Previously…
– With his best friends, Bree and Marcus, now dating, a lonely Christian downloaded Grindr and began chatting with guys.
– Robbie, a classmate of Sabrina’s who is also older than the typical college student, asked her on a date. She explained that she is seeing someone but would enjoy hanging out as friends. Christian spied them exchanging info.
– Rosie and Travis were cold toward Elly, who is representing Brent and Molly in the upcoming custody case over Gabrielle.

“That was pretty good, don’t you think?” Robbie Wimbiscus asks as he holds up the door of the gallery.

Sabrina Gage steps through the doorway. “Thank you. And yeah, I’m glad I had a chance to see it. It was… interesting.”

Robbie lifts his eyebrows. “Interesting?”

She folds her arms against the nighttime chill, and they begin walking along the downtown sidewalk. “The photography was beautiful. But some of the touches they added were a little obvious, don’t you think?”

“Like the handwritten message in the sand that said ‘POLLUTION’?”

“That wasn’t exactly subtle,” Sabrina says with a chuckle.

“I’m with you,” Robbie says eagerly. “It’s cool to see an exhibit focused on King’s Bay, but maybe there aren’t so many great artists working here.”

She shrugs with one coat-covered shoulder. “That leaves an opening for us, then.”

“I like that. Yeah,” he says as he stops walking. Sabrina pauses as well, turning toward him.

“Did you drive?” Robbie asks.

“I did. I’m about two blocks this way.” Sabrina points down the street.

“Let me walk you.” He takes a step forward, and Sabrina begins moving again. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you want to grab a drink.”

Sabrina brushes a chunk of her straight black hair behind her ear. “I don’t know. I did drive…”

“Or,” Robbie says, rolling quickly around her so that he can stop in front of her, “we could go back to my place.”

Elly Vanderbilt clicks her long, pale pink-painted nails along the bowl of her wine glass as she uses her other hand to scroll through Instagram on her phone. She sits on a high chair at the elegant bar inside Windmills; a glittering crystal chandelier nearby reflects light from all around the restaurant. Thankfully, the bar itself is not too packed this evening, so she has been able to zone out and forget, or at least repress, her worries.

“Another one?” the bartender, who wears a white dress shirt and black suspenders, asks as he slides up to the bar across from her.

Elly considers the remaining sip or two of white wine in her glass, then shakes her head. “I drove, so I shouldn’t. I’ll just take the check.”

She downs the rest of the wine, and a moment later, the bartender places her check in front of her. She hands over her Visa card.

“Why are you paying for drinks when your dad owns a bar?” a voice asks, and she turns to see Spencer Ragan standing there in a checked button-down shirt and olive-colored slacks, with a coat over his forearm.

“Because the free drinks aren’t worth the attitude I got at The Wild Lady earlier,” she tells him.

“What does that mean? Kathleen doesn’t give me wicked stepmother vibes.”

“Not her. I happened to show up right as Travis and Rosie were dropping off Gabrielle.”

“Don’t you have some big courtroom showdown coming up with them?” he asks.

“Yeah. This week.” She sighs as she folds up her copy of the receipt and tucks it into her purse.

“Tim filled me in,” Spencer explains. “It sounds like everyone is pretty keyed-up about this custody situation.”

“That’s putting it lightly. The way those two snapped at me, you’d think I was the one who snatched Gabrielle out of the delivery room in the first place.”

He snickers.

“What?” Elly asks. “Am I really some evil bitch for daring to represent my uncle and Molly in this case?”

—–

On Platz Street in downtown King’s Bay, Christian Taylor walks back to his car. As he passes the store that he grew up knowing as his mother’s company’s flagship boutique, he can’t help but glance at the window displays, which have been recently outfitted with spring looks — but it is what he sees inside the shop that really gets his attention. Sticking his keys back into the pocket of his leather jacket, he hurries inside the store, where only a few patrons are still milling around before closing time.

“You’re working tonight?” he asks Jasmine Knight, who is refolding a pile of t-shirts on a display table.

His twin brother‘s girlfriend looks up at him sharply. “Yeah…?”

“I’m just surprised,” Christian explains. “I just had dinner with my dad, and Caleb said he couldn’t make it because he had plans with you.”

“Ah.” Jasmine sets down the half-folded t-shirt in her hands. “For the record, I had nothing to do with him lying to you guys. I didn’t even know he was lying. I’ve had this shift scheduled all week.”

“Okay.” He holds up both palms in a show of peace. “Do you know where he is? Just back at the dorm?”

“I have no idea. I mean, I think he’s fine… he probably just didn’t wanna…”

“Have dinner with me and our dad?”

“Yeah.” Jasmine glances around, making sure that there are no customers within earshot. “I don’t really wanna get involved in your family’s shit, Christian, but this thing with the custody case — it’s heavy.”

“No kidding. That’s why I wanted to spend some time with my dad. He and my mom are going through hell right now.”

“So is Caleb,” she counters.

“Really? He hasn’t seemed all that worried about it…”

“Because he’s Caleb. Even if he won’t admit it, he still blames himself for a lot of this shit.”

Christian’s eyes go wide as understanding dawns upon him. “Because he got in that fight with our mom…”

“Right. I think he thinks that if she hadn’t gone into labor early, maybe that doctor wouldn’t have been there, and none of this would’ve happened.”

“Caleb isn’t at fault for what that Loretta lady did to my parents.”

“No, but I bet he feels like he is. At least a little. He’s not trying to be a dick by staying away, Christian. He’s, like, putting on armor to protect himself.”

She returns to folding the discarded t-shirt.

“I wish he would, like, say any of this to us,” he says. “Or at least to me.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not really his thing. You should know that by now.”

“I guess so,” Christian says. As helpful as it is to have some insight into his twin’s psyche, he still hates that he winds up being the one to pick up so much of the slack with their parents.

“Hey,” Jasmine says, as she places the t-shirt atop a stack of identical items. “Don’t tell him I said anything to you, okay? He gets crabby about stuff like that.”

“Believe me, I know. But thanks, Jasmine. I’m, uh, I’m glad he has you there for him.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“No, I do,” Christian tells her. “I really do.”

—–

On another downtown street, Sabrina swallows the lump that has suddenly formed in her throat. “Your place?”

Robbie takes a step closer to her, and she becomes aware of how little space there is between their bodies.

“You know,” he says, “if you want to skip the part where we go to a bar and get a little tipsy…”

“What? No. Robbie–” She shakes her head. “I told you, I only came to see the exhibit with you as a friend. I have a boyfriend–“

“Whose daughter you spent, what, fifteen minutes complaining about earlier?”

“I wasn’t complaining,” Sabrina says, nevertheless feeling a pang of guilt at the accusation. “I was talking about my life with a new friend.”

“New friend. Right,” he says with a sneer.

She takes a step back, all too aware now that despite his lankiness, he is several inches taller than her and seems imposing.

“You definitely made it sound like your relationship is on the rocks,” he continues, “between the demon daughter and the fact that you only get time alone with this guy once a week–“

“Jason. His name is Jason,” she says. Instinctively she looks around, and she is relieved to see a pair of women who were also inside the gallery coming down the sidewalk toward them, as well as a man walking a medium-sized, shaggy dog across the street.

“It doesn’t sound like Jason is treating you the way you deserve to be treated.”

For a long moment, she doesn’t know how to respond to that. Her mouth opens and closes as she searches for something to say — then she realizes that she doesn’t have to be polite to this guy.

“Jason respects me when I put up a boundary,” she says, “unlike you, as I’m seeing.”

“Sabrina, I just meant–“

“You meant that you don’t take what I say seriously and don’t care if I’m involved with someone, because even though I said this was a friends-only thing, you figured you could convince me otherwise.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

“I was having a perfectly nice time until you made it dramatic by disregarding my feelings.”

“You were dropping hints.”

“I was not!” The breeze blows some of her hair back into her face, and she fumbles to push it out of the way, even as it sticks to her lip gloss. “I’m going to go home. I’ll see you in class, Robbie.”

“Are you serious?” he asks, somehow managing to sound insulted.

She moves past him and continues down the sidewalk.

“Fine. See you in class!” he calls after her, and Sabrina picks up the pace of her footsteps, desperate to be out of the cold and away from him.

—–

At the bar inside Windmills, Spencer reacts to Elly with surprise. “They called you an evil bitch?”

“They didn’t use that exact phrasing, but I got the message,” she replies.

“Well, first of all,” he says, as he slings his jacket over the back of the empty chair beside her, “maybe it’s not such a bad thing if that’s what they think.”

“Oh, you think evil bitch is aspirational?”

“I think that some people resent others who go after what they want or what they need. You’re not murdering anyone here. You’re earning a living and helping out your family at the same time.”

“Right. Yeah.”

“But no, if we’re getting down to it,” he says, “I don’t think you’re an evil bitch, Elly. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of fond of you.”

She grimaces. “I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or be very, very concerned.”

Spencer winks back at her. “There’s obviously no love lost between Travis and me, but I can see why he and Rosie are on-edge. They’ve had Gabrielle for, what, a year and a half?”

“Two years.”

“Two years. That’s a long time to raise a kid as your own. And they must know the decks are stacked against them, legally speaking.”

“I’m sure they do,” she says. “But Conrad keeps telling me that this isn’t a slam dunk, either.”

“Which is why they have you on the team,” he says, pointing to her with his index finger. “You helped get me custody of Peter. It wasn’t exactly a slam dunk that a judge would take him away from Jason and give full custody to Natalie and me, of all people.”

“No, it definitely wasn’t.” She smirks ever-so-slightly. “Especially you.”

“But you got the job done.”

Now her expression turns darker, as she recalls how she had no choice but to become an unwitting accomplice in whatever Loretta did to Jason and Alex. While she had no hand in drugging them, or whatever was done to cause Jason to be so late to the courthouse, she still hates that Loretta forced her to participate in something that hurt a perfectly innocent man.

“I have no intention of pulling anything shady in this case,” she says with resolve. “No matter how much Rosie and Travis believe I might.” With that, she slides off the high chair, purse in hand.

“Molly and Brent are lucky to have you on their side,” Spencer says.

“Thanks.” She removes her black trench coat from the back of her seat and wriggles into it. “I guess I can risk heading home now. They should be long-gone.”

“Good luck.” His eyes linger on her as she straightens her coat and hangs her purse over her shoulder.

She can feel his gaze burning into her. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says, letting his attention flicker up to meet her eyes. “I was just thinking.”

“Now there’s a terrifying prospect,” she says, and she is unable to keep a grin off her face as she speaks the words. “Goodnight, Spencer.”

She sees a flutter of disappointment cross his face, but he simply responds, “‘Night, Elly. Good luck in court.”

With a nod, she slips past a nearby high-top with several people gathered around it and makes her way to the restaurant’s exit. Spencer remains by the bar, lost in thought as he watches her go.

Christian’s heart thumps heavily inside his chest as he grabs his tea from the service counter inside Cassie’s Coffee House and navigates toward a small table by the window. In spite of the late hour, or perhaps because of it, the café is packed; KBU students and other teens and young adults are spread over the vintage sofas and mismatched tables, listening as a woman with two blonde braids strums her guitar onstage and hits most of the notes in a song that Christian has never heard before. The dim lighting and flurry of activity make him feel a little better about this impromptu meeting, feeling as if he can maintain some amount of anonymity, since doing this in such a public space feels bold.

After he left the Objection boutique and returned to his car, Caleb intended to head back to the dorm — but before he could even start the car, his phone vibrated with a notification from Grindr. He was surprised to see that it was the thus-far-faceless guy he has been chatting on and off with, asking what he’s up to. Christian doesn’t even know why he agreed to meet, but something about his encounter with Jasmine — and the reminder that Caleb has no problem carving out space for himself, no matter what might be going on with the people around him — made him agree to the other guy’s offer.

Still, he knew it would be a terrible idea to meet a complete stranger in private. And if anyone does recognize him at Cassie’s on this pseudo-date, he’ll have plausible deniability and could just say that he’s meeting with a friend from campus or that he was having a tea alone and struck up a conversation with a stranger.

His nervous eyes keep going to the door, even though he knows there is no point. He hasn’t yet even seen his date’s face; all he knows is that he’ll be wearing a navy coat. Christian knows that there is a high likelihood that the person could be a troll or a scammer, which is why he wanted to meet in public. Still, he doesn’t think that someone who has that body, as he’s seen in several photos, could have such a horrible face.

When the tall, thin man comes through the door, Christian instinctively knows that it is him. He watches as the guy, who has to be at least a decade older than Christian, scans the space. With adrenaline coursing through his body, Christian lifts his arm. When the guy spots him, he nods with approval, recognizing Christian from his own photos on Grindr. He hustles over toward the table.

“Hey,” he says as he settles into the opposite chair. “Christian, yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s nice to meet you.” Christian studies him, certain that he recognizes him from somewhere, despite not having seen any face photos at all online.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” the guy says as he sticks his hand across the table. “I’m Robbie.”

END OF EPISODE 1173

What is going on with Robbie?
Could Jasmine be good for Caleb?
Should Elly and Spencer be together?
Talk about it all in the comments below!

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