“Yo, Andrew.” Will raises his hand, signaling him over with the curl of his fingers like a dog and I look up as Andy jogs over. I sip the red wine Ben just refilled for me, distracting myself by looking at the menu, but I can feel his eyes on me like a million camera flashes in a dark room. They burn into me, pleading for me to look back.
“Don’t bother man. Fielder's sister.” Will’s tone is suggestive, as if they know something about me that I don’t. I drop my menu, finally meeting Andy’s gaze and watch as his hesitant smile slowly unfolds.
It shouldn’t be this disarming, this genuine, like early morning sunshine peaking through curtains. I feel the corners of my own mouth start to tug, this animalistic need to return what he’s giving me pushing against my sensibility, but I stamp out any trace of authenticity, replacing it with sarcasm. I make a show of peeking around Andy to glance at his date.
“So is it like Tuesday’s for brunettes and Friday’s for red heads? Just tryin’ to understand your schedulin’ strategy…” I have no clue how he actually spends his free time, but I have my guesses.
Andy’s eyes shift, heat and amusement flashing in them as he and his date walk past me, but not before dipping his head just enough to mutter in my ear.
“Jealousy looks good on you.” He straightens, cocking his head to the side, signaling Scott, who I’ve learned is second string and bottom of the social food chain, to move down a few seats. He abides, moving over so there's two seats open. I narrow my eyes as Andy's date stalks away, the clack of her heels unfortunate as she finds her seat, a lobster-hued blush swallowing her face whole.
“In your dreams, Spellman,” I tell him, rolling my eyes ashe winks, taking his seat next to his date. For what it’s worth, he says some placating thing about her heels not being that loud in her ear, because she relaxes in her chair and reaches under the table so that, I’m assuming she’s touching his thigh. She finds her earlier confidence, unbothered that her date was just flirting with another woman.
But then I guess, the expectations are clear.
My teeth grind.
“Sloane,” Grant’s irritating voice cuts in, low and foreboding. I force myself to glance back down at my menu, frustrated by Andy’s insinuation and my brother’s attention to me at all, and fight the way my gaze wants to pull up and toward the annoying charming man across the table.
Still, I feel his eyes on me. Feel the way they trace my face, and I want to ask if he’d like a photograph so he can study it later, but that’d be more flirting. I need to stop speaking to him, need to stop caring whether he’s looking or not. I shift in my chair to face Olivia who gladly accepts the distraction, but only for so long: we’re thirty minutes into a conversation about the democratization of art when her eyes look like they’re starting to glaze over.
“Sorry—this is sosointeresting,” she says, covering her yawn and I appreciate her attempt at a lie. “I just need to use the restroom.” She slides out of her seat, and heads toward the open dining room housing the other patrons, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
The guys are all engrossed in a conversation about playoffs and I can see Andy’s date, who I’ve since learned is named Bridget, sucking down her fourth glass of champagne. She attempts to flirt with Scott, whose vulgar questions about the carpets matching the drapes are met with more and more giggles.
Andy doesn’t notice; he doesn’t care, which makes me feel better than it should. He nods at something Ben’s saying and Ilet myself watch him for a minute. The way his brow furrows when he considers whatever’s being said is adorable and at odds with the cocky, fuck boy attitude he’s so committed to. I track the small quirk of his lips and the effortless confidence evident in the way he’s casually leaning back in his chair, arms crossed so I can see the curved shape of his biceps. He shrugs in response to something, and it exaggerates the powerful outline of his shoulders. Like he could feel me watching, he suddenly shifts his gaze to my side of the table. My face flushes when he catches my stare.
He looks as thrown off as I feel, his face heating as his eyes pin me, but I don’t look away. It feels like a year in the span of a second. And when Bridget notices and grasps his arm, giggling in his ear, his eyes still don’t leave mine. A familiar, sweeping feeling passes over me. Like a song you felt deep in your soul as a child, memorized every word to, even though you didn’t know what they meant.
I hate that I think of Elliot now, and all the pain that made me come here; it forces me to break eye contact, and I shift my attention to Olivia who's just making her way back.
“Have you gone to Little Boo’s yet? Their ice cream is quite literally a spiritual awakening.” Her smile is friendly as she pulls out her chair. It would take an idiot not to notice that in the hour her boyfriend has ignored her she’s seemed much more herself. I force my expression to match hers, still feeling the warmth of Andy’s attention.
“Darlin’, a spiritual awakening sounds exactly like what I need right now.”
8
Andy
My phone feels like dynamite in my hand as I fidget with it, waiting for my father to demand an update. I release it to the counter and only feel marginally better.
Yeah, I’ve seen Sloane a few times actually, and now I can’t stop thinking about her,would be the truth, but instead I’ll have to just tell him no. Whenever he finally asks.
The rich aroma of coffee spirals out of the moka pot through the air of my mom’s apartment, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think Luis was at the stove doing it himself. Instead, I see Carmen standing on a stool, pouring milk into the bottom of a Peanuts mug.
“Carm—no stoves! What the hell?”
“I’m making her coffee,” she shoots back, eyes wide with disgust at my bad attempt at anything close to parenting. “Mom let’s me. Take a breath,” she laughs, modeling an obnoxiously deep breath as she tips the moka pot into the mug.
Jesus.
In my mind, my sister’s still the same kid who’d need her chicken cut into tiny bites, or would only drink water if it wasin a Minnie Mouse cup. Watching her pull four waffles out of the double toaster and finishing plating lunch that looks a lot like breakfast for her and our mother has me realizing she hasn’t been that girl in a long time. She’s self sufficient in ways she shouldn’t be, and I make a mental note to try harder.
“What a nice surprise!” my mom sings, rounding the corner of the only hallway in the cramped apartment in her diner uniform. She presses a warm kiss on my cheek and ruffles my hair with an endearing grin on her face. Her hair, a longer, lusher version of mine, is braided to the side this morning, so I can see the exhaustion that’s been painted on her face for the past four years. “Don’t you have the gala tonight?”
Astor Hill Athletic’s annual charity gala is a hot bed for Boston high society, and Coach knows it. Our attendance is mandatory, and our play time in the upcoming season is suspiciously linked to how many donors we pull in.
“Yeah,tonight. Just wanted to bring these,” I tell her, resting the Rodgers and Hammerstein DVD collection I snagged at the thrift store just outside of campus.
