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And the resolute disconnection returns.
I’ve never been so invested in any conversation in my life. If this album is the excavation of Celeste’s hidden gems, from what she’s said, this is the first bloodstained jewel she scavenged. “Who are they?”
“My brother and his best friend.”
Her heart and her innocence.
There’s far more to decode in the way she’s categorized them, but I’m stuck on something else. The one guy resembles Celeste. I’m assuming that’s her brother. But this other guy, I feel like I know him. He’s familiar, but for the life of me, I can’t place him.
A beer-drinking, drag-racing crowd doesn’t seem like Celeste’s scene, but she was there.
“That’s a far different world from the one you’re a part of now.”
She swirls her wine and shrugs one shoulder. “It was the wild underbelly of this waxy life—an escape from a life I never wanted. But I don’t belong there anymore. Like I said, brokenness is the beginning. And for me, it was the catalyst to my acceptance. Knowing my place.”
“And what place is that, Ace?”
Her voice falls hollow again, like she’s somewhere else. “To be the one who smothers the flames and stops the bleeding.”
Christ, I’m such an asshole. She’s no less fucked than the rest of us. Wading through the wreckage. Only she does it with a proper flare, like how Ty wears a smile.
As if that realization wasn’t enough, bits and pieces of the last twenty-four hours start slamming into me. She told her mother she’d call for Ben’s birthday today.
“Ben was your brother’s name.” I think I probably knew that, saw it at some point in the Carver files, but it didn’t register until now.
“Benjamin Caden Carver,” she confirms. “The Carver darling who was expected to be president someday. Charisma. Charm. A genius. A rising law associate. Driven. And real. That’s what made him better than all the rest. He was so damn real.”
I examine the picture with a swill of my beer, the anguish laced in her tone so sharp that it pierces through me. If she was sixteen when he died, he was a lot older than her. They have the same eyes.
“It’s his birthday,” I say.
And she celebrated with Ivy all day, showering her with nothing but joy.
She glares over her shoulder, jaw instantly rigid. “Did Ivy tell you? Is that why you’re out here, being nice to me? Pity?”
“Fuck no,” I answer immediately, trying to squash her impending lash. “Do I come off as the type to be kind out of pity?” I hurt for her, but that’s not the same.
A derisive bellow springs from her mouth. “You got me there.” She settles her breathing and drinks her wine, her voice softening. “Then, what’s this about, Graves?”
What’s this about? I want to know you. To fix this. To show you why we make sense.
Keeping it mellow, I go with, “I thought we could call a truce.”
“A truce?”
“Yeah.”
She twists to see me, her eyes teeming with questions, the reflected moonlight beaming inside them like an invitation to explore. “I’m not sure why we need a truce in the first place.”
She doesn’t phrase it like a question, but it’s a good one. I’m notsure why we need one either. Except that she makes me feel so goddamn crazy—has since that day I saw her in the Paris hotel room and she accused me of faking my own death. Her face held so much disdain. And it pissed me off because she was makingwrong assumptions—looking down on me. I wouldnever hurt Ivy. But also because Celeste was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen—classy in a spellbinding Old Hollywood kind of way—so her dismissal stung.
“I can be a dick,” I say. No sense in denying it.
She swivels herself out of the pool, flattening her feet on the travertine patio and wiggling to balance with her drinking tools in hand as she stands. The water drips off her sexylegs as a soft chuckle flows from her lips. “I can’t argue with that. But in spite of your introspective revelation, I don’t want a truce.”
Fuck, this girl can knock me down in a single sentence. I’m not going to make this easy on her, but she’s in pain, so it doesn’t need to happen now.
“Got it. So, for tonight, I’ll let you be.” I’m about to expand on that so she knows without a doubt that this isn’t over, but she beats me.
