Daphne
About three glasses of champagne into Haley’s birthday party, things start to feel easier.
The knowing is harder than I expected. It felt like a stone at the pit of my gut. Leo spent the last few days planning Haley’s party with Eva. She was in and out of his house, on her phone, in his office. Every time I came down from the studio they were conspiring about one thing or another.
“What do you think, Daphne?” Eva asked me from one of the chairs in Leo’s office. I had paint under my nails and some of it had gotten in my hair. “Gold and white or pink and white?”
Easy. “Gold. And tons of balloons. She deserves a ridiculous amount of balloons.”
“I told you she’d vote with me.” Leo was on his phone. On hold with someone, probably.
“Betrayed again.” Eva laughed. “Make a decision on the food.”
“Why would I do that when you’re here?”
I always knew they were close. It makes sense. They’re close in age. But there’s so much more to it than that. Leo’s secrets are so painful. They’re so heavy. Eva doesn’t just know them, she witnessed them firsthand. She carries them around with her. I don’t know how they sat there talking about balloons and dinner menus like this thing didn’t happen.
Knowing changes everything. It makes me reconsider my memories. The things I used to think. The look on Leo’s face when I told him about Emerson coming into my apartment breaks my heart, in retrospect.
It’s not as heavy tonight. We’ve all given up on dinner and now it’s nothing but dancing. Haley’s brother, Cash, approaches her on the dance floor. Somehow, he is here at this party.
I go over to where Leo’s at the gift table with a plate of cake in his hands. “You let him in here after what he did?”
Not the most tactful, but that’s champagne. I wouldn’t say I was drunk. Pleasantly buzzed, more like. Maybe drunk. It’s a birthday party. But it’s a legitimate question. Cash called Haley and asked her to come let him in at the gate. That’s when Caroline’s people took her. I don’t know the specifics of what happened while she was there, but I know they touched her. I know it shook her. Scared her. What I can’t understand is how Leo forgave her brother for it.
“Yes.” Leo cuts off a layer of frosting and eats it. “He wouldn’t come unless I hired him his own bodyguard.”
That explains the random guard standing by in a corner of the room all night. “To protect him from you?”
“Obviously.”
I stare at Cash too long, because Leo nudges me with his elbow. “Caroline sent her new bulldog to their house and broke his ribs while their father was asleep. They threatened to do the same to the old man if he didn’t help with Haley.”
The champagne is really good, and what Leo’s told me is very bad. It makes my heart ache for Cash. “You wouldn’t have done it. Broken ribs or not.”
“His father isn’t like ours.” Casual. While he’s eating birthday cake.
“What do you mean?” A server goes by, and I take another glass of champagne. “You’d have let them beat up Dad?”
Leo raises an eyebrow at me. “I meant that Phillip Constantine doesn’t have a violent bone in his body, so the broken ribs had to have been a shock. It was convincing for Cash. There were no good choices.”
“What are you, some kind of saint?”
He snorts. “Hardly.”
“You just…forgave him and invited him to the party?”
Leo motions to Haley and Cash with his fork. They’re dancing now. “Look at Haley and tell me if my forgiveness is the top priority in this scenario.”
Cash’s movements are stiff. It hasn’t been that long since the beating. But he’s still trying. He puts out his hand and spins Haley. I don’t hear what he says, but she laughs. “That was an accident. I thought there was a bug.”
“She’s your top priority in this scenario.” I’ve tipped over the edge into definitely drunk.
“She wanted her family on her birthday.”
“It’s mostly us, though.”
“I couldn’t reach her older sister. Her father was too much of a risk. Cash was a hard sell, but…” His eyes soften as he watches Haley. “I gave her everything I could.”
Eva whirls in from behind me. “Come dance,” she says. “We’re going to dance again.”
Leo leans down to be heard over the music. “For the record, Daph, I’d pick you over Dad every fucking time.”
Then he strides out to where Haley is waiting and cuts in on Cash, who is immediately swept up by Elaine. Lucian and Elaine are absolutely ridiculous dancers. It makes me laugh, and laugh again, because everyone is afraid of Lucian. Here, in Leo’s ballroom, he’s…
I don’t know how to describe it. He’s so focused on Elaine that nothing else matters. Neither of them seems self-conscious. Elaine keeps pulling Cash in to dance with them, and he keeps trying to dance back out, but it’s not happening. Everyone is drunk and happy.
Eva takes both my hands in hers and spins us both around. Her face is pink from champagne, her hair is coming out of its twist, and she’s laughing. I don’t see her laugh like this very much. I’ve always thought she was smart and serious and regal. It turns out she’s also a hero, in her own way.
It’s warm in the ballroom. Loud. Balloons bounce against everyone’s feet. We’ve thoroughly destroyed the dessert table. Mrs. Page went to bed hours ago. Gerard keeps coming in and out, and so do the last of the servers.
The evening goes fuzzy. Something falls away as we dance. It’s not like the dinner party Lucian insisted on having after I got here, with everyone cutting glances at each other and sitting up straight. Maybe this is what it would have been like if our parents were normal. I’ve always loved parties. I never knew they could be like this.
“Are you okay?” Eva asks over the music. “You look so far away.”
“Thirsty.” We go over to the table, where there is ice water. I hold the glass in my hand and sway to the music. Eva’s doing the same thing. We both look out at the party together. Lucian and Elaine are attempting to swing dance. Cash is calling out instructions. And Leo is actually dancing with Haley. When he spins her close, she rests her head on his shoulder. I can see her smile from here. After a minute she leans up to whisper in his ear, and the way he angles himself to answer her is so intimate that I don’t feel like I should watch.
Leo looks over at us. He usually doesn’t drink, but he’s had one or two tonight. “Dance,” he says.
Eva abandons her ice water.
“I’ll be right there. I’m going to check my messages.”
“Boo,” Eva says, but she’s laughing again, and then she’s dancing with everybody else.
I get my phone from the dinner table and flip it over. The screen is hazy. Or I’m drunk. A few blinks and I can focus again.
My heart jumps into my throat.
Emerson: Tell me if you’re okay.
Daphne: I’m perfectly fine!!
The music gets louder, and I can’t believe, I honestly can’t believe, that this is happening at all. Constantines in Leo’s house. The way he looks at her. Lucian, being a goofball for once in his entire life. Longing squeezes at my heart. I want to be as close with someone as Leo is with Haley. I want that. I want it so much.