by Judy Corry
"I'll be there if I can wear a cravat," Nash said, which probably shouldn't have surprised me because he seemed to always want to be in character one way or another.
"You know I'm there," Elyse said, since this was exactly her kind of party. "And I think I might have just the dress for the event."
"I'll be there, too," I said.
"You're coming too, right?" Cambrielle addressed Carter when he didn't say anything.
"Let me check my calendar," he said, pulling out his bullet journal. He counted the weeks and seemed to note the date. "Are you talking about October sixteenth?"
"Um, yes," Cambrielle said, the look in her eyes becoming slightly more anxious at his mention of the date. She adjusted her shoulders in her cream-colored jacket. "I think that sounds right, anyway. I thought it would give us enough time to plan everything while still having good weather in case we wanted to do some things outside."
"That's the only reason why you picked this specific weekend?" Carter studied his sister with narrowed eyes, as if trying to figure something out.
She nodded, her gaze flitting to Nash before she said, "Yes. I don't remember there being anything else going on that weekend, do you?"
Nash made a show of frowning, and then said, "Nope. Nothing special about October at all."
Carter looked at his brother and sister suspiciously for another long moment before finally saying, "I don't have any special plans for that weekend, either. So I guess I can show up."
Relief showed on Cambrielle's face, and after giving Nash a quick glance, she said, "Great. I'll tell my mom that you're all in."
23
Carter
"I don't know if you'll need a tutor much longer," I told Ava after we finished our math assignment one Thursday afternoon. "I barely feel like you need my help as it is."
When Mrs. Simmons first told me about who I'd be tutoring this year, she'd made it sound like I'd have my work cut out for me.
But so far, Ava had caught onto all the concepts we were learning about in our Statistics class without too much extra help from me, and I wouldn't be surprised if Ava was acing all her tests before long.
"I appreciate the vote of confidence," she said, her cheeks flushing a beautiful pink. "But I think I'll keep you around a little longer."
Was it weird that I actually looked forward to our tutoring sessions?
In previous years, I'd mostly seen tutoring as a way to give back—to help people who struggled with the subject to get on better terms with it.
But it was different with Ava. Sure, I wanted her to get to where she didn't groan every time the word math was brought up in a conversation, but I also had more selfish reasons for wanting to keep our tutoring sessions going. I liked having the one-on-one, uninterrupted time with her. I liked the excuse to sit close and accidentally brush arms as we worked side by side. I savored the chances I got to breathe in her delicious shampoo when I leaned close to check her answers.
And I also liked having a reason to keep our fake relationship going. Because while we'd probably already satisfied my need for our arrangement—the need to give Sofia the impression that I had indeed moved on from her—as long as Ava wanted people to believe I was wooing her instead of tutoring her, I had an excuse for why I was always close by her side when we were hanging out with our friends.
I should probably remind her that having a math tutor was nothing to be ashamed of in the first place. But the selfish part of me just wanted to keep this thing going for another month, or two…or possibly until we graduated.
Would it be too obvious if I offered to tutor her in college?
"Got any other fun plans for this evening?" Ava slipped her notebook with the pink skulls on it into her backpack.
"Not really." I shrugged. "You?"
"Elyse has a drama club meeting and I think Scarlett said she had a volleyball game tonight, so I was probably just going to watch a movie in my room or something since I finally don't have homework."
Was this her way of hinting that her night was open if I wanted to hang out with her?
I didn't think I had anything other than a workout scheduled for tonight, and since it was just a run, it shouldn't take me very long to do.
I studied her, trying to figure out if I should take a chance and ask her to hang out with me tonight.
Despite spending a lot of time together the past few weeks, we hadn't done anything alone that didn't involve schoolwork. I was pretty sure that we'd gotten to the place where she considered us friends—at least I hoped we were friends now. But were we the kind of friends who could do things without a larger group of friends around?
The kind of friends who didn't need tutoring sessions or fake girlfriend/boyfriend duties to be able to hang out alone?
Deciding that the best way to figure out the answer would be to actually ask her to hang out, I said, "The only thing I have planned so far is a quick run, but after that my schedule is wide open." I fiddled with the chain bracelet on my wrist, running my thumb across the name engraved on the small charm, nervous for some reason. More nervous than I'd been to invite someone to spend time alone with me in a long time. Years maybe.
I cleared my throat and tried to push some confidence into my voice. "Would you want to come hang out at my house after that? I could do my run on one of the trails around the school and we could head to my house after."
"That sounds fun." Her cheeks lifted into a warm smile at my offer, and I released the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
"Great. Meet me in the lobby in about forty minutes?"
"I'll meet you there."
"I'll just take a quick shower and then we can grab some dinner," I told Ava when we got to my house. I hadn't wanted to shower at the school, only to change back into my school uniform again since I hadn't brought an extra change of clothes with me today. So hopefully she wouldn't mind entertaining herself for a few minutes while I got myself unstinkified.
"Should I just wait in the family room at the end of the hall?" she asked, gesturing in the direction of the room my siblings and I usually hung out in the evenings before heading to bed.
"That, or you can wait in my room if you prefer," I offered, since I really wouldn't be that long.
She bit her lip and eyed my room, and I realized how that might have sounded.
After thinking it over, she took a step toward the family room and said, "I'll just wait out here."
I considered teasing her about the first time she'd barged into my room and asking her why she seemed so timid now, but she was likely turning down my offer because she knew just how explosive the fireworks could burn between us and that it was better not to tempt fate. I nodded and said, "I'll be out soon."
I made quick work in the shower and grabbed the first clothes that I saw—a charcoal button-up and dark-wash jeans. Then I headed down the hall to get Ava.
She was texting someone when I walked into the room, so I took the seat beside her and waited for her to finish.
"Sorry, I was just messaging my mom." She set her phone face down on the couch when she'd finished.
"Yeah?" I asked. "And how is she?"
"She's good." Ava smiled. "Her show in Milan went really well and she made it back home yesterday. She said that she wants to come to Eden Falls this weekend so we can spend a couple of days together."
"That sounds like it’ll be fun. Do you know if she's spent much time here since she graduated?"
"I don't think so." Ava shook her head. "When she dropped us off for school, I think she said the last time she'd been here was for her five-year high school reunion. So it's been a while."
"That was probably, like, eighteen years ago, wasn't it?" I asked, doing the math quickly in my head based on the year she and my dad had graduated.
"Yeah." Ava nodded. "I think it was the summer before Elyse and I were born."
"Probably wanted to avoid running into her ex." I winked.
She laughed. "If our assumptions about
her and your dad dating in high school are even true. You didn't ask your dad about that, did you?"
"No," I said. "I forgot to ask when the teachers decided to dump a buttload of homework on us."
"Yeah, I didn't ask my mom about it, either," Ava said. "But I'll probably ask her more about what she did in high school when she's here this weekend. Maybe she can take me and Elyse to all the places she used to hang out at when she was here."
"Take a stroll down memory lane?"
She nodded.
I was about to suggest we head downstairs to see what Marie had whipped up for dinner when Ava asked, "You don't think it's weird that our parents might have dated, do you?"
Her golden-brown eyes looked at me cautiously. Like our parents’ history might somehow impact us and what our relationship might be.
I would have to admit that the thought of my dad dating the mom of the girl I was trying to figure out how to date was slightly weird. But it wasn’t like they'd gotten married or anything. And while there was a possibility that they'd also hooked up during that time—since my dad had told me he'd had sex when he was in high school—at least it hadn't ended in a pregnancy. Ava and Elyse were their mom's only children. So it wasn’t like Ava and I shared a half sibling or anything.
To answer Ava's question, I just said, "It's a little weird to think about. But it happened so long ago that I don't think it should be anything to worry about. It just shows that our parents had good taste in high school, right?"
Ava nodded slowly, like she still wasn't sure how she felt about the possibility. But then she shrugged and said, "You're probably right. Probably nothing to feel weird about."
24
Carter
Ava and I headed down to the kitchen a minute later. Dawn was sitting at the large, white marble counter, eating her steak and Dutch-oven potatoes. My mouth instantly watered because Marie's steak was the best, juiciest steak I'd eaten in my whole life. Not even the five-star restaurants in New York could rival the steak I was about to eat.
"Hey, Carter." Dawn looked up from scrolling through her phone as she ate. "Sorry I didn't realize you were here already. I would have waited for you if I'd known."
"Oh, it's fine." I waved my hand at the woman who’d been my mother since my dad brought me here. "I wasn't sure if I'd be eating at the school tonight, so you're totally fine."
Dawn's eyes went to Ava, a curious expression in them. "And who’s your friend?" She arched a dark eyebrow as she looked Ava over from head to toe.
"This is Ava," I said. "She's just started at the academy this year but is a senior." Then turning to Ava, I said, "And this is my mom, Dawn."
"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Hastings." Ava stepped forward to shake Dawn's hand.
But since Dawn was Dawn, instead of taking Ava's hand, she stood up and gave Ava a quick hug. "It's so great to meet you, Ava. I think I may have heard a little about you from my kids. You're one of the twins, right?"
Ava nodded, her cheeks flushing at the mention of having been previously discussed at our house. "Yeah, that's me. My sister Elyse and I are twins."
Dawn took a step back and gave Ava a good once-over before smiling. "Well, it was very nice to meet you. Cambrielle, Nash, and Carter have all said very nice things about you."
"They have?" Ava looked at me, her expression full of questions. "Now I'm really curious what they've said."
Dawn laughed. "Well, Cambrielle says she's excited to have new girl friends to hang out with. Nash may have told me all about how beautiful the new girls at school were. And Carter…" Dawn glanced at me, as if trying to remember what I might have said.
Honestly, I couldn't remember what I’d said about Ava. I was sure I hadn't been the one to bring the twins up in conversation, but if my siblings had mentioned them at dinner, I had probably added my two cents.
Then Dawn seemed to remember what I'd said. "Oh, yes. And Carter said something about either your sister or you being a lot to handle."
Ava giggled. "He was probably talking about me then." She raised her hand. "Let's just say the first day of school was quite the eventful day for us."
I chuckled at the memory. "Yes, let's just say that Ava has a way of keeping me on my toes."
Dawn studied us with the kind of look I only saw from her every once in a while. The kind of look that told me she’d noticed how happy I'd been the past few weeks and was realizing just now that Ava was probably a big part of the reason for it.
She caught herself smiling at us a second later, though, because she cleared her throat. "Anyway, I wasn't sure who'd be coming home for dinner since Nash and Cambrielle had their drama club meeting, so I had Marie put the rest of the food in the fridge for you to heat up later. So go ahead and take as much as you’d like."
"Thank you," Ava said with an appreciative smile. "It smells so good in here."
"Just make yourself at home." Dawn picked up her dishes and started rinsing them off in the sink.
As I was pulling the containers of food from the fridge and setting them on the kitchen island, Dawn spoke again. "Oh, and Carter?"
"Yeah?" I peeked around the stainless-steel fridge to look at her.
She wiped her hands on the towel after putting away the dishes and closing the dishwasher. "Did Cambrielle tell you and your friends about the party three weeks from now?"
"The one on October sixteenth?"
"I think that's the date," she said, and from the hint of anxiousness in her eyes, I couldn't help but wonder if my suspicions from earlier had been founded.
"She mentioned it."
"And did it sound like everyone would be available to attend?" she asked, seeming to be holding her breath as she waited for my answer.
"Yeah, pretty much everyone said they could come." And then to test my theory, I added, "I made plans to visit Yale's campus that weekend, if you remember, so I'll probably have to miss it. But I'm sure everyone will have a great time."
"What?" Dawn said in a louder voice than she'd used before, clearly surprised.
Ava narrowed her eyebrows. She was probably confused about it too, since I'd just said earlier today that my schedule was wide open that weekend.
"W-why did you plan it for that weekend? I, um…I thought you'd be around." Dawn frowned like she was trying to solve some sort of problem in her head. She said, "Would you be able to reschedule your tour? We have just put so much into planning this already, and we'd really like for you to be there."
Of course they would.
Cambrielle might have said it was just for fun and a way to live out her fantasy of dancing with a duke while wearing a fancy ball gown. But the timing was too coincidental for me to believe that they weren't planning exactly what I suspected.
I could probably keep this going on a little longer, but since I loved Dawn and I really didn't want to cause her too much stress even if she was doing the exact thing I'd told them I didn't want, I said, "I was just teasing you. I don't have any plans for that weekend."
Dawn placed a hand to her chest, and then she shook her head and said, "You enjoyed that, didn't you?"
I grinned and shut the refrigerator door. "What's the use of being a teenager if I can't tease my mom every once in a while?"
Dawn rolled her eyes at me, but I could tell she wasn't really mad. "Anyway, I think I'm going to go take Penelope for a ride." Penelope was her Thoroughbred horse. "It's been a few days since she's gotten a good run in." She turned her gaze on Ava. "It was so good to meet you, Ava. I hope we'll be seeing more of you in the future."
"I hope so too." Ava smiled at Dawn. "And it was great to meet you."
"So, what was that all about?" Ava asked as we heated up our plates of food in the microwave. "Why did you tease your mom about not going to the party?"
"Oh that?" I raised an eyebrow, leaning back on my palms against the counter. "That was just me testing a theory."
"A theory?"
"Yep."
"And what theory was that?" she aske
d.
"A theory about why they're really having this party."
"And that theory would be what?" Ava asked, folding her arms across her chest, not seeming to like that I was making her work for the answers.
The microwave beeped, so I opened the door to grab my food, which was steaming hot. I pulled it out carefully. With our plates and glasses of water in hand, I nodded toward the back door, indicating for Ava to follow me out to the terrace where we could eat our meal.
"Are you going to tell me why you think they're really having this party?" Ava asked impatiently as we seated ourselves onto the striped cushions.
I set my dishes on the patio table and started cutting into my steak with the steak knife. "I'm pretty sure they're planning a surprise birthday party for me."
"Really?" Ava's eyes widened, and she started cutting into her steak as well. "Is your birthday October sixteenth then?"
"No, it's the next day." I put a bite of steak in my mouth and had to resist the urge to moan because dang, it was so good. I closed my eyes as I savored the taste for a moment.
"Did you just grunt like a caveman?" Ava asked, amusement in her voice.
I opened my eyes and saw her staring at me openmouthed. Apparently, I hadn't been able to hide my neanderthal tendencies as much as I'd hoped.
But since I had better manners than a caveman, I made sure to finish chewing my steak before I said, "This is so good."
"Kind of like the chicken at the back-to-school barbecue?"
"Even better."
Deciding to test it herself, Ava put a piece of the steak in her mouth, and when her eyes lit up as she chewed, I knew she was impressed. She swallowed her bite and said, "Um, do you think Marie has time to come cook for the school, too? Because I'm pretty sure this is the kind of steak that they serve in heaven.”
I laughed, but since I was a bit territorial when it came to Marie, I said, "Sorry. She only has time for my family."