“Kit, this is—”Exactly whatit looks like?
“Alex,” Ben says, saving me from myself. He hooks a thumb over his shoulder out to the porch. “I could use a hand bringing in someof our stuff.”
“Yeah, sure.” Before he moves, though, Alex looks to me, a question in his eyes—something sweet and genuine and protective breaking through the initial shock, and I appreciate it; I really do. But also I think this initial awkwardness might be better managed in pairs rather than as a stunned, tentative foursome. I nod my head, and can feel Kit looking back and forth between us.
I know I only have a couple of minutes, depending on how committed Ben is to stalling out there, but as soon as he and Alex cross the threshold out to the porch I look back at Kit and try again. “Alex has been helping me with a photography course, and it—um. Took a turn.”Into the naked.
“Yes,” says Kit, looking at the couch. “I could seethat. Are you—”
“It’s not serious,” I blurt, a knee-jerk, protective lie on behalf of Alex I already hate myself for, at the exact same time she finishes her sentencewith an “okay?”
“Am I okay?” I repeat back to her. The discomfort I read on her face before—now it seems that it wasn’t directed so much at Alex as it was at me. Maybe it’s not so much discomfort asit is—concern.
Already I can hear movement outside again, Ben’s and Alex’s voices and the sound of Ben’s truck door slamming. Kit shifts on her feet. “He’s not—he won’t be here long term. He never is. I shouldn’t have said that, what I said when I came in. I’m jet lagged, and it was a surprise. I just don’t want you—”
Oh, God. She’swarningme. It’s kindness, genuine kindness from one of my dearest friends, maybe even more so because it’s coming at the expense of her brother, the person she’s loved the longest. But kindness and doubt—they’ve always been two sides of the same coin for me.
Greer, you’re not cut out for this kind of thing
Greer, you always take on more than you’re capable of
You have to be careful ofpushing so hard
“Oh, I know,” I say, waving a hand. I am now doing the best Everything’s Fine Face of my whole entire life. “It was only for while he’s here.” I smooth down the front of my shirt, wrinkled from where it was pressed to Alex while we slept. I look up at Kit again, and the expression on my face feels frozen, uncomfortable. “Obviously I know we’ll have to talk, you and me, and I’m sorry about this. I didn’t think I should call while you were away, and—”
“You don’t have to apologize. I always hada feeling he—”
The screen door opens then, Ben first, hauling a huge suitcase that I’m sure Alex, experienced world traveler with a duct-taped rucksack that he is, finds vaguely ridiculous. Alex has a duffel over one shoulder and a laptop bag over the other, and his eyes immediately go to me when he’s in the foyer.
“I probably should go,” I say, smiling falsely. I picture myself humbly clutching a Best Actress Oscar to my chest, dabbing gently at my smoky eye makeup while I thank the assembled crowd for honoring this very difficult performance. “I have work early tomorrow, and you all should catch up.”
“Greer,” Alex says, and he’s not even bothering with Everything’s Fine anymore. But what’s he going to do, ask me to stay? It’s not his house; we were justplayinghouse here, and he can’t very well grab his bag from the guest room and come back with me to the townhouse five minutes after his sister’s come back from a weeks-long trip. I give a minute shake of my head, another silent message that he seems to hear. “Give me a minute. I’ll walk you to your car.”
Once we’re outside—bags carried upstairs, hugs all around between me and Ben and Kit, whispered promises totalk soon—Alex and I stand awkwardly on the curb where my car’s parked, me clutching the strap of my purse at my sternum and Alex keeping his hands in his pockets. He mumbles something about that “being worse than the milk crates,” but I’m pretty sure I’m notmeant to hear.
“Alex, don’t worry about this, okay? I told her it wasn’t serious.” Now I picture myself playing the world’s tiniest violin. What am I trying to do, martyr myself out here on the sidewalk? This is like the time my mom told my dad that she reallydidlike the toaster he got her for their fortieth anniversary.
Alex looks up at me sharply, apparently unimpressed with my impressive self-sacrifice. “I told you, she’s got nothing to do with this. It’s just unexpected, that’s all.”
“Right, yeah. Obviously you’ll talk to her, and I’ll talk to her—and it’ll be okay. She’d love to come to the showcase. I’ll tell her about that.”
Alex steps into me while I’m gearing up for additional babbling, setting his big, warm hands on either side of my neck, his thumbs teasing the line of my jaw. I shift on my feet, conscious of the window at the front of Kit’s house, but Alex leans down and presses his lips against mine, and as Everything’s Fine efforts go, this one’s pretty good, the kiss soft and unhurried. When he pulls back he keeps his hands and eyes on me, his expression serious, full of the effort I can see it’s taking him to stay calm.
“I’ll look into a hotel room or short-term rental tomorrow. Something so we’ll have a space of our own until I go.”
Until I go.
An hour ago, when Alex and I were cuddled together on the couch, maybe this would’ve seemed like the perfect offer, the perfect solution for our last week together. Some breathing room, some freedom for the two of us while he’s here. Maybe we might’ve even talked about what comes next,ifsomething comes next after he goes. But in the face of Alex’s shocked expression and Kit’s gentle warning, it only seems like we’ll be trapping ourselves in a box of our making, ensuring that these final days are going to be one long, painful goodbye.
“Sure,” I say. “That sounds absolutely fine.”
* * * *
Five.Freaking. Days.
That’s how long it takes for Alex to find someplace to stay in the city, probably because of my stupid, reckless hat-on-the-hotel-bed bad luck. First it was a cycling race over the weekend, and then a pharmaceutical sales conference at the start of the week, both of them clogging every downtown hotel and affordable short-term rental. Without a car of his own, staying in the suburbs or out by the airport didn’t seem like a viable option, and anyways, when he’d suggested it, he’d told me that Kit’s face had fallen in disappointment at the thought of him being so far away. “I get it,” he’d said to me later that night. “I’m not here that often, and she just got back. I don’t want to hurther feelings.”
That had seemed—enlightened. Certainly more enlightened than the Alex of two years ago, and even than the Alex of a few weeks ago, when he’d stood outside Kit’s wedding tent and looked pained at the thought of her knowing he planned to stayin town at all.
