Page 77 of The Ruse

“Yep, this is it.” I pushed my hands into my pockets, looking around the room myself and trying to see it from her eyes.

My side was pretty bare. I didn’t have anything on the walls. My dresser didn’t have anything on top of it besides a couple of framed photos. My bed had a striped gray and blue comforter that Aunt Vivian had bought me before I came here, with a single pillow at the top.

Overall, the only thing she could probably guess about me from my living area was that I didn’t have a lot of clutter and knew how to make my bed.

Which contrasted with Hunter’s side. Even with my quick tidy-up job, he still had books and papers strewn about.

“Did you clean up before I came in here?” she asked, a wry smile on her lips.

“Just Hunter’s stuff.” I shrugged. “And unlike how you sprayed that perfume on yourself just so you could smell good for that study session you invited me to, I only used that air freshener because Hunter’s gym bag makes our room smell like butt.”

“Ew.” She made a face. “Maybe we should have gone to my room instead.”

I chuckled. “Sorry…that wasn’t the most appropriate thing to say.”

“Eh.” She lifted a shoulder. “You’re a guy. It’s probably something I should get used to if Ava and I move in with Brendon and Mack.”

“So you’ve decided you’re going to do that, then?” I asked.

“I’m considering it.” She walked toward my dresser and bent over to look at the photo of Owen and me. “We had dinner there on Sunday, and I think it could work.” She nodded at me. “Plus, my mom said she wants to sell our house in Ridgewater since she spends so much time in Manhattan with her team or traveling to other places these days.”

“How do you feel about your mom selling the home you grew up in?” I asked, curious.

Losing the house I’d grown up in had been devastating for me.

“It’s kind of sad.” She glanced at my backpack sitting on the floor before looking back at me. “But Ava and I are both going off to college next year and don’t have plans to move back again, so it seems kind of pointless to keep it when we’d just be visiting our mom at her condo in Manhattan, or Brendon at his house for holidays. It doesn’t make sense for her to keep a house that no one lives in.”

“That’s probably true,” I said, seeing her point. “I guess with that being the plan, moving in with Brendon and Mack might actually be a great idea. You can make it your new home and get to know them better before you graduate.”

That was kind of how this summer had been for me at my Aunt Vivian’s. It was the first place that actually felt like home in a long time. A place that I wouldn’t mind actually calling “home” if they kept inviting me back.

Owen had done his best to take care of me the last few years, but barely an adult and trying to get through college himself, it had been hard for him to do everything.

So even though I was so thankful my brother had stepped in when I needed him, it had been nice to have a stable environment to come back to each night. And while Aunt Vivian’s family wasn’t perfect, I appreciated having adults who were already established in their lives to help me get my feet under me and process some of the trauma I’d experienced in losing so much of my family—including all the stuff that happened with Bailee.

I hadn’t realized just how much I had craved the security they gave me until I’d been there a few weeks and actually experienced what I’d been missing all along.

You can’t miss what you never had, I guess.

Not that I’dneverhad it.

The first fourteen years of my life had been pretty idyllic.

Elyse finished her inspection of my room. She turned to me and said, “I guess we should probably get started, huh?”

A thrill of nerves went through me when I saw the anxiety in her eyes about what we were about to do.

But since the show had to go on, and I needed her to be comfortable kissing me in order for our performance to go off without a hitch, I said, “Yes. Let’s do this.”

22

ELYSE

“Am I doing something wrong?”Asher asked, stopping the rehearsal track for “All I Ask of You” on his phone. “Because you can just tell me what you need me to do to make this more comfortable, and I’ll do it."

“It’s not you.” I leaned against his desk, feeling so frustrated with myself for messing up the scene yet again. “Really. I just—” I sighed and held my hands out at my sides. “I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time.”

It was just like the rehearsals we’d had all week all over again.

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