“Where the hell did you get that?” I ask her, imagining a secret stash piled high under a laundry basket.
“People,” she says at the exact moment my mom rolls her eyes and says, “Will.”
Third mental note of the day: remind Willnotto bring chocolates from the front desk of the athletic’s center. He doesn’t realize she’s already had two cavities this year, but he means well. Picks up my mom’s grocery order if I can’t and she’s still at work. Has shown up with me to support Carm at the theater. Discreetly, of course. Somewhere along the way we’ve decided that the people we are out here—in the city, with my family—are only for out here. Within the confines of Astor society, there are different roles we need to play, neither of which reveal who we truly are.
As much as I’d like to believe my friends wouldn’t think less of me for being the kind of guy without access to a black card, I know they would. They’d stop inviting me out; they’d have different kinds of conversations. They’d pity me. Going to Astor is a leg up in the worldbecauseof these friends. Without them, I could’ve just gone to state school, pocketed the excess scholarship funds they would’ve handed me and given them to Mom—cut ties with my real father years ago.
Will’s different, though. The first time he came homewith me was after our gala freshman year. He’d only been dating Liv for a few months, and she was a fucking storm cloud. Her best friend had just passed so it was understandable, but Will would have these moments where he’d need to step away.
Booze flowed that night; everyone had a fake but it didn’t matter, the bartenders weren’t ID-ing. At some point, Liv was bawling on Ian’s shoulder on the balcony, and Will was in a quiet conversation with Gen, which didn’t end well. I could see them arguing from inside the ballroom and knew this was my shot. The opportune moment to deliver on what I thought would be my father’s only request in exchange for my full ride at Astor, this was a moment I could use to get close to him. It was opportunistic and…slimy, but once I got to him, I wanted to help. He looked tortured; he was tortured.
I offered to take him home with me and when he looked up from the concrete floor, there was barely controlled agony warring in his gaze. Once we stepped off campus though, you could physically see the change, levity breathing life back into his shoulders as we both wolfed down an egregious amount of McDonald’s. We pulled up to my mom’s and I had that nervous swirl in my stomach, my body trying to make out what the lie was.
Was I just pretending to take this guy in, be his friend and if so why bring him to my moms that first night? Why pull him in closer than anyone else?
“Lock up when you leave please,” my mom says, interrupting my thoughts as she slides her purse over her arm and rifles around for her keys. “See you this week? Maybe we can do dinner one night if you don’t have practice.” She pulls my sister to her, squeezing her tight as she plops a kiss on her raven hair.
“For sure,” I tell her, smiling tightly as she shuts the door.
“What’s up with you?” Carmen says from beside me and Iquickly turn my head because even at eleven Carmen can read me like a book.
“Uh…nothing,” I huff a laugh. I steal away the half eaten Cadbury bar and break off a piece for myself. “Tax.” I chew the bar hard, a physical reminder that Will’s friendship is real, that even if my dad didn’t instigate our first interactions we would’ve found each other.
She yanks it back. “Rude. And notnothing.” She walks a half circle around me, eyes narrowing like she’s a human x-ray machine. “You’re like…busy. In your brain.” A pause, then a rueful smile. “You know, I like Sloane.”
I glare back, ignoring her and gathering the bills on the counter because for the first time in the past few days I wasn’t thinking about her but now that Carm’s brought her up she’s back at the forefront of my brain, taking up all the space as if her limbs have physically wrapped themselves around it.
“Don’t open the door for strangers. Don’t use the st?—”
“Okay, okay,” she moans, rolling her eyes. “You know I can fend for myself. I have pepper spray.”
“Pepper spray?” Alarm shoots through me and I shut my eyes.Let go, I tell myself. “You know what? That’s probably really smart.”
“Thank you. Mommy thought so, too,” she beams up at me, like my approval is a lunar eclipse. “Now go, so I can lock up,” she grins, and I do as I’m told, jogging down the stairs when I realize how little time I have to get ready for this damn gala.
9
Sloane
I took my time stretching the thick muslin over the frame, the alabaster fabric rough in my palms as I stapled it taught to the wooden structure I built with the tiniest nails to ever grace planet earth, courtesy of Grant’s ‘tool box’. For a man who comes off rough and tumble, his tool collection is quite the shame. I can picture the way Beau’s brows would pinch at the sight.
“Ya ain’t even got an Allen wrench in here, son.”
I miss him—Beau. The way he always smelled like cheap Folgers coffee, his hands permanently calloused. When I first moved in it was unsettling, a multimillionaire with working hands. The hands of my uncle, or the kind man in the trailer beside moms who had kids of his own but always found a way to scrape together a few extra meals for me and Grant when things got really bad, weathered canvas work gloves tucked in his pocket. Eventually those hands, Beau’s hands, felt like home.
I don’t know why it was so much easier to let him in than it was with Evie. I never knew my birth dad so I assume thathelped, a big gaping wound begging to be filled by Beau’s quiet strong stature. He was the first and only father figure in my life. When I walked into his garage on my thirteenth birthday—a big one, he’d say—and saw Delilah, her red paint chipped missing both headlights, it was just her and Beau’s timid smile, his big hands tucked carefully into his pocket. That moment opened me right up. He was my dad right then and always after, because he knew me. We never talked about anything really because we never had to; he knew me and never asked for anything else. I wish I could tell him how that meant more to me than the car.
I begin mixing the greens trying to get something close to how I remember Beau’s work shirt that day, the Fielder Foods logo on the right pocket. I smear in too much brown, the small pot turning a sickly sticky brown and my eyes sting.
I miss him. I know though if I see him he’ll know. Just like Grant but maybe more, like his life experience will allow him to piece together what happened in California, what happened with Elliott. I can feel the end of the well, his kindness and grace running out, like if I tilt my toes just slightly I might touch the bottom. Everyone has their limit.
I feel hot salty liquid on my face now, the perfectly stretched canvas barren in front of me. I swallow and it feels like glass in my throat, glancing at my phone I see another missed call from Clem. Another person I let in only to become a burden to later. Her need to protect me, like a splinter in my thumb. I set my brushes down, taking the scissors from the small bedside table beside me, one of the few pieces of furniture in Grant’s guest room. I let them tear into the grain of the canvas, the rip satisfying in a way that it shouldn’t be, like I’m cutting out parts of myself instead of a perfectly blank canvas. Maybe because the canvas isn’t blank, just empty.
My phone buzzes beside me, Clem’s name appearing yetagain and for a second panic zigs it’s way through me because what if she needsme. What if in my avoidance I miss the chance at being there.
“Hello.” I tried to hide my sniff from the phone’s receiver, using the back of my hand to wipe my face, still holding the scissors.
“Jesus Sloane. I literally thought you died.” Her worried voice pulls something liquid out of me and I immediately feel like I might vomit.
