Page 40 of Cain

“Oh, I like it. It’s not too white. My old kitchen was all-white-everything. It felt like a hospital to me. I like the warmth the wood brings in. So, does anyone actually cook around here?”

“Not at present, no. I mean, occasionally. In past groups of brothers, there were guys who liked to cook. Right now, we’re between chefs. But I’m sure it’ll come around again. Until then, it’s our designated coffee space. And where we go to heat up our leftovers from takeout. Pizza?” he asked, waving to the boxes stacked in two piles, five high each, on the table.

Pizza.

A luxury I wouldn’t be affording for a while. I might as well indulge while I could, so I grabbed a slice.

“Do you have any other plans to refresh other areas of the clubhouse?” I asked.

“Been thinking about offering to do some of the bathrooms. They haven’t seen an update in what has to be twenty years. The common areas and the prospect room have all been done. And most guys work on their rooms when they finally get to move into one.”

“Have you worked on yours?”

“You know, not as much as I probably should. The bedrooms are windowless, so I can’t really decide what to do with mine to keep it bright that isn’t just… all white.”

“If you don’t hang out in your room much outside of sleep, you can just embrace the dark. What’s a prospect room?”

He led me down the hall of doors leading to the private rooms of the “patched” members of the club and into a massive space set up with bunk beds, lockers, and the kind of bathroom I’d seen in fancy college dorms.

“And grown men volunteer to sleep in here?” I asked.

“It’s temporary. Probably a year max, at this rate. But when you’re prospecting, your whole life is chores during the day, then that all night.” He waved out toward the party. “No one really minds where they crash for a few hours in between. Want to see something really neat?”

“Maybe,” I said, finishing off my slice. And maybe wondering if I could sneak back into the kitchen for one more before I left. “What is it?”

“A surprise. But how do you feel about… ladders?”

“Ladders?”

“Are you afraid of heights?”

“I was a flyer in high school.”

“A flyer?”

“You know, the girl on the top of the pyramid. In cheerleading,” I clarified when he still didn’t get it.

His head tipped to the side. “I did not have you pegged as the cheerleader sort.”

“I was… different back then, I guess.”

Brighter. Lighter. Cheerier.

I hadn’t joined because I was one of the popular girls. I’d joined because I thought it might help break me out of my shell a little. Maybe help me make some friends.

That plan ended up backfiring because the other girls didn’t like me and decided to make my life hell about it. I’d gone from being somewhat invisible to a target within the first few months. But I was too good to be kicked off, and my mom had invested too much money to let me drop out.

So I endured.

Which, in retrospect, was probably how Perry got his claws into me not long after graduation. I’d been struggling with my confidence after a year of the mean girls at school trying to break me down.

And he’d been older. Wealthy. Nice to me.

I’d been flattered.

Then when the niceness became subtle barbs, it had almost been, I don’t know, familiar. Easier to shrug off.

“Georgie?” Cain called, making me snap out of my thoughts to find him standing one step down from me on the steps that led to the basement.