Page 23 of Comfort Read

Things begin to go downhill immediately after that, when Kit, saying goodbye to the various parents, nearly walks right into his mother.

“Mom!” It’s not that he’s unhappy to see her—he’d just rather have seen her in a different location, and with slightly more notice. “Hi! What a nice surprise⁠—”

“Oh, save it, Critter. You’re not surprised.” Cheryl hugs him hello, ignoring his wince at the childhood nickname, and then gives him a narrow-eyed look over her small red glasses. “Are you? I mean, you can’t think your sister wouldn’t tell me you’re dating a movie star. You’re usually such a smart boy.”

“Man,” Kit says, very far under his breath. “I will be killing Maggie, just for your information. In case you wanted to say your goodbyes or anything.”

“I’ll call her after,” Cheryl says, not breaking his gaze. “Explain, please.”

So Kit does, trying to ignore the sensation that Cheryl’s gaze is both pinning him to the wall and seeing his deepest and innermost thoughts. He has hard evidence, largely gleaned through trial and error as a teenager, that she can’t read minds or hold people in place with her eyes. She’s just been a high school principal for nearly twenty years, and was a high school science teacher for twenty years before that. She’s developed a death stare out of necessity, but it merely suggests terrifying supernatural powers. She doesn’t actually have them.

Kit hopes not, anyway.

She does seem to accept the version of the story Kit lays out for her, although he can tell she doesn’t approve.

Kit’s used to that by now; they both are. She’d been furious when he hadn’t wanted to apply to Cornell, her alma mater, because he was more interested in the programs at Ithaca College. She’d been frustrated when he wanted to go into teaching, instead of doing something bigger with his life than she’d done with hers. She’d been aghast when he said he wanted to propose to Emerson, whom she’d never particularly liked, and horror-stricken by the aftermath, and by Kit’s leaving teaching to run the bookshop. This last was particularly galling, since she hadn’t wanted him to go into teaching in the first place.

Now her disapproval is evident in the frown playing at the corners of her mouth, and the way she keeps adjusting pieces of her pixie-cut hair, the same reddish-brown color as Kit’s.

She says, “I won’t lecture you, but I have to know: Why him? I mean, all that publicity! Every other news story the last few years seems to have been about him getting into trouble. What, exactly, is the draw?”

Jesus Christ, Mom, you are not someone with whom I can discuss Sage Ballard’s glorious, wretched, unbearable hotness, which burns with the fire of a thousand suns and melts my critical thinking skills like wax whenever I get too close to him. Kit thinks this with a ferocity that blots out even his annoyance, and it’s so hard not to say it that what comes out instead is the complete, unvarnished truth:

“The draw? He’s… interesting,” Kit admits, his gaze unfocusing as he thinks about it. “He’s done things I never will, been places I’ll never see, had experiences I’ll never understand. And he’s funny—a lot funnier than you’d think—and generous, and he reads. When he’s really listening to you…” He swallows, thinking of Sage’s eyes on him in the back of the town car last night. “It’s like nothing and no one else in the world exists. Like his whole self is sitting there with you, every piece of him, trying to make sure he catches each detail.”

Too late, Kit notices he’s rambling, snaps out of it, and feels a blush rushing to his cheeks. But his mother, instead of looking even more confused and dissatisfied with his choices, glances at him evaluatively instead.

“Hmm,” is all Cheryl says, before sighing and hugging Kit again, this time as a farewell. “I have to go pick up your father from his squash game; we have those tickets tonight. But you’ll keep me in the loop, won’t you?” She says this firmly, iron in her eyes, and Kit reflects that he’s gotten off easy here, in the circumstances. After all, as far as she knows, he’s been keeping this whole thing a secret from her for months. She would have been well within her rights—and her usual patterns—to blow her lid about it.

Also, he feels guilty for lying to her, so he agrees enthusiastically to keep her posted on future developments as she heads for the door. Other than the guilt, he’s pleased with how the conversation went, right up until the moment her hand hits the knob.

“Oh, Critter, before I go,” Cheryl says, her voice faux-casual. “Just a heads-up. Since it’s nearly November, and you’ve been seeing each other for a few months, you dad and I will expect to see him at Thanksgiving. Bye!”

Kit is aware his mother doesn’t really have superhuman hearing. He still waits until he’s seen her car pull out of the parking lot before he lets himself groan.

The next thing to go wrong is Allison. She’s strange and distractible all week in a way that isn’t like her, forgetting tasks he’s never seen her miss before and spending way more time than usual looking at her phone. Several times he finds her just standing there while a customer is waiting for help, gazing out the front window with the soft, far-off expression she generally adopts while reading books on ancient armory.

Fear grows within Kit as this progresses, until finally, on Wednesday evening, he demands, “Are you back with Jeanette? Is that what’s going on? I’d tell you I won’t judge you, but I will, Allison. I’m sorry. You’re my best friend and I love you, but I will judge you, Jeanette was so awful⁠—”

“Stop, stop,” Allison interrupts, laughing. “Don’t speak that evil into the world. I’m not back with Jeanette.” At Kit’s unconvinced expression, she laughs harder, then repeats it: “I’m not back with Jeanette! There are more fun things to do if I want to be self-destructive.”

“I did always get the sense, based on the vibes, that Jeanette wasn’t much fun to do,” Kit admits.

“Ha! You’re not wrong; very ‘me, me, me.’” Allison’s tone is breezy, and she’s already moving towards the door as she adds, “Hey, do you mind if I head out a few minutes early? All my stuff’s done, and I have a thing.”

“Sure,” Kit says, not sure why the request makes him so suspicious. It’s no different than a hundred other conversations they’ve had, and it’s never fazed Kit before when she needed to duck out early, or was vague about her reasons why. She probably has a salon client, or a dinner party to get to, or a D&D session to run, or concert tickets. For as long as he’s known her, she’s operated as if driven by one of Kit grandmother’s favorite sayings: “If you’re bored, then you’re boring.”

The point is, it’s probably nothing. Allison is probably fine. The strange vibes Kit’s getting from her are in his head, or maybe because she’s planning an exciting new cosplay or something. They are not because she has returned to the arms of a woman who once set her underwear drawer on fire. She said she wasn’t back with Jeanette, and Kit’s certain she wouldn’t lie to him. So things are fine! They must be.

Still, when he goes into the back office that night and finds she’s left three different tasks half-done… he wonders.

It’s unfortunate that Allison, the only person in Kit’s life who knows the true nature of his relationship with Sage, has chosen this particular week to be so off her game. It would have been nice to talk to her, because Sage is the third thing to go wrong.

Maybe that’s not fair of Kit. Sage doesn’t go wrong, exactly; he just goes silent. Between ice cream by the falls and their evening together at Mitch’s, Kit had thought things between them were going fairly well. He wasn’t so deluded as to imagine Sage might want to be with him for real, but he’d thought they might be inching towards something like friendship. It had been a cool feeling, while it lasted.

But Kit doesn’t hear from Sage for days after Mitch’s party. No unexpected bookstore drop-bys; not so much as a text message. Nothing. By the time Sage’s name finally does pop up on his phone screen, it’s the middle of the week, and it only half counts; he’s just listed as a member of a group chat, and Frankie’s doing most of the talking.

GROUP CHAT NAME: Keep it secret, keep it safe