If I’m quiet, maybe I can disappear into my bedroom without being spotted. There’s nothing worse than a walk of shame when you’ve done nothing to be shamed for.
Then, I hear the honeyed, husky notes of Derick’s voice float out from the kitchen.
Oh no.
Four steps and I’m staring at Mom and Derick laughing over a fired-up griddle, a bowl of batter at Mom’s right elbow.
“Good morning?” I call to them.
They turn. Neither looks surprised.
“Just in time,” Mom says. She’s still in her sleep shorts with an apron over top, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. When Derick turns fully, he’s wearing a checkered, full apron as well. Underneath, he sports one of my old film-club T-shirts. “Set the table and text Dad and Claire to come down. We made blueberry pancakes.”
Mom is notorious for delineating duties and playing the generous host. She never lets a guest go unfed, even if they aren’t hungry. Though, in fairness, she usually does the cooking herself. When she excuses herself to the garage, on a hunt for more paper towels, I sweep over to the cupboard and pull down a heap of plates.
“If she’s holding you hostage, blink twice,” I say to Derick. His face morphs into a question mark, but his eyes never close.
“I offered.” He adds another blue-speckled disk to the growing stack. They smell delicious and look cooking-show flawless, fluffy and brown. I begin placing the plates down around the ovular kitchen table. For the extra setting, I grab a folding chair from the dining room.
I stop to inspect his work again. “How do you get them so perfect?”
“When I was little, I used to play sous-chef to my mom. I had the tall white hat and everything. She’d make Sunday brunch for my family, so I picked up a few things here and there. The trick is to beat the egg white separately. Then it’s all in the air bubbles.” He ladles fresh batter onto the sizzling surface. “Notice the air bubbles? Once you see those, that’s when you flip.”
I don’t hint at how adorable it is to see him doing a domestic task like this, and I try not to mourn a future I might’ve had if only the almost-kiss had gone my way. “I thought you had left.”
“I was about to when your mom and I bumped into each other. She seemed confused but happy to see me. I didn’t want to be rude.” He kills the stove and takes the stack of flapjacks to the table. “She seemed weirded out by my Wiley’s shirt and offered me one of yours. I hope you don’t mind.”
How could I mind when he looks this good? There’s an unspoken intimacy to sharing clothing. My tee doesn’t fit him any better than the Wiley’s one did. The shoulder seams are begging to bust open. Just like my heart into a cloud of confetti.
“I hope I’m not overstepping by staying for breakfast. If you want, I can go.”
“No, stay. Eat. Enjoy your bounty.” My awkwardness knows no bounds.
He makes a funny face. “Did you know you talk in your sleep?”
“What?” Embarrassment bubbles in my stomach like that pancake batter. “What did I say? Sorry if it was weird. I can’t even remember what I was dreaming about.” I hope it’s not the one where I’m starring in the famousPsychoshower scene but instead of the killer butchering me like Janet Leigh, I see his knife shadow before the curtain opens, scare myself, slip on a dropped bar of soap, and crack my own head open. It’s one of those shoot-up-in-bed, gasping-for-air dreams I get every now and then when I’m stressed.
What a mortifying way to go. At least there’s some dignity in being slaughtered.
“You don’t need to be sorry.” He laughs. “It was mostly gibberish. Like you’d made up your own language. I caught a few phrases before I came upstairs though.”
“Such as?” How quickly can I haul it over the Canadian border and subsume a new identity? My mortification magnifies when he unlocks his phone. “Please tell me you didn’t write this down.”
“Oh, no. I did you one better.” He turns the speaker toward me. “I recorded it. I thought you might be interested.”
The recording is scratchy, and the TV is still playing in the background. The twinkling notes of “It’s a Small World,” a song that could use seven less refrains, only makes matters worse.
My voice is gurgly: “Should we? No. Harumph. Hardly. Maybe. Flabberdoo. Check…check one, two. Let me see script. Again, again!” My dream comes back to me. I usually don’t remember them, but I can tell this is another reoccurring one. I’m on the set of a movie, and the lead actor needs me to stand in and show him how to do the big kiss scene, except I keep forgetting the lines. Probably on purpose. “Clapper. Quiet. Set. Please. Harumph.”
“You made that sound a lot.” I can tell he’s enjoying this.
“Okay. Again…harumph. Rolling. On action…” It’s an instruction to the costar. Every time it’s someone different. Sometimes it’s Humphrey Bogart. Sometimes it’s Harry Styles. Freshman year, it was often Mateo. “Lean in,Derick.”
His name is followed by the sickening sound of air smooches—slick, wet, and all around wrong. I press Stop. The force of my finger nearly causes his phone to go flying into the breakfast spread. My body is alight like a losing move in a game of Operation.
“It was a different Derick,” I blurt out.
“I thought you said you didn’t remember your dreams.” He’s grinning down at me.
