What I Thought Was True(43)

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Sundance. This swirl of hurt and shame and loss and confusion tightened in my stomach. I bumped back into the terrace-y room, to be greeted by the same creepy cockatoo shrieking, “There’s gold in them thar hills!” I swallowed down the last of my drink, now warm and full of strawberry seeds.

“You didn’t shut the door all the way.” Spence was leaning against the wall by the door. He gestured at the French doors behind me. “The birds need the temperature carefully regu-lated. Very important to my mother. But then, she’s in Mar-bella right now, and what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. So, Gwen Castle, what are you looking for, in here all by yourself?

Got to be a reason you came to this party.”

His eyes were the weirdest yellow-green color, slightly tilted up at the corners. Cat eyes. They’d always seemed to skip over me before, but now they were fixed steadily on my face. When I said nothing in response—since I had no real answer—he raised a thumb slowly to his lips and chewed on his nail, completely without self-consciousness, despite the fact that, now that I was looking, I noticed that all his other nails were bitten to the quick. Then he nodded like he’d come to a decision.

“You need another strawberry daiquiri.” Slipping his arm around my waist, his fingers resting lightly on my hip, he towed me out the door.

“I really don’t need—”

“Come on, Gwen Castle. You haven’t had enough. Not yet.

Besides, you’ve always struck me as a girl who gets an awful lot of ‘not enough.’ That won’t happen tonight.”

We took a different route to the bar than I’d taken before, down a long hallway with red-and-gold flocked wallpaper, 147

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hung with dark oil paintings of sea captains who looked as though they were sneering, and uptight round-faced women, presumably their wives.

“Your ancestors?” I ask Spence, searching their faces for his familiar smirk.

“Bought at estate sales. It’s all for show, Castle, right? All about the look of the thing.”

A side door opened and an elderly man emerged, wearing a paisley dressing gown like someone in one of Grandpa Ben’s movies. His thinning hair was ruffled up around his pink ears and he was rubbing one eye like Emory when he’s tired.

“What’s all this noise?” he asked Spence.

“Party, Dads. Remember?”

This was Spence’s dad? He was like eighty— had to be his grandfather.

The man frowned. “I agreed to this?” he asked vaguely.

“You bought the booze,” Spence responded.

The man nodded wearily and disappeared back through the door he’d come out of. He didn’t shut it completely, and Spence reached out and gave it a shove with the flat of his hand until there was an audible click.

Then he cut his eyes at me, as though waiting for me to say something.

“Your father doesn’t mind you partying?”

“Dads? Nah. He doesn’t care. Though, strictly speaking, it was just his credit card that bought the goods, not the man himself.” He shrugged, gave a little laugh. “What? Don’t look at me like that, Castle.”

I had no idea how I was looking at him, although I suspect 148

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it was with pity. Our house could practically fit in his foyer, but it never felt sad and empty like that, despite the distant party sounds. “I—”

“I’m sure you have crazy relatives locked in your attic too.

What family isn’t dysfunctional, right? Come on, let’s get you what you need.”

He poured me another daiquiri and one for himself, then led me back down the hallway. And I followed. That’s the thing, I trailed right after him into this big study, where he waved me to a big puffy couch, all swirly embroidered flowers on a white linen background, then sank into an equally puffy chair across from it, studying me over the rim of his glass. “You really are pretty as hell, Castle. Much hotter when you don’t wear the baggy clothes. Don’t stress about what happened with Sundance. How could he help himself? Besides, it’s just sex. No big deal.”

That’s exactly what it hadn’t felt like. Not just sex. Not no big deal. Not at all. Not to me.

But this was the last thing I was going to let Spence know.

I gulped my drink, shook my head, laughed in what I hoped was a carefree and dismissive way. “I’ve already forgotten the whole thing. Water under the dam.” Was that right? Bridge?

Dam? I should put this drink down now.

He whistled. “Don’t tell Cassidy that. Not in those words, anyway. We guys are touchy. Good to know there are no hard feelings, though.”

“I’m not planning on any heart-to-hearts with Cass Somers.”

“C’mon, Gwen. He’s a good guy. Don’t be mad at him.”

He examined my face more closely, then whistled again, lon-149

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ger and lower. “O-ho. You’re not mad. You’re hurt. Damn, I’m sorry.” He sounded as though he meant it, and to my horror, tears sprang to my eyes.

“Oh man. I didn’t think . . . You always seemed so . . . Don’t do this, okay?” Spence set his drink on the coffee table, swept my glass out of my hands, one smooth motion. Then did the most unexpected thing. He leaned forward to kiss the tears away, lifting my hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ears, whispering against my cheek. “Sobbing girls are my weakness. They slay me, every time. Shh. Secret. Word gets out and every girl at school will know how to get to me.”