“Yeah. You took the lamp?”
I hold it up and let him change the topic because I’m nice like that. “Isn’t it great?”
“I thought you’d like it.” He did?
“It’s nakedanda mermaid. Great combination.”
“Sure. The chocolate and peanut butter of interior decorating.”
“Not peanut butter and jelly?” I ask, trying not to laugh, and now Javier’s grinning. He still looks tired, the corners of his eyes pinched, but he’s smiling.
“Peanut butter and jelly is utilitarian. That’s, like, throw pillows and couches. Nudity and mermaids together is atreat.”
I really can’t argue with that.
“Where are you gonna put it?” he asks, and at the reminder that Javier’s been to my place, I glance nervously at his mother’s house. As if this tiny admission, that she can’t even hear, will make her fly out of the front door and, I don’t know, call me a harlot and then break things off with my dad.
Obviously, nothing happens.
“One of the side tables by the couch, I think. But it needs a shade first.”
“Opposite the mushroom lamp?”
“Yeah, on the other side of the couch.” I’ve been staring at the lamp in my hand this whole time, and I finally make myself look at Javier again. “You have a good memory.”
Javier doesn’t answer right away, but he presses his lips together like he’s literally biting his tongue, glances away, and then says, “For some things.”
I clear my throat, fiddle with the lamp, and make some weird agreement-type noise because I also have a good memory sometimes, for some things. I’m pretty sure we’re currently remembering the same things. Things which, for the sake of everyone involved, it would be better not to remember.
“I rearranged,” is how I change the subject. “I put the couch against the other wall and used the bookshelf with the plants to block off the living room space a little bit? There’s some annoying glare on the TV now, but it’s not like I use it much during the day. I’m usually at work.”
“You still got the lion tamer?”
“She’s a cheetah tamer, and yes, of course,” I say. The artwork in question is a poster of an illustrated retro-looking white woman in a circus, brandishing a whip at a cheetah. It’s eye-catching. “Do you want me to go over the exact changes I made so you can tell me if you approve, or…?”
“Or what? You gonna put it back if I don’t like it?”
“I could lie and say I did. If it would make you feel better.”
Instead of laughing, Javier makes a face and looks away, then runs a hand through his hair. It gets tangled, and his scowl deepens as he pulls the pencil out. For a moment it’s loose around his shoulders, and I can’t help but remember how it felt in my hands.
Then it’s back in a bun, smooth and black and shiny, and Javier’s still scowling. I don’t think it’s at me, though. “Tell me I’m not that bad.”
“No, you’re not,” I agree, and it’s sunset and he’s leaning against a car that’s seen better days, and he’s in this T-shirt with his hair back, and if he had a leather jacket and some cigarettes,he’d be every bad boy that’s graced the silver screen since James Dean. Jesus Christ, he’s evenbrooding.
I shouldn’t find any of this hot, especially after he lied to get out of seeing me again, and my palms shouldn’t be sweating, and I should mind my own business.
Except, like—we’re going to have to see each other again, so maybe we can embark on a normal stepsibling relationship. Right?
“Are you okay, though?” I ask, after a long silence.
“I’m not gonna go on a multistate crime spree, if that’s what you mean,” he says. “Or do anything that lands me back in rehab.”
“You’re storming out of your mom’s house so you can drive through the night,” I point out.
He broods directly at me, pushing wisps of hair off his face, and I don’t find it appealing. At all. “I wouldn’t say Istormed.”
“Flounced, then. Is that better?” I say, and he snorts.
