AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My mother snorted. “There was a lot more than champagne flowing through his system, I promise you. I don’t even want to know how he’s wasting his time at college. You know he’s guaranteed a job with Richard? When I think of him squandering that priceless Ivy League education, while you worked so hard in school…”
“He studies,” I mumbled.
I didn’t tell my mom that my Christmas letter from our relatives had come folded around a check. When I’d opened the rustling paper, I’d blinked in disbelief. The check was more than I made in a month. It was sitting on my dresser right now, in the city, wedged behind my jewelry box. I couldn’t bring myself to cash it, and I couldn’t bring myself to tear it up.
“Have you heard from them since the summer, sweetie?” My mother cupped her coffee mug for warmth. “I didn’t want to say it, but I worried about you in that house with my sister’s family.”
“Will and I kept in touch for awhile.”
I picked up a black knight, rolling the heavy stone in my hand. Will had run it down my bare skin last summer, leaving a path of goosebumps behind, long before he’d won a game. When cool marble had trailed over my hot folds, rubbing my swollen clit into hardness, I’d bucked under Will’s unswerving gaze, babbling out a string of pleas for him to touch me because saying yes still felt new. He hadn’t. He’d made me come with the smooth marble knight, drinking in every moan that left my mouth and every writhe of my naked curves.
“That's nice, at least,” my mother said distractedly. “That you kept in touch. Maybe he'll turn out to be a little more human than his parents. I’m just relieved that after three months at that house, you didn’t come out a different person.”
“Everyone changes.”
“No, Andie, some people never do. Look at my sister. Money or no, she’s always seen people as things to use. And— This is gorgeous.” She held up a white rook, examining it. “How on earth did you afford this?”
I shrugged. “Will gave it to me.”
No reason to hide it now. I’d lugged the chess set to my dad’s apartment earlier this week too, my first time seeing his new place, where we’d moved the marble pieces around instead of talking.
“That was very nice of him.” My mother eyed me cautiously. “I didn’t realize the two of you had become so close. And this would be a drop in the bucket for them, but Andie, I’ve never known my sister or her family to give something for nothing.”
I shrugged again. The house was cold, but the conversation was making me uncomfortably warm.
“We had some talks over the summer. I think he appreciated it.” I sat up, tossing the knight onto the board, and the couch groaned. “Mom, you really need a new couch. Do you want a new couch?”
* * *
I cashed the check and sent a polite, awkward thank-you note to my aunt and uncle. My mom needed a new couch. She needed heat. I wanted three matching chairs for our dining table in the city. And it felt good to splurge on ingredients for cooking a fancy dinner, jamming our tiny apartment with everyone Meg and Emily and I knew.
A response never came to the thank-you note, which was more than fine.
* * *
Three months later, a thick envelope showed up in the mail: heavy paper, flowing script, my aunt and uncle’s address on the back. Inside was an invitation to Will’s graduation party in May. My aunt’s elegant handwriting crossed the bottom: I’m sure Will would love to see you. We all would.
Meg, perched on one of the new dining chairs with her laptop, reached over and grabbed the invitation out of my frozen hand.
“Damn! You’re going, right? Do you need a plus-one? Nah, you’ll take James. Make your cousin jealous.”
James and I had been dating since February. It was okay. Pleasant. Other than his complaints about my late nights at work, we got along fine.
“Hey,” Meg continued. “I wanted to show you — I was stalking people online and found this.”
I stared at her screen. Will, bronzed, his brown hair longer and curling around his jaw, his gaze like green glass, his smile perfect. Wet swim trunks clung to his thighs. Water trickled down his sculpted chest.
One arm was draped around a gorgeous girl, nearly naked in a tiny white string bikini. I eyed her blonde hair, wet and slicked back; her cool blue eyes; her full breasts; her satisfied little smile. The ocean sparkled in the background.
“Completely inferior-looking,” Meg announced.
“Who cares?” I shoved the fancy invitation back in its envelope. “She’s one of many. Hundreds, probably. And—“ The name under the picture caught my eye: Madeleine Platt. “One sec.”
“Andie?” Meg snapped her laptop shut. But I was already in my bedroom, pulling out my phone.
Madeleine Platt? Really? I typed furiously to my cousin.
As soon as I hit ‘send,’ I hurled my phone across the room, cursing. It didn’t break.
