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“You have a driver?” he whispered to me.
I bit my lip. “I have a Carl. He’s a man of many jobs. He’s also the only person on my father’s payroll I trust to keep his mouth shut.”
I didn’t know what his official title or purpose was, but he lived in our giant house and was always around. Carl was a younger guy. Not younger than me, just younger than most of the staff. He was also very fit and attractive.
I digress.
Carl winked at me in the rear-view mirror, causing Eli to raise his eyebrows at me. I smirked. “Do you want to go to your house and get some stuff?”
“No,” he snapped. “She’s there. I don’t want to see that bitch ever again.” He was getting agitated, so I dropped it.
Carl dropped us off at the house, and I sent him on a new mission to pick up some basics for Eli. I brought Eli up to my room and forced him to strip to his boxers so I could assess his injuries. He put up a bit of a fight, asking if my father was going to kill him if we got caught, but my parents were both in D.C. for the week. My sister was away at college and at the time we had limited staff, all of whom kept their distance.
I snapped some pictures of the bruises on his back, legs, and arms in case this came back to bite him in the ass. He also had a nasty gash on the back of his head from hitting the sidewalk. I sent him to shower while I worked out a plan in my head.
My parents were absent in a way that likely bordered on neglect, but I never feared they’d put hands on me. I didn’t think they hated me; they were just indifferent. That day I realized that this wasn’t the case with Eli. My heart broke for the first time in my life. I wanted to cry as much as I wanted to punch people.
After his shower, I sat on my bed and pulled his head into my lap so he could tell me about everything.
Eli explained that his father had come at him screaming when he got home past curfew. Eli made a snarky response about his parents not giving a fuck, and this prompted Angela to say she doesn’t have to give a fuck because she isn’t his mother.
There was some back and forth arguing between his parents before one of them explained to Eli that his birth mother left him on his dad’s doorstep when he was about a month old. Angela and Jack were engaged to be married so Angela assumed the role of his mother.
After seventeen years, she was rescinding that offer, as if that was something people did. It was at this point Eli called her a bitch and told her to fuck off, so Jack told Eli he wasn’t welcome in the house any longer. Eli went to grab some stuff from his room, but Jack blocked him and forced him to the front porch. Eli ran his mouth, and Jack gave him a shove down the front stairs.
A knock sounded at my door and Carl popped his head in. He put a couple of bags down just past the threshold and left without a word.
“You can stay here until my parents get back, but it’ll get tricky after that. We will figure something out by then.” I leaned back against the headboard and ran my hands through his hair until he fell asleep.
That was the day we started sharing a bed.
Now:
“Did he ever go home?”
“Sort of. A few weeks later, a social worker convinced Angela and Jack that it was in their best interest, and the interest of their other children, to bury the hatchet. All that meant was he would sleep in my bed and slip out in the morning to go home, shower, and go to school.”
“Your parents didn’t notice?”
I shrugged. “If they did, they never said anything. But when I say they didn’t notice me, I’m not exaggerating.”
“You were the perfect pair, then?”
“I wouldn’t say that. We were toxic as fuck. But there was no way we were letting anyone fuck with the other.”
“You fought with each other, but also didn’t let anyone get away with any shit. I like it." He nodded as he looked away from me, gaze growing distanced. "I can picture you in a fight.”
“I’m going to bed.”
Sergio smirked at me. “Don’t you know there’s no sleeping on tour, angel?”
“I’ve heard. I also heard how that worked out for my sister and I’m not interested in being carried home because I passed out after days of being awake.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just be prepared to tell me stories tomorrow night, too.”
“You realize you’ll need another source of entertainment after tomorrow night, right? I’m headed home,” I informed him.
His eyes lit up. “You can call me!”
