Always Cas | ✔

CHAPTER SEVEN; part one

     I halt, feeling like I've been caught burglarizing.

     Cas is driving a new Mercedes, sleek black and sporty looking. He gets out, dragging his feet, like it's an effort to carry his body, but then comes to a stand-still as he looks up at me by the door.

     "What are you doing here?" he asks before he resumes coming up the walkway.

     I unfreeze, straightening as I step away from the door.

     "No, seriously what are you doing here?" he repeats as he walks up the stairs and stops in front of me. "And how did you get the door open?"

     Cas's mother, saving Grace that she is, pulls into the driveway behind his car. She's in a new car, too, but it's not nearly as flashy as Cas's. I say, slowly, "Your mother actually—."

      Cas grits his teeth, his whole jaw getting tense. "I told you to stop talking to Olivia."

     She's out of the car now, and calls out, "Why are you both standing there with the door open?The heats on. Go inside."

     I pick up the toolbox I'd taken from Weston's and step inside, Cas close behind me. "She asked me to look at your water heater," I explain finally.

     I can hear the roll of his eyes in his voice. "That's what professionals are for."

     "Listen, I can leave but then you're going to be left explaining to Olivia why I did."

     "Its been the longest day of my life and I just don't have the energy for this," he says finally, heading towards the stairs. I watch him disappear upstairs, amazed by how much the house looks exactly the same. You'd never know they even left or that other people had lived here. Cas's graduation photos hang on the wall leading upstairs, the one he took professionally and then one with Olivia. There was one of all of us but it's not there anymore.

     Olivia steps inside. "Did I say thank you for doing this?" she asks. "Because I really do appreciate it. All I'm looking forward to is a hot shower tonight."

     I force a small grin. "Well, let me see if I can even fix it before you go thanking me."

     I start for the basement, heading through the living room because I want to see if it's changed at all (it hasn't). There's the leather couch with Cas's hand prints, the same couch where I'd had Cas, and held Cas, and loved Cas. It's a couch full of memories. Full of moments. Too many, that I have to look away. I'm overwhelmed by how much this room brings back. I wonder if its the same for Cas.

     The basement is off of the kitchen. It's unfinished, with visible beams in the ceilings, but plastered walls. It's mostly empty, except for a washer and dryer, and some stacked bins by the stairs with things scrawled on the side like "Photo Albums" and "Xmas." I walk over to the water heater, crouching down to examine it. There's a small red light blinking over the reset. The pilot's out. I'm thankful it's an easy fix and quickly relight it.

     When I head back upstairs, Olivia's putting plates down at the small kitchen nook. She looks up when she hears me, her face forming a grim line. "Tell me it's fixable."

     "You're all set, actually," I tell her. "It was just the pilot light."

     "The pilot light? How does that get shut off?"

     I shrug, not really sure. "Did you lose power maybe or shut off your gas line?"

     Olivia looks up, thinking. "Well, I had a new stove installed yesterday. Maybe they shut the gas off for that?"

     I laugh. "No, they definitely shut the gas off for that."

     She shakes her head. "Home owning. You'd think after twenty-five years of doing it, I'd have it figured out."

      "Did you get this place when you had Cas?"

       She nods. "He was almost two, actually. I was in the middle of my residency. Twenty-six years old. My father put the down on it, though. I don't want you to think I, at all, had it together. I was very young. I couldn't have done it without my parents."

      "And Cas's dad was...?"

       I know I'm not supposed to ask, so I keep my voice low and ask anyway.

       "He was—." She sighs. "Young, too. And it's different, I guess. I had no choice but to put the whims aside. In the sense that it was always going to be Cas first for me. He's my world. I felt that from the moment he was born. His father loved him but he also loved partying and other women and being independent. I guess you just build different attachments when you birth someone and when you're there for the birthing."

     "Or you're just an alcoholic," Cas says.

     Olivia and I both jump, looking to Cas who's standing in the kitchen doorway in sweats. They're branded with USC on the leg. He shoots me a heated glance but it's covert. Olivia misses it completely.

     "Dres, would you like to stay for dinner? I'm warming up some lemon chicken orzo and I've got greek salad."

     Cas goes rigid inside the fridge where's reaching for the Brita. He resumes like normal, setting the pitcher down on the counter and going for a glass.

     "That's okay," I say.

     "I really insist," Olivia responds. "I've already warmed it up."

     "He said no, mom," Cas snaps.

      Olivia drops her gaze into something that I shouldn't be witnessing. "Who's house is this?" she asks Cas, her tone icy.

     "Fine, whatever. You don't need to make me a plate. I'm not hungry."

     "Calvin Sumner, if you don't sit down at that dinner table right now."

     I'm avoiding looking at Olivia and Cas. Cas doesn't say anything but crosses the kitchen and pulls a chair out noisily, slumping into the seat.

      "I can really," I start to say but immediately stop when Olivia shoots me a look. She turns to the stove to remove a dish from it. I walk over to the table slowly, taking the seat beside Cas. He turns and looks at me, glaring so hard he could singe my eyebrows with the heat of his stare.

     "So you run a farmers market, now, too?" Olivia asks as she brings over bowls for the salad.

     "Wow, what can't Weston's do," Cas mutters as he reaches across me to spoon salad into his bowl.

     "Actually, the farmer's market is Charles and Dolores's thing. He's a big farmer, I guess. Planter. So I let him put a greenhouse up on the roof. Weston's is closed Sundays so they run the market those days."

      Cas reaches across me again, this time for the chicken. He's pressed into my side. I say, "Would you like me to pass it to you?"

     "Nope," he responds smacking the p.

     "How was work?" Olivia asks and when Cas doesn't immediately respond, she glances up at him, lifting her eyebrows.

     He shrugs. His arm hits mine. "Long, slow. So longer."

     Olivia sighs, settling back in her seat resignedly. We eat in the kind of silence that could make your ears bleed. It's uncomfortable enough that my stomach considers rejecting the meal. Cas finishes first, stands saying, "Well this was a blast."

     Olivia grows tense. I don't know if I'm trying to help Olivia or Cas when I stand. "I should head out," I say. "Thank you for dinner, Olivia. It was excellent."

     "I'm sure it's nothing compared to what you can cook up these days," Cas says, tone bitter.

     I can see now that killer glares are hereditary. If this were a different life, I'd give Cas a look, trying to calm him down. But this is this life. So I turn and walk out, instead.