What He Doesn't Know(8)

Then it was just him and Reese left to greet.

Cameron was quiet, his smile a little forced, as it always was when Mom  and Dad doted on him. He hated attention, but was always too polite to  say so. His eyes were hard as he reached for Reese's hand.

Reese's smile had fallen, too, but it reappeared as they finally clasped  hands and shook firmly. "Pleasure to finally meet you, Cameron. Charlie  has told me amazing things about you."

I looked at Reese then. I hadn't told him anything.

"All fabricated, I'm sure," Cameron said with a smile of his own. "Nice  to meet you, Reese. Charlie told me you're teaching at Westchester now,  and I hear you're an old friend of the family, too."

"Grew up in the house one block over," Dad said, beaming. "Well, one  yard over, really. He and Graham were best friends, and Charlie here was  the same with Reese's younger sister, Mallory. Four peas in a very  tight pod, they were."

Dad laughed a little at that, but I didn't miss the shadow of grief that  fell over Reese's face at the mention of his sister. I cleared my  throat, threading my arm through Reese's.                       
       
           


///
       

"Make me a Wild Walker, for old time's sake?" I asked, referencing the  mystery concoction he'd branded with his last name when he was a  teenager. It was the drink responsible for many of our friends' first  hangovers - mine included.

Reese's eyes fell to where my hands rested on his bicep before they  lifted to mine, and he smiled, seeming grateful for the change in  subject. "You have a death wish before dinner?"

"I can handle it," I assured him, and he barked out a laugh.

"I'm sure."

"Cam, you'll join us for a cocktail before you head out?" Mom asked.

We all turned to face Cameron then, and he was watching Reese curiously,  in a way I'd never seen him watch anyone before. "Afraid not," he  answered, but he only looked at Reese. "Game starts at seven-thirty, and  you know how traffic is."

Dad clapped Cameron on the shoulder to walk him out. "Shame, but you're  right. Don't let us keep you. I'll text you once dinner is finished and  I'm parked in front of the television in the study."

Before they left, Cameron turned to me with dark eyes and said, "I'll pick you up right after the game."

He held my gaze a moment, as if he was trying to tell me something. I  used to be so in tune with those looks, those little stares. I knew when  he wanted to leave a party early, when he wasn't feeling well, when he  was making fun of someone with an inside joke between the two of us.

I used to know with one little look when he couldn't wait to take my clothes off.

"I'll be ready," I assured him. "Have fun."

He held my gaze a moment more before his eyes flicked to Reese. "You  too." Then he turned, Dad talking business with him the entire way out  the door as Mom, Reese and I made our way to the kitchen.

"So, do I even want to know what a Wild Walker is?" Mom asked when it  was the three of us. She immediately went back to prepping the salads  she'd been working on when I arrived, and Reese threw me a devilish grin  over his shoulder as he reached into the cabinet for a glass.

"Just Reese's famous cocktail from his party days," I answered, taking a  seat at one of the bar stools at the island. I'd always thought my  kitchen was expansive, but Mom's was straight out of a magazine. It was  built for a professional, or rather, a team of professionals. I barely  noticed it anymore, but I still remembered when Dad had the entire thing  gutted and remodeled to be Mom's dream kitchen. She'd practically lived  in it my entire senior year of high school.

"And the culprit in your daughter's first experience being drunk."

I balked, unsure how my mother would react to that information, but she  just laughed. "What? You mean to say my daughter had a drink before she  was the legal age of twenty-one? Impossible!"

"Not our sweet little Charlie!" Dad chimed in as he entered from behind us. He winked at me, taking the seat to my left.

"You're right," Reese agreed, his back to us as he secretly mixed his  famous concoction at the liquor buffet. "I must be mistaking her for  someone else."

A warmth filtered in slowly in that moment, being in the kitchen with my  parents and Reese. And for the first time in years, a small smile found  my lips.

A real one.

"Very funny, everyone. I'll have you know, I got so hammered that night that I threw up in Mom's hydrangeas."

She paused, hands stilling where she'd been cutting the onion for our  salads. "That's why they died?! Poor Salina and I racked our brains for  weeks trying to figure that out before we had to just pull them and  replant."

They all laughed as Reese handed me the finished product. I took the  first sip, cringing a bit at the sting of whiskey before the familiar  warmth of spice and cinnamon tickled my tongue. It brought me back to  that night, to that feeling of youth, and I shook my head.

"Never thought I'd ever have one of these again."

Reese watched me take another sip, his eyes falling to my lips briefly  before he ripped them away and took a drink of his own. "Yeah, well,  surprises always were my thing."

"They were, indeed."

I noted the flecks of gold in his emerald eyes, the same way I had the  first time I'd tasted a Wild Walker. He was watching me closely, like he  wondered if I'd forgotten. He used to bring me books, little  "surprises," ones he stole from the parties he attended. He'd sneak into  the libraries or studies at the houses and pick one out for me, even  though he knew I'd yell at him for taking someone else's property.                       
       
           


///
       

Half the books in my library were from house parties at Mount Lebanon's finest.

It was strange having Reese back in my childhood home. It felt different  than seeing him at Westchester, a place I'd never seen him before, a  new place for us to exist in. That had been more formal, more  professional. But now, sitting in my kitchen with my brother's best  friend, with a boy I used to watch play our piano in the next room, it  was different - familiar. It was comforting. It was an old friend coming  home, bringing all the memories we'd made over the years back with him.

Mom laughed at something Dad had said, something I'd missed, and Reese smiled, lifting his glass into the air.

"To surprises."

It was suddenly too warm.

My cheeks burned, but I lifted my glass, anyway.

"Surprises."

Our glasses clinked, and as we took a sip, Mom announced that dinner was ready.





Reese



"You did not," Charlie accused, holding her coffee cup close to her mouth so the steam hit her nose.

We were standing at the gate that separated her house from my old one.  Both of our yards had been so big that we were a block away from front  door to front door, but this gate had always been the shortcut. When  we'd first moved in, it'd been a solid gate, but our parents had an  entryway installed for easy access between our houses.

"I was there that night, remember?" Charlie cocked an eyebrow. "And I  know for a fact you did not spray paint anything in your bedroom. Your  parents would have killed you."

I did remember. We were reminiscing on my last night in town, the night  before I, along with my entire family, moved away from Mount Lebanon. I  was going to Juilliard after dicking around for three years after high  school, and Mallory was going to NYU as a freshman. Our parents wanted  to be there with us, so we all made the move to New York City together.

But not before I threw one last rager in the empty house.

"Glow in the dark spray paint, Tadpole. You wouldn't have seen it unless  you were in that bedroom when the lights turned out. And I know for a  fact you were not."

She eyed me, blowing on her coffee that was spiked with a little  Baileys. "You stayed the night? I thought everyone left after the  party."

I swallowed. "Yeah, I wasn't ready to say goodbye yet I guess. Slept in my old sleeping bag on the floor."

Charlie was quiet for a moment, so I took a sip of the scotch her dad  had poured me after dinner. I knew coming to dinner with her parents  would leave me with a full stomach and great conversation with people  who felt like home, but what I didn't expect was to see Charlie start to  finally open up a little. She seemed to relax the more we talked, and  though it was faint, I found a small piece of the old her shining  through.

Charlie chuckled. "I'm just picturing whoever it was who bought that  house, laying down in that room to go to bed the first night and being  scared out of their minds." She shook her head, looking up at me then,  the moon casting a blue glow on her cheeks. "What did you write?"