Page 31 of Late Nights

“Going to school for hair isn’t some whim,” I said, my voice rising. “And as for Aiden, he is a jerk who doesn’t even care about me. You care more about looks and connections than you do about how he treated me. So what if Gavin is a caretaker? If he treats me well and he’s who I want to be with, what does his occupation or who his family is have to do with anything? Why can’t my happiness be the thing that matters?”

I stood up, my chair scraping behind me as I threw my napkin down and marched to the front door. Coming here had been a mistake. Why had I thought my dad would all of a sudden accept my choices?

Walking up to my car, I pulled open the door, but stopped when I heard my name being called.

“Demi, wait.” Cannon jogged after me.

“What?” I snapped, still upset.

“I’m sorry, that was all my fault.” His shoulders slumped forward, a guilty expression now on his face.

“How is my dad being a jerk your fault?” I exclaimed, my frustration continuing to spill out.

“I’m the one who brought up Gavin and his interest in you,” he explained. “I should have kept my mouth shut.” He rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding my gaze. “Sometimes my overprotectiveness for you is hard to control.”

My anger deflated like a balloon despite the fact that I should probably be mad at Cannon. But I knew him well enough to know he would never knowingly throw me under the bus. Like he said, he was protective of me. He and West always had been. I’d just chalked it up to him acting like a brother. But with how the last couple weeks had gone between us, I had been wondering if it didn’t have less to do with him feeling like a brother, but more because he might have feelings for me—non-brotherly feelings.

“And why are you so overprotective?” I asked in a soft voice, the vulnerability of my question sending a shot of fear through me.

“Because,” he said in a frustrated huff of air, before looking me in the eyes, “I care about you, Demi. You’ve been in my life for a long time, and I never want to see you get hurt.”

I didn’t want to read into anything that he wasn’t truly saying, but hope flared in my chest. His admission that he cared for me had to mean we were more friends than he had led me to believe. Yeah, before I’d moved into his apartment, we’d rarely spent time together just the two of us, but somehow along the way he’d let me in, even if it was just a little bit. Add the last two weeks we had spent together hanging out late at night playing video games and talking about mundane things, and we were finally becoming what I’d wanted for years.

I didn’t want to make a big deal about how I was internally jumping up and down screaming yes, yes, yes, that I felt like I was finally getting somewhere with Cannon. So I did the only thing I knew to do to ease the seriousness of our conversation.

I gave him a cheeky grin. “So you’re saying we’re friends? That I’m finally allowed through the highly guarded and barricaded walls you seem so set on not letting anyone past?”

He smiled, amusement clear in his expression. “I thought it only fair since you’ve been chipping away at the walls for years.”

My jaw dropped. “I have not.” I would have smacked him if he were standing closer.

He laughed. “Uh-huh, sure. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Women everywhere are wishing they could be so lucky.”

I rolled my eyes. “Never mind. I take it back. I don’t want to be on the other side of your walls.”

“Too late,” he said smugly. “Now that you’re inside, you’re here forever.”

I wasn’t annoyed at the thought of that in the least.

A grin tugged at my lips. “Ugh, fine. I guess I’ll have to endure as best I can.”

A look filled his expression, one I rarely saw on him—happiness. “You know you love it.” He winked at me. “Now, let’s go home.” He opened the passenger side door to my car and climbed in.

Home. We’d been living together for two weeks, but I already didn’t want to imagine a future in which we didn’t make breakfast together in the mornings or spend all night hanging out. I wondered if our new friendship would still exist once I moved out and we didn’t live together anymore.

10

Cannon

Late Thursday afternoon, we drove up to the Vanderhall cabin at Lake Tahoe. Demi and I rode up with West and Halle, while Halle’s friend Kate and her friend, Jax, followed behind.

I was both nervous and excited for this trip. Nervous because lately I hadn’t had to spend very much time with both West and Demi together. My relationship with Demi had shifted, and I was worried about what West would read into that. I wasn’t sure how he would feel knowing that she and I had become better friends. I worried that he knew me too well and would see right through me, recognizing that I liked his sister way more than I should.

But then I was also excited about this weekend vacation because I liked the idea of hanging out with Demi outside of our apartment. We’d gotten into a comfortable routine, but I was looking forward to spending time with her, doing something else besides making breakfast together and playing video games.

We pulled through the gates and drove up the private lane to the house. It wasn’t really a house at all—it was more like an estate. The Vanderhalls’ vacation home was the epitome of luxury. I’d been lucky enough to enjoy the perks of this estate several times over the years. But this time felt different. This time I had a relationship with Demi that was about more than just her being West’s younger sister. I’d already been acting differently on the car ride up here, and from the side glances I’d gotten from Demi, she had noticed. Spending the next three days with all of us living under the same roof would be interesting, even if said roof covered sixteen-thousand square feet.

West pulled his parents’ Escalade that he’d borrowed into one of the garage bays. We stepped out of the SUV, and West motioned for Kate to park in the bay next to ours.

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