01 - Bastard next door

Kassidy's POV

"Are you inside yet?"

I looked up at the house from where I was standing on the front door, and took a deep breath. My duffel bag slumped against my leg, and my fingers were so cold I could barely feel them.

"Not yet," I told Piper as I clenched my fist against the phone pressed to my ear. 

I tilted my head back and looked at the house properly. It was a nice house — wide and warm-toned. Exactly the kind of place I could never afford on my own, which was the entire reason I was standing on its front door in the first place. 

My dad had made his position very clear the morning I showed him my college admission letter. He'd pushed it back across the kitchen table without looking at me, which was somehow worse than if he'd argued. 

So here I was in Minnesota. Five hundred miles from home, two hundred dollars to my name, about to walk through the door of a man who, if given the choice, would probably have let me freeze out here all night.

I lifted my head and caught a movement above me.

Eli Deering was on the upper balcony, forearms resting on the railing, looking down at me. He wasn’t moving or attempting to. 

Even from down here, in the dark, I knew that look he had on his face. It was the same look he'd been giving me for three years. It had hate, anger, sadness, and pity written all over it. 

The guilt moved through me the way it always did. Like a tide that never fully went out. I looked back at the ground abd bit down on my tongue.

"Piper," I said into the phone. "Your brother is on the balcony."

"What?"

"He's just standing there watching me."

There was a silence on the other end of the line. Then, with a resigned exhale, she said, "Let me call him."

"Piper…"

"Two minutes. I promise." The line went quiet before I could even argue.

I put the phone in my pocket. For a reason, I felt like I deserved the cold and whatever discomfort came with showing up on Eli Deering's doorstep and asking to be let in after what I had cost this family, especially Piper. 

Suddenly, a few minutes later, before I could freeze to death, the front door opened.

Eli was taller than I remembered. College had done something to Eli Deering that I wasn't prepared for. He was broader now, jaw sharper, dark eyes that somehow felt were reserved for me. 

He was wearing a grey sports hoodie. The sleeves were pushed up, and he looked like he'd been interrupted from something important. 

He looked at me in a way that made me realize I wasn’t wanted. I didn’t want to be here either. His sister, Piper, who was also my best friend, had insisted that I stay at the house, since there was an empty room. I was broke and too shameless to say no. Also, I would go to any length to make sure I attended college. 

"Your room is upstairs, the second on the right ." He said as soon as our eyes met. 

He held the door open with one hand and a tightened jaw. 

I picked up my bag and walked inside. The warmth hit me immediately, but I didn’t show how relieved I was.

"Thank you," I said quietly without the bluntness I usually used as armour with him. I owed him that much, at least. 

He didn't respond. He shut the door and moved past me toward the kitchen like I wasn't there.

Before heading for the staircase, I said, “Look, I know you don’t want me here…”

“Don’t,” he interrupted me before I could even finish. “I don’t need whatever you’re about to say,” he snapped harshly.

He still hated me, and he had every right to. 

My throat tightened.

“Eli…” I started, then paused for a second or two. “I’m not here to make things worse. I just… I needed somewhere to stay until I find an accommodation. I’ll make sure to keep out of the way.”

His expression didn’t change. “Exactly what you should’ve done that night. Maybe Piper’s life will be better now.”

The words hit me right where the guilt lived.

I swallowed hard and looked down.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I know.”

"There's a party tonight," he said, from around the corner. His voice was flat and even carried a weird kind of authority. "Stay in your room." He demanded.

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "I'm nineteen…"

"I know how old you are. Your age is not the problem."

“Then what is?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“You are,” he said.

What the hell did he even mean by that? For a minute, I tried opening my mouth to ask him about it, but nothing came out. 

“Stay in your room, Townsend,” he said again, already turning away. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

Then he went back into the kitchen, and that was that.

Harder for who exactly? Me? Or him?

I stood at the bottom of the stairs and breathed through it. I had no right to be angry. I had stood in the cold and felt guilty, and I would stand here now and feel guilty, and I would wake up tomorrow morning and feel guilty, and Eli Deering would hate me for every day of it, and I would understand every single day why.

I went upstairs.

The room wasn’t that hard to find. It was a decent room with neutral walls, good light, and a freshly made bed. Before I walked into the room, my eyes caught something. 

On the other side of the room was a door labelled Eli Deering. 

I had been helplessly, quietly, stubbornly in love with that man since I was sixteen years old, and now, he was right there next to me. 

God help me.