“Will! Sure, one second.”
The speaker went silent, and a moment later, the gates gave a low buzz before slowly swinging open. Will left his car where it was, grabbed Leah’s purse and the gift bag sitting in the passenger seat, and continued through on foot. He couldn’t help gawking a bit as he walked up the drive to the front of the mansion. Ivy had begun creeping up the columns that framed the entryway.
The Carter Estate held a similar sort of aged beauty to the buildings in Glasglow. For a moment, he felt a pang of nostalgia.
The front door swung open, and Elijah leaned out, his head tilted and a broad smile on his face. Like Leah, her brother had hazel eyes, but his hair was dark where hers was light. Even so, it was easy to tell they were siblings.
“What are you doing here?” Elijah asked, throwing open the door to allow Will inside.
Matching Elijah’s cheerful greeting with a smile, Will followed the boy into a circular foyer. An aging chandelier hung from the high ceiling, and a curving staircase hugged the wall along the right side. The marble tiles beneath his feet were scuffed and dull, but he still felt a bit like when he’d attended the party last weekend—like he’d stepped into some alternate dimension where opulence was expected and people said things like ‘Care for some wine?’ or ‘Where are the hors d'oeuvres?’ And they could actually spell ‘hors d'oeuvres.’
He’d made a few connections at the party, and as far as he could tell, James had been impressed. Or at least, that was how he had chosen to interpret his boss lifting his brows and giving him a vague nod. It really could have been either a sign of approval or just daydreaming. Will had even struck up a conversation with the head editor of a premier medical magazine who expressed interest in reading some of his essays.
All that aside though, he’d mainly wandered around the large room feeling uncomfortable and out of place. His relief at spying a familiar face had been immense, especially since that face had belonged to Leah.
“Are you here to keep your promise?” Elijah asked, suddenly looking at him with huge, eager eyes.
“I will absolutely keep my promise,” he said, “but there’s something important I need to talk to your sister about first.”
Of course, he still didn’t know what he would say once he saw her again. There were a number of things he’d like to say, but he wasn’t sure she would want to hear any of it. Either way, he supposed he’d just have to say his piece and then hope she reacted well. If not, he might have to resort to Finn’s suggestion, which was to break out into song and dance in order to convey his feelings.
But he would leave that as Plan Z.
He followed Elijah through an obscenely fancy kitchen and into what he supposed was the living room, although it was nearly the size of his entire apartment.
“Leah’s not here,” Elijah said, dropping onto a plush sofa piled high with cushions. A couple comic books lay scattered across the floor, and a wireless game controller had been tossed on top of the sofa cushions. On the TV, he had paused his shooter game to answer the door for Will.
“When will she be back?” Will asked, sitting next to him. He set the gift bag and Leah’s purse on the floor.
“Tomorrow.” Elijah’s eyes fell on the purse, and his expression took on a wary slant that was remarkably similar to his sister’s. “Why do you have her purse?”
“I thought it was pretty,” Will said, and then grinned when the wary look on Elijah's face turned to confusion. “I’m joking. She just forgot it, and I came to return it.”
Elijah regarded him with the same uncertain, scrutinizing look Leah had during that first meeting after he’d given his introduction speech. But unlike his sister, he seemed to come to a decision about Will fairly quickly.
With a shrug, he went back to his game and said, “Okay.” He leaned over the controller, eyes squinting at the screen as his thumb jabbed the buttons. “She got her apartment robbed a few months ago. It would be bad if she lost anything else.”
“I agree,” Will said. “Which is why … wait, what?” His thoughts ground to a halt. “Her apartment? She doesn’t live here?”
Elijah gave him a funny look. “No. She moved out a few years ago.” He dug through the cushions until he unearthed a second controller and held it out to Will. “Want to play against me?”
With a quiet laugh, Will accepted the controller and then slumped over his knees, scratching the back of his head. She must not have updated the address on her license. Once again, he was an idiot. He recalled now that she had mentioned a flat once. And that it had been robbed by someone she slept with.
An unpleasant feeling rose in his stomach at the thought of her with anyone else, never mind the fact the arse had robbed her. Getting her to trust him would only be that much more difficult with guys like that in her past.
He shook his head. Ever since meeting her, he’d been playing host to a whole new range of feelings, and they still caught him by surprise sometimes.
“Well,” he said, reaching for the gift bag. “This is for you then. I hope you like to read.”
Elijah’s face lit up, and he took the gift bag with far more care than any other nine-year-old Will had ever met. Peering inside, he poked at the green tissue paper before pushing it aside and reaching in to remove a book.
It was one of Will’s favorites. He wasn’t sure how Leah felt about fantasy, but with her being a writing major, he had figured she would appreciate a book, whatever the genre.
“What’s it about?” Elijah asked. He admired the cover and then turned it over so he could read the back.
“Dragons and war and mad princes. Think you might like it?”
“It doesn’t have kissing, does it?” he asked, setting the book on top of his comics. “Leah gets me books like that sometimes.”
Will laughed. “You probably won’t mind in a few years, but no. No kissing. Promise.”
Elijah looked mollified. He reached again for his controller and then nodded to the other one in Will’s hand. “Do you know this game?”
“I’ll figure it out,” he said.
Elijah grinned and set the game to two-player mode.
“Are you home by yourself? Who else lives here?” Will asked as he scrolled through the menu options to check what the game commands were.
“Leah says I shouldn’t answer questions like that, especially if it’s from strangers.”
“But you’ve already let me into your house,” Will pointed out with a small laugh.
Elijah went still. “Oh. Oops. Well, I guess you don’t count.”
“I appreciate that.”
“It’s just me and my parents.”
“Three people in this huge house?”
“Most of the estate is closed off. No one’s been beyond this section of the mansion since before I was born.”
Will’s lips quirked. “That’s not at all creepy.” Just the rooms he’d seen so far had appeared spacious enough for more than three people. Then again, Americans did have a strange sense of space. They thought three-bedroom houses were ‘small.’ “Where are your parents?”
“I don’t know. Out. They’re gone a lot.”
He said it off-handedly, but Will could read beneath his words. He cast him a sidelong glance. He was still just a wean. Not nearly ready to be alone all the time. And Elijah knew it too. The loneliness, the resentment, the hurt—they were there, hidden beneath the mask he had no doubt copied from his sister. Will could spot it only because of the familiarity.
“I’m kind of impressed. So much time to yourself and keeping out of trouble? Your parents are lucky. When I was your age, I was terrorizing my neighbors and vandalizing public property.”
Elijah smiled and rustled about through the sofa cushions. A moment later, he pulled out a bag of gummy bears. “I don’t have any neighbors.”
“That’s true,” Will said. “But with so much wooded land, I would have found ways to create mischief. Like building myself a fort and going camping on my own
for a few days. Or digging holes. Chasing rabbits. Building a bonfire. Lots of bonfires. All at once.” He gave Elijah a look. “Don’t get any ideas now.”
Elijah laughed loudly. “Leah would kill me. She doesn’t like me leaving the house by myself except for when I get picked up by the school bus.”
She sounded quite protective of her brother. It was endearing. “Does she visit often?”
“Every day,” he said. The way his expression changed when he thought about her—the soft smile, his eyes shining—made it obvious he loved his sister a lot. “Usually in the evenings to make me dinner and help me with my homework, but some weekends, she comes earlier. She was here this morning. She brought me brownies, and I was supposed to share them with my class tomorrow, but then we ate them all so we made cupcakes instead. She says I’m going to move in with her soon.”
“That’d be great.”
Just from their interaction at the party, he’d been able to tell that Elijah and Leah were close, despite the large age gap between them. She hadn’t mentioned a brother when they’d spoken about their childhoods, but Will was just glad (and a wee bit surprised) that she’d been honest instead of feeding him a made-up past like Will had considered doing.
“Want a cupcake? I’ve got extras. Wait here.” Without waiting for Will’s answer, Elijah paused the game and hopped off the sofa. He dashed into the kitchen.
The sound of banging cupboards rang out. Just as Will was rising to see if he needed help, Elijah returned with two saucers. A cupcake with blue frosting and a napkin sat on each saucer.
“Thanks,” Will said, accepting one.
“It’s a surprise cupcake,” Elijah said. He took a huge bite before he’d even settled back into the sofa cushions. Frosting stained his upper lip, and he licked it away.
“What kind of surprise?” he asked as he peeled away the wrap from the sides. Elijah was too busy devouring his cupcake to respond so Will smiled and took a bite. “Cookie dough. That’s excellent.”
“Isn’t it?” Elijah asked around a mouthful. “Leah’s really good at baking.”
“I didn’t know that.” The thought of her baking didn’t quite match her grumpy exterior, but he supposed that was what he liked about her. She was never what she seemed.
It would probably be wrong of him to find out more about her through her brother.
“Yeah, she’s pretty much my mom, so I can’t wait to go live with her.”
Cupcake break over with, they resumed their game. Will shouted and then laughed when Elijah’s character spotted Will’s from across a stack of crates and killed him. As he waited to resurrect, he said, “Think it’d be okay if I dropped by again sometime? We could hang out, and I’ll teach you some defense like I promised.”
The smile on Elijah’s face was answer enough.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Ta-da!”
Leah leaned back so her eyes wouldn’t cross looking at the book Helena had shoved into her face. “What is this?” she asked, accepting it from her roommate, who was looking much too pleased with herself.
“A new journal,” Helena said. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and returned to her spot at the dining room table where all her books were spread out. She was studying for an exam. “You haven’t written anything for yourself since your journal was taken so I figured you needed a new one. You’re welcome.”
A smile tugged at Leah’s mouth as she ran her fingers over the cover. It was more Helena’s style than Leah’s—lots of color and sparkle and texture—but she loved it anyway.
“Thank you.” Already, the urge to fill the pages made her fingers itch. It had been much too long. She set it in her lap and then turned down the volume on the documentary that playing on the TV about the reproductive cycle of sharks. “Toss me a pen.”
Helena dug around in her backpack before removing a blue ballpoint. Then she launched it at Leah’s head. Leah ducked sideways and managed to catch it before it sailed past her. Helena smirked.
“I said ‘toss,’ not ‘launch an attack.’” Leah made a face at her before uncapping the pen and opening the journal. The first page had that typical blank line with the words ‘This journal belongs to’ above it. Feeling strangely giddy, she wrote her name on the line.
“You should have been more specific,” Helena said.
Because she knew it would fluster Helena, she said in retaliation, “So how was your study session with Jay?”
She glanced over her shoulder to find Helena turning pink beneath the dining room lights. She grinned.
“We were just studying for our exam next week. It’s worth a really big percentage of our grade,” she said primly.
“He’s a nice guy, Helena. Just make the first move.”
“He’s a friend,” she said, leaning over her textbook so that she looked extremely busy. “I’m not going to mess that up.” She made a shooing gesture at Leah. “Just write in your journal. I know you’re dying to.”
Couldn’t argue there. Leah shook her head with a small smile and flipped the cream-colored pages to the first blank page.
As with most of her short stories, she began without knowing what it would be about. She described a dusty dollhouse. Creaking floorboards. Bare feet beneath a night shift. An empty house.
The TV became white noise as she wrote. She thought she heard Helena say something, but since Helena hadn’t repeated herself, she didn’t stop writing to ask. Twenty pages later, as she finished a scene about a daughter succumbing to the madness that had taken her mother, she was struck by the memory of her mom’s face reflected in the bathroom mirror at the party.
She often thought they looked alike. And when her mom closed herself off from everyone, especially her children, Leah had wondered more than once if she looked that way as well.
Instead of staying, of acknowledging Leah’s attempt to bridge their relationship, she had chosen to shut her out. To run. To reject the reality of their brokenness.
The same thing Leah had done to Will.
Leah’s hand stilled over the page. The realization left her cold. Dropping the pen, she shoved to her feet. Her new journal slid to the floor with a quiet thud.
“Leah?”
She turned to look at Helena. Her expression must have given away the rush of panic surging in her chest, because Helena immediately rose from the table and hurried over.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked. She clutched Leah’s hands.
Leah could hardly speak. There was a dull roar in her ears, like rushing waves, crashing in time to the thud of her pulse.
Running away or shutting down was the way her mom had always dealt with anything that even remotely mattered. And when Leah had run from Will, from the terrifying newness of what he made her feel, from the possibility that something real might be happening between them, she had been doing the exact thing she had always resented, hated even, her mother for. How could she not have realized?
Her eyes began to burn. Helena floundered, alarmed. She tugged Leah back down onto the sofa, and Leah went because she had no idea what to do now.
She didn’t want to have her mom’s ability to unplug from her emotions. She didn’t want to shut everyone out until nothing mattered anymore except for the superficial things that couldn’t hurt her.
“Leah, you’re scaring me.” Helena dropped her hands and gripped her shoulders instead. “Say something.”
She shook her head and gave a small, helpless laugh. “I …” What could you say after you just had an emotional epiphany? Only crazy people had emotional epiphanies. “I like Will.”
For long seconds, Helena said nothing. She stared at Leah, slack-jawed, with a line between her brows.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she finally asked, incredulous.
“And he likes me,” Leah said, but Helena only looked more confused. “He totally gets me, and I was too busy running away to appreciate that.”
Head tilted, Helena pressed a cool palm to
Leah’s forehead. “Are you sure you’re not feeling feverish?”
Leah brushed her hand off. The burning in her eyes had thankfully gone away, and she felt like she could breathe again. “Helena, I’m serious.”
“Okay then,” she said, still looking skeptical. “So what are you going to do about it?”
She had no idea.
Leah blew through campus Monday morning like an addict going through withdrawal. After her first class, during which she snapped at the professor for his poor spelling in his PowerPoint slides, she made her way to the Web Development office to work on the University multicultural website. She was behind on updating it with the latest campus news, and the busy work would keep her mind off the fact she still hadn't heard from Will. It would also keep her from going to the theater to see if he happened to be there with his friend again.
Web Dev was located in the main administration building. The second floor office had a row of computers for the student workstations, and her boss, a petite older woman with a steel gray bob, sat in a smaller office just within earshot. She waved to her boss before tossing her backpack on the floor and sitting at her usual workstation.
As she waited for the computer to log her in, she picked at the teal nail polish Helena had put on her the week before and stared down at the keyboard without really seeing it.
She was more upset than she cared to admit that Will had yet to contact her. Since her cell phone was in her missing purse, coming to see her in person would be the next best way to get a hold of her. She knew Will would want to return it in person because his charm worked best that way. It was hard to resist the killer combination of accent and smile.
Unless … Her stomach hit the floor beneath her chair. Unless Will had decided that she was a freak and that it was just too much work. Maybe in a couple of days, she would get her purse in the mail or left in front of her apartment door.
If Will didn’t show up soon, she would have to swallow her pride and find him instead. First, because she really did need her purse and all her identification back. And second, because after her realization last night, she wanted to stop avoiding him and the whole mess of things he made her feel.
Addicted to You Page 15