“Hey, Kline!” my dad calls out.
“Yeah?” The response is more of a grumble than anything else from within Julia’s apartment, but still, Kline Brooks is speaking words—okay, one word—to my father, and that’s progress.
“Do you love me again yet?”
“No.”
“Okay, buddy!” my dad calls back and swipes a bead of sweat from his forehead with his hand. “But I want you to know that I love you very fluffing much!”
“Thatch?” Kline tosses out, still not even bothering to peek his head out of Julia’s open door.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Okay, buddy.” My dad is smiling for some strange reason, and when he meets my eyes and sees the way my eyebrows are furrowed together, he just claps a hand to my back. “Relax, son. That, right there, was a bridge being built over a gap.”
I have no idea what or why or how he thinks being told to shut up is in any way a good thing, but I don’t fight it. I don’t have the energy.
“I’m going to head back down and get one of the kitchen boxes,” I announce. “Those and the bed frame are all that’s left, I think.”
“Good,” my mom says, flopping down on the couch. “I think you two can handle that while I relax, then.”
I don’t complain. Not only is it not worth it, but in less than an hour, if I keep working diligently, my parents will go home, as will Julia’s, and we’ll officially be alone and living across the hall from each other for our sophomore year of college.
I’ll be perfectly poised to move on to the next phase of my plan, in which I am at a whim’s notice for anything she may need. I will be a safety net. I will be a tool. I will be a confidant. I will be anything she fucking wants me to be and, maybe, some things she doesn’t know she needs yet.
I’m still hatching the specifics, but I’ve spent the last two days since we got home from Aunt Paula and Uncle Brad’s lake house hypothesizing scenarios in which I could be useful. A broken air conditioner? A fire? An emotional emergency?
I will be more than just the man of the hour—I will be the man of every hour.
My dad hip checks me as he heads for the door, and just after he steps out into the hall, Julia peeks her head inside. “Hey, Ace, do you have the stuff you got for my apartment up here yet? Or should my dad and I run down and get it?”
“I’ll bring it up,” I offer quickly, only to be cut off by my mother.
She groans as she climbs from the couch, stealing my thunder right out from underneath me. “I’ll get your stuff, Jules. Ace, go down and help your father with your own shit so I can get the hell out of here and home to a bath.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I agree through clenched teeth as I head for the door. Julia waits there, patting me on the shoulder as I pass her by. I turn to meet her eyes just one more time, but she has her phone out instead and is smiling down at it while her fingers fly over the screen keyboard.
“Scottie?” I ask hopefully—foolishly.
“Drew,” she corrects, not even looking up from the screen. “He’s thinking about coming over tonight after we get all settled.”
“Great,” I say through unshed tears.
I don’t know if my tone is different or if she’s just done with her message, but she looks up right before I turn to walk away and tucks her phone into her pocket, shrugging. “I told him I’ll see how I’m feeling. I don’t know. Might just wanna have the first night to myself.”
While a fist pump would make the victory sweeter, I withhold the urge. “For sure,” I agree simply, acting way cooler than I feel.
“Ace!” my dad yells from the elevator as soon as the doors open. “What the fluff are you doing? Stop fluffing around and come help me carryyourshit!”
I laugh and smile at Julia before jogging away. I jump into the elevator my dad just departed before it closes and watch with a renewed sense of drive as Julia lingers in the hall, watching me go.
Maybe, just maybe, that stolen kiss a few nights ago got me somewhere after all.
Julia
Oven towel set, I move to the sink, where I have my new pink-rimmed dishes drying, and load them into the cabinets. I rearrange the flowers my dad gave me in their ivory vase on the counter and sigh. I’m happy—elated, really—but I have that feeling of not knowing what to do with my hands.
