by Amy Star
She ventured to the third floor from there, finding two more bathrooms, a handful of bedroom suites, and a nearly identical sitting room to the western end of the floor.
When she made her way down to the first floor, she found a bit more variation. A kitchen and a dining room, a formal parlor, a library with a fireplace, a slightly more casual sitting room with another fireplace, and another study, all arranged around an entry foyer and a broad hallway that made navigation easy.
In the sitting room, she very nearly had a heart attack. There was a dog on the largest couch, though the word “dog” didn’t quite do the creature justice. It was black and shaggy, with a long muzzle and pointed ears. She would have sworn it was a wolf if not for the fact that it was roughly the size of a lion.
The hound lifted its head as she gasped in surprise, cocking its head to one side as it’s gold eyes opened. It blinked at her placidly.
“There is a monster on the couch,” Casey breathed to herself, and the dog’s head jerked back in a way that almost seemed affronted, if not for the fact that Casey really doubted the hound could understand her.
With a lurch, the dog hefted itself off the couch and trotted out of the room, passing close enough to Casey that its coarse fur brushed her thigh. She went rigid until she heard its claws click away down the hall.
In the library, she found another surprise in the form of a bird perched on the arm of a chair in front of the fireplace. It looked like a crow, except for the fact that it was the size of an eagle. It appeared to be asleep, its feathers slightly fluffed up and its head tucked close to its chest.
Slowly, Casey backed out of the room before it could notice her. She was going to need to have a chat with Atticus about warning people about his pets; they were a little bit intense.
*
Dinner that night happened about fifteen minutes after Atticus got back from work. He had a chef. Casey couldn’t say she was surprised by that knowledge, but she was wondering where the chef (and the rest of the staff that she was assuming worked in the house) was hiding throughout the day, since she hadn’t seen anyone other than the monster of a dog and the enormous bird.
“So, your dog,” Casey began suddenly, halfway through the meal. It was simple but incredible, and she knew she would have never had a chance at making anything like it on her hot plate. “And your bird. A bit of warning would have been appreciated. They both look big enough to eat me.”
Strangely, Atticus actually seemed slightly confused. It took a moment for realization to dawn, and he cleared his throat. “A couple friends leave their pets here during the day so my staff can keep an eye on them. I forget they’re even here most of the time.”
“Ah.” Casey wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not, but she let the topic drop.
*
It was later that night that Casey got to meet Atticus’s friends. Well, officially meet them. Technically, she already had, but neither of them had bothered to introduce themselves before.
Branson was a tall, slender man, built more like a gymnast compared to Atticus’s linebacker body. He was pale, albeit not to quite the same extent as Casey, with a mop of carefully ordered auburn hair and peculiarly gold eyes. He was also the slightly scary man in the expensive suit who had first approached Casey about the deal. He was still wearing an expensive suit when Casey met him in the foyer that evening, but he was considerably less scary when she was meeting him indoors rather than just running into him on the sidewalk outside of her place of employment.
Lydia was a petite woman a few inches shorter than Casey with skin like caramel and wavy black hair piled on top of her head in an untidy bun, though Casey knew from prior experience that it fell down to her waist. Her eyes gleamed a shade of brown that Casey had never seen before. She was also the one who Atticus brought with him to the courthouse, and she was still wearing the expensive watch.
Casey hardly waited for introductions to be out of the way before she wondered, “So, were they your dog and bird?”
Lydia snorted out a laugh and cleared her throat behind one hand. “The bird was mine. Bit of a shithead, but I promise she’s harmless.”
“Dog’s mine,” Branson added, considerably less upbeat than Lydia.
“He’s huge,” Casey informed him, as if he could possibly be unaware of what his own dog looked like. “I thought he was going to eat me.”
Atticus carefully coughed into his fist to mask a laugh, and Branson seemed bizarrely ruffled by the statement, offering just a sullen, “Designer breed. He’s friendly.” Though Casey supposed she couldn’t blame him for being protective of his dog, even if she really doubted his dog needed the protection.
On the whole, the two of them seemed nice enough, though Casey wasn’t sure what she was supposed to talk to any of them—including Atticus—about. She doubted they would have many life experiences in common. But they were friendly enough. And considering the amount of shit Casey had taken over the course of her life, she was pretty sure she could coexist pretty contently with someone who wasn’t going to treat her like she had just crawled out of a dumpster.
It would be nice if she could at least be friends with Atticus, and she wasn’t going to give up hope that it would happen, but even if it didn’t, she supposed she wouldn’t mind too much. Just as long as he kept being a gentleman.
*
Atticus turned in early, citing an early morning as the reason. Casey didn’t need to work tomorrow—technically, she didn’t need to work at all anymore, but she had never had the time or money to really invest into hobbies, and she knew she would go crazy if she had nothing to do all day—so she bid him goodnight and kept exploring the house. She was pretty sure it would take months before she managed to find all of the house’s secrets, but that was sort of exciting. Like living in a detective novel.
Eventually, though, when the enormous, largely empty house began to get a bit too unnerving, she returned to her… suite (that was still such a strange thought). She paced through the sitting room for a few minutes before she pulled her phone out (and she supposed she had more than enough money to buy a replacement now, but she would get to that later) and dialed her sister’s number.
Annie was as chipper as ever as she answered. “Hey there! How was the first day in the mansion?”
“It doesn’t really feel like a mansion,” Casey protested, though she wasn’t sure why. It didn’t have stone columns, it wasn’t pure white, and it didn’t look like it had been plucked out of ancient Rome or Greece, which were all the things she tended to associate with the word “mansion.” It looked more Victorian than anything else.
Annie snorted. “It’s a mansion.”
Sighing and rolling her eyes, Casey agreed, “It’s a mansion. It’s nice! I could probably get lost on the way to breakfast tomorrow, and I think I’ll be eighty by the time I finally stop finding new nooks and crannies to poke around in.”
“I’m going to assume he doesn’t mind you poking through his stuff,” Annie observed wryly.
“If he did,” Casey sniffed, “he wouldn’t have left me unattended.”
“So romantic.”
“He’s paying me,” Casey reminded her. “That doesn’t exactly scream ‘romance.’”
“Fair point,” Annie conceded. “Are things at least going well enough so far? Nothing too strange? No one’s being a dick?”
“Everyone seems pretty nice so far, though I’m pretty sure the staff just sort of melts out of the walls whenever they’re needed. I know they’re here, but I haven’t actually seen any of them yet.”
“They probably have scheduled shifts, you goose,” Annie snorted.
They talked about nothing in particular and everything that their thoughts drifted to for another half hour before they both started yawning and decided it was time to call it a night.
Casey would need to get used to living outside of the city, she realized once she was in bed, as a wolf howled in the distance and owls hooted outside the house. Everyt
hing sounded a lot different from the pigeons and raccoons and traffic sounds.
Even so, she slept well that night. The bed was plain but so much more comfortable than her old mattress. It was like she was sleeping on a cloud.
*
Though Casey was used to waking early, Atticus was indeed already gone when she woke up the next morning. She woke up earlier than usual, in fact, as she slept far better than she usually did. She had to take a few moments to just stare at the ceiling until she could convince herself to get out of bed. It wasn’t like it was going anywhere; she would be right back in it that night.
The chef, apparently, only worked evenings, but the kitchen was well-organized, and Casey found all of the ingredients to make French toast for breakfast. She was halfway done eating, standing at the kitchen counter because it felt a bit strange to eat in the dining room all by herself, when a woman wearing something like scrubs and smelling like wood polish wandered in: part of the nebulous cleaning staff.
“There you are!” she greeted pleasantly, and she pulled an envelope out of her back pocket. “Mr. Grevieux asked me to give this to you,” she added before she set the envelope down on the counter and bustled on her way once again, in what Casey was reasonably sure was the direction of the library.
Ignoring her breakfast for the time being, Casey ripped open the envelope and found a few twenty-dollar bills and a note, reading simply, ‘While I know you don’t have work today, if you want to leave the house or have someone over, you’re free to do so. If you have any trouble with anything and can’t get in touch with me for whatever reason, Branson and Lydia are generally able to drop everything at their leisure. – Atticus
There were two phone numbers at the bottom of the page, one labeled for Branson and the other for Lydia.
Casey leafed through the money, staring at it with wide eyes. She folded the note around the bills and set them aside, scarfed down the rest of her breakfast, left the dishes in the sink, and then bolted back up to her suite to get dressed and call Jason. She wasn’t going to invite him over—she knew him well enough to know that while he would attempt to put on a brave face, being surrounded by so much money would do little more than put him in a bad mood—but she saw no reason not to have lunch with him. She could even afford a taxi to get into the city.
*
“This place is expensive,” Jason observed, his tone mildly suspicious as he looked at the menu.
“I know!” Casey practically squealed, holding the menu close to her chest for a second before she finally looked at it. “Atticus just handed me money—well, a maid handed me money, but Atticus handed it to her.”
“A maid,” Jason repeated.
“It’s a big house,” Casey replied, as if that answered everything. And in a sense, it did; it was a big enough house that no one would ever want to clean it on their own, so why not just pay a group of people to clean it? “Now, stop pouting.” She wagged a finger at him. “I asked you here to have a good meal, not to complain about money. You aren’t even paying for lunch.”
He opened his mouth again, only to close it with a click when Casey made a sharp, wordless noise at him. Finally, he shook his head and sighed, smiling slightly. “Alright, alright,” he conceded. “So, I take it everything’s going well enough? He hasn’t turned into an asshole? You know I’ll beat him up if he does.”
Casey rolled her eyes. “He could flatten you without even trying,” she informed him wryly, “but I appreciate the offer. Everything’s fine, though. I just… need to think of things to do to keep me busy.”
“What do you mean?” Jason wondered, though an answer had to wait until after the waitress took their orders.
As the waitress left once again, Casey answered, “Well, I don’t want to keep working at the restaurant forever. I don’t like it there. I don’t think anyone really likes it there. And if I can get away from the guys that grab my ass through their car windows, then I’m going to.”
“I still think it’s skeevy that your ‘uniform,’” Jason included air quotes as he stressed the word, “involves shorts tiny enough to be denim underwear.”
Casey snorted and threw a hand up in exasperation. “I guess upper management couldn’t think of any other way to make attractive women rollerblading around with food look appealing.”
Bringing a hand to his chest, Jason lamented, “I truly pity such a lack of creativity.” Immediately changing the subject after that, he suggested, “Maybe you could learn some extreme stunts. You basically live in the middle of nowhere now, don’t you? It’s probably great for learning how to jump off of or over things.”
“I think I would die,” Casey replied candidly. “I would trip over a rock and die.”
“I seriously hope you aren’t actually that clumsy.” He sounded genuinely anxious as he said it. “I’ve seen the speeds you skate at to get home. You don’t even wear a helmet.”
“I like to live life on the edge,” she informed him loftily.
“You don’t have health insurance,” he deadpanned. “You already live life on the edge.”
“I do, too,” she protested, followed by a beat before she added, “Now I do, at least.”
Rolling his eyes, Jason drawled, “You’ll need to read the fine print and see if that all applies retroactively.”
It was a pretty good afternoon, all things considered. It felt nice to know that even with her life changing, she could still talk to Jason normally. And it felt nice to know that he was going to have at least one decent meal that day, and there would only be a moderate amount of complaining on his end even if she had to beat him with her napkin to make sure of it.
(She did, but only a few times.)
C HAPTER THREE
By the time Casey made her way down the stairs for dinner, she had already changed into a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, taken her hair out of its braid, and taken her contact lenses out, instead wearing a pair of bright blue frames on the bridge of her nose.
When she made her way into the dining room, Atticus was already there, typing something on his phone, though he put it down as she entered. And he stared at her for a moment before he observed, “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
“Oh, yeah,” she replied, pushing the frames up the bridge of her nose with one finger. “My eyesight’s never been great. Usually, I had to wear seriously ugly frames that I swear were half an inch thick; these took me ages to save up for.”
“They suit you,” Atticus offered, and Casey beamed as she took her seat at the table.
Asking him about his work seemed like a safe enough topic to start with. Surprisingly, while he owned a few stocks in it, he was reasonably removed from the family business. He was a businessman still, which she could have guessed, but apparently, he did a lot of dealing in antiquities, though Casey was pretty sure there was more to it than that. If he wasn’t going to tell her, though, she wasn’t going to pry. She was pretty sure they didn’t know each other well enough for that, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know about everything he got up to anyway.
“My work on its own isn’t as lucrative as you might expect,” he pointed out. “I also come from old money; I don’t think I would be remotely capable of blowing through everything that’s been left to me by family members.”
“No siblings or cousins or anything to take a share of it?” Casey wondered, leaning an elbow on the table once she was sure Atticus wouldn’t actually care about manners.
“A few cousins, but one of them married into an equally wealthy family and so insisted that her share be left to someone else, and I was deemed the… least likely to be an idiot about it,” he stated carefully.
Casey snorted before she could help it.
“You see more money in a day than I have for my entire life,” she sighed wistfully, halfway through her meal and trying not to drool over the smell of dessert wafting out of the kitchen.
“Was there a reason?” Atticus wondered, curious but mild, the sort of tone that implied h
e wouldn’t mind if she decided she didn’t want to answer him.
She shrugged one shoulder in a lackadaisical manner and took a few more bites. “Some of the typical stuff: parents couldn’t afford to go to college, stuck in jobs that didn’t pay great. The sort of jobs that definitely don’t offer any benefits, so we were all kind of up shit’s creek when I turned out to be a very problematic child.”
“Problematic,” Atticus repeated dubiously.
Casey snorted. “I wasn’t the healthiest kid in the world growing up,” she replied. “I got sick at the drop of a hat. If someone sneezed six blocks away, I would get sick, and my parents were basically stuck paying for all of it out of pocket. Cousins and grandparents helped out when they could, but that didn’t really add up to much. So, we never really had a chance to climb out of that hole we were slipping into.”