Baby, Be My Last: The Fairfields | Book Three Read online

  “Sounds like Everyoung wants to take over small-town America,” she jokes, “and you’re their, like...canvasser.”

  “Ooh, good word. And good insult.” While she laughs and I pretend it still stings, I add, “They won’t let me move right now. I’m the only one on the team who’s at least somewhat willing to stay in Hillford—go figure—so if I want flexibility to travel, or even live here in the city, I’d need a different job.”

  She watches me kick a soda can along the path. When it gets to her feet, I expect her to take a shot, too. Instead, she picks it up and pitches it, in a flawless arc, to a trashcan in the distance I didn’t even see.

  “Do you want a different job?” she asks.

  “Someday, yeah. But Everyoung pays okay, and...I don’t know what else I would do, just yet. I guess if the right opportunity came along, I’d feel better about leaving. But at this point in time, it would have to be something incredible. And basically get dropped right in my lap. Job hunts are hell when you’re—” I stop myself, dangerously close to saying, when you’re a Fairfield.

  Correction: when you’re a Fairfield without any money. Without any proof.

  “Young,” I finish, and clear my throat. “No one takes you seriously.”

  Camille nods. “Well, I think that’s smart. Waiting for a really good job, instead of rushing out of Hillford before you’re ready. And at least Everyoung’s building your résumé.” She pauses. “You guys have stupid flavor names, by the way.”

  I look at her. We’re close to the riverbank; I can’t hear the water yet, but the way the sounds of the city soften and fade tells me there’s open space just beyond the buildings ahead. Even the moon seems brighter, like there’s a giant mirror nearby, and it turns her blue eyes silver.

  “What?”

  “Everyoung,” she says. “The flavor names aren’t nearly as good as they could be.”

  “Well, excuse me. We can’t all be as brilliant as ColdBru.” While she laughs, I ask, “You mind sharing an example?”

  “Okay, first—”

  “Oh, God, you’ve got a whole list.”

  Camille lets go of my hand and shoves me off the sidewalk. I grab her wrist and pull her with me. From up above, someone in a townhouse tells us to shut up; we’re laughing too loudly.

  “First,” she goes on, when we’ve caught our breath and reached the path along the river, “you’ve got all the basic flavor names: Banana Split, Chocolate, Strawberry. They’re okay—I mean, they at least tell you what you’re getting, even if they aren’t clever. I guess those are fine.”

  “So glad we have your approval. I’ll pass that along to my superiors.”

  “I’d still change them,” she says, ignoring me, “but what really bothers me are the ones where you guys try to be clever, and just totally flatline.”

  I fold my arms. “Such as?”

  “I don’t want to offend you. In case you named any of them.”

  “You can’t offend me. And if it helps, I haven’t named any flavors yet—just brainstormed with a team. You won’t be trashing my life’s greatest work or anything. So go ahead.”

  Camille stoops near the water’s edge, feeling through the tall grass until she comes up with a handful of stones. She hands me some. We skip them across the water, or try to; it’s flowing just fast enough to swallow the rocks seconds after they hit the surface.

  “Okay: the chocolate-caramel one you guys have.”

  “Cara-Choc is pretty popular.”

  “It tastes good, but the name is off-putting. It sounds like ‘carob,’ which is disgusting. I’d call it either some plain, no-nonsense thing, or ‘Choc Full of Caramel.’” She brushes the dirt from her palms and looks at me, waiting.

  The objection on my tongue turns to an inhale. “Shit. That’s actually really good.”

  “Puns are my specialty,” she says, as we start for the bridge. “It drives my friend Brynn crazy. She says it’s the corniest humor ever, and I can’t even disagree. It is.”

  “It is. It’s corny as hell.” I jump away before she can shove me again. “But it’s also an underappreciated skill, from a retail standpoint. You ever need a job at Everyoung, you let me know.”

  “Thanks. I might have to take you up on that, whenever working at the Acre drives me certifiably insane.”

  The pedestrian bridge is narrow but, as she promised, giant: the wood-and-steel structure arcs across the river like a squat rainbow, from one bank to the other. It’s got to be over a quarter mile long, with bicycle paths on either side, an emergency alarm every few yards, and reminders to keep pets on leashes and feet off the railings. I’m guessing someone didn’t listen, once upon a time, because the entire thing is closed in with chain-link, which has since been decorated with hundreds of padlocks. Camille runs her hand along them, clanging our way across the water.

  I try to stop myself, but can’t: “I have to ask—why do you hate the Acre and the Fairfields so much, again?”

  Camille glances at me over her shoulder. “I told you, they’re just fake and entitled, and...I don’t know. I just don’t like them. Which I guess is why I don’t like working at the Acre. It’s not really that bad, on its own.”

  “How long have you worked there?”

  Camille thinks a minute. “Since I was seventeen, so…five years. Actually, I loved it when I started. But that lasted about two seconds.”

  “What changed?”

  We reach the middle of the bridge, towering over the exact center of the river. Camille sits cross-legged on the planks, so I do the same.

  “There was this big employee Christmas party at the Fairfield estate. They’d always held it in the ballroom at the Acre, apparently, so everyone was excited that year. They’d never seen the inside of the house before.”

  I nod. Neither have I, but I’d bet any amount of money my curiosity outweighs that of every person in this city.

  “I went with a bunch of girls from Housekeeping. I didn’t want to go, but my dad pretty much forced me. I’d skipped my junior prom the year before because of Mom being sick, so I think he saw it as some, like, makeup prom.”

  “Sounds like he felt guilty.”

  “Yeah, I think he did. Which was stupid, because I chose not to go to my prom. It didn’t feel like I’d missed out on anything important.” Camille looks up from her hands in her lap. I watch her eyes flit back and forth across the water.

  “The place is huge.” She laughs and sighs together. “Like...you know it must be, because, duh...it’s the Fairfields. But when you see it in person, it hits you just how rich they really are. How powerful the family must have been, back in the day. The entryway alone was as big as my entire house, no joke.”

  “Wow.” I think of the house I grew up in, Mom’s tiny two-bedroom in Filigree. We barely had enough space for our beds, and kept our dressers in the living room. I spent most of my time outside, riding bikes with Knox until dark, just to get some literal breathing room.

  “Ten bedrooms, ten bathrooms, a home theater, full staff...they have literally anything you could think would be in a house like that.” Camille shakes her head. “More than anyone could ever need.”

  It clicks, suddenly. “And your family...was probably scraping by, back then. Your mom’s medical bills and all that.”

  She’s quiet, picking at some gravel in the tread of her shoe. “Look, I’m not one of those people who thinks the rich should give away all their wealth so everyone gets a piece. I mean, ethically I think they should give away something, but they don’t have to. And it was nice of the Fairfields to host the party, I guess.” The gravel comes loose; she pitches it through the fence into the water. It feels like years before it hits the surface.

  “I’m not owed anything,” she goes on. “I know that’s just how life is: some people have a lot, some don’t. Some have to suffer, even if they’re good people, and you might never get to know the reason behind it. You just have to trust that there is one.

  “But i
t was hard, really hard, to come home that night and see all those bills on the table—hundreds of thousands of dollars, just to keep Mom alive—and think about how much the Fairfields had. More than they even know what to do with.”

  I study her in the silence. Wind skips up from the water and flutters the petals by her ear, lifting her hair until the stem comes loose. It falls onto the bridge between us, but she doesn’t notice. Her eyes are focused on the horizon, the curved, shimmering edge where the water seems to suddenly drop off.

  “We didn’t have much when I was growing up, either,” I tell her, “so I get that. You look at other people and you think, ‘God, they must be so happy. Their lives have to be perfect,’ because if you had even a fraction of what they did, you think it would fix everything.”

  “I know it wouldn’t.” She leans back on her palms. “Money wouldn’t have stopped my mom from getting cancer. I’m just saying, it would have made life with her cancer a lot easier. For all of us.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean.” My next words hover on my tongue. I have to phrase this carefully, if I want to tell her the truth about who I am without her bolting back across the bridge.

  “But,” I add slowly, “that doesn’t seem like a good enough.... I mean, you said you hate the Fairfields, but—”

  “Okay, I don’t hate the Fairfields, exactly. And if I did, that wouldn’t be the reason.” She wets her lips, thinking again. “I guess what I dislike about them is that they’re fake-nice, for their image: there were tons of news cameras at the employee party, so even though it was nice of them to throw it for us, it felt like a publicity stunt. And they’re jerks. Which,” she says, laughing bitterly, “was proven to me that same night, when I first met Caitlin-Anne.”

  “Oof.” I brace myself. I’ve heard plenty about Caitlin-Anne to know this won’t be a pretty story. “What happened?”

  “I was waiting to use the bathroom at the party, because there was only one off the room where the dancing was, and nobody knew where the others were. But the line was taking forever, so I was like, ‘Screw it—ten bathrooms in this place, I’ll just go find another.’ I went upstairs and found one, no big deal. But when I came out, Caitlin-Anne was standing there, just tapping her damn foot like she’d been waiting for hours or something, with the guard from the security gate to throw me out.”

  “She threw you out? Really?”

  “Pretty much, though it was mostly me leaving on my own after that. I told her I was a guest from the party, and she said, ‘You’re my father’s help. You stay downstairs.’ Like I was some fucking personal maid who forgot her place. So I left. That told me all I needed to know about how hospitable the Fairfields really were.”

  I think I physically cringe. “But that was a while ago. Maybe she’s changed. Or maybe that’s just Caitlin-Anne, you know? Maybe...maybe the others aren’t like that. Tim did throw the party, at least.” It’s pretty conflicting, sitting here defending the man who won’t even give me the time of day, but I can’t resist. Giving at least one Fairfield some humanity will make it easier when I tell her I’m one, too.

  “Tim and my dad went to college together. He said all Tim did was party, flash his cash, and skirt the rules. He got busted for cocaine and the school didn’t even do anything. Everyone else, the school expelled like that”—she snaps her fingers—“but not him. The Fairfields can do no wrong.” She lies down on the bridge now, eyes shut, hair spilling across my hand. “And the most fucked up part is, they actually believe that. That what they do isn’t wrong.”

  We transition to silence. The water churns underneath the bridge, sounding so much closer than it really is.

  “What’s with you and the Fairfields, anyway?” Camille peeks at me, but shuts her eyes again when I stare back. “You writing an article or something?”

  Tell her. Now. This is about as direct a question as I’ll get, and pretty perfect timing: we’ve had fun tonight, shared stories, and flirted our way through the entire business district. If she storms off, there’s a lot of ground she’ll have to cover to get rid of me—plenty of time for me to change her mind.

  Besides: Camille isn’t stupid. She’d understand that I’m not like them. Or her idea of them, at least. I’m still not sure what to believe about the Fairfields. Even the things I’ve known all along feel shaky, after seeing my dad look the way he did.

  She wouldn’t care that my license says Fairfield. She’d see I’m not really one of them.

  But right now, to her, I’m still just Silas McIntyre. I’ve known the same people in the same places my entire life: there’s no starting over in small towns. Who you were is who you are and always will be, as far as folks in those parts are concerned. I’ve waited for someone like Camille, for a chance like this, for so long.

  I lie beside her and promise myself, yet again, I’ll tell her soon. At the end of the night, or first thing tomorrow. Even the second date wouldn’t be that bad.

  There’ll be other perfect moments. No sense ruining the first.

  “Silas?”

  I look at her. Her eyes are still closed. “Yeah?”

  She hesitates. I watch her chest rise high, one long breath.

  “I’ve told you more about myself tonight,” she says quietly, “than I’ve ever told anyone. Maybe my dog,” she laughs, “or my best friend, but even that was after years of knowing her. With you…it was easy, right away.” Slowly, her eyes open, and her head turns until there’s nothing but the space of our shoulders between us. “And I don’t know why.”

  Guilt churns through my stomach. “Me too.”

  Camille turns, pushing up on her elbow so she’s right over me. Her ponytail slips down around her neck. I feel the ends brush my ear as she dips her head.

  Her lips feel exactly the way I imagined. No: even better. Two hundred times softer, warmer, more incredible, more electric.

  I bring my hand to her ear and pull her closer. The water tumbles over the rocks below us like the blood through my eardrums, the rush through my body when our kiss deepens.

  It’s like every first kiss I’ve ever had wrapped up in one, the way she leaves me dizzy on my back, short of breath even though I know I’m fine.

  Not now, I think. Definitely not now.

  But the guilt breaks through. If you’re lucky enough to have a girl kiss you like that…the least you can do is make sure she knows who she’s kissing.

  The second she breaks it and pulls back, biting her lip, I shut my eyes.

  “Camille—”

  “I’m sorry,” she blurts, pushing herself up to her knees and sitting on her heels, rubbing her face with her hands. “I don’t...I don’t usually do that, I mean, I’ve never kissed a guy first before he kissed me, but you just....” Her hands drop. She looks downright panicked as I sit up and reach for her.

  “No, no, it isn’t you. That was incredible.”

  Her mouth snaps shut. Slowly, she smiles.

  I swallow again. “It’s me.”

  The smile dims. She takes another breath and straightens her shoulders, waiting.

  “I’m, uh.... I wasn’t honest with you about who I am.”

  She puts her face back into her hands. “Oh, God, you’re gay. Why do I always do this?”

  My laugh scatters down the bridge. “What?”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeats, pressing her temples. “I’m so bad at gauging that, I have literally no radar—”

  “I’m not gay,” I correct her quickly, then laugh again, smoother this time. “Why would I have asked you out, if I were gay?”

  “I don’t know.” She quiets, then joins in, both of us cracking up until the tension lifts. “God,” she groans, head tilted to the sky, “I just completely ruined the moment, didn’t I?”

  “No, no, it’s fine. I’m blindsided, but it’s okay.” When we’ve composed ourselves and the silence comes back, I steel myself with a breath. “Um...anyway, I was saying...I’m not exactly....” The words fade. I push my hair off my forehea
d and wish I didn’t have to do this. All I want is to kiss her again.

  “My name isn’t Silas McIntyre. Legally.”

  Cautiously, Camille studies me. “Okay....”

  Every urge in my body tells me to pick at the frayed end of my shoelace when I tell her, but I know I have to look her in the eye. I owe it to her.

  “My real name,” I say, when my gaze lands on hers, “is Silas Fairfield. As in…Timothy Fairfield’s son.”

  For one long, wonderful moment, I think everything is fine. Camille tilts her head while the admission sinks in. She opens her mouth to speak, almost smiling, but laughs again instead.

  Then that moment is over.

  6

  “You lied to me.”

  Silas’s footsteps echo down the bridge, traveling through the boards and metal, right into my shins as he follows me to the riverbank. “I didn’t mean to. I’ve been going by McIntyre...kind of...for years. It just slipped out.”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, at least talk to me, okay? Don’t go storming off into the city at night, all alone.”

  “I know this city better than you do.” I spin to face him; he stops short, startled. “Then again, maybe I don’t. Maybe you aren’t new to the city at all. Are you really from Filigree? Was anything you told me tonight even remotely true?”

  “Every word of it,” he says fiercely, closing the space between us so fast, I almost stumble.

  I can’t get air into my lungs fast enough. I hate that I’m out of breath and shaking, I’m so mad. I don’t want him thinking I’m upset, even if I am. “If you’re really a Fairfield, how did you grow up in Filigree? Why do you live in Hillford now, instead of the estate with your parents?”

  I emphasize the word “parents,” a challenge. It’s not that I don’t believe him. I just don’t want to. Of all the families in all the world, this boy had to belong to that one.

  “Because I’m Tim’s son,” he snaps, “not Jeannie’s.”

  My heart slows down instantly, like a shot of morphine. “Oh,” I say, every edge that was in my voice now filed down to nothing.