Not Cinderella's Type

  Just then, Kaitlyn made it down the stairs. “Jayda, where are you? Mom says Bryant’s here.”

  “He is!” Jayda and Bryant laughed. “Come into the den.”

  She practically skipped down the hall and had no problem jumping in between me and Bryant. She giggled as she landed on my foot. “Hi, Bryant! How long have you been here?”

  Bryant played it cool, but I could tell by the way he scooted back a little that he found her a bit rude. “Indy and I have been getting to know each other the last hour or so. How are you doing?”

  “Great!” She giggled again. “So, did Jayda tell you about our Netflix party we’re having? You’ve got to come. It’ll be so much fun.”

  Bryant glanced at me.

  “Indy!” Clarise called from upstairs. “Come here. I need you in the kitchen.”

  My heart dropped. So much for that. I didn’t want to tell Bryant that I was heading up for chore duty, or that my cousins probably set this up so they could have him to themselves. Everything was awkward enough as it was. Besides, Bryant Bailey wasn’t actually my type—he didn’t even fit into my preferred friend parameters—so none of this really mattered anyway. My gorgeous cousins would make him forget I existed in about two more minutes. I plastered on a fake smile. “Hey, that’s my aunt. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Okay.” Bless his heart, he looked concerned for me.

  Not that there was anything to be concerned about. I’d known this was coming—it’s basically life. I sort of waved, pulled myself out from under Kaitlyn, and headed toward the stairs. By the time I’d reached them, the two girls were talking a hundred miles a minute about their favorite movies. I heard Bryant chuckle as I walked into the kitchen and faced Clarise.

  “Hi.”

  She was ticked. Her high-heeled foot tapped against the large beige tiles of the kitchen floor, and her arms were folded. “Do you have any idea how long my girls and I had to work this morning to get this place looking decent?”

  “Sorry.” I felt miserable. “Was it hard?”

  “You have no idea. And we only had three hours to do it!”

  I hated it when she got mad. Her meeting must not have gone as well as planned. “Sorry,” I said again. I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “You’d better be.” She threw her hands in the air and walked into the dining room.

  I followed.

  “In exchange for living here, you’re supposed to do your jobs. And I understand that you were sick. Well, you’d better have been—that look you gave Bryant Bailey when he showed up definitely didn’t look sick to me!”

  “What look?”

  “Don’t talk back to me!” Clarise snarled and then pointed to the dining room table. “Get these things packed up and this whole area cleaned immediately. The girls are having their own party tonight, and I want this place looking amazing again.”

  “Okay.”

  “That means vacuuming, bathrooms, mopping, dishes … everything! And then you’d better put out some cool junk food snacks too.”

  Kaitlyn and Jayda were always throwing parties. “Do you have a theme in mind for the platters? Bowls?”

  “Not my nice set. Use the normal turquoise stuff. And make sure you get the right napkins this time! They’re the ones in the second drawer in the pantry, not the first. The first are for everyday use, and the second are for guests.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Since you were sick this morning, don’t even think about coming to the party tonight.”

  When had I ever gone to anything my cousins did with their friends? “Not a problem.” My heart tightened a bit as the memory of Bryant’s shock over the room situation came back full force. It wasn’t like any of this was a big deal. It wasn’t. They had their life, I had mine, and I think we all preferred it that way.

  “Good. That’s settled.” Clarise began to walk away and then turned. “I’ll be back in an hour to see how much you’ve gotten done. Let’s hurry, please?”

  In the silence of the kitchen, I could hear laughter coming up from the den, and I quickly prayed that Bryant hadn’t heard anything Clarise had said. I mean, it didn’t matter, but I . . . he . . . well, he’d been acting weird earlier, and some things I figured were better left secret. Like the cleaning and being in trouble for being sick—a girl’s gotta have some pride left. Right?

  I began clearing off the dining table, careful not to drop any of the beautiful crystal serving platters. They were laden with bite-sized morsels of gourmet-looking snacks. Clarise usually handed me several printed-off recipes each weekend and I created the presentation menu while she got herself ready for company. She was probably running behind that morning since I never cleaned up from the night before, let alone breakfast this morning, so everyone had to scramble to get it all ready in time. Yeah, I wouldn’t be happy at me either for dropping the ball like that.

  I took a deep breath and pushed everything out of my mind. My aunt wanted as much done in an hour as possible. And it certainly wasn’t impossible to do everything—I would just need to focus and stop the strange pity nonsense that’d briefly taken over my body.

  Time to get to work.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  In about forty-five minutes, I’d managed to put away the leftovers, start the dishwasher, clean the bathrooms, vacuum the upstairs and middle floor—I decided to leave the basement alone until Bryant left.—and I swept and mopped the kitchen. By the time Bryant made his way upstairs with my cousins, it looked like I was merely preparing the food for their party.

  “Hey, so this is where you went to hide—the kitchen.” He grinned and walked over to the counter. “What are you baking in the oven? It smells good.”

  “They’re brownies for tonight,” Kaitlyn said. “From scratch.” The way she said it made it seem like it was her own personal recipe or something.

  “Sounds amazing!” Bryant leaned over and watched me stir some cookies. “You’ll save me one, right?” He looked up and winked at me.

  Kaitlyn must’ve missed the memo that Bryant had originally come to see me because she laughed. “Of course. We’ll have a plate made up just for you.”

  “Hey, I can get behind that. Make it a big plate, okay?” He was still looking right at me.

  “Okay.” I swallowed and then cleared my throat. All of a sudden, I could feel a tightness in my chest. Holy cow. He thought I was going to be at the party. I glanced at my cousins, and neither of them looked too happy. Clarise had already put her foot down, so it wasn’t like they’d have to invite me anyway. “I’ll give you a whole bunch of goodies on this one,” I said as I walked over to the cupboard with the platters. I could feel three sets of eyes on my back as I pulled out a nice big turquoise plate and set it on the counter. “I’ll have it right here waiting for you. See? Now you’ll know it’s yours.”

  “You rock!” He laughed and then got serious. “Sorry—I can’t stay and chat longer or I’d help you out. But my dad texted a few minutes ago. I gotta head home for a bit, but I’ll be back for the shindig.”

  I stayed behind the counter and kept stirring the cookie dough while my cousins walked him to the front door. I needed an excuse to be gone when he came back, except I doubted I’d be able to leave. Clarise would definitely remember that I was grounded if I tried.

  The rest of the afternoon was spent preparing snack foods, then dinner for the family, and then more cleaning up. I still hadn’t had a chance to shower, or change, or do my hair or makeup, or anything by the time the guests started showing up. I put the finishing touches on the food and pulled the warm things—like taquitos and pizza rolls—out of the oven at the last second, then bolted downstairs.

  It was silly, but I didn’t want to be the only one in the house who looked like a hot mess. So I changed my clothes and sprayed perfume and slapped on some makeup. My hair was hopeless at this point, so I threw it up in a high ponytail and then went to work cleaning my room. It was nervous energy in excess. I was a com
plete wreck, but I really didn’t have anything else to do. So I straightened up stuff that hadn’t been straightened in months and then hung up stuff that hadn’t been hung up for months too. I tried to spruce up my creepy little basement storeroom … and then I stopped.

  I stared at the white walls and the lack of anything on them. Then I looked at my makeshift bed. It’d been some old queen bed Grandma didn’t need anymore. At ten, I was grateful for something big, and didn’t understand the significance of not getting to sleep on my own new princess bed Mom had gotten me for my birthday. I could barely remember it—white with high posts and sheer pink and green fabric draped across the top and down the sides. What I really remembered about it was that it was beautiful. And it came with matching white scrolled dressers and a pretty desk. Everything in that room was like walking into a magazine.

  Like my cousin’s rooms were now. Like the fancy guest bedrooms with their lush mattresses and exotic Indian-fabric pillows.

  I blinked and looked again at my old lumpy bed from Grandma’s storeroom. It had a plain brown headboard and charming multicolored handstitched quilt for the top. Sure, it wasn’t the most stunning bedroom, but it was a space I could use until I found my own.

  It hadn’t dawned on me until that moment how much of a burden I must be on my aunt and uncle. They had no desire to raise another daughter. Everything in my life since my mom died had been not-so-subtle about pointing to temporary. There was nothing permanent about my living arrangements, or even the way they treated me. I mean, they totally went out of their way and let me have the cat. Of course, I held on to Mrs. Wiggins so hard, I doubt anyone could’ve pried her out of my hands if they wanted to. And Christmases weren’t bad. I was always given nice things. Usually cute clothes and shoes and stuff like that because I’d grown out of the others.

  But…

  I went into the closet and put on my jacket. Then I slowly made my way upstairs and out the side door. Happy chatter followed me out the door as I shut it. I was grounded, so I knew I couldn’t leave the house, but technically, the backyard wasn’t leaving, right? It was dark. Even the lights from the windows didn’t catch me as I walked all the way to the back of the yard.

  Growing up in Flagstaff, Arizona, wasn’t too bad. When I say I’m from Arizona, people always assume that means we have hundred-degree weather during the winter. Which isn’t true. Sure, down in Phoenix, their Februarys have been known to scorch every now and then, but up here in Flag? Yeah, we get snow. A lot some winters, but it always melted before too long. Tonight was cold, though—a bit colder than normal.

  I climbed onto the trampoline and lay down, looking up at the stairs in the chill of the February evening. There were so many stars out there. It was beautiful and vast and lonely.

  My mouth turned down as I took a deep breath. “Mom?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I only knew that I missed her, and I wished more than anything she was there right now so I didn’t have to be here.

  I could feel my headache returning, so I closed my eyes and imagined being still. I must’ve dozed off because the next thing I remembered was waking up freezing and Bryant climbing onto the trampoline with me.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find someone who doesn’t want to be found?” he said as he scooted next to me. “Are you cold? You’ve got to be. How long have you been out here?” He wrapped his arms around me and tucked me face-forward up against him.

  Instant warmth flooded my body from head to toe. It felt so good to be held.

  “I wasn’t hiding,” I murmured into his jacket.

  “Ha. You were so hiding. I don’t believe that for a second.” He squeezed me in closer. “And I know you were hiding from me, so don’t even start.”

  “I wasn’t—I promise. Did you get your plate of goodies?”

  “They were awesome, but it was missing something.”

  “What?”

  “You.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Are you shy? Is that it? Do you hate being around a ton of people?” he asked quietly.

  I thought of the large birthday parties and events my mom would always take me to.

  “Not really. I don’t like to be reminded of hard things, but I’m not shy.”

  “So am I hard to be around, then?”

  I grinned. “No. Yes, well, a little. Bryant, I wasn’t hiding from you.”

  “Then why didn’t you come watch movies with us?”

  Because if I did, I wouldn’t hear the end of it for years, and I’m not the disobedient type. Because I wasn’t invited, and no one wants to be the odd man out. Because they were probably lame movies, and who wants to waste their time watching lame movies? Because I’m a cousin, not a friend. Because no one wanted me there. Because I’ve never been included for a movie night in all the years I’ve lived here, and if I showed up today, it would be… “It was a long day. I was tired.”

  “So instead, you cleaned your bedroom and then went outside and fell asleep in the cold on a trampoline?”

  I guessed he went searching for me in my room first. “Something like that.”

  “Indy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When your aunt called you upstairs earlier, what did she want?”

  My heart turned to brick. “Um, she needed me to do some jobs that I hadn’t got done.”

  I felt his warm breath cascade over my hair and down my cheeks. “So, she knew you had company, told Jayda and Kaitlyn I was downstairs with you, waited until they went down, and then called you up?”

  I took a few deep breaths, trying to get this ridiculous imaginary weight off my chest. “Something like that.”

  “And then made you do chores?”

  I shrugged.

  “Did part of your jobs include preparing food for your cousin’s party tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  I felt a small kiss being placed on the top of my head. It was oddly comforting. “And did you hide away from me because you knew I was coming?”

  My voice came out as barely a whisper. “No.”

  I heard him inhale and then slowly blow his breath out. “Then is the reason why you didn’t come to the party was because you weren’t invited?”

  I didn’t say anything. My throat closed up, and I couldn’t say a word even if I wanted to.

  After a few seconds, he tried again. “Were you told not to come?”

  I honestly became solid. There was no way I was going to answer that question either.

  “Indy?”

  I closed my eyes. “Yes?”

  “After I checked downstairs for you, I had a hunch you might be out back. I don’t know how I knew, only that I could tell you hadn’t gone far. But I didn’t expect to find you so cold, or so lonely. And after putting together everything you’ve said and how you’re acted—all of it—I’ve come to realize that you’ve needed a friend like me for a very long time. Can you forgive me for being caught up in my own mess and not seeing you until now?

  “Bryant, what you are talking about? I’m fine.”

  “Shh … No, you’re not. Not really. You’re barely here. You’re only hanging on because you have to.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Now the question left is—what am I going to do with my little Cinderella?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT:

  “I’m not your Cinderella,” I grumbled. “Cinderella is long gone. She was a silly game my mom and I played—and yes, my mother was obsessed with Cinderella, hence my first and middle names.” And could I possibly say the word “Cinderella” more in one breath?

  Bryant chuckled and kissed the top of my head again. “It is the most perfect name for you.”

  I half pretended to push against him. “I think I’m going to be sick. It is not a perfect name for me. It’s a hideous name. I prefer Indy much better.”

  “Yes, I know, but it’s fun to tease you. I have a feeling you don’t get teased enough. Thank goodness I’ve started coming around. Could you imagine
how boring your life would be without me?”

  No. Now that he was here, I couldn’t imagine not having him, and that sort of completely terrified me. “Okay, let’s slow down a little. I don’t even know you—you don’t even know me.”

  “Actually, I know you more than you think. That’s what this is—we’re getting to know each other. It’s how all relationships start.”

  I didn’t think my heart could take another second of anything today. It was seriously at its limit. “So . . . are we starting a relationship here?”

  “I don’t know. Are we? Besides, all friendships are relationships.”

  I clutched his jacket and held on for a minute, just to quiet my buzzing nerves and the thoughts jumbling in my head. “This is going to be very complicated. I don’t think you realize how much.”

  “Why? The only thing complicating anything right now is fear.” He sighed. “Look, Indy. I like you. I want to get to know more about you. Everything you say only makes me more intrigued.”

  “I don’t really have a family.”

  “And?”

  I tried to explain better. “I’m just here because they had to take me in. Now, I don’t think my aunt and uncle realize I feel this way. I’m sure they think they’re awesome parents to me. And they are—ish. But I don’t have someone to talk to and learn from. They’re not the type.”

  “Okay.”

  Now the hard part. “And they’re very protective of me.”

  “Meaning?” Bryant asked.

  “Meaning, I don’t get to do a lot of things. Technically, if they knew I was out here on the trampoline with you, they’d—”

  “Lose it?”

  “Yeah, understatement there. I’m grounded right now. Actually, I’m always grounded. I mean, it happens so frequently, I think it’s more of a way to keep me safe or something.”

  “Are your cousins grounded a lot too?”

  I pulled back to try to find his eyes in the dark. I could make out shadows—I knew where they were—but I couldn’t see them. “No.”

  “So your aunt and uncle ground you constantly?”