Casey & Daphne
He’s not worth this outfit.
And yet here she is, waiting for him at Sunset Tower, slouched at the bar. Daphne lifts her glass, watching the light catch the rim, then slips a quick key bump from her clutch. The burn hits fast as it slides down her throat. Then she sees him, weaving through the lounge.
“You’re late,” she says as he slides onto the stool, leaning in just enough to inhale her scent.
“I’ve been in traffic for forty-five minutes. Lili still thinks I’m at the fundraiser. Don’t have much time.”
Daphne doesn’t bother softening the edge, or the expectation. “I didn’t wait this long for a quickie, babes.”
Casey shoots her a dry look. “C’mon, you like a challenge, don’t you, Daph?” He taps his Audemars Piguet. “Clock’s ticking.”
“Well, here’s a challenge for you,” she replies, running a hand through her platinum waves.
“What’s that?”
“Promise to hear me out.”
“Okay.”
“What if we snuck away. For a weekend?”
Casey turns his head slowly. “Excuse me?”
“Hear me out,” she says, swiveling toward him. “Big Sur.”
“Big Sur.”
“Mmhmm. A friend of my mother’s owns a place up there. And she either owes Kathleen a favor, or wants Kathleen to owe her one. So she made the very generous offer to let me use it. Whenever. However.”
“Sounds like a dream. Go on.”
Daphne slides her glass closer, squeezing a drop from the lemon wedge. “Picture it. No one around. No wife. No neighbors. Just you and me. Fucking all day. That ocean view? Can you imagine it?”
He downs his drink in one swallow. “Yeah, I can. I can imagine a lot of things.”
“We’d make the best porno. We could record it. We can do anything we want.” She leans in, eyes sparkling over the rim of her glass. “You know I’ve been meaning to give that new toy a test drive.”
“Listen, babe.” Casey exhales, jaw tightening as the fight drains from his eyes. “It’s tempting. But there is no reality where I can ‘sneak away’ for a wild sex weekend getaway.” He holds up his left hand, flashing the ring. “Remember this?”
“Come on, tell Lili it’s a work retreat. You’re good at lying when it counts.”
“You think it’s that easy? Lying, sneaking, pretending? It’s fucking exhausting. Nights like this? They don’t just happen. They take effort, lies, logistics, cover stories.”
She downs the tequila like she’s closing the subject. “I’m tired of you flinching every time this gets remotely real. People go to Big Sur all the time. It’s, like, a thing. Why can’t we?”
“Because I’m too freaked out, Daph. Scares me how good I am at this. At lying. The way I dodge questions when Lili starts getting suspicious. The way I spin the truth to get what I want. To deceive my wife. Do you get how crazy that is?”
“So what? You’re a sociopath?” She shrugs. “That’s fine. So am I.”
“No, Daph. What I mean is… you don’t understand the risk I’m taking. Right now. Tonight. If the wrong person sees us, this whole thing blows up.”
“I’m not an idiot, Casey,” she says, unfazed. “But why do all that work if you’re not gonna enjoy it? If you’re gonna cheat, be good at it. And stop whining.”
Stop whining.
The words hit harder than she knows. But he doesn’t hear them in her voice; he hears them in another. His father’s—from a childhood that’s mostly blurred now. Back when he was just a boy who loved to sing, every day, not just on Sundays. The boy with the pretty voice. His mother adored that part of him.
His father didn’t. “The only thing worse than a boy who sings is a boy who whines,” he once said. “And boys who do either don’t become men.”
So Casey adapted. Choir turned into sports. First soccer. Then hockey. Then he got recruited by Belmont Hill to play lacrosse. From the outside, Casey looked like a kid who had it all figured out.
Then came the boy. His name was Art. Casey didn’t know it was a crush, not at first. At Belmont, Art was just the goalie. The quiet one in the Abercrombie hoodie who never missed a drill, showed up early, and stayed late. They were paired up on day one of fall conditioning, and from then on, they were inseparable—on the field, off the field, same study group, same lunch table. They had sleepovers. Stayed up late watching Friday the 13th sequels, talking about the pretty girls at Winsor and planning their futures going pro.
Most weekends, once lacrosse eased up in the off-season, they took the T into Boston. Art had “a thing,” he said, for “culture.” Modern art museums. Antique bookshops. Obscure jazz clubs where they were the only teenage boys in the room. Art moved through those spaces with a quiet confidence. When Casey looked at him, he couldn’t contain a smile.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He told himself it was just friendship. Joked that it was the greatest “bromance” of their lives. “Bro, I’m playing with you,” Casey said, laughing too loud. And Art laughed too.
They played hooky together. Cut class one Friday, hopped the Amtrak to New York, wandered the park, ended up on the Upper West Side. Stuffed their faces with pasta at Fiorello. And then, out of nowhere, Art placed two tickets in his hand.
“You ever heard of La Bohème?” he asked.
Across the street, they filed into the Met, dressed too casual among the men and women in tuxedos and knockoff Marchesa gowns.
Casey told himself it was the music. The way the soprano broke open the air, how the sound seemed to rise through the bones of the theater, echoing with something ancient. He didn’t think about the heat of Art’s leg pressed against his. Or the silence between them afterward, as they walked across the plaza, the sound of their footsteps on the rain-soaked sidewalk.
“I knew you’d get it,” Art said. Casey looked at him, and saw the answer right there where it had always been.
But no one dared ask the question yet. Not until their final away game that spring at a Red Roof Inn outside Kent, Connecticut. They were assigned one room. One bed. No one thought anything of it, and neither of them said a word.
Casey showered first. When he stepped out, towel over his shoulders, skin still damp, Art was already under the covers, eyes fixed on the muted television. Casey crossed the room, turned it off, and climbed in beside him.
“You’re sleeping… like that?”
Casey flushed. “I don’t have to.” He started to rise, but Art caught his wrist and pulled him back down.
“Take mine off too,” he said.
Casey had never kissed a boy. So, he followed Art’s lead—let himself be guided, taught. First in that hotel room, then again, soon, often, urgently, once they were back in Boston. They got used to the quiet. To keeping it hidden. All summer, into the new fall semester of senior year. After practice, behind closed doors, they stayed behind, discovering the difference between performance and desire.
By the time college came around, they had a plan. Both recruited to Tufts. Both still playing defense. That first fall, they lived just across campus—still teammates, still pretending.
But slowly, Art began to change. He bought three pairs of boat shoes and a set of polo shirts from Vineyard Vines. Talked about rushing a fraternity. Stopped lifting with Casey in the mornings. If they passed each other on the quad, Art nodded like an acquaintance, not a teammate.
By the holidays, he’d drifted away completely. But Casey still texted him on New Year’s Eve. Hope to see you in 2010.
Then, finally, Art explained. He’d met someone. Not a girl like Casey had assumed. He was moving to New York. He’d given up trying, he said. All the ways he’d changed, how he pulled away from Casey, all just part of the act. But now, he was done living the lie, and that meant leaving Tufts. Leaving lacrosse. Leaving Casey.
“It’s not like I want to play pro,” Art said. “I want to live my life.”
It didn’t feel like a breakup. More like a parting of ways. Still, for a long time afterward, Casey replayed everything. Wondered what he could’ve said. What he could’ve done. But deep down, he knew. Art hadn’t left him. He’d left the half-life. The hiding. The version of love that only existed in the dark.
Four years flew by. Casey changed. He refocused his interests. Lacrosse was still part of his college life, but the intensity faded. It became a line on his résumé, not the center of his identity. By the time he graduated, the dream had quietly slipped away, replaced by the momentum of a career in finance.
He met Lili in New York when she was still an intern, scrubbing through the early, endless hours of a fashion designer’s studio. From the moment she saw him, something clicked—she knew, with the unshakable certainty of youth, that Casey was hers. And he, in turn, felt it: the rare kind of electricity someone leaves in your chest, the sort that makes you feel extraordinary simply by existing in the same room.
It took years for him to see what he’d been denying. The ways he’d rationalized their mismatched hearts, convincing himself it didn’t matter if their feelings aligned. That it was enough for him that she wanted him, even if he didn’t fully return it. That she could inhabit the role he needed, and he could ignore the gap between desire and devotion.
A year in, they were married in Darien. Six months later, they were gone to LA, chasing careers and ambitions that left them both exhausted, bruised, and relentless. His parents died, one after the other, leaving shadows he didn’t know how to fill. Lili wrestled with her fertility, silently grieving each month, each attempt. They both understood the truth in quiet moments: they would never have children. And secretly, Casey felt relief, a truth that made his chest tighten with guilt—the most honest reason for staying was the one that would make lesser men leave.
Then came the cancer scare—testicular, caught early enough that treatment worked. He survived. And yet, the experience never truly sank in. Life resumed at full throttle: deals to close, flights to catch, emails to answer, dinners to attend. Friends congratulated him, relieved. Doctors smiled at his recovery. And Casey nodded through it all, carrying a quiet, unprocessed fear tucked deep in his gut. Things had changed permanently, but he refused to give them space. There was no grieving, no reckoning. Just survival, and the relentless insistence that life couldn’t wait.
And then, he met Allie, the intern. The girl from the rival firm who adored him. Who slept with him. Who didn’t know he had a wife because he removed his wedding band. It wasn’t long until she confronted him about the secrecy. So he told her the truth, broke her heart, and shattered her trust. So, to get back at him, she told Lili.
Lili didn’t leave him. She could have, but they were getting older. Too old to be single. And if they couldn’t have kids, what did it matter if they divorced now, or later? Those were her exact words in the calm after the big blowout fight where she nearly murdered him. She gave him one more chance. He agreed to therapy that they never went to. But the marriage held.
And then, Daphne happened. She should’ve been off-limits—Lili’s friend, their neighbor. But the secrecy thrilled him. It wasn’t love. Not even lust. It was escape. A way to feel alive inside the life he’d built. But Daphne wanted more. More time, more control, more of him than he had left. Still, Casey stayed. He always stayed too long.
He shouldn’t want this. Should’ve walked away months ago. But she sees the part of him he tries hardest to hide—the hairline cracks, the slow-motion self-destruct. And still, she comes closer.
He lunges. Grabs her, fast and rough. A collision more than a kiss. Daphne gasps, then laughs low in her throat, fingers threading into his hair, yanking him closer.
“Come on,” she murmurs, tugging his sleeve as she leads him down the hall, Miu Miu heels snapping sharp against the tile.
The bathroom door clicks shut behind them. In one smooth motion, she presses a small bag into his palm. Her eyes gleam.
“Do a bump for me.”
There’s something behind the smile. Not just thrill. A test. Just to see if he’ll still do what she asks.
He hesitates at first. Tips his head back, then inhales. Feels the burn down his throat, the rising high, her hands on his belt as she sinks to her knees. He drops his pants, leans back further against the sink. He closes his eyes. Hears it in the distance, beneath the thrum of the lounge. The sound of far-off voices—an opera choir, lifting, swelling higher, until the singing cracks, then blurs to nothing.