“So it was honestly more of a pyramid scheme than a cult.” River was looking at the ceiling, not at Jem, but that was okay. “Which was lucky, looking back, because mostly it just meant we were poor with a side of brainwashing, instead of brainwashed with a side of poverty. Mom worked a lot when I was younger so she could give more money to the ‘church.’” He made air quotes. “When she came home, she pretty much went to bed.”
Jem’s heart ached for him. “That sounds lonely.”
“Yeah.” To Jem’s surprise, River met his eyes. “It wasn’t great. I hated not being able to have things, and it turned me into a little klepto. Finally Mom took me to see a therapist, who was like, ‘Your son is acting out because of the extreme restriction. It’s only going to get worse unless something changes.’ Mom didn’t want to see her only kid go to juvie for petty theft, so….”
“So she got you out.” Those few sentences explained a lot. Why River seemed like such a magpie, for one. His home décorwas definitely more maximalist. Jem liked it, though. Even if the bedroom was a bit much, the house felt cozy.
But it wasn’t big. It wasn’t flashy. River didn’t drive an expensive car either.
Or maybe he did now that he’d foisted the Subaru off on Jem—
“I can see the wheels turning,” River teased. “Spit it out.”
Fuck it. Jem shrugged. “I’m trying to work out why you bought an SUV instead of the Porsche you mentioned.”
River snorted. “Oh, that’s easy.” He held up his hand as he rattled off reasons on his fingers. “First of all, speeding tickets? Not shiny. Also, a Subaru is not a great big ‘take me’ sign.” The second finger went up. “Two, my mom can get in and out of it without complaining about her knees.” Oh shit, that was adorable. “And three.” He quirked a self-conscious little smile. “You can’t thrift furniture in a Porsche.”
Jem laughed. “Too bad we didn’t live closer together. We’d probably have run into each other sooner.” Maybe they could tell people they met thrifting. That was cuter thanRiver hired me to be his sugar baby. If Jem practiced the lie enough, he might even believe it. Instead of dwelling on that, he said, “So—mama’s boy, huh?”
River gasped theatrically. “How dare you.” Then, with that same self-conscious expression, “When the band made it big, I tried to get her to come with me to California. Very rock star, right? Twenty years old and I still wanted to live with my mom. But she said she had to stick around in case anyone else needed help getting out.”
“Total badass.”
“What about you?” When Jem only blinked, not following, River prompted, “You do a lot of sitting around doing nothing with people?”
He huffed. “I’ve done my share. With uh—with Andrew, as a kid—my best friend growing up. World-champion shit-shooters. And with my mom, before….”
“Before?”
Before I found out she and my father agreed to lie to me my whole life.Yeah, he didn’t want to go there tonight. It wasn’t like he’d been in a cult; this wasn’t Competitive Trauma Dumping. He shook his head. “Before I went to college.” Close enough. “And then in college, obviously, doing nothing in a group is a time-honored rite of passage.”
“Yeah? You weren’t too busy playing with sticks and putting balls in holes?”
Jem grinned. “I might’ve been, but on my first day, I got assigned Tori as my lesbian BFF, and she made sure I cultivated other interests.”
River snickered. “If I knew that was part of the college experience, I might’ve actually gone.”
Still smiling, Jem tried to imagine it. River was hot and wild and charismatic, smart but not studious. He probably would’ve started a band anyway, concentrated on that, then taken six years to finish school because he was too focused on which college party he was playing next.
He would’ve been the most popular guy on campus.
“You still could,” he said. “I mean—it’s not like there’s an age limit.”
“Hmm.” River glanced down. “You think I should?”
Jem shook his head. “No. I think you should figure out if you want to.”
A soft, soppy smile. No one would believe Jem if he told them River could smile like that. “You’re such a fucking kindergarten teacher.”
The way River said it made it feel like the highest compliment. “And you’re a music nerd. If you want to go be a nerd about it at college, do it. You can audit courses too, you don’t have to get graded.”
“You’re something else, Jem Anderson.”
Jem pressed a kiss to River’s knee. “Likewise.”
Chapter Eleven
This Must Be the Place
