“I think you’re right. We should invest in better bags before Christmas,” she muttered, bending down to pick up everything.
Bending to help her, I asked, “So, you have real-life evil stepmother problems?” I asked.
She looked at me for a moment and just laughed. “Apparently. Are you going to come in on a white horse and save me?”
“Would you let me?”
She shrugged. “How good are you at rescues?”
“I’m sure I can handle it.”
“Odette!”
Both of us jumped at the sound of Jeremy, who poked his head over the table to stare down at us. I couldn’t help it, I glared. This kid was something else. Did he fly over the tables to get here? Had he been watching this whole time? How deep was this little crush?
“How can I help you, Jeremy?” Odette asked, standing taller, her voice sweet. Wasn’t she annoyed?
“Will you play Uno with us?” he nearly begged.
“Sure, come on.” She outstretched her hand to him.
“What happened to volunteering?” I asked as she left me, literally, holding the bag.
She just winked at me.
“Are you jealous of a kid, sir?” Wolfgang questioned, coming up beside me almost out of thin air.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“And by that, he means yes,” Iskandar muttered, handing off his perfect bag to the volunteer who came to grab it. She frowned, looking at the bag in my hand.
“This one was Odette’s,” I said quickly, but she didn’t seem to believe me, which only made Wolfgang chuckle.
“Shut up.”
“Yes, sir.”
I tried to focus on my work, but I found my eyes drifting back toward Odette. She sat surrounded by children, completely at ease, laughing and playing alongside them. In fact, she was even more animated than they were, doing a little dance when she threw down a card. I wasn’t used to seeing her like this.
She had so many different sides to her.
Each day, she showed me a new one.
Since officially starting this romance of ours, I’d found out she actually loved to dance, and when I said dance, I meant, jump up and hop onto the couch, whip her head in every direction, air guitar solo, dance. She loved anything sweet but fought with herself not to eat it. Apparently, her mother traumatized her as a child with all the lectures she got. She could be loud and carefree one moment, and the next, she was huddled on the couch, barely saying a word, just watching the rain while drinking hot chocolate. Each and every time, I found myself watching her instead of anything else.
Even after days of just talking and talking and still talking, we found more to talk about, to laugh about. I was so used to having Odette beside me now that it was a little odd when she wasn’t there anymore.
Wait—was this love?
I hadn’t even known her for a month.
I couldn’t be in love yet.
Right? Right!
“Sir. Sir?”
“Hmm?” I looked at Wolfgang.
“If you already have something planned, I think we should be aware of it. We are cutting it a bit close,” Wolfgang stated, though I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Planned?”
“Odette’s birthday tomorrow?”
“That’s tomorrow!”
Rippppp.
I waved to Jeremy—a little bit relieved—as he and his foster family left. That was wrong, wasn’t it? But truthfully, I sort of couldn’t wait for the whole day to be over, simply because I wanted to go back and hide away with Gale.
“You seem happier lately.” Her voice was like spiders on my skin lately, and to make matters worse, she refused to leave me alone.
I wasn’t sure what she wanted—maybe it was to drive me crazy. “Were you hoping I’d be sad?” I asked, turning to face the one and only Yvonne. Each time I saw her, I felt like I better understood my mom.
“Of course not, you are my daughter, too.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of that,” I said, but seeing as how we were in public, I didn’t want to cause a scene. “Thank you for that reminder, but please remember, I have a very capable and loving mother.”
“Odette.”
“Yes, Yvonne, I’m here.”
“I know about your financial troubles,” she whispered, placing her hand on my shoulder. “And I know your mother hasn’t exactly been helping you. If you need help, all you have to do is ask.”
The gall of this woman. After what she had told me the last time we met, she still had the audacity to be in my face?
“We are fine,” I said, brushing her hand off me. “Thank you, but my father left me with more than enough to take care of my mother and me. Unless you plan on taking that.”
She frowned. “As I told you before, whatever stories your mother has told about me are wrong—”
“I’m not a child, and I do not need stories. I see the world via my own eyes, and you’ve never been a mother to me, Yvonne. So, what exactly is it that you want?”
She exhaled, crossing her arms. “It’s not always good to be blunt, Odette.”
“It’s worked for me so far.”
“Fine, I want your shares in the company.”
I laughed. “When hell freezes over.”
“You don’t even know what to do with them.”
“Ninety percent of the country doesn’t, and yet the stock market exists. Why in the world would I give you my shares?”
“I’m not telling you to hand them over. Sell them to me.”
“No.”
“Odette.”
“My father left them to me, and I’m not giving or selling them to anyone.”
Her jaw cracked to the side. “Remember, I came to you nicely.”
“This is nice?”
She didn’t reply. She just walked away, and I wasn’t sure what to make of the whole exchange. But I didn’t, nor did I want to think about it.
“Everything all right?”
I turned to Gale, who stood, waiting, and just like that, my shoulders relaxed. I wasn’t sure how he did it, but I was grateful.
“Yeah.” I smiled.
“I’m perfect.”
Chapter 23
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
That sound— Jumping out of bed, I yelled, “The fire extin—”
I froze on top of the mattress, completely and utterly confused, as Gale grinned at me, a phone with a beeping alarm in one hand and a cupcake in the other.
“You!”
“Happy birthday!” He laughed at me.
Grabbing the pillow, I threw it at his head. “Not funny!”
“Really? Because I’m laughing quite hard.” And he really was even as he ducked out the way of the pillow.
“So freaking annoying,” I grumbled, sitting back down on the bed and grabbing the covers to wrap around myself—seeing as how I was barely dressed. I could hardly remember last night. Well, that was a lie. I could completely remember last night, but I didn’t want to think about it. However, not wanting to think about something only made me think about it more. We’d gone to my mother’s for Thanksgiving dinner and found ourselves pretending to be watching a movie when in reality, we did what we had been doing a lot of lately—holding on to each other until the other fell asleep. I vaguely remembered trying to press for more only to be gently rejected, which was confusing, seeing as how I remembered how it felt as he carried me back to bed. How it felt it when he was kissing me, holding on to me...and how disappointed I was when he had stopped and said we should sleep. I had no idea what was going through his mind—or mine, for that matter.