“When was this taken?” she asks, eyes fixed to the photo of me at the Briar Cliffs.
I step up beside her, thinking. “The summer before sophomore year.”
“This one?” She points to a photo of me on the field, taken after Preston won the championship against Sparrowood.
“Last year.”
“You aren’t here much,” she guesses, shifting her eyes around. “Almost nothing in here is you.” She whips her head around to look at me, eyes rueful. “Not that it isn’t nice. Your house is unbelievable.” When she sees the grimace on my face, she asks, “What?”
“I don’t know.” I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “I’ve never been embarrassed about being rich before,” I admit.
She blinks at me, taken aback. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to judge me by the fact I’m… not rich.”
“I don’t,” I assure her. “You know I don’t.”
She nods, eyes wandering over to the balcony. “You could… I mean, if you want. You don’t have to.”
“I could what?”
“Show me around,” she offers, bending to open her bag. “I could take my camera and—”
“Yeah,” I blurt, already reaching for her hand. “There’s really no one here. Just my mom and Liesel. Come on.”
I show her the second floor first, avoiding my mom’s wing. If she’s having a bad day, then she’s having a bad day. She wouldn’t want someone meeting her—someone special to me—when she’s like that. I’ll have to get away at some point to go see her.
“This is our best guest room, I think,” I say, leading Sugar into a suite right down the hall. “You could stay here tonight.”
I’ve been thinking about how to broach the topic, but this seems best, showing her the enormous room, decked out with pillows and soft blankets. I can have Liesel stoke a fire in here, stock up the bathroom, make it real nice.
Real far away from me.
Sugar turns a small circle, not at all unlike Abby had a couple hours ago. “It’s amazing,” she says, stopping to meet my gaze. “But… do I have to? Stay in here?” She walks a couple paces toward me, head canted to the side a bit. “Can I just stay with you?”
Fuck. Thank god. “Yeah, of course. I just wasn’t sure if you’d…”
“I do,” she assures, sending me a soft smile.
I drag her down to the kitchens, where she stares owlishly at all the stainless steel. “Do you cook?” she asks, running a fingertip over the granite counter.
I dig my hands into my pockets, rocking back on my heels. “Point of fact, I could make you the meanest bowl of cereal you’ve ever fucking seen.”
She barks a soft laugh. “An appetite? After what we just witnessed up there? Hard pass.”
Good point.
I take her downstairs next, which is truly next level. I watch her take in the swimming pool, the sauna, the wet bar, the media room, all with a perfectly neutral face. Every now and then, I’ll hear the click of her camera’s shutter and look up to see it pointed at me through various baffling angles.
I raise an eyebrow. “If you wanted me to pose, you should have told me.”
“I don’t want you to pose,” she replies, leveling me with a sure gaze. “Much like my art, I prefer you without all the bullshit artifice.”
It’s a shame. I could take some really hot pictures. But it seems like her lens only finds me when I’m trapped in some pointlessly complicated tangle of emotion. It doesn’t bother me. I’d already given her permission to make me her subject, in any form that might entail.
“This? Here?” I point to my chest. “You’re seriously underestimating my talent for bullshit artifice.”
“Even so,” she says, uncaring as she walks past, hand brushing mine.
I grab onto it, pulling her back. A few weeks ago, a touch like this would have probably sent her reaching for her knife. Now she just leans into it, lips curving into a smile when I press a kiss to her mouth. If I could find a way to tell her how far she’s come—how brave she’s been—without sounding like a patronizing asshat, I would. Instead, I say it with a kiss, tucking her against me.
We spend the entire day like that, going back up to my bathroom every now and then to check on Abby. Every time we return, it seems like she has another kitten in the box with her. Sugar lets me take her to whatever corner of the house that’s still uncharted, camera going off every now and then. And if I pull her into a coat room, or a den, or a pantry for another one of those quick, stolen kisses, then she doesn’t seem to mind.
She begins looking a little more at ease here, in this ridiculous fucking house, following me up and down stairs and corridors. Once, she even pulls me aside for one of those kisses, laughing when my stomach grumbles.
That’s how we find ourselves eating dinner in my sitting room. It’s no surprise the staff went all out; soup, bread, cheese, and dessert. We eat on the floor in front of the coffee table, legs kicked out as something loud and fast plays over my sound system.
“Wilcox,” she says, chomping on a piece of bread, as she chooses another song. “Your life is bougie as fuck.”
I don’t argue. Much. “I spend most of my time in the dorms, so only on select weekends, really.”
She gives me a wry look. “Your dorm, at your extremely prestigious academy, with its kitchen and living room and entertainment system. Truly roughing it.”
“You know,” I point out, “you’d be living a bougie life too, if you let me spoil you more.”
“You already gave me a new laptop and that ridiculous fucking check—which I still haven’t cashed, by the way.”
“I didn’t give you the check,” I clarify. “I chose you to get the check, but it’s only like one-twelfth my own money. If you don’t cash it, it’s just going to rot away in the bank account. No skin off my back.”
She curls her lip distastefully, but I can see the gears moving when she pops a piece of cheese into her mouth. I’m wearing her down, slowly but surely.
By the time the day starts winding down, we find a whole bundle of squirming, slick kittens nestled into Abby’s belly. Sugar’s hunched over the box, trying to count them.
“I think that’s just her tail,” Sugar points.
“No, it’s got stripes. Pretty sure.”
“You’re not even close enough to tell.” Sugar laughs at the grimace on my face as I peer over from my spot on the counter. Abby might not be birthing anything at the moment, but she’s still laying in a big ole box of ‘nope’. “They’re so tiny,” she coos. “These three look just like Hades, don’t you think?”
I crane my neck to take a reluctant look. “Yep, three little voids.”
“There’s no way they could have survived in the ice,” she says, looking vaguely upset at the notion. “Not where Abby was stuck.”
I agree, “We did the right thing by bringing them here.”
There’s a quiet knock on the door and Liesel pops her head in. “All right?”