by Lili Valente
“It has training wheels!” Sean shouts, sounding near tears himself. “It’s not my fault she didn’t know how to use the brakes.”
“It is your fault!” Ray shouts back. “I told you, she’s just a baby!”
“But you’re the oldest, Ray,” I say in my “calm down” voice as I start toward the kitchen. “You should have come to get me if Sean wouldn’t listen. Now, is it just the scrapes on her hand and knee? Did she hit her head?”
“He’s eight, that’s old enough to know better,” Ray says, ignoring my question. “I don’t know why I always get blamed for everything!”
“Ray, come on,” I say as he turns and flees up the stairs. “I didn’t mean—”
I break off with a sigh and a roll of my eyes, continuing into the kitchen, knowing there’s no point in going after Ray. When Ray’s upset, he locks himself in the upstairs bathroom and nothing can coax him out. He’ll take a long bath and emerge when he’s good and ready, and no amount of sweet-talking on my part will make a damned bit of difference.
“I pulled up right as she fell.” Gabe appears beside me as I settle Emmie on the edge of the sink, bracing her back with one of his big hands as I turn on the water, surprising me with how comfortable he seems amidst the chaos. “She caught herself and didn’t hit the pavement too hard. I think she’s more scared than anything.”
“Well, yeah,” I say, catching Emmie’s eye, glad to see her tears have stopped. “It’s scary not to be able to stop. Right, doodle?”
Emmie nods, watching me run cool water over her knee before glancing up at Gabe. She’s usually not big on strangers, but he doesn’t seem to be freaking her out. I’m sure the fact that he came to her rescue is helping.
“But you were doing great before you fell,” Gabe says, using his normal voice, earning instant points for not talking to Emmie like she’s a dog, the way a lot of people do when they talk to little kids. “Stopping is easy once you learn how. I bet Caitlin can teach you.”
Emmie widens her eyes at me.
“Of course I can,” I assure her, answering her unspoken question. “We’ll have a lesson tomorrow morning. But with jeans on, so you won’t get an owie if you fall.”
“Owie,” Emmie echoes, squirming her bare toes as I gently pat her knee dry with a paper towel.
“Can you make sure she doesn’t fall off the counter while I get medicine and a Band-Aid?” I ask Gabe, flustered by how close he’s standing.
Now that the situation with Emmie is under control, I’m realizing how amazing he looks in his dark blue suit with an ice blue tie the same color as his eyes, and how much smaller the kitchen suddenly seems with him in it.
Gabe isn’t as big as Isaac—few people are, Isaac is a six-foot-four bear of a person—but for some reason Gabe seems to take up more space. It’s something about his posture or the directness of his gaze or…something. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I know by the time I’ve crawled up on the counter to fetch a bandage and antibiotic ointment I feel self-conscious, and very aware of the fact that Sean, Isaac, and Heather are standing on the other side of the island, watching as Gabe and I finish up with Emmie.
“There, good as new.” I scoop Emmie off the counter, pressing a kiss to her cheek before setting her on the ground and watching her toddle off past Danny, still sprawled on the couch, toward the toy chest in the corner of the living room.
Isaac turned off the bloody videogame once the other kids came inside, and the house is weirdly quiet. So quiet it feels like everyone is listening when I turn to Gabe and ask—
“So, um…should I change, or what?”
He glances down at my pale yellow sundress with the lace accents at the hem. It’s one of my favorites, but it feels too casual now that I’ve seen what “dressed for dinner” means for the Alexander family.
“This is great,” he says. “You look beautiful.”
“Are you sure? I mean you’re so…” I motion up and down, cheeks heating when Gabe smiles in a way that makes it clear he’s enjoying seeing me at a loss for words.
“I’m sure,” he says.
I huff, blowing a few stray wisps of hair from my face. “Okay, fine. Then let’s get out of here.”
“Should I be introduced first?” Gabe casts a pointed look toward the other side of the island, where Isaac is hovering, looking mildly threatening. Isaac is a relentlessly cheerful person without a lot of glaring experience. He can only pull off mildly threatening, even when he’s trying really hard, but still, a scowl is a scowl.
I shoot him a wide-eyed look, silently begging him to cut it out, but my best friend is apparently serious about standing in for my absent father. His glare stays firmly in place, even when I add a shake of my head to the bug eyes.
“Yeah, we’d like to be introduced,” Isaac says, ignoring me.
“Of course,” I say through gritted teeth, stomach burning as I lead the way into the living room. “Gabe, these are my friends, Isaac and Heather, from the neighborhood, who watch the kids for me on Saturday nights. Guys, this is Gabe, an old friend from Christoph Academy.”
“Nice to meet you.” Heather waves, and Isaac holds out a stiff hand.
Isaac and Gabe shake in a way that is weirdly grown up, and also just weirdly weird, and makes me even more eager to get out of the house. I don’t know why Isaac is pulling the protective big brother act—he’s the one who’s always saying I should go on dates every once and awhile—but it’s making me nervous.
Not to mention how plain wrong it feels for Gabe to be inside my house.
Gabe isn’t a part of my real life. He’s an alien from a strange, wild world I visited once in the dark. I never intended to introduce him to my family, and no matter how nice he was to Emmie, or the friendly note in his voice when he asks Isaac how long the two of us have been friends, I wish Gabe had stayed outside. I wish he’d never seen how shabby the inside of our house is, and I’d never seen him holding Emmie like she was something precious he wanted to protect.
“And those two are Sean and Danny,” I say, pointing to the couch, where Danny is turning on the T.V. “Danny’s the blond one who looks like me.”
“Do not. Gag,” Danny says, not taking his eyes off the television as he flips through our few channels. “Remind me to dye my hair black tomorrow, Sean.”
“The one with curly brown hair is Sean,” I say, ignoring Danny. “And the other one with brown hair who disappeared is Ray. And you’ve met Emmie so…that’s it. The entire clan. Ready to go?”
“Whenever you are.” Gabe turns back to Isaac and Heather. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for helping me get Caitlin out of the house.”
“We’re always here for Caitlin,” Isaac says in a vaguely ominous tone.
“Good to know.” Gabe puts an arm around my waist that makes me flinch with surprise, Isaac scowl, and Heather laugh.
“Down, boy,” she says to Isaac, threading an arm through his before she turns back to me with a grin. “Have a great time, and don’t worry about the kids. We’ve got everything under control.”
“Thanks so much,” I mumble, fleeing toward the door, determined to escape before things get any weirder.
I snag my purse, shout good-bye to the kids, and shoo Gabe out of the house in front of me with an anxious flap of my hands. The moment the door slams behind us—providing a thin barrier between my real life and my Gabe life—I feel a hundred times better.
“Thank God that’s over,” I say, sighing as I lead the way to the ridiculously expensive car parked in my driveway.
The silver BMW probably cost more than our house, and is definitely going to be the priciest ride I’ve ever been inside. Gabe’s lucky he didn’t get his fancy hubcaps stolen. If it had been later, and a little darker on the street, he wouldn’t have escaped our neighborhood unscathed.
“You didn’t tell me you had a body guard,” Gabe says, reaching down to open the passenger’s door for me like this is a real date.
“Isaac isn’t usually
like that.” I glance back over my shoulder at the house before I slide into the supple leather seat. “I don’t know what’s up with him.”
“He’s protective. I like it.” Gabe slams the door, taking his time walking around the front of the car to the driver’s side, giving me another long moment to appreciate how fucking stunning he looks.
Why he’s back in Giffney, instead of off frolicking with the rich and famous, is beyond me. If I had the kind of money he has, I’d buy a one-way ticket to anywhere but here. Anywhere but this dead end town with its dead end jobs and my deadbeat dad and all the sad memories and stories that follow my family around, making sure no one ever expects much from a Cooney. If I could pack up the kids and give them a fresh start somewhere new, I would do it in a heartbeat.
“I won’t worry about you as much now,” Gabe says as he settles into the car, banishing the question on the tip of my tongue.
I was going to ask why he sticks around Giffney if he’s so bored it’s driving him to a life of crime, but now all I can think about is Gabe worrying about me. Why would he worry about me? We barely know each other, and worry implies a level of concern for my welfare I assumed Gabe didn’t possess.
I study him out of the corner of my eye as he starts the car and shifts into reverse, doing my best not to fidget when he puts an arm behind my chair and turns to look through the back glass. His face is so close to mine I can smell the spicy, soapy smell of him, that same scent that lingered on my clothes all the way home after I dropped him at the bus stop the night of our heist. By the time I got home, I’d been half drunk with lust, and wishing I’d had the guts to accept his invitation to meet up after he hid the money and jewelry.
I had never been tempted by that kind of invitation before, but that night…
“What are you thinking?” Gabe brakes in the middle of the street, attention shifting to my face as he puts the car in drive.
“Nothing,” I say, voice more breathless than I would like.
“Liar,” he says. “Tell me. I dare you.”
I lick my lips. “You first.”
“I’m thinking that….you have a family worth fighting for,” Gabe says, holding my gaze with an intensity that makes me certain he knows all my secrets. “And that the way you love them is special. They’re lucky to have you.”
I blink, eyes stinging at the unexpected compliment. “Well…thanks. They’re everything to me so…”
“And you’re everything to them. Don’t doubt it. Even the troublemaker adores you,” he says with a wink before turning his gaze to the street. “Danny, right?”
I laugh as he pulls out of our cul-de-sac onto Newberry Street. “Yeah, Danny. We butt heads constantly.” I cast Gabe an assessing look. “You pegged him pretty fast.”
“I’m an excellent judge of character.” He reaches over, capturing my hand in his, sending a zinging sensation shooting up my arm.
I curl my fingers around his palm, trying to ignore how intimate it feels to hold hands with Gabe, grateful that he seems to have forgotten that I didn’t honor my half of our dare. If I had to tell him I was thinking about how much I wished I’d gone home with him after our last date—if you can call robbing a pawnshop, and making out in my best friend’s car, a date—it will be more difficult to ensure this date goes according to plan.
I may have been hired to be a fake girlfriend, but there’s nothing fake about the way my body hums with happiness, simply to be sitting next to Gabe. There’s nothing fake about the way his touch makes me ache, or the soft, melting feeling in my chest left behind by what he said.
I never imagined Gabe would see the beauty in my fucked up family, or be the type to understand the value of unconditional love. Love like that is precious, and absolutely worth fighting for. The fact that he realizes that makes me look at him differently, makes me wonder what else Gabe is hiding beneath the bad boy exterior. I had assumed “what you see is what you get” with him, but maybe I was wrong.
The thought creeps in on spider feet, making me shiver. I can’t decide which is more dangerous—the player, or the man with a secret soft side. In my experience, secrets breed secrets, and no one puts as much effort into hiding as Gabe does without a damned good, and often frightening, reason.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gabe
She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed;
She is woman, and therefore to be won
-Shakespeare
While I drive, Caitlin scans the list of off-limits dinner conversation topics I typed into my phone earlier this afternoon. She mutters beneath her breath, and laughs softly when she reaches the end. “The weather?”
“My mother supports global warming research, but my father doesn’t believe in climate change,” I say, guiding the Beamer onto the country road leading to Darby Hill, the plantation that’s been in my family for generations, wishing Caitlin and I were driving in the opposite direction.
After meeting her family, I’m even less eager to introduce her to mine.
There’s a reason my parents only have one child. One was all it took for them to realize parenting wasn’t for them. They like me well enough, and my mother took to managing me with the same enthusiasm she devotes to all her pet causes, but I saw more tenderness tonight at Caitlin’s house than I’ve ever seen from my parents.
Growing up, my nanny washed my scraped knees when I fell, and easy family banter and shared jokes were things I watched on television. I was expected to keep quiet at the dinner table until I was old enough to contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way, and neither of my parents spent much time with me until I was in high school. I was sixteen before my parents finally took a vested interest—my father when he learned I seemed to share his love of the law, and my mother when I was old enough for her to play matchmaker and set me up with the daughters of all her snobby friends.
I already knew Caitlin had a softer heart than either of my parents—she wouldn’t have sacrificed so much for her brothers and niece if she didn’t—but I hadn’t been prepared for what I saw tonight.
The love Caitlin feels for her family is bigger than anything I’ve ever witnessed up close, overflowing in every touch, every kiss, even the way she shouted at one brother and rolled her eyes at the other. It was unexpectedly beautiful, and made her even prettier—something I’d assumed was impossible. Caitlin’s outsides are something special, but her heart is…stunning. Even after fifteen minutes of driving, I still feel a little dazed. My throat is tight and my chest aches, but not in a bad way, in a hopeful way, though I don’t know what the hell I’m hoping for.
I have no right to be hopeful. Nothing has changed. I still have secrets I’m determined to keep, and Caitlin and I still have an expiration date set in stone.
There is no “You and Caitlin.” You’re on a fake date, and she’s only promised you one night.
It’s true, but there was something in the way she held my hand as we pulled away from her house, a tenderness that wasn’t there before, that made me think she might be developing a soft spot in that heart of hers.
A soft spot for me…
“Okay, whatever you say, boss.” She sighs as she drops my phone into the cup holder on her side of the car. “No talking about weather, money, anyone’s health, court cases, your college, my job, or religion. I think I can remember all that, but…what else is there? What am I supposed to talk about?”
“You can talk about the kids,” I say, but immediately rethink it. “Though my mom and dad aren’t into children. They prefer people over the age of eighteen.”
Caitlin frowns and shifts in her seat to face me. “I thought you said your mom wanted grandchildren.”
“She does. But she’ll enjoy the idea of grandchildren more than the actual kids.” I shrug. “Not that it matters. I’m not having children.”
“Me either,” Caitlin says. “The boys and Emmie are plenty for me.”
I glance at her, a little surprised. “You don’t want to be a
mother? Seems like you’ve got a knack for it.”
“Thanks.” She shoots me a strange look, but I’m forced to turn my attention back to the curving road before I can decipher it.
“If things were different, I would want kids of my own,” she continues. “But I’m tired already. By the time I get Emmie raised, I don’t think I’ll have any energy left.”
“Does that make you sad?”
“A little, maybe, but it doesn’t matter,” she says. “Things are the way they are. No point crying over something I can’t change.”
I nod. She’s right. Some things are the way they are. There’s no changing them, no matter how much you want to, and tears are a waste of time and energy.
Other problems, however, can be solved—with money. Money can buy free time, free time can breed opportunity, and opportunities can transform a life, especially for someone as focused and determined as Caitlin. The way I see it, almost all of her troubles could be solved with an injection of money into her life, and I intend to make sure she gets it, one way or another.
“The five hundred dollars is in my wallet,” I say, turning down the smooth, freshly paved drive leading to Darby Hill, a black ribbon that winds through gnarled live oak trees my great grandfather planted nearly two hundred years before. “I’ll get it for you before we go in. I meant to give it to you at your place, but I—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Caitlin says. “I’ll get it later. I know you’re good for it.”
“You trust me, then?” I ask, slowing as we reach the end of the drive.
“I trust you more than I did, even if you did almost cost me my job.” Caitlin leans forward, eyes widening as Darby Hill comes into view.
The house dates back to the late 1800’s, and was built after the original plantation burned to the ground during the Civil War. It’s a colonial revival with creamy, pale brick walls, a burnt orange tiled roof with the three garret windows, and eight pillars crowded around the entryway. In addition to having at least four too many pillars, the house boasts a curved veranda on each side, making it look like it’s wearing one of those hip bustles women in Europe wore under their skirts for a time, the ones that made it impossible for them to walk through a door without turning sideways.