Chapter 11

Chase

“Holy shit.”

Liv turns from where she is straightening a framed photo on the wall in her room. “I’m going to take that as a compliment,” she says dryly.

It’s Sunday afternoon. I came upstairs because I heard hammering, and when you hear hammering in your house, it’s usually a good idea to check it out.

Somehow, Liv has turned my dull-ass guest room into something out of a magazine. A couple of hours ago it was a big blank—white walls, drab carpet, a bed made up with camp-style blankets and a lone pillow, some stacked milk crates, and a shabby dresser.

She has transformed it into a beach cottage, all light and airy. The bed is neatly made up with blue-and-white bedding. The windows are covered with sheer white curtains and framed with a cobalt-blue scarf. She has draped white fabric over the milk crates and dresser and arranged knickknacks on top—including a mason jar full of vivid sea glass. As I watch, she hangs a photo of a beach, beside two others.

The whole thing is pointless and wasteful and—pretty. And those stupid beach photos make me want to go change into my bathing suit. (I wonder what Liv would look like in a bikini—nope. No, I don’t. Oh, crap. Yes. I do. In a little red bikini with boy shorts, curves spilling out everywhere, white creamy skin dotted with freckles. I have to stop. She made it clear last night that she’s not interested in anything physical with me. You know there’s no way in hell I’ll stop being safe.)

“Ninety-two,” she says.

“What?”

“You were going to ask. How much I spent. Ninety-two dollars.”

“How did you do all this for ninety-two dollars?”

She shows me, item by item. The bedding came first, and she chose it because it was on sale at Target. Then she filled in at Goodwill. The photos are pages cut from a travel magazine and framed in the cheapest matching frames she could lay her hands on.

“If I had more time, or a bigger budget, I could have done something more creative than a beach cottage theme.”

“It seems pretty creative to me.”

“I mean, a beach cottage design is kind of a cliché at this point. But I also knew it would be relatively easy to do. And I’m not staying long, so I didn’t want to get too complicated.”

“Then—then why? Why do it at all?”

For a moment I think she’s not going to answer. Then she says, “It’s something I learned from a foster sister, in my—” She counts off on her fingers. “—fourth foster home. She called it carrying her shell on her back. They can keep moving you around, and there are so many things you can’t take with you, but you can make every place your own. It helps.”

I think that’s more than Liv has ever said before about growing up in foster care. She plays her cards close to her chest. As good friends as we are, there are a lot of things I don’t know about her.

“Are you still close to her?”

She shakes her head. “She didn’t want to stay in touch. She said it wasn’t a good idea. Better to make a clean break and move on.”

That’s pretty sad. And I wonder how much it’s shaped who Liv’s become.

I wonder if that’s what she’s thinking will happen between us. That when she goes to Denver, she’ll make a clean break and move on.

A few days ago, that thought would not have made me feel as sick to my stomach as it does right now.

“How old were you when you went into foster care?”

“My mom died when I was seven.”

My chest aches. “Not so different from Katie.”

She smiles, but there’s tightness in it.

“Is it hard for you, with Katie, because of that?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think of it that way. I think it helps me understand what Katie is going through. It helps me help her.”

I know that’s not the whole story. Under all that bravado there must still be a scared little girl. I feel a special kind of sympathy for the younger Liv. And a lot of admiration for the woman she’s become.

“You were in foster homes until you went to college?”

“Uh-huh.”

I must make a face, because she says, “When people hear I lived in foster homes, their minds always go to the worst place. But for me, it wasn’t so bad. They were full of well-meaning adults who wanted to help. The only hard part was, I never got to stay. I’d start to feel like I’d settled in, and then something would happen. Another child would need the spot more than I did. A foster mom had a breakdown, a foster brother abused a sister, a foster dad got busted for possession. So that’s why I loved the idea so much of carrying my house around with me like a shell.”

I gesture to the room around us. “When you go to Denver, you’ll do this all over again?”

She nods. “And after that, wherever I go next.”

“Are you—looking forward to going to Denver?”

I’m not sure why I’m asking, or what I want her to say.

“I am. I get twitchy if I stay in a place too long. Claustrophobic.”

“I have that. I mean, not for living in a place too long, but…”

She tilts her head.

“As a kid, I wanted to be outside all the time. Fishing or hunting or camping with my uncle or if I couldn’t do that, tromping around the woods, hiking, foraging, snowshoeing, skiing—anything that would get me outside. Outside I was—I don’t know. Real. Alive. Inside, I was—like you’re saying. Trapped.”

It was the subject of so many fights between me and my parents. Weekends I wanted nothing more than to be in the woods with my uncle, but they insisted I stay home and study. They hired tutors for me. They forced me to take piano lessons. They were constantly trying to make me the son they wanted instead of the one I was.

The trapped feeling settles onto me, thinking about it.

Liv is watching me sympathetically. “That’s why the sporting goods store is so perfect for you, right?”

I hesitate. “I guess.”

Her brows draw together. “What is it?”

“Mike wants me to buy the store.”

“Chase! That’s terrific!” She beams.

“But—I don’t know. In theory I should be dying to take Mike up on his offer, right? I mean, here’s a chance to redeem myself. Run my own business, pick up where I got off track. But I get this feeling of—you said it right—claustrophobia every time he talks to me about it. Like I can’t catch my breath.”

She nods. That’s all. Just nods. But it helps.

We sit for a while, not talking. It reminds me of watching the movies side by side, like we’re both thinking about what’s in our heads, together, but separately.

Her phone buzzes on the nightstand and she reaches for it.

“Chase. Could you interview a potential nanny on Monday, August twenty-eighth?”

“Sure.”

“It’s only three days before I leave—but I’m pretty darn sure you’re going to want to hire her. She’s really good. I know I said that about Celia—”

“That was a fluke. I trust your judgment.”

The phone buzzes again and she looks down. “Eight p.m.?”

“Whatever works.”

She texts something. “Okay. Eight on August twenty-eighth.”

“Remind me to put it in my calendar, because there’s no way I’ll remember if I don’t.”

She nods. “Hey, so your parents are coming tomorrow night.”

“Yeah. You, um, want to eat with us? If you haven’t already made plans?”

“Do you want me to be there?”

I love my parents; I really do. But sometimes it’s easier with them if it’s a little more…casual. And having Liv and Katie both there would definitely take some of the focus off the old, um, issues between us.

I nod. And that’s all it takes. She says, “I’ll be there. It’ll be cool to meet your parents.”

“I don’t think cool is the word you’re looking for.”

“It would be educational.”

That makes me smile.

“I could make spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread and salad. Katie would like that, too.”

“Put me in charge of the garlic bread and the salad.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“I’m not totally helpless in the kitchen.”

“Deal,” she says. “Also—I promised you help with marketing brainstorming for the store.”

“I’m around tonight. Nothing going on.”

Suddenly, the idea of spending an evening kicking back on the couch next to Liv, talking about the store, sounds pretty fucking awesome.

“Oh. Um. I can’t tonight. I have a date.”

“Oh.” I shouldn’t be surprised, right? I had one last night, and we talked about this. “First date?” I ask, trying to recover my equilibrium. Because of course she’s not going to spend her night off helping me beat Big Win. Duh.

“I’ve been out with him twice. His name is Kieran.”

Oh, so not just a date. A third date.

Not that it should matter, from my perspective, whether it’s a first, second, third, or twentieth date. Or whether we’re talking awkward small talk or the horizontal mambo. Yet I find myself asking, “Have you told me about this guy?”

“He’s…”

She hesitates, and something in my chest contracts. She has a distant look on her face. As if thinking about how to describe him has made her a little dreamy.

I don’t like it.

I don’t want Liv getting dreamy about this guy, whoever he is.

And yeah? What are you going to do about it?

“He took me to Canlis on our first date.”

“Now that’s just showing off. He went for the low-hanging fruit, seduction-wise—candlelight, fancy food. It doesn’t mean he’s got culture.” I keep my voice light, but let’s face it, I mean what I’m saying. She can’t fall for a snow job like that, can she?

“He does, though,” she says, quietly. “He loves gourmet food, likes live music and art museums, and I saw his apartment—it’s very classily decorated.”

She saw his apartment?

She must hear what she’s said at the same minute I do, because she blushes. “Nothing happened. We hung out and then he kissed me good night.” She blushes even more fiercely, the color spreading to the tips of her ears.

“You don’t need my permission,” I say testily. Because, damn, I like the look of that blush on her, but I hate the idea that this other guy has put it there.

“I wasn’t asking for it,” she says simply. Not defensively at all.

Of course she’s not defensive. She’s not the one who wants what she can’t have. She’s got her mind on this guy who pushes all her buttons.

“Does he know you’re moving to Denver?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“Well, I mean, he’s not psyched about it. But his company has an office in Denver, and he’s—buying plane tickets to Denver won’t break his budget.”

Well, la-di-dah for him and his big pockets.

I think I hate him.