There’s a pause on the other end, some hitch where I guess Aiden decides how to play this change. “Lorraine still wants everyone up there. Says we can help clean up from Friday’s wedding, have a more laid-back weekend.” I let out a quiet breath of relief.It’s only the sex I’d miss,I tell myself. “But if you want to pass, I’ll think of something to say why you’re not there.”
“I don’t want to pass.” I grimace at the quicknessof my response.
“Good.” In his voice I hear something I feel all the way down to those glossy red soles. I know what he’s thinking, know about what’s good between us. Suddenly I’m hyperaware of everything I have on underneath my clothes—the thigh-high stockings, the nude thong and matching lace-trimmed bra, everything designed to fit exactly right beneath workwear, so different from anything I wear at the campground. I wonder if he would like it, if I should pack something like this for the weekend.Ridiculous,I scold myself.It’s not a lovers’ getaway.I step out of my shoes, feel nothing but the cold, hard wood floor beneath me.
“My friend Kit’s invited you to a party,” I blurt. “Tomorrow. If you have to work, that’s fine.”
“I’m off tomorrow, once I’m home from this shift. Whatkind of party?”
“It’s a welcome back party, for her boyfriend. He’s moving here. Ahmed and Charlie are welcome too.”
I hear him take a deep breath, and I know the move that accompanies that too. I know he’s probably rubbed his hand over his hair, back to front, and I know that within a minute, he’ll reach up and see whether he’s mussed it too much. I should’ve told Kit this was a bad idea. Aiden barely socializes with the people he chooses to have in his life. Why would he want to come to this?
“All right,” he says, and I realize I must’ve had my mouth open, ready to take it back, because now it snaps shut with a click. “ShouldI pick you up?”
I almost laugh, almost offer up a quickOh God no, a reminder to myself more than to him that this isn’t a date. Itcan’tbe a date. It’s bad enough we’re not keeping it at camp, that I’d stayed up all night worrying over him last night, that I’m on the phone with him at 12:15 in the morning with a blush of pleasure on my cheeks. This is beyond not keeping my distance.
I manage to control my reaction enough to tell him that it’s better if we meet there, that I’ll have to get there early to set up. Once I’ve given him the address for Henry’s, though, once it’s time to hang up, we’re both quiet for a few seconds. If this were a night in our cabin, we’d likely be asleep by now—there’s not much to do once we’re in for the night, and until last Saturday, when we’d broken every rule we’d never officially set, we’d mostly been lights out by ten. If this were a night in our cabin, I’d be in my bunk, hearing the sound of the woods outside, hearing the sound of Aiden’s steady breathing and every time he shifts in his sleep.
“Been thinking about you, Zo,” he says, in that low voice, and I have to bite my lip from letting my sigh of relief and arousal outinto the phone.
“Same,” I manage, but in my effort to sound unaffected I sound kind of—business-y. Aiden chuckles on the other end, gentle and knowing.
I hear an alarm trip in the background. “Gotta go,” he says. “Seeyou tomorrow.”
I’m not sure he hearsme say goodbye.
When I slide into bed that night, I may not be worrying anymore, may not be obsessing over whether Aiden’s doing the right thing. But it’s still his voice, dark and rough, I imagine hearing in my ear.
Chapter 12
Aiden
The office I set up in my parents’ house—myhouse, I keep having to remind myself—is in my old bedroom, the one I slept in until I left for college, the one I slept in every time I’d come home for a break. As close as we were, Aaron and I never shared a room. From almost the time we were brought home from the hospital, Aaron needed special dehumidifiers, fans, nighttime nebulizer treatments that made my mom anxious and bleary eyed. When I’d moved back here, I’d done some pretty inconvenient gymnastics to justify avoiding Aaron’s room. It’d been the most natural choice for an office—his last year, he’d had his own place, a shitty apartment on the east end, and he’d moved most of his furniture over there, even his old twin bed, which my parents had eventually donated to charity along with everything else.
But I’d been unable to face it. I keep the door closed, avoid looking at it when I pass by to get to this office. Come Christmas, I’ll have to think of a new plan; if my parents come home, I’ll need to get a bed in there so we all have aplace to sleep.
I press my palms to my eyes, shake my head in an effort to clear it from distraction. My laptop’s gone to sleep again, because I’m stuck, stuck trying to tell this story about Aaron and my plans for the camp, the story that’s supposed to accompany my tour presentation. It’s four thirty in the afternoon, a time when my brain is sluggish anyway, and I’d only managed an hour of sleep after my post-shift shower. But I’ve been opening the same document since Sunday evening when I’d gotten back from Stanton Valley, and so I know I can’t blame my sluggish brain and erratic sleep schedulefor the block.
I just don’t know how to tell this story.
I run the tip of my index finger across the mouse pad, see the screen come to life, bright white and mostly blank, a blinking cursor at the end of the one sentence I’ve managed to keep:My brother was more than justhis addiction.
It’s more important than ever, I’ve decided, to get this right. My assertion to Zoe—I want this to work—had been echoing in my mind since I dropped her off, and sometime halfway through my sleepless night I’d made a decision. If I want it to work, the story’s just the beginning. It’s like Zoe said: I’ve got to be all in. When I’d gotten her text last night, I’d called her back, thinking:I’m going to tell her.But somewhere along the line I’d realized I want to tell her in person, when I can read her best, when her voice isn’t separatefrom her body.
I think I can read almost everything from Zoe’s body.
From the tinny speakers on my laptop comes a blurting ring, and I snap to attention as if I’ve been caught out by a teacher, doing homework for another class when I should be paying attention. I click the dialog box that’s popped up and wait for my mother’s face to fill the screen.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, honey.” She looks good these days, or at least better than she did. At the new condo in Florida, she’s got a small garden plot out back, which she fills with pots of succulents that bloom with bright, desert-like flowers she likes to photograph. She’s got color in her cheeks, and her hair seems thicker, a brighter, cleaner white than it was when she’d left here. “How was work last night?”
“Not too bad. Only a few calls.” She looks better, is doing better, but the fact that she knows my work schedule so completely is one of the many remnants of Aaron’s addiction in her life. Growing up I’d felt lucky to be one of those kids who didn’t constantly have to check in at home, who had the trust of my parents to go where I wanted so long as I made curfew, kept up with my chores. But now, my mom asks me to email her my work schedule every week. She knows which day I usually go to the grocery. I know that at least once before, she’s called the neighbor to ask whether it seems like I’m having trouble keeping up with the property.
“You’re working too hard, this plus what you’re doing onthe weekends.”
I swallow, look at my own face on the screen, rather than hers. I wonder if it has a guilty look about it. “I’m all right,” I say, trying not to sound impatient.
