Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

Early floated through the weekend on cloud nine. The Date, which would forever be thought of in capital letters, had been everything they could have hoped for in a first date with Rhys and then some. Even though they had felt so out of their depth at first, Rhys had made them feel special and valued.

It hadn’t stopped with the date either. Even though they were trying to keep things low-key with the fundraiser happening in less than a week and the entire family watching them with a little too much giddiness, Early and Rhys had spent Saturday together as well. They mostly just goofed off, walking around the grounds of Hawthorne House while Rhys had told Early stories about Raina. Some of those stories had dampened Rhys’s energy and stolen his smile, but Early had gotten them back again by stealing small kisses, and a few larger ones.

The day had ended with Early posing on Rhys’s sofa again while he continued his painting. That had every one of Early’s nerve-endings lighting up with expectation, but instead of going where they wanted things to go, the night ended with just kissing before Rhys sent them back to Rafe’s flat.

It was still amazing, as far as Early was concerned. They were getting somewhere, moving forward with their life and falling head over heels in love. It was just a shame that Rhys had other things to take care of on Sunday. But at the same time, that meant Early could spend the day hanging out with Rebecca and telling her everything.

“I never would have thought anything like this would be possible for me,” they said with a happy sigh as they and Rebecca lounged around pretending to watch romantic movies with the couple she was dating.

“And why shouldn’t you have someone fancy you?” Claudia asked, playing with Rebecca’s hair as Rebecca splayed across her lap. “You’re lovely.”

Early flushed with the compliment. They might actually believe it if things kept on the way they were going.

“It’s just that I’ve never had much positive reinforcement from my parents or, well, from the world,” they replied.

Nigel huffed and shook his head. “The world is overrated,” he said.

“Don’t listen to him,” Rebecca laughed, nudging him with her foot. “Nigel is a confirmed pessimist.”

“I just don’t see that there’s much to approve of in the world as it is right now,” Nigel defended himself with no sense of humor at all.

Early didn’t care. They laughed along with Rebecca and Claudia because their heart felt too light not to. By some gift of the Universe, they had friends who understood them, a family around them that included them as one of their own and loved them for who they were, and very likely a boyfriend, as long as they didn’t mess things up.

Things continued happily as the week began…with one exception.

“Your mobile’s ringing,” Rebecca called to them as Early photocopied materials for one of the new photography classes.

No one had called Early at all for days. They stepped back into the front part of the office with a curious frown and picked up their phone from the desktop where they’d left it.

Their dad’s name flashed across the screen.

They took a deep breath then hit the button to make their phone silent before returning to work. Whatever their dad wanted, it could wait. They weren’t in the mood to be yelled at baselessly.

The next time Early looked, a voice message was waiting for them. They ignored that as well.

“It must feel weird not posing for Rhys’s class this morning,” Rebecca said once Early settled at their desk to put together the materials they’d just copied. She sent him a knowing smile along with her comment.

“Posing nude for Rhys is one thing,” they said coyly. “Posing for an entire class of mostly retired people was something else entirely.”

Rebecca laughed. “I could never do it. Violet, Avril, and Leslie would never let me hear the end of it.”

“It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, once I settled in,” Early said with a thoughtful smile. “I stopped worrying about my body once I could feel that people weren’t judging me, they were just rendering me.”

“Huh. I never thought of it that way,” Rebecca said, pausing her typing to look up at the ceiling, like she was thinking about it now.

She breathed in then sighed and smiled at Early. “You’re far braver than I am,” she said.

Early’s brow went up. “I am not brave,” they said. “I’m afraid of everything.”

“No, you aren’t,” Rebecca laughed. “Someone who is afraid of everything would be sitting in some beige office, dressed in a suit, their hair cut short, talking about the latest Ealing Eels footy match with the rest of the blokes in the office, even though they hate football. They wouldn’t be working for an arts center, wearing heels and a skirt, and dating my brother.”

Early’s face heated even more at Rebecca’s assessment. It was true. The giddy joy of the weekend had translated into them putting the sensible heels they liked back on and wearing a calf-length, pinstripe pencil skirt that was probably leftover from the nineties, along with a white button-down shirt with a Peter Pan collar and a flouncy scarf tied to vaguely resemble a necktie.

Better still, the outfit just felt right instead of filling them with awkwardness and the feeling they were impersonating someone else.

“I’ve never thought of myself as brave,” they said, tilting their head to the side and blinking. “But I guess you have to be when you’re so radically different from the majority of people around you.”

“You do if you want to live as your authentic self and not as someone else’s version of who they think you’re supposed to be,” Rebecca agreed with a sage nod.

The conversation was cut short by work, but it stayed in Early’s mind and gave them the motivation to listen to their dad’s voice message when they went to make a cup of tea halfway through the morning.

“ Earl, this is your father ,” his dad said, trying to sound dominant but with too much uncertainty in his tone. “ Your mum and I have had a talk, and we’ve decided that bygones should be bygones. A lot of things were said the other day when you left here that shouldn’t have been said. You’re our son, our only child, and we realize we shouldn’t have chucked you to the curb the way we did. We’d like you to come home now and everything will be forgotten .”

Early winced as they pulled their phone from their ear and closed the screen. Their dad probably thought he was being gracious and forgiving. From his point of view, he was growing and becoming a better man. But he was still so far off the mark that it made their throat close up and put them off the tea they’d just made entirely.

The problem with being brave and living as your authentic self was that all of the courage and boldness in the world couldn’t change the minds of people who thought they knew who you were and had a vested interest in keeping you in the box where they felt comfortable with you being.

“Did you listen to your dad’s message?” Rebecca asked cautiously when Early returned to their desk.

“Yep,” they said, fiddling with the mouse to get their computer to wake up.

“And is there anything I can do?” Rebecca asked on with deep concern.

Early sighed and looked at her. “There’s nothing anyone can do.”

Rebecca reached across to squeeze their hand. “Well, you know if you need anything, we’re all here to?—”

“Excuse me, are you part of the Hawthorne family?”

The tender moment of friendship was shattered as a grey-haired woman radiating anger marched into the office. The fury she projected was so potent that Early and Rebecca snapped straight in their chairs and just looked at her for a moment. A sense of alarm began to spread in Early’s gut.

“I’m Rebecca Hawthorne,” Rebecca said, standing and moving around the side of her desk. “Can I help you?”

“Are you responsible for this travesty of a fundraiser that’s supposed to happen this Friday?” the woman demanded.

Early’s sense of dread grew, and they stood slowly, ready to defend Rebecca if they needed to.

“I’m not part of the planning committee personally,” Rebecca said carefully, “but I’m part of the family, and we’re all helping out.”

“Well, I demand you stop at once,” the woman said. “Call the whole thing off. My brother should never have gone ahead with this catastrophe of a memorial .” She said the last word like it was something shady or disreputable.

Early sucked in a breath. “Are you Mariel and Martin Flint’s sister?” they asked. The only thing they knew about the sister was that she was against holding the fundraiser.

The woman turned her furious look on them. “I’m Nancy Flint,” she said. “Mariel was my sister, and I refuse to allow you lot to profit off of her death.”

Early was stunned speechless at that confirmation. The pain that radiated from Nancy Flint was so close to what they’d felt from Rhys when he’d shouted at them for wearing Raina’s sweater the other day that it nearly bowled them over.

“The event is a fundraiser for CADD,” Rebecca said in a far more measured voice than Early would ever have been able to manage. “The Campaign Against Drink Driving is a nationally recognized non-profit whose mission is to?—”

“I don’t care if the bloody king himself is behind the so-called charity,” Nancy interrupted her. “I refuse to let a bunch of complete strangers who never knew Mariel use her tragic death as an excuse to have a party, and I refuse to let my snake of a brother get all the limelight because Mariel is dead.”

The quaver in Nancy’s voice as she reached the end of her blast of words then gasped for breath spurred Early to action. They definitely knew grief when they saw it.

“Would you like to sit down, Ms. Flint?” they said, stepping out from behind the desk and using their softest voice in an attempt to direct the woman to one of the chairs against the office wall. “I could make you a tea. We can call Mr. Hawthorne senior, who has been working with your brother on the event.”

“I refuse to be coddled and brushed aside when you lot are desecrating my sister’s memory.” Nancy held up her arms to ward them off as they came near. “You didn’t know her. You have no right to make a spectacle of her.”

Nancy’s impending tears, which Early could definitely see coming, were held back as she quickly swept Early from head to toe. The surprise of finding someone in front of her who she had probably misgendered in her mind and was suddenly reassessing was just the sort of break in her anger that Early needed.

“Please, come sit with me,” they said, taking the risk of touching the woman’s elbow and drawing her toward the chairs.

“I’ll get Dad,” Rebecca said quietly before disappearing into the back part of the office.

Early nodded to her before she ducked out of sight, then moved to sit with Nancy.

They thought they were getting somewhere until Nancy pinched her face and asked, “What are you anyhow?”

It was such a simple question, but it hit Early with a frustratingly sharp impact. They were just trying to help.

“A friend?” they answered, fighting to maintain their compassion. “Someone who wants to understand and help you?”

“Fuck that,” Nancy snapped, causing Early to wince. Judging by her somewhat dowdy, middle-aged look, they wouldn’t have expected her to curse. “I want this fundraiser stopped now! I want someone to listen to me and end it. My brother has done all this without my permission, without anyone’s permission. He didn’t even tell the rest of the family it was happening. He just wants his name in the papers and for people to think he’s a better man than he is. Did you know that he’s a drunk?” She huffed an ironic laugh. “A drunk putting on a fundraiser to raise awareness against drink driving!”

“I’m sorry that Mr. Flint didn’t consult with the rest of the family before going ahead with the fundraiser,” Early said, scrambling to know what to say.

Nancy was angry, unpleasant, and clearly had a chip on her shoulder, but the resemblance to Rhys at his worst stopped them from telling the woman to shove off. She was hurting. Badly. They couldn’t tell someone to go fuck themselves when they were hurting that badly.

“Were you close to Mariel?” they asked instead, shifting one hand to the arms of the chairs between them as an offering, if she needed to hold someone’s hand.

“Yes!” Nancy shouted incredulously, staring at Early like they were mad. “She was my sister.”

“I don’t have any siblings, so I don’t know what it’s like to be close to one,” Early said, keeping their voice soft. “Or to lose them.”

“It’s horrible,” Nancy said, still incredulous and angry, but with grief sinking in on her so fast Early felt like they would need to catch her. “Mariel meant the world to me. Martin knows that. He knows better than to go behind my back where Mariel is concerned.”

Early nodded slowly as the situation became clearer to them. It was grief, not anger, that fueled Nancy’s upset.

“What would you have done differently if you were in charge?” they asked, shifting a little closer to her and praying Nancy saw the olive branch they were offering.

“I wouldn’t have allowed this bloody fundraiser, that’s for certain,” Nancy raged on. “What right do you lot have to parade my sister’s death and my family’s tragedy in front of strangers just so that you can earn a few quid? It’s indecent!”

“I suppose the thought process is that by raising funds for CADD, other people’s deaths can be avoided,” Early said, inching their hand toward Nancy’s. They could definitely feel how badly the woman needed someone to hold her hand, someone to comfort her.

“Why should someone else live when my sister is dead?” Nancy shouted, then burst into tears.

Early tensed, certain they’d failed at giving her the comfort she needed. Again, they were reminded of Rhys and the outbursts he’d had because of that dark knot of his grief over Raina.

Through the glass wall of the office, Early saw Robert and Janice hurrying down the grand staircase and across the front hall. The last session of classes were letting out as well, which meant the confrontation had more of a potential audience.

“We can make this right,” they said, reaching out to rub Nancy’s back. “Maybe you could help your brother and the Hawthornes come up with a way?—”

“Don’t touch me!” Nancy barked, shrugging away from Early’s touch. “I don’t even know who you are. What gives you the right to touch me like that?”

“I beg your pardon?” Janice demanded as she and Robert entered the office. “How dare you speak to a member of our staff in such a way?”

“It’s alright,” Early said, rising quickly and stepping away from Nancy, desperate to keep the peace.

Nancy rose as well, glaring at Janice. “Are you responsible for this abhorrent spectacle that insults the memory of my sister?”

“I’m Robert Hawthorne,” Robert stepped forward, as calm as could be. He extended his hand, but Nancy ignored it.

“I suppose you’re the one my brother conned into this money-grab,” Nancy went on.

“If we could all just take a deep breath and discuss things like rational adults,” Robert said.

Early knew him well enough to recognize his style of bringing calm, but it had the exact opposite effect on Nancy.

“Take a deep breath?” she gasped. “You want me to take a deep breath while you lot swan about, desecrating memory of my sister behind my back?”

“Oh, please,” Janice sighed, crossing her arms.

For a change, Early felt more distressed with Robert and Janice in the room instead of less. Rebecca had slipped back into the room, and much to Early’s relief, Rhys was striding quickly across the front hall to join them.

That might not actually have been the best thing, though. Rhys arrived just as Nancy glared back at Janice, gestured to Early, and said, “First you allow this…whatever it is to touch me, and now you’re insulting me for defending my sister’s memory?”

Early could tell by the suddenly furious look on Rhys’s face that he’d heard the insult. He picked up his pace, bursting into the office, all fury and defensiveness, and shot straight to Early’s side.

“What the hell is going on here?” Rhys demanded.

The sharpness of his indignation, especially as he took Early’s hand while glaring at Nancy, had Early feeling like Rhys had just escalated the whole argument instead of making things better.