“Ha,” I said, trying to think of a way I could subtly ask questions likeHow else did he look?andDid he seem mad at me?But obviously that was impossible.
“While we’re on the subject—” Conner set his wrapped burrito precariously on his knee, reaching into a bag next to him to pull out a black rectangle wrapped with a power cord. “I brought you a present. I know it’s old, but I figured it was better than nothing, and it already hasCrash Bandicootand some other games loaded on it. There’s the small TV in Dad’s room you could hook up out here. I can’t play right now with my wrist. This way you can have something to do for when you get bored.”
I thought of all the ways I’d spent my time since I’d arrived—cleaning and packing and painting and reading and writing. And Sam. Most of all, I thought of him. I thought of how much I liked seeing the red climb up his neck if I said something suggestive, the look in his eyes when I’d been on top of him last night.
I was a lot of things, but bored wasn’t one of them.
Still, it was sweet of Conner to think of me, and I took the old PlayStation from him so he didn’t have to keep holding it in his one good hand. Somewhere in the exchange he hit his burrito with his elbow, and sent it to the floor with asplat.
“I knew that would happen,” he said almost cheerfully, like he was more happy to be right than to have his food intact. He reached down to wipe up the mess with one of the rough brownnapkins, but I waved him off, going to the kitchen to get some cleaning spray and paper towels.
“You got way more done than I expected,” Conner said, glancing around the Linen White walls. “It’s starting to look almost HGTV in here.”
“Yeah, well. Sam came over and helped. Did you know he spent three whole summers painting houses back in Chicago? He did all this trim freehand.”
“Huh.”
The tone of Conner’s voice made me look up from my cleaning. “What?”
“It’s just weird,” Conner said. “When I talked to Sam earlier, he said he hadn’t seen you. He didn’t even mention being over here to paint last night.”
“Dude, this isn’t an episode ofThe Confession Tapes,” I said. “It wasn’t that big a deal, and he probably assumed you meant if he’d seen metoday. Which, obviously, he hadn’t.”
That was the first outright lie I’d told Conner, if I was keeping proper track. It didn’t feel great. And it didn’t feel great that I’d asked Sam to lie to Conner, too. But when I thought of the alternative—how Conner would tease me about being obsessed with the neighbor, even more than he already did, how I’d get questions till the end of time about whether I was still seeing Sam, and was I going to bring him to the wedding, and when wasIgoing to have a wedding... Conner could grind something like this with the same persistence he applied to his video games.
“All right,” Conner said. “You don’t have to attack me about it. I just thought it was weird. Oh! I remember what I wanted to ask you. Do you have plans for the Fourth?”
Never before had I been as thankful for my brother’s sometimes short attention span. “Yeah, I’m going to bake a three-layer red-white-and-blue cake and throw our country a birthday party.”
“Really?”
“Fuck no,” I said. “It doesn’t deserve it. Why, what do you have planned?”
“I’m going to propose to Shani,” he said. “And I want you to be there.”
Why did that get me feeling all emotional, like for one horrifying second I might actually cry? I must be about to get my period. I hated the idea of public proposals, of such a personal moment being put on display, but for some reason Conner wanting to include me had me feeling honored. Touched, even.
I cleared my throat. “Sure,” I said. “Of course. How are you going to do it?”
I mostly listened as he described his plan—apparently, he’d talked to the guy who did the fireworks across the river, the ones we used to go see sometimes when we were kids. And the guy had said for some money he could do a special display that would spell out Conner’s proposal, arranging the timing ahead of time so Conner could be sure to get down on one knee in front of Shani. It all sounded very sweet and very expensive.
But my mind also kept drifting back to Sam. Wondering what he was doing. Wondering how he was feeling about last night, if he regretted it. Because as conflicted as I felt today, I definitely didn’t regret it.
After Conner left, I paced around the house, restless. I tried to sit down at my desk to work on my dissertation, but the onlything I ended up drafting was an apology email to Dr.Nilsson, telling her I hadn’t been feeling well but would get her the Capote chapter soon. I opened up her notes on theHelter Skelterchapter but the sheer amount of tracked changes overwhelmed me and so I closed them up again. I could tackle those later.
I wasn’t going to feel right until I talked with Sam, however scary that might seem. I needed to know where we stood.
Of course, right as I opened the front door to leave, that damn cat darted in again, making another beeline right for my room. After days of hoping she’d show up and being disappointed when she hadn’t, now here she was, no doubt looking to camp out under my bed again while I plied her with delicious food. Well, not this time.
I did go back and fill a shallow bowl with water, setting it in the middle of my bedroom floor for her to drink from. I wasn’t a monster.
“That’s all you’re getting for now, Lenore,” I said aloud to the room. “If you want food you’re going to have to be sociable.” Then, after thinking for a moment: “Actually, I would hate for my sustenance to be tied to my ability to relate to other people, so fuck it, stay under there if you want. Justdon’tuse the bathroom. Got it?”
Something told me she didn’t have it. But I left anyway, sending a brief prayer to the feline gods that she wouldn’t claw and spray everything in sight or whatever cats did when humans left them alone for ten minutes.
I knocked on Sam’s door, my heart in my throat as I waited on the step to see if he’d open it. I guessed I couldn’t blame him if hedidn’t, after the abrupt way I’d left earlier. I was fifty-fifty on whether I would’ve.
But I was banking on Sam being more emotionally well-adjusted than me, and I was right, because he finally came to the door. He still hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt, which was totally fine—it was his house—but which would make trying to talk to him that much more distracting. I could make out a small circular mark above his left nipple from where I must’ve given him a hickey. My gaze shot up to his face, which was unreadable.