"Cutting it fine." Tom said as I climbed on the bus. Actually, I had made it with ten minutes to spare, and had managed to change my clothes and grab a few things from our room. Casey's cab idea was a good one.
"I'm here aren't I?" I flopped into the seat beside him
"In body. How's your spirit?" He smirked.
"Not sure but my fucking head kills."
It appeared everyone had heeded the coach's warning, because we were all present and correct and the doors to the bus closed early.
"Why have you got a bad head?"
"British beer and the step-sister from hell."
Tom shook his head. "And there was me thinking you didn't come home last night because you were busy tapping it."
I glared at him.
"I thought we agreed a long time ago that phrases like that were dangerous when applied to Casey and that facial elements might get rearranged."
Tom leaned towards me.
"You do the protective brother thing really well at times D. But I know you. So where did you spend last night?"
"Bathroom floor."
"Whose?"
"Casey's."
He raised an eyebrow. "All night?"
The bus lurched as it pulled away and I ignored him, turning to look out of the opposite window.
Did you make the bus in time?
Casey's text came shortly after the bus started negotiating the streets. I was surprised but then I remembered that as we were local to each other again, texting was no longer a luxury."
Me: Yes. Cab was gud idea. Go back 2 bed.
C: Can't. I'm awake now. I'll study instead.
Me: Keener.
C: Moron.
For some reason the day passed very slowly. The practice went as well as could be expected and then, showered and changed we were escorted to the reception and treated to several more hours of social tedium. At five, however, coach took pity on us and sprung us, telling us to chill out but behave.
I returned with Tom to our room.
"Fancy a club?" He asked, evidently ignoring the fact I was packing my rucksack.
"Sorry I've got plans." Fortunately, my hangover had all but disappeared, although I wouldn't be touching anything stronger than cola for a while.
"With Casey?" he sat on my bed and chuckled. "Another night on her bathroom floor?"
"We never got around to opening her Christmas presents. I promised I'd go back tonight."
He leaned forward and reached into my rucksack, pulling out the wash-bag I had just packed.
"And you're staying the night?"
I shrugged. "Don't know. Being prepared. It's quite a distance across town and we don't have early morning practice because of the traffic."
He stood up. "Well. If you're off to see Case, I'm going to go and find the others to see if they want to visit a club. Have a good evening."
"You too." I watched as he left the room. After a second or two he came back in, and crossed to his own nightstand.
He withdrew something from the drawer and threw it at me.
"Be prepared, Derek." He said and left the room. I looked down at my hands and saw a box of condoms.
I groaned audibly.
For a few minutes I pottered around, throwing things into the bag, and hit the bathroom for a pit stop. Tom was just leaving when I returned and he gave me a thumbs up.
"See you tomorrow." He said.
"Or tonight." I qualified.
He grinned. "Just because you might not get lucky doesn't mean I can't."
She was waiting for me, and trying desperately hard not to look as though she was. It was like a repeat of the previous night, but instead of spotting my step-sister necking with some Brit, she was sitting, feet up on the sofas in the foyer, reading The Evening Standard.
Wordlessly I crossed the space and chose the seat beside her.
"Whoever he is, he isn't worth it." I stated.
She lowered the paper. "I know that. This is a pity party."
I chuckled.
"Have you eaten?" She asked.
I shook my head. "Not since lunch, why?"
"I don't have any food in. There's a late night Sainsbury's round the corner. We could go get some stuff for pasta?"
"And chips?"
She sighed. "They call them crisps here, Derek. Don't they teach you anything about nutrition in your hockey training?"
"Yes. Believe me. Your lectures are more thorough. Shall we go?"
There was something about Casey which was different and it became more and more apparent as we walked along. She looked the same, spoke the same (excepting the odd British phrase and intonation which had crept into her speech), and I'm sure little had changed in her life philosophy. The difference was in the warmth and humour as we teased each other.
After a while when she didn't seem aware of the change, I wondered if this was new, or whether it had always been there and I had just not noticed it.
"I have this new pasta dish." Her voice broke through my thoughts. "You like mushrooms and cheese?" She asked. I nodded.
"Cool. I think you'll like it."
We had arrived at the store now, and she entered the florescent brightness eagerly, picking up a blue plastic basket on her way in. She moved to the vegetable section and picked up a red onion, courgettes, and mushrooms, looking to me for approval. It jarred slightly. I had never been comfortable telling Casey what to do.
We moved to the dairy aisle and she chose hard cheese and crème fraiche and then a freshly prepared garlic bread. In the frozen aisle she picked up a tub of ice cream and in the dry goods, a packet of pasta.
I ignored the roll of her eyes as I picked up a pack of potato chips, but laughed as she tossed the small cardboard cube marked 'Terry's Chocolate Orange' after them.
"What?" Her voice defensive.
I shook my head. "Nothing."
Casey paid with her credit card and I helped her bag up the purchases, taking the heaviest carriers in my own grip as we turned to leave.
In the early days of college, I had occasionally dated girls and they had invited me back to their dorms and cooked dinner. Sometimes I was part of the shopping process, and sometimes I wasn't. Tonight I didn't feel like I was having dinner with my step-sister. I felt like I was on a date. There was a pressure to please her, to not put my foot in it. There was a desire to enjoy her company and for her to enjoy mine. There was a need for this to not be the last time I saw her. I had been through this before.
But it had never mattered like it did tonight.
"You hungry?" Casey asked as we walked.
"Nearly six years and you still need to ask?" I raised an eyebrow. Casey laughed.
"I was being polite. You think I don't know you by now?"
Our eyes met, and I swear if I wasn't carrying three bright orange shopping bags, I would have made a move.
"If you really knew me babe, you'd talk less and walk faster." I grouched. Casey chuckled again and I think we were both glad our hands were full.
It appeared the rest of her dorm was deserted, because we had the kitchen to ourselves. Casey disappeared off to her room to fetch her kitchen "box", stating that she never used any of the equipment provided, and she daren't leave the stuff she had purchased in the kitchen cupboard because it would sprout legs and walk.
I pulled up a stool and leant against the counter watching her.
She retrieved the chopping board and knife from the box and began to prepare the vegetables, washing and chopping the onion and the courgettes, and then slicing the mushrooms. She set the time on the oven for the garlic bread and when she saw me looking idle passed me a grater and a lump of cheese.
"It's hard, I know, but, make yourself useful."
She heated water for the pasta, put the garlic bread into the over and then started to fry the vegetables. She looked like she knew what she was doing.
Casey had always been a good cook and she inherited some of that ability from Nora. But Nora was a working mom with six children to take care of, and did not have the time to "cook". Nora heated up or cobbled together.
Casey was the cook of the household. I teased her about being a Casserole Casey, but she was far from a one dish, girl.
I wondered if there was anything she did badly, and then I remembered the boyfriends and other emotional situations. Casey's Achilles heel was how easily she trusted and the resulting hurt. And as I thought that, the overwhelming need to protect her surfaced again.
When the pasta was cooked, Casey drained it and tipped it into the pan with the cooked vegetables and mushrooms. She added chopped ham and the crème fraiche and finally the grated cheese. As I watched her season the dish with freshly ground black pepper, the smell was making my stomach sing. Without being asked, I washed the dishes up in the sink.
Casey grinned.
The oven beeped for the garlic bread and she dished the food onto two plates.
"Where did this recipe come from?" I asked, breaking a piece of the garlic bread.
"James. He doesn't cook much but he has a couple of decent dishes. That was one."
She said it quietly and looked at me in expectation as though she assumed I would react. But I was comfortable with how we were tonight, after yesterday's fit of pique. I just nodded and forked some of the pasta and sauce into my mouth.
"Okay. This one you can cook again." I said, grinning. "And I think you should get James to write his other recipes down too."
She rolled her eyes. "You and your stomach."
When we had washed up, and put all of Casey's things back in their storage box, we returned it to her room. I crossed to her music system and switched it on. She had tuned into a national but commercial station, and I like the song currently playing, so I left it on. In the meantime, Casey was staring at the pile of wrapped Christmas presents with a longing expression on her face.
"I'm impressed." I noted, bouncing onto her bed. "If I had to sit in a room staring at a pile of presents that I was technically allowed to open anytime I wanted, I would have done it by now."
She started to move them one by one to the bed.
"I promised I would wait."
"Yes you did." Our eyes met again in one of those unnerving moments.
And then she was climbing up beside me, and the movement of air brought her gentle perfume to my senses. Despite our shopping trip and cooking together, it was the first time I had been aware of her scent since I had woken with her tightly wrapped in my arms that morning.
I was seriously going to have to watch myself tonight.
"Hang on!" I suddenly remembered. "I'm supposed to be taking pictures." I went for my camera from my rucksack and returned to the bed. This time I settled further away from her so that I could focus easier; the camera and my own mind.
None of the presents was particularly heavy or bulky but they were all weighty in their own way.
Lizzie and Edwin had both bought Casey books. Lizzie's was the autobiography of a female eco-warrior. I knew Casey would love it because it was the story of a strong, independent woman – who just so happened to fall in love with one of the police officers who arrested her. Edwin's present was a 'How to make it big in Journalism' manual which Casey appeared really pleased with. That confused me. I hadn't realised that she had contemplated journalism as a career path as well.
Robbie sent her a large bar of Casey's favourite chocolate and Marti sent Casey a photo-frame. It was cute in a very Marti way. Made from purple craft foam with pink and yellow flowers and I knew that Casey wouldn't throw it away because it was obviously home-made. She might change the picture though. For some reason, my youngest sister had filled the frame with a picture of me.
Casey looked flustered and embarrassed. I tried very hard not to smirk.
But her face only got redder when I handed her Nora and Dad's present and she opened it.
I had known it was soft because I had shoved it in and out of various bags as I was packing to come over to England. Nora had done her usual careful job of wrapping the gift, adding ribbons and bows and matching tag and as Casey peeled her way through the layers, she revealed tissue paper underneath the normal paper.
So whatever the gift was, it was delicate.
I clicked away, taking a couple of photos of her ripping the paper. I didn't get a photo of her pulling the present free of its paper, however, because I was too busy trying not to drop the camera, or reveal the effect the present was having on me.
It was rose pink. It was lace and satin. And I was most definitely, not supposed to have seen it.
"It's a camisole." She said quietly.
I decided the best course of action was wit.
"What happened to the rest of it?" I placed the camera on the side safely. I wasn't taking anymore photographs.
The sight of Casey, in her close fitting top holding the delicate object up to her chest was disturbing. "Is that so you can snag a royal?"
"Der-ek!" She sounded annoyed but she was still blushing. I had spotted something else in the discarded papers and finding an inner strength from somewhere I reached out and hooked the little bundle of pink lace that she had missed with my finger.
Matching panties. They weren't very big.
Casey's eyes widened and she tried to snatch them from me. I swept my hand above my head and she stretched trying to reach them.
"Derek, give them back."
"You want them. Come get them."
I was on dangerous ground, but as normal with Casey just because I know something isn't a good idea, doesn't mean I stop.
Two things happened simultaneously.
Casey shouted "Derek. Give me back my panties!"
And there was a knock at the door.
Almost immediately, an unfamiliar male voice from the other side of the door gasped and then said quietly. "I'll come back tomorrow."
Casey leapt off the bed, flew to the door, wrenched it open and shouted. "He's my brother!"
Even sitting on her bed, I caught the response.
"Whatever floats your boat."