Daisy didn’t realize it would bother me. But I have a right to my privacy. I have a right not to want people to know everything about me, especially when—especially if—especially—”
I couldn’t quite finish the sentence, but the basket finished it for me.
Especially when ‘people’ is a gorgeous guy who just happens to be staying at your house and who actually seems like he might like you, as long as he doesn’t know the truth?
A little scrap of gold ribbon smirked at me.
“Fine, maybe I’m afraid things will change if Gus realizes who I am. Maybe I’m worried he’ll become another crazy fan, desperate for gossip. Maybe I think he’d hate me, if he knew the truth. But that just reinforces the point—I don’t want him to know that shit, so I have every right to not want him to go pawing through my stuff.”
Not that a basket full of cookies and condoms could even tell Gus anything useful anyway. The only personal part of the whole package was the card, and Gus had said he didn’t read it. For some reason, I believed him.
So instead of making Gus hate you by letting him find out the truth, you decided to make him hate you by yelling at him and saying you didn’t want him here?
The packages of cookies looked at me judgmentally, but dammit, they were right. All I’d done by yelling at Gus was make things worse, not better. Somehow, I kept managing to do that.
Fuck.
I had no idea how long I’d been stewing in my studio, or what I was going to say to Gus when I saw him next, but I needed to find him. Apologize, for what felt like the twentieth time. Explain that I wasn’t used to living with other people.
And maybe—maybe—consider answering some of his questions. Not tell him everything, of course. But maybe I could be a little more open.
Ignoring the fact that making this apology was a sure sign that I was getting too attached to someone who wasn’t going to stick around, I stood up and went to go talk to Gus.
There was just one problem.
I couldn’t find him anywhere.
I searched the entire house, twice, thinking that maybe he and I kept accidentally missing each other, but after an hour of looking, all I’d managed to find was Frog, curled up in one of the library armchairs.
What I wouldn’t have given for it to be Gus. I was still mad at myself for walking out of the library last night, when he’d come in. Why couldn’t I just be normal? I could have made a fire last night, instead of running away, and we could have sat there together, reading, darkness falling around us.
But instead, I’d freaked out about what he could see on my laptop. Because I was super great at dealing with people. And now, Gus didn’t even appear to be in the house.
I bumped into Daisy on my way to the kitchen, thinking that maybe Gus had gone there to start working on dinner or something.
“Hey,” she said, looking surprised. She put her hands on her hips. “You don’t know where Gus is, do you? He said he was going to leave me some cookies, but I think he’s absconded with them all.”
“No, I—that’s what I was going to ask you,” I said. “Not about the cookies, but about Gus. You haven’t seen him either?”
“Not for a while. I left him with Hadley’s latest basket of treasures in the foyer, and when I came back in, both he and the basket were gone.” Daisy frowned. “He’d better not be hoarding all of them.”
“He’s not,” I said absently. Where the hell was he? If neither Daisy nor I had seen him, that couldn’t be good. “The cookies are in my studio. Take as many as you want.”
“Why are they in your studio?” Daisy asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually started wanting to get Hadley’s care packages?”
“No, I—it’s complicated. Well, not really, but it doesn’t matter. The point is, I can’t find Gus, and I need to talk to him.”
“You’ve looked through the whole house?”
“Twice.” A sliver of worry appeared in my stomach. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
“You guys have a fight or something?”
“No, I—we—look, that’s not important now.”
Daisy snorted. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.” She gave me a speculative look. “You’ve been pretty close-mouthed about his sudden arrival, and what the hell he’s doing here, and why you sent Arnold away. And I’m a fan of