Henry smiles, claps me on the shoulder. “I like you,” he says, and I feel a choking, painful longing for my own dad, whose shoulder-clapping was pretty much the only brand of affection he had on offer, but he didn’t spare it. “Your mom still around town?”
“She and my pop moved to Florida a few months back.”
Henry nods, looks around the room to where Ben stands, now laughing with Ahmed. Fast friends, those two, and I try not to feel an illogical sense of jealousy about Med’s easy nature, his ability to do with Zoe’s friends what I can’t. “Good to have my kid back in town,” he says, more to himself than to me. This sentiment kicks me right where it hurts too. When I’d decided to move here, I’d wondered fleetingly if my parents might change their minds about Florida and stick around. I was back, after all, their only surviving son, and that had to mean something. But the truth is, our family doesn’t make sense without Aaron. I don’t make sense without Aaron. I’m just a remainder, a great big shadow left by the bomb blast of his death, and neither of my parents look at me the way Henry looks at Ben.
Suddenly this party feels like a colossal mistake, a reminder of why Zoe and I need to keep it at camp, and a reminder of why I’ve kept things so close since I’ve been home. I’m not suited for any of this right now—I feel like I’m in a room of salt pillars, rubbing all my open wounds up against them as I go. With as much friendliness as I can manage, I disentangle myself from the conversation with Henry, take advantage of Zoe’s distraction and duck into the kitchen where I can rinse out my beer bottle. I’ll tell Ahmed the night’s over for me. He can stay if he wants, Uber it home, whatever. But me, I’ve got to get out of here.
“Hello,” says a soft voice from behind me, and it’s just—fuck. I don’t feel like talking to anyone. But when I turn I’m staring down into the big blue eyes of Zoe’s friend Greer, who’s holding a plate of appetizers out to me like she’s on server duty. “I thought you might want some food.”
Jesus Christ. I do not want some food. I want to get the fuck out of here. But something stops me, some hope that I can make a good impression. I take the plate and manage a polite thank-you. It’s quieter back here, a bit distant from the crowd, and it feels like she’s cornered me on purpose. I take a bite of a stuffed mushroom, not really hungry but eager to have something to do with my hands, my mouth. In some ways, Greer seems tougher than Kit is—there’s no caution or suspicion in her eyes, but instead something deep and knowing, ready to see right through any of your bullshit.
As soon as I swallow she speaks, timing it perfectly so I can’t weasel out of responding without being obvious about it.
“We miss Zoe around here on the weekends,” she says, leaning against the counter, skipping all the preliminaries. What she needs to know about me, Zoe’s probably already told her. “We have routines, the three of us.”
“Brunch,” I say, wiping my mouth with the small napkin she’d tucked under my plate. “She told me.”
Greer nods, seeming pleased that I’d know, or maybe that I’d remember. “She—well. She’s sort of our center point. The one we take our cues from, in some ways. Everything’s quieter without her.”
Ain’t that the truth is the first thing that comes to mind, because everything is quieter without her. Even when she’s right next to me, if she’s not talking, it somehow feels like the loudest quiet I’ve ever heard. “Three more weeks,” I say, but I don’t know if I’m really talking to her or to myself.
Greer looks up at me, a small wrinkle in her brow as she tilts her head slightly. “Sometimes I wonder if she’ll still be a little quieter, once the time’s up.”
Before I have time to think it through—to wonder if this is just an observation or a warning or maybe some kind of revelation about Zoe’s feelings toward me, I hear Zoe call out Greer’s name from the other room. I look over my shoulder to see her weaving her way toward the kitchen. “Are you trying to see Aiden’s chest hair?” she calls, loud enough that a few people nearby laugh.
Greer’s face has gone all pink beneath her freckles, and she rushes out a quick, “Oh, she’s joking about—some…thing I said one time?”
Zoe sidles up beside me, nudges my shoulder with her own. “Just on my way out back,” she says, nodding her head toward the door. “We need to bring in another cooler. Greer, Sharon’s looking for you.” She levels her friend with a look, something secret communicated between them. Greer’s curving smile looks gentle, approving—and I feel a strange thread of guilt. Here I am, with the people who mean the most to Zoe, people who mean more to her than I ever will. And I can’t even admit her existence to my own mother.
“Thanks for the food,” I tell Greer before she heads off, and she gives me a casual wave, as though she fully expects to see me again sometime.
Once we clear the door, I feel a clutching relief, not just at the big inhale of fresh air I take, but at being alone with Zoe for the first time tonight. “Hot in there,” I say.
She nods, fanning her face, looking as grateful for the break as I am. “It’s exhausting.”
“That’s on account of you working so hard, I’m guessing,” I say, ignoring the skeptical look she casts my way. But she was working hard in there, circulating and delivering drinks and making introductions, and I’ll bet she’s the one who noticed about the cooler. It’s like Greer said—she’s the fixed point in the room, the one everyone tends to orbit around, and this party’s not even for her.
I tilt my head back to look at the dark, clear sky above. At camp, you’d be able to see the stars by now, I’m guessing, and I let that thought settle over me, think about how my everyday view stands to change now. “I decided I’m going to take on the management role,” I say, surprising myself, and surprising her, I guess, because I see in my peripheral vision the way her head snaps my way. “You were right.”
“I didn’t say—” she begins, at the same time I say, “I want to do right by Paul and Lorraine. And my brother.”
And whatever she was going to say, she stops, and there’s a long silence, heavy with something unspoken. I lower my head, look over at her, see where she’s got the inside of her cheek caught between her teeth. Tell me, I’m thinking. Tell me what that look on your face is all about. But all she says is, “That’s great. You’ll be great.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” But it feels hollow, this exchange, and suddenly whatever’s inside that party feels preferable to the loaded moment out here.
I hear her take a deep breath, and then she raises her chin too, the long column of her throat pale in the dim light from the porch. “I’ve got a decision to make too, I think. I had this interview. To do some volunteering.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She tells me about it, never looking my way—legal advising, she says, for people who can’t afford it. At every turn, I hear what she’s doing, stuffing her language full of conditionals even as she fills me in: if I get it. I’ve never really done most of the kinds of cases they get. I’m not sure it’s the right time. I’ve never been that good with people.
“You’re good with people,” I say, at that last one.
She laughs, that sharp edge of sarcasm elbowing me right in the ribs, and I keep quiet. It seems like she feels the silence more, and I don’t mind it, not right now. It bothers me, this thing with Zoe, that she’s talking herself out of this gig. She’d be good—I meant what I said that night at the bonfire. She’s smart as fuck, a hell of a lawyer, no matter what it cost my family personally.
An idea takes shape in my mind as I look up at the stars, as I think about the weekend ahead at camp.
I can feel her look over at me, and after a minute I lower my head, catch her with eyes narrowed in suspicion. She knows my body like I know hers now. For a second it looks like she might say something, her full lips parting before closing again, pursing slightly in a way that sends a pulse of heat to my cock. She doesn’t try again, only heads over to the large blue cooler set on the concrete patio. I move quicker,
bending down to pick it up.
“Okay, Lancelot, you can back off,” she says, nudging me. “I can pick up a cooler.”
“It’s heavy. Let me get it.” My voice is tinged with frustration, mostly because she’s bent over in that dress thing she’s wearing, and now I feel half-done-for, aroused and impatient and full of the need to get inside her again.
She pinches the back of my hand, hard, jarring me out of myself, and when I flinch it away, she grabs one handle of the cooler so now we’re sharing the weight, her side hanging lower than mine. She gives me a look like she’s captured the freaking flag, and I press down the laugh that’s suddenly sitting right behind my breastbone.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I say, no edge in it. I feel that familiar bubble of amusement alongside my desire. “You’re so stubborn.”
Her mouth opens in exaggerated shock. “I’m stubborn? I’d slap you for that, but I’d probably break my hand on that hard head of yours.” She huffs out an exasperated sigh, tugs on the cooler. “I can’t believe you’d call me stubborn, when you—”
“Don’t,” I say, tugging on my end. “Don’t bring up the thing about driving.”
“It’s like you think I can’t drive.”
“I know you can drive. I just prefer to drive.”
“Because you’re stubborn!”
“Zo,” I say, keeping my voice calm, which gets her all the more riled up. “What do you ask Hammond every time we have breakfast at the lodge? Every. Fucking. Time?”
Even in the dim light from the porch lamp, I can see the way her face flushes. “That’s not the same.”
“Every time, you ask him if he wants eggs.”
“Aiden, it’s rude about the cereal. If Lorraine makes eggs, he shouldn’t ask for cereal!” She blows a strand of hair away from her face, tugging again at the cooler, hard enough that her breasts move beneath the fabric of her shirt, dress, whatever the hell that thing is. Jesus, she’s hot. If we were having this fight in the cabin, I’d have it up around her waist by now.
“But Lorraine doesn’t care. Which means you shouldn’t care. You’re the stubborn one.”
“I am not—”
“Will you just let me take the fucking cooler?”
“Oh my God. I lift weights three days a week, Aiden. It’s not even heavy. It’s not like your dick is going to shrink if I—”
“Is everything okay out there?”
Zoe and I both freeze, straightening up like we actually have been caught with her dress up around her waist. For a second, our eyes widen comically at each other, and I can tell Zoe’s trying not to laugh.
“Everything’s fine, Kit,” she says.
“Were you yelling at her?” Kit says to me, her eyes narrowed.
Zoe snorts. “I think we both know it’s me doing all the yelling. We’re having a—” She breaks off, looks over at me again, her mouth curving upward into something wicked. “Aiden doesn’t think women should drive.”
Kit looks at me like I’ve just belched at her dinner table.
“I don’t think that,” I say, quickly.
“Probably he doesn’t think we should have the vote.”
I bark out a laugh, before I can stop it. “Zo,” I say, “stop. Please.” The look on Zoe’s face—it’s a mixture of amusement and triumph, and I know the triumph isn’t about embarrassing me in front of her friends. It’s about the laugh she’s gotten out of me.
Kit is looking back and forth between us, something speculative in her expression. Right then, Zoe drops her end of the cooler, leaving me to scramble before it hits the concrete patio, ice and drinks clattering together inside the thick plastic. I hear her satisfied chuckle. “Time for toasts?” she asks Kit.
“Yeah,” Kit says, her eyes resting on me again, briefly, a smile playing on her lips before she looks back at Zoe. “Help me pour some champagne?”
“Sure,” Zoe says, and walks up the steps. Before she crosses into the house, she looks over her shoulder at me and winks.
And it’s right then I know: we’re breaking that only-in-the-cabin rule tonight.
Chapter 13
Zoe
There’s something familiar about this: me, recently deposited on the hideous-but-comfortable pink velveteen chair in Aiden’s living room, wobbly legged and faintly sweaty, waiting for him to bring me a glass of water.
The differences, of course, are key. I’ve been deposited here because Aiden and I did not manage to make it to his bedroom, because I came in his front door and he closed it behind me, pressed me right up against it and kissed me like he hadn’t seen me in days and days. Soon enough he’d stripped me of all my layers, tugging a condom from his pocket while I’d shoved his pants down. The wobbly legs and the sweat are dual earned—my legs wrapped around his waist while he took me, sure, but I’d also come here straight from a hot yoga class, red-faced and salty-skinned, and Aiden didn’t seem to mind one bit. He may have even liked it, judging by the groan he’d let out as soon as he’d put his tongue against my skin, licking up my neck like I was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
When he comes back in the room, carrying a big glass dripping with icy condensation, he’s flushed from exertion too, his jeans still unzipped, hanging loose around his waist so I can see his black boxer briefs—so I can see, surprisingly, that he looks like he could go again.
“You need a permit for that thing,” I say, taking the glass from him and hiding my smile behind a greedy drink.
He laughs, the sound low and easy, and I think of that first day I sat in this chair—how tentative, awkward, messed up it all was. “You say the nicest things.” He leans down, putting a hand on each of the chair’s arms, watching me drink. When I lower the glass, he presses his lips to mine, a hard stamp, and turns the chair, swiveling it toward the center of the living room.
“Fancy,” I say when he backs up, taking a seat on the couch that’s now across from me.
And this is it—this is the other newness we’re still navigating—what do we do now, in the aftermath of these interludes we’ve had every day since Ben’s party. That night, I’d driven over here, equal parts excited and nervous, worried I’d misread the signals. But even before I’d shut off the ignition of my car, he’d opened his door, leaned against the jamb, and watched me with a slight grin on his face. I’d smiled back, turned off the car, and lifted my hips, shimmying my underwear down my thighs, over my boots. By the time I was dropping them in my bag, he was opening my door, nearly dragging me out of my seat in the most perfect, desperate way. Afterward, I’d risen from his bed, unmoored in the hugeness of it compared to our twin bunks at the campground, and said I needed to get home to wash my hair.
That he didn’t laugh or argue suggested that I’d made the right call.
And anyways, I do use a special shampoo.
I hadn’t needed to bother with an excuse yesterday, as we’d only managed a single hot, fast quickie, right on that couch Aiden’s sitting on, in the two-hour break Aiden had before a second shift. The memory of that makes me flush anew, and I press the icy glass to the side of my face.
Aiden snorts, as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
Tonight’s different, though. It’s Friday, and we don’t go to camp until tomorrow. He doesn’t have to work, and I’m still largely plans-less, spending too much time per day checking my email to see whether Marisela’s gotten in touch, even though I’m not supposed to hear until next week, and even though I still don’t know what I’ll do about it, whether going back to the law in any form is the right thing, no matter how eager I’d felt on Monday.
I’ve felt eager before. I’d felt eager with Christopher, back when I’d learned he was in trouble, when I realized I could fix it. I’d felt eager when I’d started at Willis-Hanawalt, when I’d felt like I was finally going to reclaim the legacy my dad had wanted for me. Obviously my eager meter is busted.
Aiden’s loose limbed, a little heavy lidded over there on the couch, his eyes on me without a
ny particular signal for me to leave or stay. I want to ask him how it’s been going, his presentation, now that he’s decided to take on the camp manager role. If I’m honest, I want to ask him a series of about ten hard-hitting questions that might get him to rethink the whole thing, and that’s when I remember I’d better get the hell out of here, because I’m meant to be keeping my distance, no matter that Aiden and I have broken the only-at-camp rule.
I stand, setting my glass on a coaster, stretching as I head down the hallway toward the house’s only bathroom, so I can clean up a bit before I go. It’s a good reminder, this hallway. Aiden’s bedroom door is wide open, his bed tidy, but he keeps the door to his home office partially closed, keeps another door along the hall shut—Aaron’s old room, I’m sure—all the way. If there’s a more potent metaphor for the two of us and what we’re doing together, I don’t know what it could possibly be.
When I come out, my phone’s ringing, muffled by the sound of my purse, which Aiden’s holding out to me. “Didn’t wanting to go rustling through there.”
“Thanks,” I say, reaching a hand in and peeking at the screen before I even have it all the way out, my stomach fluttering when I see the name there.
I answer before I have time to think better of it, before I register that now I’m going to have this conversation in front of Aiden.
“Zoe?” comes Marisela’s voice on the other end, so wholly cheerful that I already know what she’s going to say.
“This is Zoe,” I reply, holding up a finger to Aiden while I back slowly toward the kitchen, putting some distance between this and him.
“I’m sorry it’s taken me a few days to get back to you. I practically wanted to put you on calls on Monday, but you know how it is.”
“Oh,” I say first, but correct with a quick, “oh, sure. I know how it is. Paperwork and all that.”
“Exactly!” And then she’s off to the races. She’d love to have me join the team; I could start next week, maybe six hours a week or so at first; if I sign on I’ll need to bring a copy of my driver’s license, my diploma; if I don’t mind she’ll send over some documents I can look over while I decide.
Luck of the Draw Page 18
