me a look, but it has a hint of a smile. Rookie mistake, Clay. When a guest at dinner, take your cues from your host. I wasn’t supposed to lay my napkin in my lap until she’d done it.
She holds out her hand, and I know what she wants. I set my phone in her palm, and she places it on the small tray Tucker holds out next to her.
We start with salad, a citrusy vinaigrette dressing gleaming over the arugula.
“The Senior sleepover is happening soon, right?” Mimi asks. “Have you RSVP’d with Omega Chi at Wake Forest?”
I sip my water, setting it back down. “Mm, yes.”
I feel my mom’s eyes, and I look at her, getting the signal. I straighten and smile, giving Mimi my full attention.
“Yes, Mimi,” I say more clearly. “Dues are paid, and I’ve already reached out to some of the other attendees via social media to get a rapport going.”
“Social media…”
“It’s the standard of the times,” I tease, finishing up the small serving of greens.
But she waves me off, picking up her glass. “Oh, I know. I just lament the days of privacy and being able to make mistakes without an audience.”
I hold back my eye roll and smile wider. Old people say things like that a lot, as if the downfall of society started with Facebook.
“That reminds me,” Mimi pipes up again, eyeing my mother, “she needs to delete her Twitter history, and I want access to any other secret accounts, Clay.” She pins me with a look. “Don’t think we’re not aware they exist.”
My shoulders slump, but I put them back again, recovering. I’m not giving her my hidden profiles. She’s the one who told me I could have secrets.
“I’ve been reading articles,” she tells my mom as Tucker brings the next course. “And the experts suggest deleting your history every once in a while to spare any embarrassment down the road. People get fired over a bad tweet from eight years ago.”
I groan inwardly. I wish my grandmother wasn’t so proactive.
“You need to think of your future,” she points out to me. “Your husband and children who could be caught in the crossfire of something stupid you said at this age.”
My mother nods, but Mimi cuts her off. “I would suggest it for you, as well.”
My mom stills, swallowing her retort with her glass of water. I almost snort. One of the reasons I love coming to these dinners is just to see my mom still under her own mother’s thumb just like I’m under hers.
But then I see myself twenty years from now in my mom’s seat and her in her mother’s, my daughter sitting where I am. Every woman at this table is carrying a secret. What will my daughter be hiding?
“The foie gras,” my mom says to Tucker. “Amazing.”
“I’ll tell Peggy.”
His wife is the chef, but I haven’t eaten a bite. This dish is inhumane, and I know my grandmother is challenging me on purpose.
“I have dresses in the den for you to try on for the ball,” she says, cutting into the duck.
My mom coughs, swallowing a sip of water to clear her throat. “Mama, we have her dress.”
But Mimi just looks at me.
Fuuuuuuuuuck.
My mom sighs. “What did you do to it, Clay?”
How did my grandmother find out? I’m tempted to throw Liv under the bus here, but I’m filled with a sudden desire to protect her at all costs.
I simply remain silent, knowing there’s nothing my mother will do to hold me accountable.
A smirk curls Mimi’s mouth as she lifts her glass to her lips and locks eyes with my mother again. “I never would’ve guessed one child would be harder than four,” she taunts.
My mother’s jaw flexes, she and her three siblings far less trouble than one little ol’ me, and I can feel every muscle in her body tighten from here.
Reaching my hand under the table, I slide it under my skirt and wrap my fist around the bandana, exhaling.
Three hours and fourteen minutes later, I grab my phone off the tray in the dining room and pull my saddle shoes back on as I hop out the front door. My shoelaces drag on the ground, and I open up the Uber app to escape here while they think I’m off getting something from my mom’s car. The dinner lasted a full hour more with the dessert and the practice interview questions for Omega Chi. Then we tried on dresses, and I just let my mother—through the approval of Mimi, of course—choose the strapless, A-line charmeuse with the chiffon draping. Actually, quite pretty, but I still felt like a moron in it.
Spotting Mimi’s rose bushes, I quickly bend a stem back and forth, breaking it off as I avoid the thorns.
“Young man?” I hear Peggy call out.
I lift my head, realizing the cook is on the balcony over top of me. I slink back so she can’t see and look out into the driveway where Trace Jaeger loads up a rusty Ford truck. He’s in jeans and covered in sweat, even though the sun set an hour ago.
“Put your shirt on!” she scolds him.
“Aw, baby,” he whines, and my eyes go wide.
“Now, I said!”
“But you’re so hot, it’s making me hot.” He holds out his hands, looking like Romeo serenading Juliet. “Look at this, I’m drenched!”
I cover my mouth to quiet my laugh. The butler’s wife not only cooks, but she practically raised my mom, aunts, and uncles. She also served as a nurse in the Navy for five years. She isn’t about the bullshit.
“You rascal!” she chides.
“Sugar plum,” he coos, feigning a condescending tone but smiling as he does it.
“Caveman!”
“Love bug!”
“Gorilla!”
“Sweetie, honey pie!”
I snort, nearly dying.
“Ape!” she cries.
“Buttercup.”
“Ugh!”
Then, I hear a door slam, and I let a laugh escape. I’ve never seen anyone handle her like that.
“You know…” I head out from under the balcony and across the driveway toward him. “One of these days she’s going to decide your hedge sculptures aren’t worth it and have you fired.”
“And quickly realize her mistake.” He pulls out his shirt but uses it to wipe his back dry. “She loves me.”
Sure. I look over the load of tools in his truck bed, everything he needed for landscaping today. The rest of the crew is already gone.
“Can you give me a ride back to school?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder at the house. “Like quickly?”
Before I’m caught and before I’m late. It’s after seven already.
He opens the door for me, and I hop in, the smell of rust and dirt immediately hitting me.
But I pull the door closed and wait for him to round the truck to the driver’s side.
The ripped imitation leather pinches the backs of my thighs, and I find some footing through the takeout bags and empty soda cans on the floor.
Trace gets in, starts the truck and turns up the radio, peeling out of the driveway like he’s unaware he has to stop and wait for the gate to open.
As soon as we’re through, he rolls down the window, and I do the same, the wind blowing through the cab.
“So you want me to put my shirt on, too?” he asks.
I turn my eyes on him,
not seeing a shirt in sight, so I don’t know how he’s going to do that.
“Didn’t even notice, did you?” he teases, lighting a cigarette. “I guess I don’t have to worry that you’re faking it with my sister.”
Smoke puffs up as the end burns orange, and I kind of want to ask him for one.
“I notice men.” I wave the air, clearing the smoke. “Your sweat and stench, however, trumps any attraction.”
“I can shower.” He eyes me. “Wanna help?”
Help him shower? “What are you doing?” I ask. My ire perks up that he’d make a pass when he knows I’m seeing Liv. I didn’t peg him for a shitty brother.
“I don’t trust you,” he tells me, turning down the music and speeding down the road. “I think you’ll hurt her. I think you’ll get her into a situation that will devastate her.”
He thinks he knows me.
“She acts tough, but everyone’s the same,” he goes on. “They just want someone to love, and when a Jaeger gets attached, it’s as quick as flipping a switch, Clay. It’ll be sudden, and she won’t be able to turn it off.”
A flutter hits my heart, and I’m surprised at myself. I don’t feel that from Liv, but the way he describes it, I really want to.
“I don’t want to hurt her,” I say.
“But you hide her.”
I frown. Everyone gets hurt by love at some point. It’s not my intention, but who knows where the next few weeks will take us. I just want to be here. Today. Now. With her. The future is uncertain. Why worry about it?
“We’re none of your business,” I tell him.
“If I decide it’s my business, it’s my business.” His tone is deep and suddenly biting. “And I’m the nice one, so it would be wise to have this conversation with me and not one of the others.”
“We’re keeping it quiet,” I explain as if he’s entitled to that. “We’re going off to different schools in the fall, and we don’t want others distracting us from what time we have together. Liv agreed.”
“Well, what was she supposed to say? The alternative was demanding you out yourself, which you never would have agreed to, so she took the scraps she could get.” He takes a drag of his cigarette. “She’s used to that.”
That’s not true. Why would he say that? When the choice was either being with someone else—Megan or that ex at the lighthouse—she chose to be with me, knowing I could be using her and I might end up hurting her? It doesn’t make sense.
“Liv is very outspoken,” I point out. “She would’ve raised her concerns. She wouldn’t have sacrificed her pride to be a booty call, if it was a problem.”
“A booty call is better than a long time of nothing,” he fires back. “You get tired of being alone.”
So he’s saying she chose sneaking around with me over a solid relationship because…
Because she likes me. A lot.
That’s what he’s worried about. How much she’s going to tolerate from me just to have a piece.
Liv… While guilt tugs at me that I’m not broadcasting her to the world, I’m a little happy. She really likes me.
“You should take her on a date,” Trace adds. “You should hold her hand.”
I’d love to go anywhere with her. Go everywhere.
But when Callum touches me in public, no one bats an eye. We could be standing on the sidewalk in front of the movie theater, but I can’t stand on the sidewalk in front of the movie theater with my hands on Liv’s waist or my body pressed to hers. It would be a scene. A statement.
And every minute I was out with her, I’d be worrying about everyone looking at us, judging us, talking about us, and I wouldn’t be thinking about her or us. I would only be thinking about that.
“I hate the way things are,” I tell him, “but I’m afraid everything will change. I can’t tell my parents I’m bi…bisexual. I can barely even say the word. And what if I’m not? What if it’s just Liv? There would be no going back. What if I’m confused? What if I’m wrong? I…”
I trail off, my panic evident, but it feels kind of good to let it out. To talk to someone about it other than Liv.
Trace nods. “You shouldn’t tell them you’re bisexual, Clay,” he says. “You’re not.”
Huh?
“I mean, some people are,” he assures. “But I’ve also learned that some people will simply say they’re bisexual rather than gay, because they feel it’s easier on their families.”
I stare at him, his words tumbling around in my head.
“It softens the blow,” he explains. “‘Look, Mom and Dad. Part of me is still normal. I might still marry a guy, have babies, and not completely fucking embarrass you someday.’” He turns to me. “You strike me as the type of person who would give up as little as possible about themselves to maintain the status quo,” he says. “The one who will sacrifice the bare minimum to get what she wants but nothing more.”
I open my mouth to retort, but I clamp it shut again and turn my eyes out the window.
We don’t speak again, and he drops me off at the school a little after seven thirty. I see my truck still in the parking lot, and I head up the stairs in a kind of daze, my head still back in the cab of the truck with him.
He’s wrong. I’ll sacrifice what I have to in order to keep her mouth on mine. The alternative is too hard to consider.
I run my fingers through my hair, untangling what the wind did to it and dig in my bag for some lip gloss. Smoothing out my hair and brushing my hands down my clothes, I enter the theater, hearing voices immediately.
“Let me be taken, let me be put to death!” someone cries.
I stand at the back of the theater, in the dark, and I can’t help but smile at the scene on the stage. The set looks like a wintery New York evening if New York had royalty and a strictly black option for clothing. Cathedral arches adorn the backdrop along with silver skyscrapers reaching up into the night. Clouds float past the full moon, and a stone mansion in ruins sits in the middle.
Liv is dressed in a long, black coat, fitted at the waist, her face chalk white and her hair in a wild ponytail. Smoky black surrounds her eyes, and I grip the back of a chair, because she’s so beautiful my knees feel weak.
“I am content, so thou wilt have it so, I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye, ‘Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow,” Romeo drones on, played by Clarke Tillerson in a way that I know I’d be asleep if I didn’t have Liv to look at.
Snow falls from above, and this must be one of the final dress rehearsals. Or they’re working on a scene that needs extra time, because I’m pretty sure Mercutio’s understudy isn’t in the bedroom scene.
“Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat.”
“Stop!”
Lambert comes up, the actors turning to receive direction, and Liv turns my way. I raise my hand to wave, but she keeps turning, not seeing me.
I put my hand down as she crosses her arms, and I don’t like the tension I see in her body. What’s wrong?
Ms. Lambert speaks quietly and closely to Clarke as Juliet sits on the bed, hugging her knees to her body and inspecting her fingernails. Everyone looks worn out. Some pace, some look bored as hell, and some are slouched in the theater seats, passed out.
Voices rise between Lambert and Romeo, and they’re starting to talk with their hands, their body language aggravated.
“Let me be taken,” someone calls out.
I find Liv as everyone turns toward her voice, and I see her stare at Juliet.
She runs and jumps up on the bed, Juliet falling back onto her hands, a shocked smile on her face.
“Let me be put to death!” Liv shouts, standing over her. “I am content, so thou wilt have it so.”
My heart creeps up my throat, and slowly, I move down the aisle, taking her in.
Liv crouches down, one black boot over Juliet’s body, her black coat spilling around them as she holds her beloved’s face. For once, Lizbeth Mercier, who plays Juliet, looks actually s
peechless as she’s carried away in Liv’s gaze.
“I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,” Liv tells her, caressing the girl’s cheeks, her words so gentle and her eyes searching her love’s. “‘Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.”
She doesn’t take her eyes off Juliet, so close, and I feel like she’s holding me. Everyone watches. “Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat, the vaulty heaven so high above our heads.”
Liv whispers into her temple, her microphone brushing the girl’s skin, “I have more care to stay than will to go.”
And my heart shudders, feeling the words, because I know what her breath feels like.
And her mouth dips close, taunting the corner of Lizbeth’s. I don’t think the girl breathes.
In one fell swoop, Romeo comes down on top of the girl, sending them both to the bed, and Lizbeth yelps, letting out an excited laugh, while Romeo smiles devilishly. “Come, death, and welcome!” Liv taunts playfully. “Juliet wills it so. How is’t, my soul?” She presses their foreheads together. “Let’s talk; it is not day.”
And the girl smiles, captivated and wanting to be nowhere but with her Romeo.
Olivia’s perfect. Why have they not given her the lead in anything all these years?
Everyone stands quiet, and after a moment, the curtain over Liv’s mind seems to close again, and she sits up, her demeanor serious once again.
“See, Clarke?” Lizbeth props herself up on her elbows, looking around Liv. “Just like that.”
I laugh to myself, seeing him shifting uneasily.
Lambert claps. “Okay, everyone! Tomorrow. Be here at three!”
Everyone starts to gather their things, chatter filling the room, and I watch as Liv doesn’t come down to me but disappears backstage.
She had to have seen me. I check my phone, seeing I’m twenty minutes late.
I carry the rose, climbing the stairs and veer behind the curtain and down another small set of stairs. I find Liv in a dressing room with the door open as she sits on a stool.
I hover at the door. “I brought you something to remind you of me.”
Tryst Six Venom Page 28