The Brooklyn Book Boyfriends

by Kayley Loring

  Charlie growls and raises his fists up. “Grrrr! She’s not my girlfriend!” He jumps around, having the kind of sudden spaz attack that I’m very used to from little boys. So much energy. “I. Don’t. Like. Girls!” He suddenly takes off running like a maniac.

  “Oy! No running—get back here!” Vince’s voice is loud and dominant.

  Charlie kicks his leg up in the air midrun while squealing, and I know before his feet hit the ground that he’s going to land all wrong. He stumbles and wipes out, hands first, but he manages to hang on to the book—which tells me a lot.

  “Shit,” Vince says under his breath. I see the look of panic in his eyes, but he tries not to speed up his pace, to avoid panicking or embarrassing Charlie. Which is what I’ve learned to do.

  When we reach him, Charlie is hunched over and trying very hard to look tough, but his hand and knuckles are scraped and bleeding and the rims around his eyes are red.

  “You okay?” Vince kneels down to muss up his brother’s hair. “You’re okay, right? You little spaz. Can you get up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Actually, I think I might have something in my purse that’ll clean up that scrape.” I kneel down on the cement beside Charlie and open up my giant day bag, pulling out the container of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I made this afternoon and placing it on the ground. “It’s important to clean up these little scrapes as soon as possible. I know because I have to do it a lot.”

  “You fall down a lot?” Charlie’s voice is constricted, but he’s still teasing me.

  “Nina’s a first-grade teacher,” explains Vince with a hint of pride in his voice.

  “I am. So I’m around a lot of boys who wipe out, but it happens to me when I play kickball with them.”

  Charlie snort-laughs. I pull out around twenty baggies with different daily necessities in them—sugar-free gummy bears, makeup, sparkly gel colored pens, cotton balls, bandages. I find my little bottle of Bactine near the bottom of my purse.

  “What else you got in there, Miss Parks?” Vince knows I’ve been keeping a slender cosmetics bag full of condoms in here lately.

  “No bags of frozen peas, unfortunately.”

  As I clean up Charlie’s hands with Bactine and he hisses because of the minor sting, I ask him, “What’s the worst time you ever wiped out?”

  “On my bike.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oooh, that was ugly,” Vince says, wincing. “Right into a tree. Didn’t break anything though. You were lucky.”

  “We were with Sadie,” Charlie says wistfully.

  Vince goes silent.

  “Yeah?” I decide to side-step that comment. “The worst time I ever wiped out was on a bike too. When I was ten. I was going down a hill really fast, and the front wheel hit a big branch and I went flying.”

  “Whoa. Did you bleed?”

  “Oh yeah. It wasn’t that bad though. Had to get a few stitches. You ever had stitches?”

  “No.”

  “You are lucky, then. Stitches is when a doctor sews up your skin so it grows back together.”

  I put the last bandage on Charlie’s hand. “Gross! With a needle?”

  “Yup. With a needle and this bright blue kind of thread.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Nope—I don’t have them anymore. See?” I hold up my palm to show him where the stitches were. “The thread they use just kind of disappears eventually. They melt into your skin or something.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah way. You ready to get up?”

  He nods and gets up, still holding his Roald Dahl book. I toss everything back into my bag.

  “Can I have a cookie?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, looking up at his big brother. “Can he?”

  “Just one. But only if I can have one too.”

  I open the container, hand out two cookies, and then put the container back in my bag. Vince takes a bite before holding out his hand to help me up. “Mmmm! That’s so good. Right, Charlie?”

  “I like it.”

  “All the boys in your class must be so in love with you, Miss Parks,” Vince whispers into my ear as I’m standing.

  “I do get a lot of shiny apples on my desk.”

  “I’d give you a banana.”

  “And I’d make you sit in the corner all day until you learned some manners.”

  “I’d never learn any manners if it meant I got to stay in your corner all day.”

  “Why is your voice like that?” Charlie asks him. “You sound like a girl.” It’s not entirely true, but Vince does sound different.

  Vince clears his throat. “I do not—punk.” Now he sounds like The Rock.

  Charlie and I laugh, but I feel like crying and I don’t even know why.

  It is difficult to eat when you’re surrounded by so much testosterone.

  The tacos are, in fact, delicious. Mr. Devlin’s townhouse is gorgeous. I’m not sure why I’m here tonight and Sharon isn’t, but it’s kind of great being entertained by these four boys. Gabe, Neil, and Charlie are having a grand old time telling embarrassing stories about Vince, and it’s so cute.

  “When Vinnie was thirteen…” Gabe says, pointing to his brother.

  Vince swats at Gabe’s extended finger and grumbles, “Don’t call me Vinnie.”

  “I told Vinnie that the magic line for getting into girls’ pants was I’ve got so much love in me—I just want to put it in you. And he said it to this girl after a dance. She busted a gut laughing, ran, and told everyone.”

  “She did not laugh.”

  “Well, she didn’t let you put it in her either!”

  “Because I didn’t try to—we were thirteen. Shut up.”

  “Well, that line works on me every time, lemme tell ya. I am just filled with his love.”

  After a beat, during which I can hardly believe I said that out loud, Gabe, Neil, and Vince burst out laughing. Charlie laughs too, even though I really hope he doesn’t actually get what we’re talking about.

  “Where’d you find this one again?” his dad asks him. “On stage at the Comedy Cellar?”

  “Yep, she’ll be there all week.”

  “No really, how did you guys meet?” Neil asks.

  Ahh, he hasn’t told him. Well, why would he?

  “Just in the neighborhood,” Vince says. “I saw her in a store and asked her for a date.”

  The PG version. Sounds good to me.

  “And you actually said yes?” Gabe asks me, truly disbelieving.

  “Eventually,” I tell him coyly.

  Vince squeezes my thigh under the table. The way he’s looking at me right now, I actually do feel like I’m filled with his love, and it makes it even more difficult for me to digest my dinner. Seeing him with his family like this is making feel so stupidly emotional, and it’s totally unexpected.

  I wipe my fingers on the napkin and clear my throat. “I’ve had way too much lemonade. I need to be excused.”

  “There is seriously no excuse for you dating my brother when you could have me,” Gabe quips.

  “Down that hall, first door on your left, hon.” Neil gives me a little wink.

  “Thanks.”

  I squeeze Vince’s hand as I get up. His concerned face is forcing me to look away from him, or I’ll just start crying at the table like a freak.

  As soon as the bathroom door clicks shut, tears just start squirting out of my eyeballs. What is happening to me? I grab two Kleenexes and press them up against the inner corners of my eyes. Thank God I’m not wearing eye makeup today.

  It’s been so much easier for me to throw myself into this rebound-summer fling thing by categorizing Vince as the kind of guy I could never really have a long-term relationship with. But right now that’s what I want, and it’s just crazy.

  Pull it together, Parks!

  You are the boss of you—not your hormones.

  If you can’t just enjoy this and have fun in the moment, then you don’t even de
serve to get boned by a hot guy for two months.

  He knocks quietly on the door. “You okay in there?”

  I let out an involuntary sigh. “I’m great! One second!” I blow my nose, flush the Kleenex down the toilet to get rid of the evidence, and then splash cold water on my eyes, dabbing at them with a hand towel.

  “You can do this,” I say to my reflection before unlocking the door.

  Before I can step out into the hallway, Vince guides me back inside the bathroom and shuts the door. He hugs me and kisses my neck.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Sorry if those assholes are being a little too intense.”

  “Oh my God, no—your family is wonderful.”

  “Are you upset that I didn’t tell them about how we know each other?”

  “No. God no. I get it. That’s basically what I told my parents too.”

  “Okay. Because honestly, I barely even remember how we met. It feels like we’ve known each other forever.” He pulls away from the hug and says, “Okay that was literally the cheesiest thing I’ve ever said. I just threw up in my mouth a little. I don’t even blame you if that grosses you out.”

  I grab his face and kiss him so hard, neither of us can breathe.

  If it’s a mistake to fall for him like this, then it’s the best fucking mistake I have ever made.

  After dinner, Vince drove me home and gave me my gift: two record albums (Joni Mitchell’s Blue and Court and Spark) and a beautiful vintage record player. He said it was making him nuts that I just listened to Spotify on my phone.

  He went back to his dad’s place to stay with Charlie while Neil spent the night at Sharon’s, and I listened to “Help Me” and “A Case of You” over and over until I fell asleep.

  This morning I woke up to a call from him, asking me if I wanted to meet him in an hour at the Transit Garden, which is not far from where I live. It’s a private community garden that I’ve always been curious about, and it turns out the Devlins are members and they have a memorial planter there in honor of Colette Devlin.

  He said he was going to stop by there to water the plants on the way to a meeting.

  I managed to tell him I’d join him without getting all choked up on the phone.

  I had been so relentlessly unemotional for years, as some kind of defense mechanism. Now that Vince has unlocked something in me, I feel like an actress who’s losing her Schmidt while giving her Oscar acceptance speech: I have so many things to be thankful for! Thank you to the Academy of Hot Guy Arts and Sciences. For Vince Devlin’s penis. His mouth and hands and tongue. Thank you for his eyes and voice and the way he smells. For all the exciting places he’s been taking me—in New York and inside my own heart and mind. For giving me this opportunity to experience love in this new way. Also, I’d like to thank whoever invented multiple orgasms, because wow. My skin is amazing right now.

  It just feels like such a significant thing for him to invite me to…but it may be no different from all the other things he’s called me up to ask me to meet him for.

  Regardless, I show up with a small lavender plant that I got at my favorite garden center in Boerum Hill. When I tell him that I was hoping there’d be room for it in their planter, he makes a little guttural noise before saying, “Thanks, that’s sweet. She loved lavender.” He inhales the plant. “Yeah, she loved this stuff.” His eyes are pink-rimmed. I’m a jerk for loving that, but I’ve made him blush and get teary-eyed within twenty-four hours—I don’t want to push it.

  The garden is lovely. Surrounded by a brick wall and metal fence, it’s a rustic little private oasis in the middle of Carroll Gardens. Vince is dressed for work, so I offer to do the planting and watering. They have a raised planter box with sunflowers and geraniums and marigolds.

  As I’m tucking the plant into the soil, something occurs to me. “She’s not actually…in here, right? Her ashes?”

  “No. She’s buried at Green-Wood. She just loved plants, so we got this for her.”

  I wait for him to offer more information.

  Finally, after a lengthy silence, all he says is, “She had cancer. For like a year. It sucked. It seemed like she was getting better, but then all of a sudden, she just…”

  “Oh, Vince.” I wipe my dirty hand on my jeans before reaching out to touch his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I had a hard time dealing with it. But she was just the best.” He looks at me as though he’s going to say something else. But he doesn’t. He suddenly retreats into some place that I’m not a part of, and I let him go there on his own. I spend more time dusting dirt off leaves than I need to, until he finally mutters, “You want to come with me to grab a coffee on my way? I gotta be someplace in twenty.”

  We hold hands on the way to the coffee place, even though he talks on the phone to Eve about some deal they’re closing for most of the way.

  “You got big plans for today?” he asks, opening the door and not looking at me.

  “I’m meeting Marnie for lunch, and then I’m going to catch up on a bunch of professional guides and education blogs and start planning next year’s curriculum.”

  “Really? But it’s still the middle of summer.”

  “It’s never too soon to prepare for the next term.”

  “Geez. Just show the kids a bunch of videos the first week of classes, Miss Parks. That’s all they want anyway.”

  I notice a woman staring at us, sitting at a corner table by herself. I get the same shiver of awareness that I had at the bar, the night of Eve’s party. This is another one of his exes. He doesn’t see her, and she looks less interested in talking to him than the other one did. I manage to ignore her, but when Vince’s coffee is ready before my chai tea latte is, he kisses me and has to leave before I do, to get to his appointment.

  “I’ll call you later, okay? I might be able to cancel my dinner if you’re free.”

  “Sure. Have a good day.”

  I watch him walk out of the coffee shop, pretty sure he’s completely unaware of the girl in the corner.

  “You should be careful.” The sultry voice comes from right behind me. She says it so casually, as if we’re friends in midconversation. I turn to face her. Though just as striking, she has a very different look from the other woman. A tiny diamond stud in her nose and great shag haircut makes me think she is some kind of musician, although I can’t help but wonder if this is Sadie. She arranges her messenger bag strap on her shoulder.

  I clear my throat. “Hi. Do I know you?”

  She smiles and shakes her head as she puts on her aviator sunglasses. “No, but I know exactly how you’re feeling right now. He take you for a ride on his bike yet?”

  I blink.

  “Yeah. Don’t let those sad eyes fool you. He’s hot. And he can seem like the nicest guy in the world sometimes, but he’ll ghost you sooner or later. He always disappears. Enjoy it while it lasts.” She shrugs, as if what she’s just said is no big deal. “That’s just him. That’s just how it goes.”

  And then she disappears out the door, leaving me to my warm chai tea latte and stunned icy silence.

  18

  Vince

  After I had taken Nina home from dinner at my dad’s, I got a text from my dad that said: For fuck sake she’s great. Please don’t fuck things up with this one.

  Nice vote of confidence for her, not so much for me.

  From my brother: She is literally perfect. If you don’t marry her, I will. Fuck you.

  That’s a first from Gabe, who hasn’t dated anyone for longer than two months in his entire horndog life.

  Eve hasn’t shut up about Nina since her birthday party.

  Charlie’s already asking when she’s coming over again. That doesn’t surprise me. She was so great with him, especially when he fell down. Seeing her with all those baggies full of mom purse stuff spread out over the sidewalk, I had this weird urge to impregnate her. That was a first for me.

  I probably shouldn’t have taken her to
the garden so soon after dinner with my family. I’ve felt a little off since then, but it’s definitely not Nina’s fault. Nothing’s Nina’s fault. She is perfect. For the first time in my life, I’m wondering if I’m good enough for someone. I’ve never wanted such a good woman before. I’ve never wanted so badly for a good woman to want me. It one hundred percent blows. But I still need to be with her all the time.

  I know I’m moving too fast, but I don’t know how else to move. Especially when it comes to her. What we have is still so new, and there are still things she doesn’t know about me. But I’m starting to feel like I could lose her any day now. I thought I could win her over in a summer, but each day that passes just feels like a death march toward September. It’s how I always felt about going back to school, only this is so much more than losing my freedom when school starts. I could lose Nina. She’ll realize how different we are, and our schedules won’t mesh. She’ll be seeing that fucking principal every day, and she’ll remember this is just a rebound.

  Fuck. This is why Dr. Glass wanted me to keep up with the sessions and wait to start things up with Nina. All these fucking feelings that used to stay buried, back when I’d fuck and run.

  Whatever. I still have another month to get my shit together. A lot can happen in a month.

  She doesn’t answer until the third ring, which is weird.

  “Hi,” she says, her voice soft.

  “Did I wake you up or something?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.” She clears her throat. “Hi.”

  “Hi. Listen, I really hate to bother you with this, but Charlie’s at day camp and his new part-time nanny has some family emergency all of a sudden. She can’t pick him up. Are you busy? I know you said you have work to do, so you can say no. I can try someone else.”

  “I can get him,” she says without hesitation. “Of course. Do you want me to take him somewhere or bring him back to my place?”

  “Thank you so much. Yeah, take him to your place. I’ll pick you guys up after work, and then we’ll drop him off at Gabe’s and you and I can go to dinner.”