by Hart, Staci
I wanted to scoff, to tell him exactly why he was wrong and argue my point until he agreed with me, or at least pretended to. But more than that, I wanted to exit the conversation, my hurt too close and sharp and new to defend or dissect.
“Whatever you say, Kash,” I said on another laugh, hoping I sounded carefree.
“I like the sound of that,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes without any heat. “Send me the quotes as soon as you have them so I can get them approved.”
“You’ve got it,” he said as he passed, pausing just beyond me. The scent of him—earth and flowers and knotted pine—slid over me. “Walk you out?”
“I’ve got a little more to do before I go.”
A curt nod of his head, that square jaw of his hard, wide lips angled. “All right. See you later then.”
With the tip of an invisible hat, he turned for the door. And shamelessly, I watched him until the massive doors closed, leaving me alone.
For a moment, I sank into that solitude, embraced by the quiet of the room. I’d been unkind to Kash, treated him like the help, just like he’d said. And all he’d ever done was lend a hand with the offering of that smile, letting whatever I threw at him bounce off like he was made of rubber.
It was shame I felt, and I wondered over what had trained me to be so severe. Years of failed group projects, perhaps. Lack of trust that anyone could perform to my standards. Dating men like Brock, who berated waiters and complained over wine lists. I generally thought myself a kind and gracious woman, but I wondered if I looked it to the average eye and had my doubts.
But I’d entered into a season of change, a new era, one rife with possibility. And I’d do my best to embrace it.
Starting with Kash Bennet.
6
Nine Lives
KASH
My pencil moved of its own accord, directly connected to the vision in my brain, my hand and fingers nothing more than a conduit, a channel with which to broadcast.
The light in my childhood bedroom was low, but the old reading lamp hooked to the bunk slats shone on my page, illuminating the graphite sketch, black against white. I’d used my 8B pencil, the softest and blackest, to cover the page, all but for the shape of Lila, long and white, in the negative space. She stood exactly as I remembered her in front of the onyx wall of the venue, shocking and bright against the darkness. She jumped off the page, the angle of her shoulders, the curve of her waist, her legs. The point of her heels to the point of her chin. Her eyes were scaled too small for the definition I wished I could give, but the line of her brows and the shadows they threw were enough.
She was strength and power, determination and will.
I wished for my oil pastels, needing just one color—the red of her hair. But the color didn’t exist. Nothing could be quite right—not quite red, not quite orange. Not burgundy, nor was it copper. It was a singularity, a thing that only existed in her. She was a tree aflame with autumn. The strike of a match, embers and sparks. A sunset that set the sky on fire.
Since we’d parted ways, she’d slipped in and out of my thoughts. Quietly, gently, she would be there in the replay of a moment, the vision of her at one point or another through our meeting. But always, my thoughts came back to this moment, when I’d seen her standing in front of the building like a feather on black sand.
I’d had to draw her. It was my only hope to get her out of my head.
It was said that everyone was the hero of their own story, and the reason was context. Everyone, regardless of honesty or truth, showed people what they wanted to see. In that, Lila was right. But every heart had a story to tell. A reason. A series of events that, when strung together in the right order, created a person’s self, their motivation and fears.
For instance, take my brother Luke. As the baby in our indelicate family, he was naturally the family jester, the exhibitionist, the one who would do anything for a laugh, because how else would anyone see him in the Bennet fray? Jett and Laney were twins, but Laney had adopted the role of the eldest. She was a force of nature, headstrong and prickly as she was loving and giving, especially when it came to our family. And Jett was her converse—quieter, gentler with a penchant for self-sacrifice—because no one could compete with Laney.
Granted, Jett could still beat the shit out of me, but that was just Bennet conditioning. One had to be able to scrap with five children so close in age.
Marcus, the middle child, was reserved. Where Jett and Laney had each other and Luke and I were an inseparable unit, Marcus had gotten lost in the shuffle and decided that was fine by him. He retreated to books, was the silent partner to my father, the two of them content to never make a sound when the rest of us couldn’t shut up.
And then, there was me.
Being so close in age with Luke, we were together always. In the same class at school. In the same sports. Worked summers in the greenhouse together. Luke’s personality was so big, so vibrant, that I was swept up in his wake. I didn’t mind. Luke was a beacon, calling attention and manifesting happiness, reflecting it back on everyone around him. Every crazy idea, I was there for. All the parties, all the girls. All the sneaking onto rooftops and into bars. He was the ultimate wingman, making sure I had someone to take my hand before he found someone to take his.
But here was the thing—I was so tethered to Luke that who he was became who people thought I was. I didn’t know who, if anyone, knew me out of the context of him, and I never corrected them. It was easier that way. Let them think they knew me. I had no desire to prove them wrong.
Just like Lila’s view of me, I was sure, was colored by her assumptions.
As was my view of her. But I knew there was more to her story. A person wasn’t just born with that much of a penchant for control. Something must have happened to make her that way, and I longed to know what. To understand her. It had to be that curiosity that drove me to consider all she’d said, all she’d admitted, with the flippancy of someone who didn’t care but the tone of someone who did.
She cared, but she didn’t want anyone to know she cared. Lila Parker was covered in head to toe dragon scales, impermeable to mere mortals. At least, that was what she wanted everyone to think.
But I knew better.
The bedroom door opened without a knock, announcing Luke’s entry strictly by lack of respect of privacy. I closed my sketchbook as he entered with a smile and took up residence in his old desk chair, leaning back lazily. He propped his feet on the old trunk at the foot of the bunks.
“Whatcha drawing?” he asked with a nod to my lap where my sketchbook lay.
“Just something I saw when I was out,” I hedged. “How’d it go at the Long Island farm today?”
“I wish we got out there more instead of ordering what we don’t grow online. Tess went nuts, over-ordered by half.” His smile took over his face. “I don’t even know what we’ll do with all of it. We filled up the entire delivery truck.”
“Oh, I’m sure Tess will figure something out.”
“Me too. How about you? Lila give you any shit?”
“Nah, it wasn’t so bad. She’s like a toothless dog. All bark, no bite.”
“I dunno. I’ve seen those choppers, and I’m pretty sure they could do some damage.”
I shrugged. “Just gotta have thick skin, little brother.”
I reached for my sketchbook, opening it further back to find the sketches and measurements I’d done. The pages ripped with a crack of sound, and I leaned into the room with them extended, and he met me in the middle.
“Measurements for you and Tess.”
Flipping through them, he nodded. “This arbor is cool. Ask her if she wants to keep it—otherwise, I think Tess might want it. We’ll just charge them for a loan instead of the piece plus labor.”
“I’ll let her know.”
Luke shook his head. “How the hell did you become the point person for Lila Parker?”
“Ivy’s about to be gone, and none of you babi
es have the constitution for her.”
“You always were the better Bennet.”
“Better or dumber?”
“Maybe both.”
I huffed a laugh. “I can handle her. Don’t worry about me.”
“I never do.” He watched me for a second with that X-ray vision one obtained simply from knowing someone so well. “You like her.”
I made a face. “Now who’s dumber?”
But he didn’t falter. “You do. Look at that.”
“I don’t even know her. Plus, she’s not my type.”
“Oh? And what is your type? You’ve gone on twenty dates since we came home this summer. Twenty first dates.”
“Because they’re all with girls like Verdant. You know how that is.”
At that, he backed off a hair, nodding. “Fair enough. But what about somebody else? Somebody you choose?”
“When do I have time? Mom has me booked out until I’m forty or get married, whichever comes first.”
“And Lila is right up there with Verdant and Charity and all the rest of them,” he stated, understanding the dilemma.
“Girls like that don’t want second dates with gardeners who sleep in bunk beds in their mom’s house. Blue collar guys without degrees. Or pedigrees.”
“One superficial, privileged princess doing you dirty doesn’t really constitute the whole bunch.”
I shot him a warning glare. “Don’t talk about Ali like that.”
“After all these years, you still defend her? I don’t get it.”
“It’s not her fault it didn’t work out. It’s mine.”
“How so? For not being able to predict that she wouldn’t call you her boyfriend unless your trust fund was over five million?”
“Goddammit, Luke, I said—”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I know, I know. I’ll quit it. But listen, she might have set the gold standard for what you think women want from you—”
“I don’t think. I know what they want. Ali was just the only one I was dumb enough to care about.”
At that, he fell silent.
I knew my place when it came to dilettantes, and it was not by their side. The summer after high school, Ali and I fell into each other and didn’t find our way out. She’d been accepted to Vassar, close enough that it’d be easy to see each other on weekends. Even now, nearly a decade later, the thought of her brought a familiar pain. My first heartbreak. One I’d done everything to ensure was my only heartbreak.
In truth, she’d never promised me anything. We never spoke of our future, and I assumed too much—things were so happy, so easy, so seemingly perfect, I foolishly thought it was the natural course of things. We would carry on exactly as we had all summer, because who would be willing to put an end to something so undeniably right?
It was on the day that she left for school that I realized my folly. And even then, it wasn’t until she uttered the words with a disbelieving and pitying look on her face. She’d first laughed—not with spite, but with genuine surprise—at my asking to come see her the next weekend. And then she grasped my hand and told me slowly that there was no future for us, that there never had been. That even if we lived the same sorts of lives in the same sorts of circles and even if she were able to look past that we didn’t, her parents would never approve. That we’d had fun, hadn’t we? And that she’d text me when she came home for holidays, so we could hang out, which was code for hook up.
And then, she’d left me there on the sidewalk with a broken heart, one I built a wall around, using her words as mortar. It was a truth I should have already known, one I would have seen, had I been wiser. But I’d wised up quick, realized my place, and I’d never strayed again.
Instead, I went on all the dates my mother planned—which was plenty to keep me busy—and my reputation preceded me. I let every date be what it was—fun and free of feelings. Soon, I found I didn’t know many normal girls, only a selection of rich girls who were on the market for a good time. Nothing more.
Not for me, anyway.
Truthfully, it worked out. I really was too busy with Longbourne for a relationship—the older Dad got, the more responsibility I had. Single-serving companionship was convenient and safe. Sometimes, we enjoyed each other enough to make a regular thing of it. Even with Ali.
It was selfish to indulge myself with her. But I couldn’t seem to say no even if I always left a little emptier than before. Not because she took without giving, but because I remembered all I’d wished for and lost. And yet, I’d go back again and again. Part of me wondered if I was expecting new results. Part of me knew I was. All of me knew I should stop. But none of me would.
I brushed my melancholy away, smiled like the rogue I always pretended to be. “Listen, little brother, it’s not so bad being the king of first dates. I’ve become an excellent conversationalist.”
He snorted a laugh, the tension gone with the sound. “Is that what the kids are calling sex these days?”
I chuckled. “Anyway, it’s not like I can bring chicks here to bone on the bottom bunk, surrounded by posters of Hellboy and Sin City and Queens of the Stone Age.”
“With Mom downstairs.”
“With Mom downstairs. Can you imagine if I brought someone in?”
Luke perked up, screwing his face into a comical impression of our mother. “Why hello, and who are you?” he said in a warbling falsetto, pressing his hand to his chest dramatically. “Kassius is such a good boy, and I hope you’ll consider him. You know, for marriage. He always was my favorite, loves his mother so much.” He pinched his own cheek, glancing angelically at the ceiling. “Give me grandbabies!”
Laughter burst out of me and didn’t stop. He wasn’t far off. “Doesn’t matter. There’s time for all that. I’m only twenty-seven. It’s not like I’ve got an expiration date or something.”
“Maybe Lila’s biological clock is ticking. She and Mom can talk about ovulating and uteruses. Uteri?” His brows quirked.
“She has a boyfriend,” I said. “And again—she’s the opposite of my type.”
“So your type is short, prefers to wear black, has no opinion, and works in public service?”
“Maybe it is,” I answered without answering.
“Right,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Just admit it so we can move on, Kash.”
“She’s hot, and I’d go on a first date with her. Does that make you feel better?”
He sighed, a content smile on his face as he folded his hands on his belly like he’d just had the meal of his life. “It does. It really does.”
Thumping footfalls grew louder, along with the wail for dinner like an ambulance siren from Laney’s mouth.
Luke snagged the papers off the desk and held them up as he stood. “I’ll get these to Tess. I’m sure she’ll have questions. Want me to send her to Lila or you for the answers?”
“Send her to me. I’ll take care of it,” I said without thinking. I could take them to Lila myself.
When he smiled, it was clear I’d stepped right into his trap. “I bet you will.”
With an answering smile on my face, I punched him hard enough in the shoulder to make him yelp.
As I followed him down the stairs, I reminded myself that curiosity killed the cat. Of course, the cat couldn’t help but be curious. Maybe that was why it had nine lives.
Somehow, I didn’t think I’d get so many.
7
Anubis
LILA
Nearly a week passed, and I found myself too busy to think much about Brock. I had dress fittings and bridal showers to coordinate. Caters to direct and musicians to book. Far too much to do to be bothered with thoughts of that asshole or the way my life had been spun around.
During the days, at least. The nights were a different story.
I’d work myself until I could barely stand, let alone have time for idle thoughts. I’d be dead on my feet, dragging myself into bed, and the second the lights went out, my mind came ali
ve with every choice I’d made and ever lie I’d accepted to bring me to that moment.
I wondered if it would get better after I went to the old apartment today to pick up a few things, like my dignity and hopefully the closure I hoped I’d left there.
Of course, today wouldn’t be any less busy than the last week had been. I’d found myself in Longbourne almost every day. Ivy had cut back her hours so deep, she was rarely there when I came. But rather than deal with Tess as expected, I’d been foisted upon Kash in full, it seemed.
A week ago, I might have minded. But after everything that had happened, Kash was the least of my problems. In fact, I’d started to look forward to the dirty gardener with the shaggy hair and the broad shoulders. I could give him all I had, and he’d take it with that lazy smile he always seemed to wear, unaffected and easy as a rule. Somehow it was a comfort, to know that even when I was at my biggest and loudest and most barkey, he could handle it. Handle me.
And I had to admit it was nice to be handled just a little.
I slipped out of my cab, looking up at the Perry building where I worked.
Archer Events was the event company for the New York elite, handling weddings, charity dinners, release parties, and a dozen other events the rich and famous could dream up. When I’d come out of college with my public relations degree from UCLA, Archer was at the top of my list. My résumé catered to their specific needs, my job through college—interning with event planners in Los Angeles—chosen so I could learn from the best of the West in order to get into the best of the East.
It had paid off. Caroline Archer hired me on the spot, impressed by my confidence and proficiency—and my white suit, which was the only expensive thing I owned, a splurge I couldn’t afford. Living in LA, the vast majority of my business casual came from H&M—between my wardrobe, my studio apartment in Culver City, and my ramen noodle budget, I was strapped for cash. Our clients in Beverly Hills said volumes with nothing more than a lingering, silent glance up the length of my body regardless of the fact that I merely filled coffee orders and answered phones.