Page 44 of The Party Plot

Casey chewed his lip, not sure what to say and not sure where this conversation was going. “I mean. I’m sure there’s someone out there who would fit your—unique situation. If that’s what you wanted.”

“And what about you? Did Hot Adult Son fit your unique situation?”

Casey dropped his controller in frustration. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Can you stop calling him that?”

Jamie leaned back. “The question stands.”

“I don’t know. No. Maybe.” Casey groaned. “But it would never work.”

“Because you were stealing money from his mom.”

“No, he knew about that. It wouldn’t work because—because I’m not the right kind of guy for him.” Casey’s heart sank as he said it, but it was true. There was no way a shitty little white trash kid with a stained past could keep Laurel’s attention, let alone keep up with him. He needed someone whose designer clothes weren’t secondhand, someone who knew the rules of a polo match and could discuss French poetry. He needed agoodperson, which Casey wasn’t. He was no Robin Hood, no matter how much he tried to justify it to himself. He was no better than his dad: a thief and a fraud, and apparently not very good at either.

Jamie paused the game, turning to look at him. “I’m sorry, run that past me again? He knew the whole time?”

Casey scratched at a scab on his chin. “Not the whole time, but he figured it out. And then instead of telling his mom, he offered to pay me extra to follow through. So I went along with it.” For the money, he’d told himself. But of course, if it had only been about the money, then why had he involved Laurel in planning the party in the first place? Why had he made excuses to spend time with him? No, he realized now. Casey had wanted to keep him around, because Laurel was special. He’d known it since that first night, as much as he’d tried to pretend otherwise. He sighed.

“Okay.” Jamie pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, frowning. “So this guy finds out your dark secret and is apparently fine with it, and also you’re hooking up with him, so I assume the physical connection is there, but you say it wouldn’t work out?”

“I didn’t mean to hook up with him again,” Casey insisted, though that probably wasn’t true, either. “It just happened. It all just happened, and now it’s out of control and I—I don’t have anything to offer, without the party. I wanted to help him.” Casey hadn’t really heard himself admit it, not even in his own head. “He thinks it’s his friend’s last chance to get her reputation back, to be accepted into society again. He wants her to come and show everyone up, I guess.”

“How weird and elaborate,” Jamie said mildly. “You two sound perfect for each other.”

“We’re not.” Casey pressed his lips together.

“Well, has he tried to get in touch at all?”

“I don’t know.” His phone was dead, had been for days. He hadn’t brought a charger, and although he could have gotten one at Walmart, he almost didn’t want to know. If Laurel hadn’t called, it would be humiliating. But if he had, Casey didn’t see any point in calling him back.

“You’ve got to make a decision, CJ. And stop picking at your face.”

Casey dropped his hand away from his jawline guiltily. “I will,” he said. And he looked at his dumb little avatar in its dumb little pixelated car on the screen, the edges shimmering as the game sat still, and felt just as stuck.

14.

He would have done something, he really would have. Gotten a hotel room at least, checked his bank accounts. But then the weather changed, the temperature dropping and the humidity soaring, and Casey was filled with a queasy sort of inertia, his skin clammy, his sinuses throbbing. He woke to air as dense as pea soup, the sky bruised and sullen-looking. There was a glassy eeriness to the surface of the swamp, and the constant backdrop of birdsong and squirrel chatter had gone silent. Rain showers came and went, doing nothing to ease the pressure in the air. On TV, they saw that Tropical Storm Cindy had made landfall further south.

“Cindy, huh?” Casey tried for humor. “What a bitch.”

Jamie frowned down at his phone. “I hope flights don’t get canceled.”

“Why? Planning a trip?”

“Not for me.”

Casey scoffed. “What, are you so sick of me that you bought me a ticket to somewhere?”

“Not exactly. But you should probably shower and shave.”

He did it on autopilot, feeling a vague little curl of unease as he studied his own eyes in the mirror. He looked tired, and the dark roots of his hair were beginning to show again. What a pathetic, greasy loser he had turned into, and all over some guy. Maybe the tropical storm would wash away this self-indulgent stint of melancholy, give him a fresh start.

But as the day went on, his anxiety just deepened, tickling at his spine. There was a weird, heavy quality to the light, and the sky seemed to be pressing down on them, a thick cap of shifting clouds. Besides that, Jamie was acting suspicious, glued to his phone and strangely energetic, bustling around the boat in what seemed like an oddly good mood. He didn’t even give Casey shit about the half-empty can of Diet Coke he’d left out overnight, which was—disturbing.

“You’re plotting something,” Casey remarked, watching him from across the living room.

“No I’m not. I’m just waiting on a delivery.”

“Hm. Something for the babies?”

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