At the pace my life was going, I’d be lucky to have any kid at all. I had just wasted five years on a guy whosaidhe loved me but treated me like a compromise. Words were cheap for some people; they could mean nothing at all. I fought to utter mine, so I made sure they were meaningful.
I went up to my suite on the upper floor. Beyond the large backyard, easy access to the beach, and the beautiful, calm coastal interior design and stucco exterior, the suites were the best feature of this house—three large ones on the top floor and one on the ground floor, all connected by an intercom. I had my privacy, yet Walter could reach me. So far, he only used the intercom for help with his crossword puzzles.
Wrapped in a towel, my hair still dripping, I stared at my open closet as if seeing its contents for the first time.
What do you wear for the first night of living with your brother’s best friend whom you once slept with but withstood falling in love with?
Despite the years I’d known him, despite his closeness to my brother, Owen was practically a stranger now. A stranger who had once been my friend. A stranger who had been the first to touch every inch of my body.
Our Owen, my mom used to call him when he stayed at our house a lot. But meeting him so rarely over the last decade, I grew accustomed to thinking of him as the distant superstar he had become. He didn’t feel like ‘Our Owen’ to me anymore.
I settled on a pair of jeans and a light pink camisole, pairing them with sneakers, hair up in a ponytail, and no makeup. I hoped I’d look effortlessly at home, but the band of butterflies in my stomach—the same ones that had taken flight to my throat the first time I saw Owen—felt anything but casual.
At thirteen, I began taking interest in my brother’s friends. Ruby and I had secret crushes on boys in our year but none of them noticed us, except Howard, who skipped a year and was at least a head shorter than me. When Simon had his friends over, Ruby suggested we’d put on our cutest outfits, glamour up with pink lip gloss and blue eyeshadow, and pretend we were in the kitchen to make grilled cheese sandwiches.
“Dating a high schooler,” she had whispered dreamily while skating a finger over her braced teeth to remove pink gloss remnants as we gawked at Simon’s friends from the staircase.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOINGhere?” Simon’s hiss was loud.
“We just came down for food,” I whispered to my brother. Whispering served two purposes—I didn’t stutter in whispers,and I hoped no one would notice us, though two of his fifteen-year-old friends turned their heads toward us.
Unfortunately, one of them was the gorgeous new guy I had spotted from the stairs. Two girls stood next to him and clung to his every word.
“Do the accent,” one of them said.
“Not now, Brittany,” he said with a smile and a perfect British accent as the girls giggled.
“Mom said we could be in the kitchen,” I whispered in Ruby’s and my defense.
Ruby, meanwhile, was openly scanning the room and spreading full-braces smiles at everyone while I tried to be more covert.
“Here, take that upstairs,” Simon hissed again, pushing a bowl of Cheetos against my chest.
“Okay, we’re going. Relax,” I muttered louder, the O and the G lingering in my throat now that I wasn’t whispering.
“Hey, Si, you’re scaring the kids. Get over here,” New Gorgeous Guy said, glancing our way.
Ouch. He was defending us ... but also calling us kids.
Simon was busy grabbing a Mountain Dew bottle from the fridge and making Ruby take it, anticipating our next excuse to come down.
New Guy turned his attention back to his friends, having lost interest in Simon chiding his little sister.
But then the girl next to him spoke. “She’s not scared, she always stutters,” she said loud enough for everyone to hear. Bless her, she probably thought she was being helpful.
My cheeks flamed, and the once-sweet taste of my strawberry gloss cloyed on my tongue.
New Guy froze, his eyes locked on me.
The whole room seemed to freeze too, which was strange because I was now sweating.
My gaze was stuck on New Guy. Despite my brain’s commanding, “Stop looking at him!” my eyes wouldn’t budge, like the rest of me.
New Guy’s eyes seemed to refuse the same command; he was staring at me as if no one else was there. Didn’t he know it was impolite to stare at someone with an impediment?
Then, his face broke into a soft smile. A barely-there smile that was more in his eyes than his lips, so only the person it was directed at could perceive. Even my thirteen-year-old brain knew that it was him viscerally and actively sharing in my feelings.
“You chew your hair, Tiffany, and Simon bosses people around. Guess we all have our thing,” he said, briefly looking away.
