Page 13

Asher

True to her word, once Calisto’s mother had the ingredients, she took over the kitchen, turning the usually spotless space into a place I didn’t recognize. For all that Calisto’s family had quickly made themselves at home—so quickly that it irked Calisto no end and he couldn’t seem to stop himself apologizing for it—none of them had yet asked what I knew was on the tip of their tongue, the question in their eyes whenever they looked at me: how did I fit into Calisto’s life?

As they herded me into my own dining room to eat food I didn’t want, I realized that perhaps Calisto and I should have ensured we were on the same page. I attempted to catch his eye as his father derailed my attempt to sit somewhere unobtrusive and steered me toward a seat at the head of the table. “It’s your house,” he said when I insisted on sitting elsewhere. “Of course you must sit here.”

Lola had seated herself on my left with her husband opposite to put him on my right. As for Calisto, he was about as far away as he could get at the other end of the table, with multiple family members separating us. By accident? Or had he engineered it that way? Had he told his father to make me sit in this seat so he knew there would be distance between us?

He’d made himself absent since our discussion in the bedroom, which had me racking my brain to think of what I might have done to upset him. Most likely my overreaction to him teasing me about chocolate. I could have handled the situation better, which was surprising given my usual ability to handle anything that came my way with aplomb. But Calisto, it seemed, was my kryptonite in that regard.

“There you go, sweetheart,” Mariana, Calisto’s mother, said, as she deposited a plate with more food than I usually ate in three meals in front of me. “There’s plenty more where that came from if you’re still hungry once you’ve eaten it. I cooked plenty.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly…”

“Nonsense,” she said before I could finish. “You’re far too skinny. Tell him he’s too skinny, Calisto?”

Calisto raised his head from where he’d been silently staring at his plate, the slow once-over he subjected me to making my skin prickle and waking a part of me thankfully hidden beneath the table from its slumber. Time stopped as his gaze trailed over me and I forgot how to breathe. “He’s fine,” he eventually said. “Leave him alone.” He frowned when his scrutiny diverted from my person to my plate and took in the food heaped on it. “Mum, I don’t think—”

“It’s fine,” I said, picking up my fork and shoveling some paella into my mouth before my dietary preferences became the subject of discussion. The last thing I wanted was to find myself the center of attention.

Calisto frowned. “You don’t have to eat it just to be polite.”

Mariana still hovered expectantly by my shoulder. “Good?” she asked, ignoring her son.

I gave her a smile. “Very good!” Granted, I would have said that no matter what it tasted like. She waited while I consumed a couple more mouthfuls with suitable facial expressions of enjoyment and sounds of appreciation thrown in for good measure. Finally satisfied that I wouldn’t reject her food, she took a seat next to her husband.

“I married her for her cooking,” Agustin said once she was eating the meal she’d slaved over. I assumed from everyone laughing when he said it, it was an old joke trotted out frequently over the years.

It was a weird feeling to be a complete stranger amidst all these people who knew each other so well, especially in my home. And as they chatted, teased, and laughed, I couldn’t help but make a comparison to my usual evening routine where I sat alone in silence, the table far too big for one.

Despite the number of occasions when I’d pondered why I’d bought it and given serious consideration to swapping it for something where I’d be a little less lost, I never had. Here and now, though, it had enough space to seat all the people required with chairs left over. Almost like I’d bought it for that purpose without the visions for that to make sense.

I let the conversation wash over me while I forced more of the paella down, doing my best not to think about the amount of saturated fat and salt it contained. Never mind the chicken and chorizo, which did nothing to aid my attempts to become fully vegan.

At one point, I lifted my head to find Calisto’s gaze on me, my heart skipping a beat. As soon as he saw me looking, he dropped his gaze back to his plate. He’d made no contributions to the conversation, seemingly happy, just as I was, to be present without really being present. Perhaps we’d both get away with it for the duration of the meal. And then maybe an early night was in order. If I timed things right, I could be asleep before Calisto came to bed, saving us both from the awkwardness sure to arise.

“So… Asher,” Lola announced loudly, turning her whole body my way and shattering any illusions of escaping attention. “Tell us about yourself. We’re all dying to find out more about the mystery man in our midst.”

Conversations petered out one by one, until the room grew completely silent, with everyone staring at me expectantly. “What do you want to know?”

“How do you know Calisto?” Margarita asked from a few seats away. “He’s never mentioned you.”

“We work together,” I said.

“Oh, are you a necromancer, too?” Henry asked.

This was beginning to feel like an interview. One with loaded questions, where I had to be careful of the answers I gave for fear of upsetting Calisto. “No, I’m…”

“He’s Cade’s personal assistant,” Calisto said quietly.

Lola aimed a glare at her brother. “He can answer for himself.”

“I’m Cade’s personal assistant,” I echoed.

“For how long?” Mariana asked. She waved a hand at my plate where the mountain of food had barely decreased. “Don’t stop eating.”

Answer the questions. Don’t stop eating. Difficult to do both those things in tandem. “Coming up for three years.”

“How can you afford a house like this if you’re a personal assistant?” Felipe asked. “It must have cost a pretty penny.”

“It did,” I confirmed.

“And don’t forget the Porsche,” Vicente pointed out. “That is one fine machine.”

His wife Jayne rolled her eyes. “It’s just a car.”

“That is not just a car!” Felipe said in solidarity with his brother. “It’s a thing of beauty. How fast does it go from 0 to 60?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. About 3 seconds, I think. London traffic doesn’t exactly lend itself to speed, so I couldn’t say for sure.”

Vicente leaned forward in his seat. “What’s the maximum speed you’ve ever gotten out of her?”

“Her?” Jayne scoffed. “Oh, please.”

Vicente narrowed his eyes at his wife. “A man’s car is always a she.”

“What if he’s gay?” Lola asked. “Then it makes little sense for his car to be a woman. What’s your car, Calisto?”

Calisto shrugged. “I don’t know. I have a Fiat Panda. It gets me from A to B and that’s about it. We don’t have a lot of conversations that require me to give it a pronoun.”

“Too busy talking to his imaginary friend from childhood,” Margarita said with a laugh.

Calisto, to his credit, didn’t so much as twitch. It was hard knowing what I knew not to react to the provocation on his behalf. What would his family say if they knew his childhood friend had been all too real and was still around?

“Top speed?” Vicente reminded me.

“I don’t know. Again… London traffic doesn’t exactly lend itself.”

“You should take it to a track,” Felipe suggested, his eyes shining at the thought. “Really open her up and see what she can do.” He waved a hand between him and Vicente. “We’d come with you, right?”

“Oh, definitely!” Vicente nodded so hard it was a wonder he didn’t fall off his chair. “Just say when. It’s no problem getting some time off work if I need to. I do shitloads of overtime for them, so they’re usually pretty cool about it.”

“I’m not really much of a racer.”

“Eat your dinner,” Mariana urged. “It’s getting cold.”

I shoved another forkful of paella into my mouth to keep her happy and chewed.

“Are you gay?” Lola questioned.

“I am,” I confirmed.

“Of course he’s gay,” Calisto’s grandma said scathingly. “He wouldn’t be dating Calisto if he wasn’t gay, would he?”

I immediately looked to Calisto for help, but found myself staring at the top of his head. I’d only been present for some of the phone calls when he’d made them, so I had no idea what he’d told them. The only context I’d heard my name brought up in was when he’d told people it was my house. “I…”

“We’re not dating,” Calisto said calmly. “So I’d thank you not to make assumptions. Asher is just a colleague. Nothing more.”

A knife in the ribs would have hurt less.

“Oh!” Lola said, her brows drawing together in confusion. “But Asher is so…”

“So what?” Henry asked, daring his wife to complete that thought.

She shook her head. “I can look at a man and know he’s hot stuff without wanting to throw myself at him.”

“Good to know,” he said flatly.

Much as I tried to stop it, heat crept into my face and I prayed no one would notice.

“Oh, look,” Jayne said. “He’s blushing. That’s adorable.”

Calisto let out a sharp breath, his fingers tightening around his knife in a way that said he was giving serious thought to stabbing someone. And then he’d probably bring them back and stab them again. “For once, could you all just stop?”

“We’re only being friendly,” Lola said with a frown. “You can’t gather us all here like we’re taking part in some murder mystery weekend and all need to be under the same roof, and not expect us to ask your boyfriend, that we didn’t even know you had, questions to get to know him. What would you have us do? Ignore him? Pretend we can’t see him?”

“For Christ’s sake!” Calisto said from between gritted teeth. “Do any of you actually listen? He is not my boyfriend. Tell them, Asher.” His look to me was equal parts frustration and equal parts plaintive. The frustration I might have been able to ignore, but the plea for help tugged at every one of my protective instincts when it came to him. “We’re not,” I said, my admission burning like acid. “We’re just friends. I invited Calisto here because it was the safest place for him to be.”

“Thank you,” Calisto said as he shoved his chair back from the table and stood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to be somewhere with fewer questions and more silence.” He threw me an apologetic look that said he felt bad for abandoning me, but that he’d reached the end of his tether.

“It’s fine,” I said.

Silence lasted for at least a minute after Calisto’s hasty departure. It meant I could listen for his footsteps and work out where he was going. Upstairs—the familiar creak of the third stair giving it away. Along the corridor. A slight pause, and then the sound of my bedroom door opening. It clicked shut and then there were no more sounds to tell me what he was doing.

“Maybe you should go after him,” Jayne suggested as Calisto’s grandad stood and reached across the table to claim his grandson’s leftover food, scraping it onto his own plate.

“No, he shouldn’t,” Mariana said. “He should eat.”

“Stop trying to fatten the poor boy up,” Agustin instructed his wife.

I wanted nothing more than to go after Calisto. And if I thought for one moment, he would have thanked me for it, I would have. But chances were, it wasn’t just his family he wanted respite from, that I was on that list, too. Which was crushing when all I wanted to do was take him in my arms and tell him everything would be alright, even if that wasn’t something I could promise. I had no weapons against O’Reilly when it came down to it. Superior organizational skills and the ability to multitask wouldn’t crush her, and even my powers of pre-cognition were of limited use when I could neither control them nor be little more than an observer when it came to the outcome.

“We can still go to the track, right?” Vicente asked. “You don’t have to be dating my brother for us to hang out together. It’s not like he would have come, anyway.”

“I don’t think…” I started.

“Yeah, he wouldn’t have come,” Felipe agreed. “The three of us can still have fun. Probably more fun without Calisto there. We can get a beer and a burger after.”

I sat back in my chair and asked myself who exactly I was trying to be? I knew the answer, though, with no soul searching needed. I’d been trying to show Calisto that I could get on with his family. Why? Because I’d still harbored hopes of the connection between us sparking into life for him.

Well, he’d taken that idea and ripped it into pieces with his denial of our relationship. Good. It meant I could stop playing this game and just be authentically myself, and if Calisto’s family didn’t like it, then so what? They would not be my in-laws. They were just people staying in my house, who, as Calisto had pointed out, had made themselves at home far quicker than they’d had any right to do. There might be more of them, but this was still my house. It didn’t mean I was going to throw them out. I’d agreed they could stay, and I’d stick to that. But I could stop acting in a very un-Asher Baines way. In short, I could stop trying to be something I wasn’t for Calisto.

With that in mind, I sat up straighter and placed my knife and fork down on the table, alternating my gaze between Vicente and Felipe, neither man as handsome as their younger brother. Not in my mind, anyway. Although, I’m sure if I theorized that out loud, their wives would disagree. “I will not be racing my car. Like Calisto, it’s not something I’m interested in. And it’s not why I bought it. If I want to wreck the tires, it would be much simpler and quicker to take a knife to them.”

I didn’t wait for either of the brothers to respond before turning my attention to Mariana. “I’m sure your paella is second to none, but I have to confess it’s not what I usually eat.” I pushed my plate away from me. “So I won’t be eating any more of it. And as for my supposed skinniness, I work extremely hard to keep my body this way through a carefully controlled diet and daily Tai Chi sessions, as well as running two or three times a week, so I have absolutely no wish to put weight on. It’s kind of you to be concerned when we’ve only just met, but it’s unnecessary.” I left a pause there in case anyone had any comment to make.

Lola obliged by lifting her glass in a toast. “I’ll drink to that. I, also, would like a break from being told that I’m too skinny or too fat depending on which way the wind is blowing. My weight fluctuates. Henry doesn’t care, do you?” She waited for her husband to shake his head obediently before continuing. “So, therefore, no one else should either.”

“We’re just trying to help,” Margarita said.

Her piping up had me turning my gaze in her direction, the dark red liquid in her glass, that she’d been swigging without offering to share with anyone, snagging my attention. “By the way,” I said. “I’d appreciate it if you could check with me before you consume anything you find. That wine you helped yourself to and are currently drinking like its water was a twenty-year-old bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac, which retails at over six hundred pounds. It was a gift from a friend, which I was saving for a special occasion.”

I let my gaze rove the length of the table, everybody shocked into silence. “And while this is a very pleasant get-together, I wouldn’t class it as a special occasion, and I had hoped to experience more of the wine than the dregs at the bottom of the bottle.”

More silence. Rising to my feet to demonstrate my intention to leave just as Calisto had, I left them with one last bombshell. “Please make yourself at home, but I assume you’ll endeavor to leave things as you find them.” That dig was about the kitchen, which currently looked like a small tornado had swept through it. “I have a cleaner who comes in, but only for a couple of hours on a Friday, and I try not to tax her too greatly. I would prefer not to have to search for a replacement.”

Mariana colored slightly, the jibe landing on its intended target. “Don’t you worry,” she said, “we’ll have everything looking spick and span.” She nudged her husband. “Won’t we, Agustin?”

He jerked upright. “Oh, yes. Spick and span. And twice as shiny.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.” And with that, I left them to it.