Lindsay was a breathless sort of beauty; her cheeks were perpetually tinged like she had just had a nice, brisk morning jog. Wisps of hair were always hanging out of her ponytail, and she always seemed to be in a happy hurry, too busy and too in demand to stand still for more than a second.
And she wasn’t like those cheesy popular girls on TV, who push girls off the tops of cheerleader pyramids and scheme to steal other people’s boyfriends. There was something so inherently sweet about her that you couldn’t help but want to be her friend. That was the way I felt, despite Cas standing just a little straighter now that she had appeared, and the fact that her eyes shone just a little brighter when they turned in his direction.
Jane would have a fucking field day.
“How was your summer?” I said, trying to draw their attention away from each other.
“It was really awesome. I did Habitat for Humanity with my church group.”
Of course she did.
“How about you guys?” She smiled at Cas. “How was your summer?”
“Great.” Cas’s voice suddenly sounded deeper. “Really great. Worked a bunch. But great.”
Say great again, I thought. Go on, just say it.
“And two-a-days,” Cas continued. “Loads of ’em. But the team is really great this year.”
Lindsay didn’t seem to notice Cas’s inferior grasp of synonyms. “I know, the game was incredible, wasn’t it? And Devon”—she beamed at me—“I heard your cousin’s staying with you. That’s so awesome.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Have you met him?”
“Not yet. You should totally bring him around to the next party. I’m sure he’s a blast.”
“Foster’s not really the party type. And neither am I, actually.” I was pretty good at the quick escape. “I should probably get going.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Cas said.
“It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
But Lindsay was already glowing at Cas’s gallantry, and I knew I couldn’t refuse.
“You’re staying, though, aren’t you, Cas?”
“Sure. As long as you save me a dance.”
I opened my purse to retrieve my keys and tried not to gag myself.
“Come on.” Cas reached for my hand, but I stuck it into my purse and rooted around noisily for the keys, even though my fingers had located the Matchbox car key chain a good four or five times. In that nature, I headed to the front door, and Cas, undoubtedly casting some kind of devastating smile back at Lindsay, followed.
“Where’d you park?” he asked when the front door had closed behind us and the sounds of raucous partying were somewhat quieted. A few more minutes and the cops would probably be here.
“Just down the street. You really don’t have to—”
“The only time I don’t will be the time you get snatched, and then you’ll be dying in an alley somewhere cursing my name, and I’ll be haunted for the rest of my life by an all-consuming guilt.”
“That was a really well-thought-out answer.”
“Thanks. I try.”
When I looked over, Cas was smiling at me. It was moments like this when Jane would say something about my feelings for him. I was attached to Cas—that’s how she’d put it. It had been the truth for so long that I really couldn’t imagine it any other way.
One of my favorite things about Jane’s books was the feelings—she understood that whole unrequited thing, how it felt to pine, how it felt to hope. But the best part was that sometimes the feelings became requited, and that was undeniably another facet of the allure for me. The heroines dared to love, dared to hope; their hopes are dashed, but then … there’s the reversal! The revelation in the final act—the person reciprocates. They feel what our protagonist felt all along.
Cas didn’t have those kinds of feelings. Not for me, anyway. I was almost certain of it. He cared about me, but it was a brotherly sort of affection, one arm perpetually slung over my shoulders in a this-is-my-pal kind of way. And that was okay, most of the time. It was nice. But sometimes …