Okay, you know someone has money when they have an actual fucking conservatory. Even the rich dicks in Connecticut didn’t have this shit.
I was met with a vast array of flora. The steamy windows blurred the revelry outside, and the air smelled delicious.
As predicted, Cody sat alone, reading what appeared to be a book about plants.
Good God, this kid. “Cody! What the fuck are you doing in here?”
He jumped out of his seat, slamming the book as he did. “Nothing. I was just…I needed…”
“You don’t like parties,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
He looked at the ground and shook his head.
“Why?” I asked.
He looked up at me, his eyes big and vulnerable. No matter where Cody went, the light found him. The glaring lights illuminating the patio shimmered through the foggy windows, forming a halo of light surrounding his entire body.
“They’re just not my thing,” he replied.
“Why?” I asked again.
He rolled his eyes and protested as I closed the distance between us. “I don’t know, I just don’t—”
I snatched him by the chin and pulled him in. “Be a good boy, and tell me why. The real reason.”
Cody’s breath hitched. His hands rose and wrapped around my wrists. I thought he’d pull away, but he didn’t. He just pressed his hands against mine, holding them in place.
“I don’t want to be like him.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I cocked my head and asked, “Who?”
His cheeks flushed as he forced out the words. “My dad. My real dad. I don’t want to turn into him. He was a drunk, and he ruined our lives.”
I didn’t know much about Cody’s life before Hank because I was too busy hating him. I could tell he was revealing something important to me. Something that would give me insight into the little ball of nerves that my stepbrother had become. Color me intrigued. “What happened?”
Cody fidgeted with his shirt, yanking the bottom as he rocked on his feet. “He was a drunk. Gambled away everything we owned and left us with nothing. We lost our house. Everything. So, yeah, I don’t want to be like that, and I’m afraid if I start drinking, I won’t stop. Like him.”
His eyes looked up at me, and, in that moment, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. With the light cascading around him and his brown eyes big and vulnerable, I nearly kissed him.
Something snapped in me when he said that. A sudden understanding washed over me as I looked at a boy who had to deal with too much too soon.
They lost everything? His dad abandoned them?
I stared into his eyes and said, “You are not him, Cody. You could never be like that. You’re too good.”
That one shocked him. I could see in his face that he didn’t know how to take it. I’d spewed too much venom at Cody for him to take anything I said as genuine, but I truly meant it.
“You don’t have to drink,” I told him. “You can just hang out—dance around and have fun, you know?”
He shook his head. “I hate being the only sober one. Drunk people are annoying when you’re sober.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. He had a point—not that I knew what that felt like. I was usually the drunkest one at the party. I realized that I’d only had a couple of shots at Asher’s. I wasn’t about to drink the swill in that punch bowl of poison in the kitchen and hadn’t sipped my rum in a hot minute.
“I’ll stop drinking for the rest of the night if you come out and have fun.”
His eyes grew the size of two full moons. “What?”
I shrugged it off because I didn’t want to make a big deal out of me being nice for a change.Don’t get used to it, Golden Boy.“I’m basically sober. Those shots at Asher’s did nothing to me. I’ll stop drinking now, and you won’t be the only sober person here.”
