Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Cassie

Iwatched comments come in on the page—replies about the autograph session—as I rode the train back from Carston Point, lonely and quiet right now even though it was the weekend.

So sad I missed you! Will you be doing another one soon?

This is so cool! I love that Cassie takes the time to meet and connect with her fans.

And another that said, Parker wasn’t there? I bet people would love to get a double autograph!

It was always Parker with me. People wanted her everywhere I went. I wanted her everywhere I went.

But of course, she wasn’t there because I told her not to come.

The Wing Valley station was one of the prettiest subway stations I’d ever seen, preserving a lot of the original excavation and dressing it with the architecture. My bootsteps rang through the front entrance and off the jagged cave ceiling that towered above us, past murals and displays as I made my way up to the broad stairs that led back up into the drizzly world of Port Andrea, only a few blocks down to Amity Street. The restaurant under our apartment, a sweet little family place called Oak Tree Bar and Grill, must have been running specials right now, because every table was full and chatter swirled around it, that distinctive smell of bright, tangy tomato sauce rolling out of it as I headed for the stairs on the side of the building.

When I came into the apartment, though, keys jingling, I wasn’t expecting to catch Parker right there in the kitchen, wearing an oversized sweater and standing over the stove making a grilled cheese. She glanced up at where I stood frozen in the doorway, and she nodded.

“Hey, Unicorn. Took your time getting home. How long did your autograph sesh even last?”

I pursed my lips, closing the door lightly behind me, stepping out of my boots. “I don’t say sesh, Parker.”

“Grilled cheese?”

“Um… you know, that would literally be the best thing ever.”

“Damn. That’s kind of an indictment on a lot of things.” She set down her flipper, turning back to me. “How was the meeting? I’ll feel bad if I interrupted a meeting that was actually going well.”

I shook my head, chewing my lip, just staring at her. It was hard to figure out what I’d been thinking. Here was Parker, there for me in every way imaginable, and I’d turned her down, pushed her away when she’d tried to help. I didn’t deserve her. But I wanted her, always.

I slipped my coat off, hung it over the back of a chair, and I pulled Parker into a hug. She grunted, but after a second, she sank into it, squeezing me back, and I just closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of pomegranate I’d come to love so much.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For the grilled cheese? Dude, wait until you taste it before you thank me.”

I squeezed her. “Stop being difficult, you little devil.”

She rested her head against my collar. “I guess it wasn’t going well, then. Tell me you didn’t agree to anything?”

“No…” I shifted. “I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, but the least I could do was just sit there and refuse to sign anything. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t sent a distraction.”

“This is a really long hug now.”

“Shush. I need it.”

“The sandwich is burning.”

I reached past her, took the flipper, and turned the sandwich over in the pan, turning back to Parker. “There.”

“You with the long arms.” She closed her eyes. “Just… don’t go running off to meet with Gary by yourself again, okay?”

I squeezed her tighter. “I won’t. I’m sorry, Parker.”

She shifted. “Do you want to meet my family?”

That was so far out of left field, it came from the left field’s left field. That was a flyball from a different baseball stadium altogether. I blinked fast. “Uh—what?” My pulse picked up. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her right.

“Family. You know. It’s, like, a loose affiliation of people based on who crawled out of whose womb.”

“Ew. Don’t say it like that. I know what a family is.” I stepped back from the hug, nervous flutters going through my stomach. What even was I allowed to say right now? Would it be too much to throw myself in front of her and plead yes, tell her I would love to meet her family, to know all the sides of her. “Um… yeah. I’d love to. Is there a special occasion?”

“Yeah, my sister’s in the hospital.”

And that took all the nervous flutters and made them anxious thrumming. I watched as Parker turned back to the stove, sliding the sandwich off onto a plate and starting on the next one. “That’s awful,” I said. “What happened?”

“Eh… Jason crashed the car. Not hockey-mask Jason. She’s fine, just sitting pretty in a hospital room with a broken leg, a broken arm, and a sadly-intact sense of self-righteous sass when it comes to me.”

“Um…” I scratched my head. “I can’t tell if this is a serious topic or not.”

She kept her back to me as she spoke. “Sutton loves your stuff. I was visiting them while you were away, and she asked me to bring you out there to see her.”

“Oh… that sister you told me about wanting my autograph to scalp it.”

She laughed. “Forgot to ever ask if she scalped the thing. She told me she was going to get a selfie with you so her friends would be jealous. She’s more shallow than I am.”

I sank slowly into a seat, taking my sandwich and biting in. The crust was crisp and caramelized, gooey cheese melting in my mouth, and I kept my gaze down on where crumbs fell on the plate. “I’d love to go. When?”

“Eh… whenever you’re ready. They’re in Brightstown, so it’s only forty minutes by train.”

“Tonight?”

She shrugged. “I don’t like putting things off.”

So, tonight it was. Only an hour later, we sat side-by-side on the deep jade cushioned seats by the window in one of the quieter cars heading out of Port Andrea and into the Port Andrea suburb of Brightstown, a deep evening scenery with a view of the waterfront rolling by outside, and I sank into the soft rumbling of the train beneath us.

“Thanks,” Parker said, the first time she’d spoken since we sat down maybe five, six minutes ago. The way she was avoiding looking at me, the subdued tone to her voice, I could only imagine her trip to see Sutton earlier had taken it out of her. I glanced around, a shoulder-check to make sure no one was paying attention to us, and I squeezed her hand.

“Of course,” I said. “Thanks for inviting me.”

She looked down at where she kicked her Converse sneakers up, toeing the seat in front of her, but she held onto my hand. “So… I think Express is screwed.”

Well, there went all the warm feelings from sitting next to Parker and holding her hand. “What?” I said, breathless in an instant. “What happened?”

“This is the hard part.” She rubbed her forehead. “That little… hidden expense account of mine. I put a lot into it. And with a blow to my liquid assets, I’m at a disadvantage in contract renegotiation.”

I fell quiet next to her, just watching her. She kept nudging her shoe against that one spot on the seat in front of her, eventually turning to look out the window, but she held fast onto my hand.

My heart was racing so fast it might have gotten away. After a minute or so, I squeezed her hand. “Parker…”

“Ugh. Go ahead. Say it.”

“It’s for your family, isn’t it?”

She rubbed her forehead, still looking away. “I told you, I don’t like owing people. I’m working on the debt.”

“Parker… what debt?”

“To them. My parents. For raising me and crap. I was on track to pay it off before I hit thirty. But Sutton’s hospital bill… if Express goes under, I don’t know how I’m supposed to make rent and pay theirs at the same time.”

A debt for raising her? That debt she’d been working on paying for nine years—her parents had been billing her for childrearing services rendered? My head spun. I knew raising a child was hard, expensive work, but somehow that didn’t seem like quite the right way to go about it. That was bad enough, but starting to bill her for it when she was sixteen?

It felt like someone had just dug out my foundations, and I crumpled into myself, a trickling sadness seeping in at the peripheries. Parker hadn’t had a childhood. Even less an early adulthood. Being born into debt and having it take so much of her life away—it was always awful, but the absolute needlessness of it when it came from her own parents?

“Are you, uh… are you gonna say anything?” Parker said, quietly, and it was only then that I realized I’d been staring.

What was I even supposed to say, though? I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and tell her I’m sorry over and over. Sorry that she’d had to slave away her life for this debt, sorry that she’d never been able to tell anyone, sorry that with the future uncertain at Express, she might have been looking at an even longer time paying off this debt.

But I couldn’t say all of that. Parker was fragile right now, like this. And the last thing she wanted was for me to gush on her, to cry to her, or anything.

“I think we’ll make Express work,” was what I finally said, and that got her to look at me. “There’s still time before the contracts. We can get leverage other than just raw liquid capital. I mean—Gary probably has more of that, anyway, so we’ll be better off engaging him on different grounds, right?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Evil Unicorn Emperor over here is a master of contract negotiation, too. No surprise.”

“We’ll figure it all out. I promise. Tomorrow morning, after the morning miracle—”

“Dammit, I forgot tomorrow was Monday—”

“—we’ll go out for coffee somewhere and talk through a plan for other ways to strengthen our position. But for tonight, we just focus on your sister. Sound all right?”

“Anything having to do with my sister doesn’t sound all right,” she said. “Trust me. She’s the worst.”

I stifled a laugh. “I mean, from what you’ve told me many, many times, I’m the worst, too. So I’m sure we’ll get along great.”

“You’re not the worst. You’re…” She shrugged. “I mean, you’re all right.”

“Wow. Coming from you? I’m flattered.”

“Should be. I don’t go that far for most people.” She shifted closer to me, leaned over, and my heart jumped when she rested her head on my shoulder, still squeezing my hand. “Thanks, Cass.”

There was no way to describe how badly I wanted to kiss her right now. I settled for resting my head against the top of hers. “It’s the least I can do to thank you for that grilled cheese.”

“Now you’re being the difficult one.”

“I decided to try it out. It looks so good on you, after all.”

“Everything looks good on me.” She closed her eyes, sinking deeper into me. I didn’t even care anymore who was looking. I interlaced my fingers with hers, closed my eyes, and breathed in the scent of pomegranate.

“No kidding,” I said. “How’d you do it?”

“Traded in all my self-control for good looks on the character creation screen.”

I hummed. “Smart choice. Self-control is overrated.”

She squeezed my hand again, and as we watched the scenery roll by, I had to reckon with the fact that I was really, genuinely falling in love with Parker Ferris.