Why was he so nice to me?
The question has been rattling around in my skull since he bounded over the bushes like a golden retriever who spotted a new playmate at the dog park. Nobody is that friendly for no reason. In my experience, people want things.
Dad wants obedience. Marvin wants to be left alone. And I want…well, I don’t actually know what I want.
What I do know is that he smiled at me. Acted as if meeting me was the best thing that had happened to him all day.
And then there’s the barefoot thing. I keep coming back to the barefoot thing.
In this house, Dad expects a certain level of presentation. Going outside without socks and shoes isn’t just frowned upon in the Abrams household; it’s an offense worthy of the belt. I learned that the hard way when I was seven, wandering into the backyard to chase a firefly. Three lashes across the backs of my thighs. I didn’t sit comfortably for two days.
In a way, I’m jealous. Oliver gets to be barefoot on hot pavement, on grass, on the trampoline. To him, shoes are probably an afterthought.
A burst of laughter floats through my window. Moments later, another voice chimes in. A woman’s voice. His mom, maybe.
Her figure appears on the back porch of his house, silhouetted against the waning sunlight. She says something I can’t quite make out, and Oliver hops off the trampoline. They disappear inside together, and the backyard goes quiet.
I don’t move for a long time after that. The news broadcast ends downstairs, replaced by the click of Dad changing channels. Marvin’s exit announces itself in stages: the gurgle of the toilet, a splash of water in the sink, the squeak of hinges, heavy footsteps down the hall, and finally, the decisive bang of his bedroom door.
I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, making myself as small as possible. Through the window, Oliver’s house glows. Shadows move behind curtains—a family existing in the easy, unremarkable way families are supposed to exist.
I think about Oliver’s face when he said “Hi.” His green eyes shimmered. His hands found his hips when Dad told him to run off. I’d never seen someone so brave as to stare the man down. My father can be quite terrifying, even at the best of times.
“Ryan!”Speak of the devil.“Those boxes better be unpacked. If I stick my head in there and see nothing’s changed, there will be hell to pay.”
“Yes, sir,” I call back automatically.
I slide off the mattress and kneel in front of the nearest box. My hands work mechanically—books on the shelf, clothes in the dresser, everything in its proper place because deviation isnottolerated. But through it all, my mind remains at the window, watching a barefoot boy with spiky black hair do backflips on a trampoline.
His name sticks in my brain like a song you can’t stop humming. When I’m finished unpacking and go to bed, it’s the last thing I think of before sleep drags me under.
Oliver.
Present Day
Walkinginto the living room of the Hockey House, I pause in the doorway. Sunlight streams through clean windows, catching on the polished surface of the coffee table where a stack of coasters sits unused. The leather couch cushions, perfectly aligned, bear no indentation from bodies that collapsed there hours before. Even the air is free of the expected stench of spilled beer and sweat. If you’d told me there was a party here last night, I wouldn’t have believed you.
I didn’t go to it, of course. I’m not a party person. My roommate, Jackson, on the other hand, is. He tried to convince me to go, and I told him that nothing could tempt me to spend my night in a house full of drunken hockey players. Sure, my friend Elliot Montgomery would be there, stone-cold sober and attached at the hip to Gerard Gunnarson. But watching them orbit each other all night while I stood awkwardly in the corner was more than I could bear.
The only reason I’m here now is that Jackson spent the night with his hockey-playing boyfriend, and we’d made plans to catch the new documentary about the moon.
When I was a kid, my mom would wake me up at 3 a.m. to catch meteor showers. She’d bundle me in her old college sweater, and we’d lie on a blanket in the backyard, counting shooting stars until I fell asleep against her shoulder. Other times, she’d point out constellations with her slender finger, making up stories about each one that were far more interesting than the Greek myths. Orion wasn’t a hunter—he was a baker who threw flour into the sky. The Big Dipper was a ladle for serving cosmic soup to hungry planets.
Then the cancer came. Within six months, the woman whotaught me that Saturn’s rings were made of rock candy—a lie I believed until fourth grade—was gone. Dad became even more militant. Marvin discovered girls and filthy magazines. And I found that the only person who ever loved me was now living amongst the stars.
“Ryan?”
A voice I used to love hearing as a kid snaps me back to reality. The only guy I’ve ever had a crush on is standing before me, and sweet mother of Galileo, he hasn’t changed a bit.
Oliver’s dark hair is damp. A green polo shirt with The Brew’s logo above his left nipple clings to his chest, revealing how massive his pectorals are. And his khaki pants…God have mercy.They mold themselves to his thick thighs, and the bulge that the Ice Queen once said would give him back problems one day is staring at me.
I force my eyes back up to his face. His stupidlyperfectface that stirs up the butterflies lying dormant in my belly.
I’ve been doing my best to avoid him ever since freshman year, when I learned that he was at BSU too. But then, a few months ago, Jackson dragged me to the Berkeley Shore Polar Bear Plunge, and I realized I couldn’t hide from him anymore.
Now, Oliver makes it a point to acknowledge me whenever he sees me on campus. A wave here, a wink there. I always hightail it in the other direction before he can get too close and ask questions about my family, about life. About me.
It belatedly hits me that I’m alone with him for the first time in years. The only words my brain can conjure up are, “Congrats on the win.”
