Page 14 of Scoring Grey

“And you were going to stay here?” I point down at the ground.

“I hadn’t planned on it, but Lou offered and?—”

“You can stay with me,” I say firmly.

“Cal, this place has two rooms. It’s not an issue.” Eloise shakes her head, slightly perturbed by my suggestion.

“He stays with me or you do. Take your pick.” I can’t believe she doesn’t see where I’m coming from on this.

Arlo’s phone rings. “I got to take this,” he announces as he walks across the room.

“Seriously, you’re giving me ultimatums?” she says, leaning onto the island with a scowl on her face.

Closing the distance between us, I come around the counter. “I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. Put yourself in my shoes. If a girl from my past shows up in my kitchen and I offer her a bed down the hall from my room, are you okay with that?”

Her scowl morphs into understanding. “No, I wouldn’t like that.”

“So we’re on the same page?” I ask as I step into her, pick up a lock of her blond hair, and twist it between my fingers.

She gives me a soft smile. “Yeah, same page.”

“Good.” I release her hair and step around to open the fridge.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m grabbing the beer.”

“So are we staying in or going out?” Arlo asks, rejoining us in the kitchen.

“Grab your shit. We’re taking this party back to my place. I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.”

He doesn’t balk at my comment, which surprises me a little, but I don’t spend time worrying about his feelings. The only thing I’m focused on right now is getting him out of her place and into mine. I just wish that didn’t feel like a bad omen.

“Are we going to discuss the elephant in the room or continue acting like you haven’t been trying to score with Eloise?” I say as I bring a beer bottle to my lips and look across the room where Eloise is passed out on my couch.

“Is that seriously what you think? After all this time…” His eyes flash from his beer bottle to mine. “Nothing ever happened between me and Lou. I’ve explained that.”

“That doesn’t mean you haven’t wanted it to.” I take another sip as I dissect his body language.

“I’ve always thought of Eloise like a sister, then and now.”

I can’t tell if my aggravation is coming from his words, the ones I’m determined to hear as lies, or the calmness in his delivery that speaks of truth when I look back on where my story with Eloise ended and his began. The other complication that stood in our way never truly existed, and I refuse to believe that Blair was the cause for the years that have kept Eloise and me apart.

“This can’t still possibly be over Blair Wyndham.”

“The fact that’s even a question says something.” He holds my eyes, and I get the sense I should be reading between the lines, listening to the words he’s not saying. The problem is I’ve racked my brain for years trying to do just that, and I come up empty every time. But for the moment, I leave it alone. At one point, he was my best friend, and we’ve never talked about what happened the day after we clinched finals. “You made that bed all on your own.” He rubs his hand down his face and shakes his head, perplexed. “Which, if we’re being honest, out of all the girls you could have chosen, Blair was a fucked-up choice for more reasons than one… I mean, she’s your cousin, for fuck’s sake.”

I level him with a glare. “We both know she’s not my blood.”

Blair is my cousin by marriage. My father married her mother’s sister after I was born. A union I’ve never entirely understood, sharing a roof with them growing up. The marriage I witnessed was roommates at best, but that’s neither here nor there because all that matters is that Blair and I are not related. I’m not bound to her in any way, then or now.

“Nothing fucking happened between me and Blair the night we secured our seat in the playoffs or any night after.” The irony, in my words, isn’t lost on me. Here I am with a truth no one believes, similar to the one he’s trying to shove at me. I know what people thought. I allowed it but only because of what I saw. If Eloise wanted to use my best friend for revenge, or at least that’s how I saw it back then, I wouldn’t just take it. Tit for tat, an eye for an eye. It was high school, and she had just shoved a knife into my heart.

“Okay… Then explain why, instead of coming to talk to your so-called girl the next day at lunch, you assumed the worst of her and threw your arm around Blair instead?”

“I didn’t?—”

“Drop the act, Cal. If you want to move forward and bury this, then you need to own it. I was there. I know what you saw, or should I say what you believe you saw.”

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