by Lisa Daniels
“My turn to what?” Eva’s brow furrowed.
“Your turn to pick a topic. Clearly you are not comfortable talking about any of the usual things that people discuss when getting to know each other. And I am not good at small talk, so the weather is right out.”
Suddenly Eva felt like a trapped rodent. Alaric’s eyes were penetrating, and the intelligence in them was rather startling. “Um, okay. Well.” Her mind cycled through a number of things, none of which seemed an appropriate topic for a guy like Alaric. “Do you like sports?”
An amused expression passed over his face. “Only the ones I can play.”
“So no sports teams?”
He shook his head. Eva began to rack her brain for something suitable. “What about your family? It must be interesting to—”
“No. If you won’t talk about your family, my family is also off limits. Try again.” His attention was fully on the two gadgets in front of him, and Eva had no idea how he could keep up with any conversation as intent as he looked. When Serenity was focused on something, you couldn’t get through to her without a bullhorn or cow bell, two things that Eva had tried on her with moderate success.
“Is it always so cloudy here?”
Alaric’s hands stopped moving, and his eyes moved up to hers with a slowness that suggested time had slowed down. Eva’s face began to burn as she realized she had just brought up the one subject he had specifically mentioned to avoid when telling her to pick a topic. Eva looked back at her hands, wondering how the rest of the evening was going to be if it was this uncomfortable.
The sad thing was, this was the most enjoyment she had gotten out of the entire trip. At least this time she got a high quality glass of wine out of her misery. She stared at her hands for a while, too embarrassed to say anything else. After a few minutes, the glasses were waved in front of her vision, and Eva looked up.
“I sent the footage to your sister. At least I hope it was your sister. Old Maid?”
Eva blushed again as she avoided his eyes. Putting the glasses back on, she said, “Yes, that’s her.”
“I will take that to mean she is older than you. Anyway, I did have something I wanted to discuss with you, but it is probably best to have my full attention because, well, yeah.” Alaric seemed a little uncomfortable.
Eva leaned in a little. “Is there something wrong?”
“Well, I know a couple of people who are going to be upset with what I tell you, but considering their behavior today, I feel it best not to continue to shock you the entire trip. It’s supposed to be about you, and they have kind of ruined it, as you hinted earlier.”
Biting her lip, Eva felt intrigued and a little guilty about what she was about to do. She knew that Alaric and Serenity were close, and she also had no doubt that he was talking about her. “What has happened?”
He took a deep breath, “I’m sure you have noticed that Serenity has been a little… more physical. And Ryland’s behavior has been entirely out of character for him, which you wouldn’t know because you are a fan of his and you see him as being that kind of person.”
“Oh my God. Are you beating around the bush? Is it really necessary to be this round about?” There was annoyance and anticipation in her voice.
“I am trying to think of the best way to break it to you. It’s not—”
“Oh God,” Eva’s jaw tightened, “did she go and get engaged right before I got here?” There was a spark of fire in her eyes as she looked at Alaric. Eva was accustomed to Serenity being spacey at times, but she had never treated Eva so poorly before that day. Eva had assumed that there was a project or something that was keeping her attention away from the trip, but as soon as Alaric had said that Ryland was acting strange, it was obvious what had happened. Eva wanted to be happy for them, she wanted to celebrate and enjoy the news that she thought would never happen. But along with everything else that had happened, it meant that the trip they had been planning for months wasn’t going to be anything like what they had planned.
Alaric’s mouth was slightly open as he watched her. Eva stood up and said, “Thank you for your hospitality, Alaric. It is greatly appreciated. If you could, please tell Serenity that something came up and that I had to return home. She will understand.” Eva took a step away from the table before turning around, “And don’t tell her that I know. She’ll want to shock me with this before riding off into the sunset.”
A hand grabbed her arm before she could leave. “Where do you think you are going?”
Eva turned, no longer caring about appearances. “As you said, the nature of what is going on here has changed. This afternoon proved just how little she is thinking about me right now. She’s going to settle down, and between projects and Ryland, we will drift apart. As soon as she moved out here and didn’t show any interest in returning to the east coast, I knew that was what was going to happen.”
Alaric let go of her and stood up. “You don’t know what will happen in the future. Nothing is—”
Eva folded her arms across her chest. “Really? Well, that is certainly true for people like you who are special, who get to choose their own lives, even when it means being so selfish that you put yourself before your family.” He didn’t seem to know how to respond, but her words had gotten to him. “The Serenity I know cared about others, not just herself. Once I had a date who abducted me for two days. At the time Serenity was working on two projects and was only sleeping about two hours over the course of the day. She put all of that on hold and found a way to track me. She was the one who forced me into therapy when my family told me to suck it up because I should have known better. Now, she has so many secrets that I no longer know what is going on in her life. She didn’t tell me she was dating Ryland, and now they are engaged? They haven’t even known each other a year, and I know she is not a romantic. Yet despite everything I know about her, she is acting like a fool. Do you have any idea how many times she has made fun of me for being far less excited about a guy that I had been dating for a few months? For some of us, it is best to know when to walk away before the good memories are ruined, too.”
Alaric frowned, “It’s not walking away. It’s running away because you don’t think you are worth her time. You would rather be the one to disappear instead of talking about it.”
“If you say so. You are the one who knows all about running away.”
Alaric’s jaw clenched, “At least I am taking measures to fix my mistakes.”
“And you don’t know if this isn’t fixing mistakes I have made. My family never approved of my friendship, so maybe it is time to acknowledge that and do what they want.”
Alaric folded his arms across his chest. “There is a huge difference between doing what is expected of you in terms of responsibility and doing what is expected of you so that you don’t have to face problems.”
Eva blinked at him a couple of times, then shook her head. Turning on her heel, she walked toward the door.
“I’m sorry, that was out of line.” Alaric caught up with her before she reached the hallway. “Look, I don’t know what your friendship with Serenity was like before she moved here, but she cares about you. Even with the engagement, she has been really excited about you visiting, and she was really looking forward to telling you about the engagement. You know that she wants you to be the maid of honor, and if you leave, she is going to be crushed.”
Eva’s face was closed off as she looked at him. “If you tell her that my family had an emergency, she will be disappointed, but not crushed. She knows what my life is like, and she knows that I can’t say no.”
“I’m not going to tell her that. I’m not going to lie to my friend because you don’t want to deal with what is happening.”
“Then you are the one devastating her.”
“Not at all. She will learn what happened from your mouth.”
Eva narrowed her eyes, “What do you mean?”
“Well, you brought a recording device into my residence. You di
dn’t get my permission or tell me that you had it. The fact that you say you forgot is irrelevant, as I’m sure you would find if you talked to a lawyer. Perhaps talk to one of your family’s lawyers since you clearly come from money or power. Maybe both, I don’t know. Instead of turning it into a legal thing, I simply sent the feed to my computers. Now, Philip will have to share what he learns with me, but since I just sent him a lot of data and some research that I have done on similar technology, I don’t think he will mind.”
Eva was speechless. It was like she was playing a game of pickup sticks with someone playing 3D chess. Having lived most of her life around alpha-type personalities, she knew there was no point in trying to fight with Alaric, no matter how unhappy sticking around made her.
“Fine. I’ll stay, but I flat out refuse to go camping.”
Alaric gave her an understanding smile, “I will do my best to help convince them that they are being selfish. There is no reason to drag you out into the wilds if you aren’t interested in going. It is disappointing to hear that she not only knew that you hated camping, but she was going to try to convince us to bring a camper. I really don’t know at what point she started deluding herself that would happen when she knows how all of us feel. With more than a dozen people going, there was never a chance that there would be a camper because it wouldn’t house all of us.”
“Why are so many people going?” Eva looked surprised. Back east, the best they could get for a camping trip was four or five people. Clearly the west was different.
“Oh, it’s an outing that the group is going on. We’ve had so many bad experiences recently when they’ve tried to have adventures, we figured this would be safe. No one falling out of rafts into rapids or dropping down into caverns. We will avoid areas that are known to be dangerous, and people will take proper precautions instead of recklessly running ahead like everything is fine.”
“If that is how many of them have turned out, it is amazing that they are still interested in taking trips.”
“We don’t scare easily.”
Eva sighed, “With such a terrible track record, Serenity is just going to have to face reality and understand there is no way to convince me to go. Even a camper would not be adequate.”
“I agree. If you don’t want to go, don’t. Now come back, I’ll refill your wine glass, and we can talk about something more pleasant.”
Eva followed him back. “We haven’t seemed to have any luck with that so far.”
Alaric smiled back at her, “I am confident we can find some common ground. I mean, it sounds like we have both grown up in families that have set expectations for us. Even without going into details, that is something that I have no doubt neither of us has encountered outside of our own limited circles.”
Eva had to concede the point. There was nothing normal about her family, making it impossible for her to commiserate with anyone outside of her family. If anything, the years had given her plenty of practice finding something to talk about. Even without going into specifics, there was certainly fertile ground for some things that had always bothered her but she couldn’t complain about them because no one would understand. Serenity had tried, but it was a world even Eva’s best friend couldn’t really follow. It was like trying to talk about coding with Serenity—Eva had no knowledge of that world and often she couldn’t pay attention long enough to contribute.
Alaric picked up the glasses and headed to the bar. “Serenity said that you are double majoring. Architecture and engineering?”
Eva sat back down. “Yes, that’s right. Your elevator was fascinating, by the way. How exactly did you get that to work without the upper cablings?”
Alaric looked up at her as he poured the wine. “Magnets. They aren’t nearly as stable yet, but I am working on a suction system that will allow for vertical and horizontal movement.”
“Oh, I’ve seen some initial design work and small scale models. How do you get it to stay still while people enter and exit it?”
Picking up the glasses, Alaric walked toward her. “There are claws on the bottom that keep it in place so that there is less risk of movement than a traditional elevator when it is stopped.”
“Do you think I could look at some schematics?”
He shrugged, a bright smile on his lips. “Of course. It’s actually not my area, so I’ve really just dabbled. Large hardware is much more complex and dangerous.”
“But it is the most practical.”
He held his glass up, “There I cannot disagree.”
The next couple of hours were spent talking about the architecture and developing some wild ideas about the future of building homes.
Chapter 5
The Inescapable Problem
Gerald appeared in the doorway to find the pair looking over some rough sketches. Eva was holding a pencil and pushing pages at Alaric, who seemed to be struggling to keep up. The shop owner watched for a few minutes, then finally decided that their fun would have to end. There was only about an hour before the celebration would start.
“Excuse me,” both heads turned to look at him. “The dress is ready, and we will need to see if any further adjustments are needed.”
“Oh, geez,” Alaric looked up at the clock on his phone. “Shoot. Would you mind going with Gerald? I need to go start getting ready and make sure a few other things are in place before the guests start to arrive.”
Eva put the pencil down. “Sure. I don’t have the right makeup or anything for the party.”
Alaric gave her a half smile, “You don’t need either. Gerald, don’t let her stop to get anything either. Now, if you guys will excuse me.” He headed toward a wall on the other side of the room. Eva started to follow the dressmaker. When she turned to thank Alaric, he was gone. Good to see that secret passages aren’t just on the east coast. Looking at Gerald, Eva began asking him about his life.
When they reached the shop, Eva was startled to see just what kind of dress Alaric had chosen for her. It was far more revealing than she was accustomed to (then again, she was hardly ever able to show more than a little bit of her arms). The dress was a striking dark green that shimmered in the light. The straps would be on her biceps, and the couple had built the support into the chest area so she would not need a bra with it. Her legs would not be exposed, but it looked like it would hug her legs most of the way down. There was a slight train in the back and two sashes coming down the waist that draped over her arms to look like a shawl. The dress was incredibly elegant and nothing like what she had worn before. She hid a smile at how much of a scandal such a dress would be if her parents ever found out. Taking the glasses off, she slipped them into a pocket. This was footage she would not want to get out.
Eva tried on the dress and was shocked at just how well it fit. In all of her years, no dress had ever been quite so comfortable or form-fitting, and she was eager to see what it looked like. Stepping in front of a mirror, the young woman was startled by the woman looking back at her. Even without her hair done or makeup, she looked a lot more like a major player instead of a wallflower. It was not a role she was accustomed to, nor was it one she wanted to take on, but no one here knew her. For one evening, it would be alright to live the kind of life that was reserved for the special members of her family. It wasn’t like they would know back east. Dating had been her one form of rebellion. Her family knew enough, but ignored it because they figured she was too minor to worry about. If she wanted to be a deviant until they found someone for her to marry, then they would let her.
“You look absolutely stunning.” Gerald was looking at her from the door. “Now come this way to get your hair styled. And I know that he said no makeup, but my wife is willing to help you if you want. Just a little bit.”
Eva looked in the mirror. “Thank you, but no. The dress is amazing enough. You and your wife are both fast and professional. I’ve never seen anything quite like your skills.”
The man smiled at her, “Thank you, madam, but we already had the
dress, we just did a little bit of rework, and added the train and sashes. It was one of the easier jobs he has given us. I am ashamed to say that I scoffed at the idea of adding to it, but he was quite right, you look regal in that. Now hurry. Even if you don’t want makeup, it will take most of the rest of the remaining time to get your hair styled.”
Eva lifted the sides of the dress and moved after the man, her new shoes clicking on the floor. She smiled at the thought that Alaric would use the same amazing dressmakers for her as for other women he had taken an interest in. It was sweet, even if she knew it didn’t mean anything. He had said himself that Serenity was a friend, and Eva figured that like Ryland, Alaric was treating her well to make Serenity happy. It would have bothered her if she had had any desire to date him, but Eva wasn’t so deluded to think he would be interested in her if he didn’t think of Serenity as a woman. There was no one more attractive than Serenity, and that was a large reason why Eva’s family had disapproved of her.
Sighing, Eva pushed the thoughts about her family out of her mind. They were an entire continent away, there was no reason to think about them so much. The stylist seemed to know exactly what to do with her hair, and the results were far more intricate and mature than she was accustomed to.
Gerald stepped up beside her. “One more thing and it’s done.” He held out a velvet box. Inside was a gold necklace with a small crescent pendant. Eva furrowed her brow at it, and wondered why Alaric would have selected something that looked very much like a crescent moon.
“Do you need assistance putting it on?” Gerald asked.
“No, no, I can do it. Thank you very much, Gerald. Why a moon?”
“Because it has significant meaning to him and his family. But it isn’t a moon. It is a sun.”
Eva pulled the necklace out of the box and looked at it. “A sun?”
“Yes. I believe it is something about an eclipse and a family legend. I am sorry, but I don’t know the details.”
Eva slipped the gold around her neck and fastened it. The necklace was a nearly perfect accessory for the dress. She placed a hand on it and smiled at her reflection. “It certainly is not how I thought I would be spending my first night out here.”