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Crap. I can’t say no without raising serious suspicion flags with her. So I shrug and start to follow her back, steeling myself as I hear the sound of Ares and Castle laughing it up about something in the kitchen.
“I didn’t know you guys were coming over.”
“Yeah, it was just a spur of the moment thing…” She frowns, pausing in the hallway before turning to me. “Okay, that’s a lie. I wanted to talk to you.”
Dread pools in my stomach.
“About?” I wheeze.
She sighs. “I…might have heard about the McKinnley thing.”
My insides relax. “Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.” She makes a face. “You know it’s seriously just an idea, right? Like, there’s no real reason for Cillian to push for that, and he’s not—”
“It would be a smart play, linking the family with a potential future President.”
Neve’s gingery-auburn brows knit above her eyes that are as green as mine and Cillian’s.
“Okay, business-nerd, turn off the strategy brain for once. I know you don’t want to marry Brooks.”
I shrug.
Neve doesn’t know about what happened to me in my senior year of high school.
Nobody does.
The weird thing is, of all people I could talk to about it, Neve would be the most understanding. She went through something similar, when two assholes she went to school with took a bunch of gross pictures of her when she was blacked out at a party—like, up her skirt and stuff. Really horrible, disgusting shit.
But I can’t talk to her about it. Partly, that’s because that’s who I am. I internalize everything, and file it all away in color coded folders.
But the other thing is, I literally cannot talk about it toanyone. Because if he finds out…
“Hey, you okay?”
I blink, focusing again on Neve. “Oh, yeah, fine. Sorry, weird day.”
She frowns. “Just say no. To the Brooks thing, I mean. He was a douchebag, Eilish. I never understood why you dated him.”
Because I was young, inexperienced, and desperate for the cool kids to like me.
“I’ll probably say no,” I shrug. “It’s just smart to at least consider the potential—”
“Okay, okay, I get it, Ms. Analytical. C’mon. Wine beckons.”
Neve and Ares don’t end up staying long. After they leave, Castle convinces me to hang out in the upstairs living room with him, where we watchSay Anythingon the huge projector screen for the eleven millionth time.
“You know this is just how I’m guaranteeing your loyalty for life, right, big guy?”
Castle glances over at me from the couch he’s sprawled across. His hand absently strokes the furry black and white ball curled up on his chest—Una’s cat Bones, who’s staying here while she and Cillian are in Ireland.
Castle arches a brow. “Huh?”
“If you ever try and cross me, I mean. You know thatI knowthat you fuckinglovecheesy 80’s teen comedies.”
He snorts. “Say Anythingis a classic. There’s nothing embarrassing about that.”
“Yeah? There’s alotembarrassing about the number of times you’ve watchedDirty Dancing.”
