“You do.” Caroline plucks the dish towel from over his shoulder, nudges him aside so she can help. The whole place is a disaster, dirty plates stacked on the island and a precarious tower of empty wine bottles Jengaed into the recycling bin; there’s a broken platter shattered like a mosaic at the bottom of the sink. “I’m not just being a cold bitch for no reason. You know as well as I do that when it comes to people who actually give a shit about him beyond what he can do for them at any given moment, it’s basically you and me and that’s it.”
Will plucks the largest shards from the basin, tossing them carefully into the trash before going back for the smaller ones with a handful of paper towel. “I know.”
Caroline glances at him out of the corner of her eye,remembering the sound of the crash from earlier. Wondering exactly how the platter broke in the first place. “Okay,” she says finally. “Well, glad we’re on the same team, then.”
The two of them work in silence for a long moment, moving methodically through the mess: wrapping up leftovers and wiping down counters, their wet fingertips brushing as he hands her the serving bowls that are too big for the dishwasher. They’ve cleaned up a lot of kitchens together, Thanksgivings and Fourths and the New Year’s Eve party Charlie threw every year when he was still living in New York after college. One Christmas at Charlie’s parents’ house they ducked into the pantry and fooled around for ten minutes in the dark next to the Nutella and cans of green beans, accidentally knocking over an enormous canister of Quaker Oats in the process. Caroline used to think they were orbiting each other, waiting for the timing to be right for something more permanent. Lately, though, she’s not so sure.
“Shit,” Will says suddenly, pulling his hand from the soapy water. He missed a sharp piece of the platter; blood blooms in a long, startling red line across his palm. Caroline grabs a clean dish towel from under the sink, presses it tight against the wounded place. And see, this is what people like the Benedettos don’t understand, Caroline thinks as they stand there in silence waiting for the bleeding to stop, surprised at the sudden depth of her own annoyance: That decisions, however small or stupid, have consequences. That people can get hurt trying to clean up the mess.
“You need a Band-Aid,” she announces finally, peeking underneath the towel. He smells like tequila and like soap. “But I think you’ll live.”
Will nods, flexing his fingers. “So they tell me.”
That stops her. Caroline takes a deep breath, knowing it’s as much of an invitation as she’s likely to get. “Can I ask you something?” she asks, pushing on before she loses her nerve. “Are you okay?” Charlie gave her the broad strokes,Hamletand theTimesreview and the stint in the hospital, how quickly it all unraveled; she’s wanted to talk to Will about it since he got out here, but she hasn’t been able to figure out how. “Like... globally, I mean.”
That makes him smile. “I’m fine,” he promises, holding his hand up as evidence. “But thank you.”
“I—all right,” Caroline says, trying not to feel disappointed, trying not to feel like she’s lacking in some fundamental way. She knows she’s not the kind of person people come to with their sadness. Still, she thinks she would have listened to his. “For what it’s worth,” she says, putting her hands on the counter so she doesn’t reach for him, “I’m looking out for you, too.”
Will gazes at her for a moment in the dim light of the nighttime kitchen. They’ve known each other so many years. “It’ll pass,” he promises finally, and his voice is very quiet. “Charlie’s thing for June, I mean.”
“Will it?” she asks, and for a moment she’s not sure they’re talking about her brother at all. She thinks again of the broken platter. She thinks of Lilly Benedetto’s long, dark hair.
Will nods. “It will,” he says, more certain than he sounded a moment ago. It occurs to her to wonder which one of them he’s trying to convince. “It always does.” He looks around at the mostly clean kitchen, stifling a yawn with the back of his uninjured hand. “It’s late,” he observes, looking at the clock on the microwave. “I’m going to head up.”
“You want company?” she asks, trying to sound like shedoesn’t care one way or the other, like she isn’t lurking around her brother’s house waiting for his cute friend to notice her. Her mother would be appalled.
“I think I’m just going to crash,” Will says, then lifts his hand one more time. “Try to keep myself from getting gangrene.”
“There’s some Neosporin in the upstairs bathroom,” Caroline informs him automatically, then presses her lips together. It feels like she’s scrabbling for something, lately. It feels like she’s falling and trying not to hit the ground. “Sleep well.”
“You too,” Will tells her, pressing his cheek against hers before disappearing up the back staircase.
She finishes cleaning up by herself, taking out the trash and running the dishwasher. She scrubs the sink with a sponge until it shines.
Chapter Ten
Lilly
Lilly wakes up deeply hungover, mouth dry and a headache pulsing angrily behind her eyeballs. When she counts on her fingers she realizes she drank more or less a full bottle of wine last night, plus the tequila, which she never does anymore. She stands under the shower for a long time, scrubbing her fingers roughly through her hair and trying not to think about Will—the warm authority of his kisses, his narrow body slotted against hers.
She yanks a towel off the rack, shrugging into a robe and shuffling back into her bedroom. When she finally clomps downstairs she finds her mother standing in the foyer like a master of ceremonies at Barnum & Bailey, hollering directions at the cleaners in a way that makes Lilly cringe. “Who’s coming over?” she asks, suspicious. Her mother only ever notices mess when she’s trying to impress someone.
Cinta stares at her for a moment, like possibly she has no idea who Lilly is or what she might be doing here. Then she blinks and locks back in. “Didn’t I tell you?” she asks airily. “Colin’s flying in from Vancouver.”
Right away, Lilly’s entire body fills with annoyance and dread. “Colin?” she repeats, fully aware she sounds about thirteen years old. “Why?”
Her mother smiles at her with syrupy forbearance. “Because I invited him, Lilly. He’s going to Joshua Tree to finish up his new screenplay, but his rental doesn’t start until New Year’s.”
Lilly resists the urge to stamp her foot, but barely. Her cousin Colin once made her watchDonnie Darkotwice, back-to-back when they were in high school; his sophomore effort, some masturbatory snorefest about an alcoholic lobsterman and his mean dad, got nominated for best screenplay last year. Lilly told herself the queasy feeling she had as she watched him walk the red carpet in a purple velvet tuxedo was revulsion, not jealousy, though if she’s being honest with herself she knows it was probably a mixture of both.
“Did you know Colin was coming?” she asks June, who’s padding down the stairs in ripped jeans and a loose-knit sweater, looking fresh as a newly picked lemon. Lilly doesn’t know why she’s the only one who seems to be hungover this fine morning.
“I...” June hesitates. “Might have heard something about it?”
“And you didn’t say anything?” Lilly asks. “Or, you know, light the house on fire to collect the insurance money?”
“That would be a good solution to the mortgage thing, actually,” Kit offers, coming in from the kitchen; Tony trails like a basset hound behind her, lugging a ring light in one arm. “You should mention it to Dad.”
