Page 69 of Tell Me It’s Right

“Aren’t you the little gentleman?”

After several minutes of serious contemplation, he settles on brownie batter and I get birthday cake.

“It’s on me,” he announces as we reach the cashier, and to my shock, he pulls a mini leather wallet from his shorts and fishes out a ten-dollar bill.

“Oh, Casey, I’ll get it. Save your money.”

His little jaw falls open. “I’d never let the girl pay. Here.” He waves the money toward the cashier, and I sigh as she takes it. “You can put the change in the tip jar,” he adds.

I shake my head a little as he takes my hand and leads me to one of the tables outside.

“You know, this might be the best date I’ve ever had.”

He beams and shoves a spoonful into his mouth. We sit in silence as we eat, and I push the rest of mine to his side of the table once he finishes his. Hopefully his mom won’t be mad at me. I’ve never actually seen Liam’s stepmom until today. Though she looks a lot younger than I was expecting, she seems nice enough. And she’s clearly raised Casey well.

“I already knew who you are,” Casey says.

“You did?”

He nods seriously. “Your brother is friends with my brother.”

“That’s right.”

Casey’s eyebrows pull together. “Everyone’s mad at him because he doesn’t want to work with Makayla—that’s my sister. But he’s really mad at them too.”

I glance around the empty sidewalk, feeling very, very out of my depth. “Oh, I—I didn’t know that.”

“What is a black sheep?”

I reach for some napkins to try to help with the chocolate all over his mouth now.

“How can a person be a sheep?” he presses.

“It—well, it means someone who’s a little different. Someone who maybe doesn’t fit in with the rest of the group.”

“Like Liam,” he says.

I nod slowly. Where the hell did that question come from?

“What does pity hire mean?” he asks it casually, not looking at me as he digs around the bottom of the bowl for every last bit of ice cream.

“What?”

He looks at me. “Liampity hiredyou. What does that mean?”

My stomach drops. “Where did you hear that?”

Kids usually parrot things they hear, right? I don’t know who he overheard talking, but I could give a pretty good guess.

“Or downgrade? What does that mean? If Liamdowngradedwith you?”

I let out an unintelligible noise, my cheeks hot. I had no idea I was such a topic of conversation at the Brooks household. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I accused Liam of hiring me out of pity myself, but there’s something about his entire family laughing about it that cuts a lot deeper.

Butdowngraded? That doesn’t sound like they were talking about the job.

I feel suddenly nauseous, unable to help myself from picturing Liam’s ex Hailey. Aside from her picture appearing on Liam’s phone, a while back I may or may not have looked her up on social media. The hundreds of thousands of followers aside, she’s undeniably stunning. Of course his family would see me that way after her.

Not that anything’s going on between me and Liam. Not that I was ever stupid enough to think there might be…

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