36. CODY

CODY

“ D o me a solid?” I slid onto Silas’s desk, almost knocking over his cup of coffee.

“No.” Silas put his hand over the cup to stop it from spilling on his things as he turned his eyes up to me. His hair was pushed back off his face in waves of chestnut and streaks of gray and he was wearing a pair of glasses that I had never seen before, and that I would most certainly tease him about later, but right now I needed a favor.

“Oh come on, you owe me!” I said.

“For what?” Silas didn’t laugh, he didn’t even smile. He pulled off his glasses and tucked them to the side and his brows pinched together in the center as his annoyance with my presence grew.

“Probably…for… something .” I shrugged and started to fiddle with the pens on his desk until two fell to the floor and he tossed me another dirty look. “Sorry.” I scooped them off the floor and set them right. “Just one thing, please?”

“What do you want?” He set down his pen and turned in his chair to look up at me with his arms crossed together.

“You have the best sleuthing skills I’ve ever seen, and I need to find someone.”

“Cael.” he chuckled. “Did you interrupt my actual adult job with real adult issues to help you internet stalk someone?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“ Someone ?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I repeated.

“Who’s it for?”

“No one important.” I shrugged and crossed my arms .

“Right,” Silas groaned, closing his eyes, turning away from me, and picking his pen back up. “Get out of my office.” He shooed me away.

“Come on, Grandpa, it’ll take two seconds but I couldn’t find him and I need to know what’s making her so determined to go back to Texas!”

“There it is.” Silas set down the pen again. “This is about Mary.”

“Her name isn’t—” I started but it didn’t matter.

“Please tell me this isn’t a trade-in situation, Cael,” Silas said. “You need to stop using people as distractions when you get itchy for drugs.”

“Aye!” I raised my voice and stepped back. “I’ve been clean since the accident and I’m not trading in anyone, this isn’t a distraction.”

Silas cocked his head to the side; it wasn’t often I raised my voice to anyone, especially not him or Arlo. Dad was the only one who ever heard that bitter, cold and angry side of me. When I argued with Silas or Arlo, it was playful, it was stupid, but never serious.

Well unless I was high . “I’m not high,” I said quickly, and pressed two fingers to my chest. “Promise.”

“Were you high the other night when you took Dean and Mary back to the Nest?” He asked me and I suddenly felt like I was being scolded.

“Sober as can be.” I smirked.

“Did you stop to think about how that might affect Dean?” He asked me.

“We talked the morning after, he was fine. He doesn’t care anymore, he sent me on my way and went back to bed.”

“Back up.” Silas shook his head. “You’re telling me that Dean Tucker, the Dean Tucker that takes everything personally, was hunky dory about you running off the morning after… whatever the hell you three did. And I don’t need details.”

“Shit.” Maybe I should have doubled back. “I fucked up.”

“Have you spoken to him since?” Silas asked in a pensive voice that only made me feel more guilty for not checking in.

“No, I’ve been…distracted.” I chewed down on my lip.

“Listen, I’ll help, but you’re going to have to explain this history to me, your Dad is a brick wall and Mary puffed up like a cornered animal when I confronted her about knowing you both.” Silas shook his head. “So if you want me to start looking into someone, you need to explain to me what’s going on, and after, you go find Dean and make sure he’s actually okay with everything happening. He’s only got you, Cael,” he warned gently, encouraging me in the right direction like he always did. Effortlessly and more like a father than my Dad had ever been. “Don’t leave him in the cold for your new toy.”

“She’s not a toy,” I warned, my voice skirting that line of playfulness and anger again.

Silas narrowed his eyes on me.

“I’ll talk to him.” I tapped my fingers to my chest to promise.

“Good, now spill.”

I cleared my throat and started from the beginning. “It’s been seven years, my Mom is dead, and she showed up here without so much as a word. The first time I saw her since that night was two months ago.”

“Seven years, no contact? You two know phones exist right?” Silas questioned in awe.

“I called but…she wanted letters, I sent letters,” I said, knowing how stupid it sounded. “I sent a letter every week for seven years.”

“You still send them?” Silas’s brows pinched together. “And she never responded?”

“Never. I used to put them in the basket with Susanna in the morning before school so she’d mail them.” I had taken a spot on the floor and picked at the laces of my shoes. Part of me had always suspected that the letters had never left Rhode Island, but it was never worth the argument. Writing them was what made me feel better, whether or not she had gotten them was something I refused to dwell on. It was heartbreak no matter the outcome because she had never written one to me.

Silas scowled. I could see the gears turning behind his eyes.

“So why aren’t you more upset?” Silas asked me.

I wasn’t really sure.

“Because…” I rubbed my hands over my face and straightened up. “Because we grew up together, attached at the hip, it was always Cael and Clem,” I said to him, “There was never a moment for her to just be Clem, on her own. She spent her entire life keeping me alive, keeping me on the right track and protected from the world, and I thought maybe…” The idea of her alone made my heart clench tightly.

“She told me that day that she was just my shadow. She believed that if I left, she’d just fade into the sunlight, and that broke something inside of me.” I hadn’t meant for the day to become therapy and Silas was taking it like a champ, but I missed Arlo. He would tell me to shut up and figure it out. Two steps at time.

Except he wasn’t there to walk with me, so that felt useless and only made me upset.

“I thought maybe she’d find herself and be grateful that I left her, and even if she wasn’t grateful, even if she came back spiteful and mad, then at least she had figured out who she was without me. I just held onto the hope that she was able to spread her wings. It was the least she deserved for everything she ever did in sacrifice for me.”

“That’s stupid, Cael.” Arlo’s voice fell on my shoulders and I turned to the door. He leaned against the frame with his duffle curled into his fingers. Black hoodie, dark jeans, and a Dallas Ranger’s ball cap pulled down over his dark hair.

“You’re back.” I pushed to my feet, not realizing how sad I had gotten. Before he could protest, I wrapped my arms around him and, despite our size difference, I buried my face against his shoulder.

“You’ve made a mess while I was gone, Kitten.” It took him a moment, but eventually he hugged me back, tight and welcoming.

“Turns out I have the ability to destroy everything, sober or drunk.” I pulled away and looked at him for a second. “You look dumb in that hat,” I added with a sad smile and flicked the brim up off his browline.

“You haven’t destroyed anything.” Arlo grabbed the back of my neck roughly. “Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

“You’re early,” Silas said, standing from his desk. “We weren’t expecting you until Thanksgiving.”

I stepped back so Silas could find his space in the circle and wiped my damp cheeks with my shoulder before breathing out a slow shaky breath.

“Blondie called.” Arlo looked over at me. “Said we had an F4 on our hands.”

“It’s not that bad.” I shook my head .

“He had a threesome with his ex-boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend,” Silas corrected.

“She was never my girlfriend.” I scowled.

“Sorry, I’ll elaborate better,” Silas snapped and looked at me. “He had a threesome with his ex-boyfriend, who is having an identity crisis about who he is, and his childhood best friend, who he fucked once and then never saw again for seven years until…”

“Two months ago,” I finished for him.

“Two months ago.” Silas sighed, rubbing a hand over his beard and closing his eyes to take a moment before saying, “you’re a liability.”

“Awe thanks, Grandpa,” I cooed at him and Silas shook his head, disappointed and completely over it.

“So where does that leave us?” Arlo asked, setting down his duffle bag and wandering into the office.

“Cael here wants me to search for a man named Julien.”

Arlo turned to me. “Why?”

“Clem was talking to him on the deck the other day. He called her Clemmy. ”

“So she has a boyfriend?” Arlo narrowed his eyes on me.

“Maybe?” I shrugged. There was something off in her voice when spoke to him, and she hadn’t responded to any of his flirting, just brushed him off. “But she sounded weird on the phone with him. I just want to know who he is.”

“She sounded weird on the phone because she’s been sleeping with you the entire time she’s been in Rhode Island.” Silas rolled his eyes. “If I look this guy up, will you drop it?”

Arlo laughed at the answer before it even formed on my lips.

“Not a chance.”

Silas looked him up anyways, first searching through Clementine’s business profiles until he found her personal Instagram and then from there he found one single tagged photo of Clem that wasn’t even posted by her. It was posted by an account named Bobbicantbebothered, and it was of Clementine smiling up at a tall, goofy-looking, asshole in a fitted suit, who was laughing at something behind the camera .

Her big brown eyes glimmered in the bar light. Her hair was long around her face, the picture was old, from two years before. She was in a black dress that fitted to her perfect, round curves and breasts. She took my breath away.

“Look,” Silas pointed to the caption.

Congrats M&J, to life well lived.

“Shit,” Arlo swore under his breath as his eyes dragged to her left hand.

An engagement ring sparkled on her finger like it was mocking me.