by Tj Hannah
Sophia screams and snatches the blanket up around her, leaving me completely exposed. It doesn’t take half a second to know it’s Parker standing in the middle of my room, but it takes a lot longer for me to recognize him. I grab at my boxers on the floor and slide into them as fast as I can.
Parker’s little face is wide, and his eyes are not on me but on Sophia. He’s a lot bigger than the last time I saw him, his little face a lot more expressive.
“Mom, Uncle has a girl in his bedroom!” Parker screams, and Sophia pulls the blanket right over her head and curls into a tight ball. A smile cuts my face, and I lunge forward, scooping Parker up and his little arms go around my neck.
“Okay, Bud. Let’s go downstairs.” I laugh and throw him over my shoulder. I shut the door behind me so Sophia can get dressed.
As soon as I come down the stairs I see Gaby, and she’s wearing this enormous smile. “Did we interrupt?” She’s trying to tease me but getting caught has never bothered me.
I pull Gaby in and hug my family, kissing my sister on her short dark hair. It’s longer than I remember it, not spiky and rebellious but soft and mature looking.
“Gabriella Kasey, look at you. You look like a boring, old mom.” I pat her face, and her smile turns into pursed lips. “You definitely have the mom glare down, too.”
Parker giggles and makes a face at Gaby who turns her mom glare over to him. She pulls Parker from my arms.
“Don’t teach my child your bad attitude. Or your ways…” she trails off glancing to the stairs.
“He won’t need my help being a heartbreaker.” I move to the kitchen because coffee is a morning necessity before I can function at full capacity.
“You’re right I suppose he has your genetics. And his grandpa’s. I’ll have to watch out for those poor girls.” Gaby laughs at her joke, but my stomach twists and I can only nod.
Riley’s sitting at the table reading a book, but he keeps glancing over at Gaby.
“So when did you get in?” I ask, pouring a cup for me and my sister. Riley looks at me, then Gaby as she sits down next to him. I’m just about to ask what’s going on when Parker walks up to Riley and stares at him.
“Who are you?” He watches Riley’s face break a smile.
“I’m Riley.”
“You’ve never met Riley?” I ask Gaby, and she shakes her head.
“Weren’t you here for Christmas last year?”
“I went home for Christmas.” Riley interjects and stretches his hand out to Gaby, introducing himself.
“What are you reading?” Gaby asks him, turning the book over in his hand. That’s my sister. Can’t keep her hands to herself. Or her curiosity in check. Which is probably how she ended up with Parker.
“Dostoevsky.” He shrugs and Gaby laughs.
“Crime and punishment? A little depressing for a Saturday morning don’t you think? Raskolnikov is such a grumpy bastard.” She sips her coffee and Riley's eyebrow shoots up. He's impressed.
"You've read it?" He asks.
"Long time ago. Wasn't a big fan of him. Only a complete idiot would believe they could get away with that. The truth always finds a way out, even if it's through madness." Gaby takes another drink of coffee as Riley nods.
"I think that's the point. His belief that he could keep it in was his downfall."
Their interaction makes shift in my seat and clear my throat. “When did you get here?” I interject and Gaby turns her attention to me.
“We just walked in the door. I forgot the Mills Bash was today, so I put Park in the car last night and drove here. Thought it would be fun. He loves hanging out with you.” Gaby sips her coffee and her eyes dart to the stairs. “That is if you aren’t busy?” Her smile makes me turn to see what she’s looking at.
Sophia steps off the last step, and her cheeks flush as we all stare at her. Garett comes thundering down the stairs behind her and scoops her up making her scream. He carries her over to the table, and Parker laughs and jumps on Garett as soon as he sets Sophia down.
“Garett!” Sophia straightens her hair, her cheeks even redder than before.
“How you feeling, lady?” Garett asks with Parker draped around his shoulders and raises the coffee pot at her. “Coffee?”
Sophia tucks her hair behind her ear and glances at me quickly before nodding. “I’m alright. Better. I’m okay. Thanks.”
“I’m not. You scared the shit outta me.” Garett passes her a cup on her way to the table.
I grab her hand and pull her down into my lap, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing her shoulder. Gaby raises an eyebrow, and Parker crawls from Garett to his mom’s knee watching us with just as much scrutiny.
“You’re pretty,” he says. Sophia laughs.
“Be careful. He has a thing for older women.” Gaby ruffles her son’s hair and he smiles a gap-toothed smile. “I’m Gaby; this charmer is Parker.”
“Sophia.” She introduces herself, and Gaby shifts over to look me straight in the eye.
“Sophia? What a beautiful name…” Gaby’s voice is polite, but I can tell that she knows. That she knows and isn’t happy about it.
I know I’m going to catch shit for this. Knowing that makes me tighten my arm around Sophia, trying to keep her as close as possible, like a child with his favorite toy. I don’t want anyone to take her away.
xxx
“Corbin, what the hell are you thinking?” Gaby’s whisper burns into me when Sophia is dragged off by Parker to look at his drawings.
I rub my hand over my face. “It’s complicated, Gaby. This all started before I knew. Way before Mom called.”
“Have you told her? Have you said anything to Sophia?”
I shake my head and Gaby sighs.
“I will,” I say more to convince myself than my sister.
“Corbin?” She’s pulling out the stern mom voice.
“I’ll tell her, Gaby. Tomorrow.”
I look over at Sophia, holding Parker on her knee and smiling at all his drawings. It’s hard not to be happy with Parker around, but the smile on her face is honest. I haven’t seen that smile since the coffee shop. I wish she could always smile like that.
Gaby grips my forearm and cocks her head to the side like she doesn’t recognize me. I pat my sister’s cheek and shrug.
“She deserves today. Let me give her that.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sophia
I’ve never really spent a lot of time around kids, but Parker’s curious eyes and expressive hand gestures help to shift things inside of me as I watch him. He points to all his things and tells me stories. About him and his mom. About Corbin.
Before I know it, the fear and sadness that are always present settle to the bottom of my mind while I live in the moment with this tiny person that has never felt real pain.
Corbin looks up at me a thousand times. Something has changed about the way he looks at me. Something passes between us every time our eyes lock that I can’t explain, but makes my stomach flutter.
“Sophia? You aren’t looking.” Parker’s hands pull on my arm. My eyes snap from Corbin’s to the paper in front of me. Riley flops down next to us and looks over my shoulder.
“That’s amazing, man.” He compliments Parker’s drawing better than I could because I don't know what the hell it is. But as a teacher he’d have to learn to make sense of things kids do.
Parker almost immediately loses interest in me and turns his attention to Riley. A little dejected, I stand to go warm up my coffee. Corbin slides up onto the counter next to me.
“A heartbreaker.” He laughs.
“I feel completely rejected.” I smirk.
“You get used to it after a while,” Gaby adds. “He falls in love pretty easily.”
She looks up at her brother before walking away.
I look back at Corbin, but he suddenly won’t look at me.
He slides off the counter, and I take a step back.
“So, I think we
need to be at the lake around one or something.” Everything about him changes again. We’re standing right next to each other, but I feel a million miles away.
“Okay. I need to shower and get ready so…” I’m not sure how to finish the sentence, so I don’t.
He grabs keys out of a bowl on the counter and hands them to me. “Take my truck and just come back to get me.”
I wrap my fingers around the keys, and he lets go. He looks at me finally with cloudy eyes. There’s a new secret in there. I try and look deeper, but he locks it away. Reaching out, he cups the back of my neck and pulls me into him. He kisses me, and the kiss feels the same. His touch feels the same, but there’s a distance now that wasn’t there before.
He’s definitely keeping something from me.
xxx
When I get home, I’m stunned into complete silence as soon as I walk through the door by Tosh’s appearance. He stands in the hall talking on his cell phone, with one hand in the pocket of a suit jacket that looked like it was cut specifically and perfectly for him.
He looks at me and smiles with the collar up on a blue shirt that matches the blue color of his hair. I mouth the word WOW to him and he wiggles his eyebrows at me before going back to talking excitedly on the phone. I run the stairs and stop in front of the bathroom. Tobie is standing sideways looking at herself in the mirror. She has a sundress on, as usual, but it’s fancier than normal. There are a few flowers tangled in her blonde dreadlocks and makeup on her face.
“Am I missing something? Are we going to a wedding?” I ask, entering the bathroom.
“I am so swollen I feel like a whale.” Tobie ignores my comment and yanks the dress over her head, throwing it onto a pile of others. I laugh at her, bending down to pick through her choices. They are all a different type of lace and soft linen materials. Probably organic, knowing Tobie.
“Hottest whale I’ve ever seen.” I toss a couple dresses until I find a white one and hold it up.
“This one.” I shove it in her arms. “Why are you two so dressed up anyway?”
Tobie pulls the dress on and adjusts it on her body.
“Tradition. I don’t know when it started, but the boys thought it would be funny to dress really formal for a rave style party at a lake. The girls just like the excuse to buy a sweet dress every year.” She takes in her reflection and turns to the side. The soft material hangs off her body in all the right places and accentuates her belly making it obvious that she’s pregnant and not just wearing a dress that’s too small.
“What are you, the fashion genie?” She twirls around and poses.
“My dad goes to a lot of these corporate fundraisers for his clients at the firm. We always had to go play happy family. Lance…” I don’t even notice that I say his name, but I have a visceral reaction to the sound, choking on the word. Tobie’s eyes flash with a hint of shock, but her face stays neutral.
She knows now, about Lance. They all do. Tobie wasn’t there, but Tosh was, and he had to have told her. I doubt they keep secrets. I swallow hard, and my heart slams my ribs. I have to stop being afraid to talk about the good things. Corbin is right. I have to let Lance live through me. If I forget my brother, he really will be dead. Gone forever.
I just wish it didn’t hurt this much to fight through the bad memories to get to the good ones.
“Lance and I spent a lot of time in tuxedos and dresses. I hated them, but if I didn’t pick a dress, my mother would pick it for me. The lesser of two evils was to shop for myself.” I shrug and adjust Tobie’s dress. “Lance loved to dress up. He loved the attention.”
I smile, but it’s not a happy one. Tobie turns to me and pulls me into her arms. Her hug is unlike any hug I’ve ever had, which sounds so stupid. I can sense her support as her arms squeeze my body, but I feel drained. Even one thought takes everything I have. One memory leaves me just about empty.
“I’m sorry, Sophia. I can’t imagine.” She pulls away, and I can tell by her face that the conversation is over. She won’t push me. She won’t feed me fake condolences, or tell me things she thinks I want to hear. I’ve never had a friend like her before. A real one.
xxx
Tobie lets me scour her closest filled with more clothes than anyone should ever own, and I find a loose fitting short gold dress straight out of the ‘70’s. It’s light and sparkly, covered in the tiniest gold sequences and showing way more leg than I’m used to. The length combined with my inexperience wearing dresses like this makes it a feat to get out of Corbin’s truck without flashing the neighborhood, but I manage. I wonder where Tobie would have ever worn this, but I chose it because it’s different. It’s not what the old Sophia would wear. The old Sophia thinks dressing up for a town fair is a little ridiculous. Tosh and Tobie seemed really into it, so I’m playing along.
I push through the front door and I hear laughing instantly. Loud voices. Happiness. It presses against the surface of my skin and I so desperately want to let it in. To let it seep through my pores and infect me with a sense of belonging. I move through the living room, wondering if I should have knocked. I mean, I’ve only spent one night here, and I just walked in with no warning. Not that Corbin gave me any warning when he walked into my life and turned it upside down.
The voices get louder as I get to the kitchen and the first person I see is Gaby. Her dark eyes catch mine and the corner of her mouth pulls up into a smile making her freckled nose wrinkle. Parker stands in front of her wearing this little suit jacket and tie that makes my heart melt. They really do take this Bash seriously. Parker’s face lights up when he sees me and pulls from his mother’s grip. He runs to me and grabs my hand.
“Sophia, you’re going to come to the games with Uncle and Mommy and me, right? Mom said you might not want to play games, but I told her you probably would, and that you’d probably be really good at them. My favorite is the bean bag one. You know, the one with cups and–” Parker speaks insanely fast, pulling me into the kitchen.
“Parker!” Gaby frowns at him. “You leave poor Sophia alone. She’ll play games with you if she wants to.”
“It’s okay. Of course, I’ll play the bean game with you,” I say ruffling his hair. He rolls his eyes and giggles.
“The bean bag game.” He smacks his face like I’m the dumbest thing that ever lived and I look up to Gaby. My eyes don’t make it all the way to her. Corbin stands in the center of the kitchen in a full light grey suit, white shirt and thin blue tie, hair done, shaved face, everything. His eyes flick to me once before his whole head turns. His eyes scan my entire body in a second, but it feels like forever.
“Well, fuck me.” He says it loud enough that everyone looks at him, then me. I turn my attention back to Parker, who still tries to explain this bean bag game to me, but Corbin’s gaze never leaves me. I can feel him everywhere I go as I’m carted around like Parker’s new toy, my eyes often drifting over to steal my own glance at Corbin. He’s in some heated conversation with Garett and a girl that I think is Tosh’s sister but I can’t hear their words over everyone else. When we catch each other staring he’ll smile, or wink, and my whole being buzzes with the thought of him. Every time I fall deeper and deeper into the depth of our tragedy. Every time I let myself admit it a little more.
I’m in love with Corbin Kasey.
xxx
I finally pry myself away from Parker at Gaby’s insistence that he let me go and now I feel guilty because he’s crying. I promise him I’ll play all the games he wants, and that seems to appease him, even though Gaby assures me that he uses tears to manipulate. Well, it worked. I’m not used to children, and I’m just relieved that he’s smiling again. That we're apparently still friends. I take a deep breath as I pour myself a glass of wine at the counter. Corbin steps up to me, moving my hair aside like a curtain, and leans into me.
“You have no fucking idea how badly I want to devour you right now,” he whispers, so close that I feel his lips on my skin. I shiver through my whole body, grippin
g the counter for support, but he continues. “I say we ditch this whole party and head to the roof. I want that dress in shreds and those legs wrapped around my neck.”
The thought alone is enough to send a spike of pleasure through me, and I glance around as if people might sense how turned on I am. I clear my throat and turn my head so Corbin, and I are cheek to cheek. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes. No dress shredding.” I try to stay calm, but I know he can feel my heavy breath. Hear the wobble in my words.
He smiles a clean shaven smile, kissing the curve where my neck meets my shoulder and biting my skin. I ache for him so bad that it forces its way out in the form of a small moan. “Fine, Sweet Sophia. The wait will just make you taste that much better.”
He runs his fingertips down my forearm to my palm, then laces his fingers in mine.
“You’re good.” I take a sip of wine to calm myself down.
“The best.” He smiles but only with his mouth. The faint ghosts in his eyes remind me of earlier. Remind me that he’s hiding something. It’s enough to chill the burning desire that eats me from the inside.
For now.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Corbin
The formal part of the Mills Bash has been in effect since I turned twenty-one and could legally attend it. It’s pretty fuckin lame, but there’s something about getting wasted in a suit that appeals to me. Pretending to live a big life, a life other than the one I’ve been given. I try to explain this to Sophia while attempting to keep my eyes on her face rather than letting my sights wander south.
“It’s not that glamorous,” she says to Garett who’s rocking tweed because he’s Garett. He has a fedora on with his goofy glasses and his eyes are squinting at Sophia.
“It is when it’s one day a year. This is my last Bash, Sophia, don’t ruin it for me.” He’s teasing her, and she crosses her arms across her chest.
“Aren’t you going to be a lawyer? You’ll have a whole closet full of suits that cost more than the rent of your apartment in New York.” Sophia sips her wine and Garett scoffs.
