Page 22 of Mad Girl

“Cute animal videos. Trips to the park. Ice cream. Chocolate. Tiny novelty earrings.”

“Jesus, Hal. You make me sound like a five-year-old,” I said, fingering one of the miniature sardine studs I’d put on that morning. They were vintage gold with beady black eyes, a birthday present from Tinsley that year. I’d squealed when I’d opened them, because miniature earrings? With the tiniest black eyes I ever did see? Peak excitement for me.

Hal chuckled. “You were about five when I first started driving for your dad, and you didn’t like me, either. Took me a whole year to get a smile out of you. And now look at us—we’re great friends.”

Okay, so maybe I had four friends in addition to the squirrels.

“Whatever.” I smiled as he pulled up to my school and parallel parked across the street. In my bag, I located the square of dark chocolate I’d stashed there especially for him and tossed it onto the center console. “Eat it slowly.”

He twisted around to face me. “Katie’s onto us—she caught a speck of chocolate on my sleeve last week.”

“Okay, so maybe not that slowly.” Hal’s wife had put him on a low-sugar diet months ago, after a less-than-stellar checkup at the doctor where he confessed to drinking copious amounts of hot chocolate with me on a weekly basis. “Just tell her the truth—that life without chocolate isn’t a life worth living. But since Elliot doesn’t want you to have diabetes, she’s limiting you to one piece per day and reserving hot chocolate for special occasions.”

Hal winked. “I’ll do that,” he said, tucking the chocolate square into the empty cupholder beside his tumbler of coffee. “And I can still take you to get hot chocolate after school sometimes. You don’t have to give it up because of me.”

“Sure I do. We’re in this together, remember?” Drinking hot chocolate was our thing, and I refused to do it without him.

“Hey,” Hal said, stopping me before I could open the door and leveling his gaze with mine. “Give the boy a chance, Ell. Casey might surprise you.”

The following weekend, my dad held a special brunch for Eleanor’s birthday. While she and her nosy old-lady friends sipped champagne and sampled fancy canapés in my house, the younger of us hid out with Garland to avoid them.

You walked in with a drink and plopped down on a wingback by the fireplace, facing Michael and Sienna. The stupid lovebirds were cuddled up on the sofa across from mine, her legs draped over Michael’s lap as she ran her fingers through his hair. You shook your head at them. “Three different ladies in there asked me if I had a boyfriend.”

They laughed.

“It’s funny,” you said, smiling. “I never get that question at home as often as I do here. Do I give off a certain kind of…vibe?”

Tinsley tossed her napkin in my lap and shot me a look. She had this idea, Casey, that you liked boys, too. In the kitchen one day after school, she’d pulled up a picture of a guy on her phone, and you’d agreed with her: the guy was hot. While zooming in on the boy’s photo, you’d said, “Oh, yeah. Look at those dimples.”

That’s what Tinsley said, anyway. I hadn’t witnessed it for myself.

Tinsley thought you living in my house was the greatest thing to ever happen to me—to her, too. She found everything about you fascinating, especially the topic of your sex life.

Me, though? I tried to pretend you didn’t have one. What I didn’t know wouldn’t make me feel this terrifying cascade of emotions. Thinking of you with someone else made me feel out of control. Unbridled. Too loose.

Michael tossed a smirk your way. “Maybe it’s because of the way you dress.”

“What’s wrong with the way I dress?” you asked, mock-offended. “And these are your clothes, by the way.”

“Yeah, but you know how to wear them,” Michael said, gaze sweeping down your body. You’d styled his pink Oxford underneath a hunter green cable-knit sweater and brown blazer. “You pull them off better than I do.”

You grinned, dragging a finger across your bottom lip. “I could help you pull them off, too—if you’d just let me get my hands on you.”

What the hell?! That’s what I screamed in my head. Tinsley pinched my arm, her brown eyes flung open wide when I looked at her.

Smiling, Michael shook his head at you.

Sienna turned to me. “Elliot, why’d you take Casey’s clothes, anyway?”

“I’m wondering the same thing myself,” you said, leaning over your lap. “And when do you plan on giving them back?”

“When do you plan on leaving?” I snapped.

Your responded with a sigh of defeat.

“I bet I know where they are,” Bree said, glancing up from her phone. On the wingback opposite yours by the fireplace, she toyed with the diamond-encrusted B on her necklace.

“I bet I do, too,” Michael said, looking straight at me.