“Different kinds ofa lot,” Wyatt says. “Though if I were banging your sister, I wouldn’t get on a boat with your dad.”
There’s a beat of silence. I’ve only told them about Sadie’s problems and the resulting talk I had to have with my idiot brother Zach. It’s funny, sort of. From a certain angle. My brain keeps making the shape ofI made my parents stop speaking to mebut it never comes out of my mouth.
“Not that I’d bang your sister,” Wyatt goes on. “I mean. Thalia’s great, she’s just not really my type?”
“Thanks,” Javier says dryly. “Even if you were, I wouldn’t take you out onto a boat and make oblique threats about what might happen if you don’t marry her.”
The three of us look at each other, then all look over at Silas, who’s frowning, one elbow propped on the arm of his chair.
“What,” he says. “I didn’t take him on a boat. That’s fucked up. We hugged it out, like men.”
“Not what I heard,” I say. “I heard there was a black eye.”
Silas sighs and rubs his face in his hands.
“Look, getting woken up at four-thirty in the morning by my best friend telling me he was banging my sister was not my finest moment,” he admits, like we don’t all know the story. “But that’s way different from taking someoneout on a boatto tell him that if he doesn’t marry your sister her virtue is ruined, or whatever. I promise I don’t give a shit about June’s virtue.”
“I assume Georgia’s virtue is no longer with us,” Wyatt says, looking both thoughtful and unhappy to be having this thought. “But I’ve never made it my business.”
I scratch Beast between the ears and try very hard not to reflect on my own recent ruination. I might be blushing anyway.
“Did Zach say anything when you talked to him?” Javier asks, leaning back on the couch, hands laced atop his head. “I mean, I assume you had to talk to him.”
“He promised not to do it again,” I tell them. “But he also claimed it wasn’t that big of a deal and James was being ‘a total baby’ about it, so we’ll see.”
I have no idea if my younger brother actually feels remorse about it or not, but he did get furious when I suggested that taking someone onto a boat and then issuing an ultimatum constituted a threat. Talking to Beth had approximately the same effect—that is, not much—and I’ve got a feeling that when she backs down, her twin will, too. But so far, I think Beth’s too mad to back down.
“What about your parents?” Silas asks. My head snaps up and I stare at him, silent, Beast flopped over in my lap. He knows, God, somehow the rumor mill has already been at work and they allknow—
“What about them?” I ask, forcing my mouth to start up again.
“They mad at Sadie?” he asks. “Or justdisappointed?”
Right. Yeah. Of course. If these guys knew they wouldn’t fuck around for an hour first, they’d have texted or called, they’d have come over. I know they would. I know it and I still can’t sayactually, something else happenedbecause—well. Because.
“They’re pissed,” I say. Beast shoves her face into my knuckles. “And self-righteous about it. Especially since Sadie won’t break up with James and re-take a purity pledge, or whatever the fuck it was they wanted her to do in the first place. And of course, Sadie and Ariel both think I can fix it, somehow.”
There’s silence in the room, the kind that whisperswe know all about your parents and we don’t like thembecause no one’s going to say that out loud. I wish they would. I wishIwould.
“At least when my dad kicked me out, my mom left him,” Javier finally says, as if the events of that single sentence didn’t earn him years of therapy.
“That would require my mother to ever disagree with my father. In public, at least,” I say.
I’ve known for years that whatever my parents want in a son, I’m lacking it. I know that whatever they didn’t see in me they saw in Matt, their next child, their perfect, shining example of how a son should be. I was never their favorite, never quite good enough, useful and dependable but never reallyspecial.I shouldn’t be surprised at what’s happened, not really.
Sadie was one of the golden children, and that’s the real problem. When she fell out of their high esteem she fell fast and hard, and I know that must hurt.
“My offer to tell them to go fuck themselves still stands,” Silas says. “You can consider it a perma-offer, even. Seems like you need it.”
Despite myself, I smile.
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Telling them off would be an honor,” he says, and pushes himself out of his chair. “You guys want soup, or what?”
* * *
A few hours later,after the potluck is finished and Javier, Wyatt and I are leaving Silas’s house, Javier waves goodbye to Wyatt and turns to me on the street outside.
