Page 29 of Eggnog and Edging
“Get some fucking clothes on,” her dad says. “Smells like a goddamn whorehouse in here. Is this why you were so gung-ho about her going into prostitution?”
Christ, the man won't let that go. I get dressed while Cullen leaves the room to get different clothes.
Dad yells the direction Starla went. “I’m taking you home right now, young lady, or you can get out of my house forever.”
I can see how he missed the bigger picture that Cullen and I will both be offering her places to live. In fact, that's something we have to talk about, probably consolidate to one place.
“I'll take her home, Dad.”
“You don't trust me to drive her?”
“I don't want you yelling at her the whole time.”
“You and Cullen are the ones I should be yelling at.”
Cullen re-enters the room. “Yelling’s not likely to solve this, Ross. Let’s discuss this as adults and consider the facts.”
Dad lowers his voice. “Then straighten out these facts… Is this why you pretended to be sick at our poker night? Is thissome sort of reward for her not going to the auction? You’re corrupting her.”
Cullen squares up with Dad and says calmly. “There’s a lot of confusion here. Let’s regroup at your place when we’ve all had a chance to calm down and we can talk.”
Starla returns in oversized sweats. Her hair’s wet around her face where she had to do cleanup. She sits at a barstool away from her father. Good call.
“Are you coming with me, Starla?” her dad asks.
She shakes her head. “I’ll ride with them.”
“If you don't show up, you can pick her shit up out of the street.”
He leaves without another word.
I slip my shoes on. “This is going to happen sooner than we thought.”
Cullen says, “Are we feeling like making a game plan or winging it?”
We both turn to Starla, who's staring at a piece of paper. Hard paper, like a card. My adrenaline-fueled heart stops pumping.
Cullen strides over to her, but before he can touch her, she throws a hand out to stop him.
“What is this?”
As she holds the card up I’m clear on exactly what it is. My declaration of love that Cullen stole.
Cullen’s head hangs in shame.
She turns to me. “Is this really from you?”
I nod, wanting to call Cullen out, watch him grovel as he explains who sent the gifts. But tension is already high from her father catching us. I don’t want to mar the perfection that I felt between the three of us. Is this the same type of agony Cullen was going through at the auction?
Waving the paper at Cullen, she asks, “Why…”
The note is anything but generic, mentioning the jaggery powder, making it impossible to play off as anything other than what it is.
"I'm sorry I let you believe that gift was from me. I didn’t know how else to stop him from claiming you.”
She turns to me. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Good question. I replay the moment and understand it at a level I couldn’t at the time. “I saw how you looked at Cullen. You believed that it was from him. You wanted it to be from him.”
