Page 10

“At least your super-unrealistic crush is actually a gay dude. Turn …”

“Ahh! You just said not to name names. That’s top-secret information. Not even the walls can know.”

“The ratty sock that’s been balled up in the corner for, like, a month will definitely tell on us.”

“Eww. You think it’s mine?”

Austin shrugged as I tucked my towel in and then used my hands to draw a line in the air instead of saying a certain older guy’s name. “… may be gay, but he’s just as out of reach as all the hot, straight dudes we go to school with. Besides, he’s, like, way older than us, he’s my brother’s friend, and I met him once, for one short week, like two years ago! I didn’t even run into him at their graduation. Stupid Brett had us spending all of our time with his stupid fraternity brothers that weekend since he got to spend the next two weeks road tripping with …” I made the hand motion again.

“You shouldn’t be so dismissive of older guys, Dalt. Older, more experienced guys.”

“We’re seventeen, Aus! He’s close to eight years older than me. The math just doesn’t math for us. Not to mention the geography,” I muttered. “He moved back home after their epic trip, and I don’t know if he and Brett have seen each other since.”

“You won’t always be seventeen, Dalt.”

I flopped on the bench and leaned into my friend, resting my head between his shoulder blades.

“He’s so cute, Aus.” I sighed. Austin leaned back and forth, rocking my head for a few beats before he sat up straighter and turned toward me.

“Yeah, I don’t really see it. All that hair, and the way his face is all, like, boxy. It made him look so serious when he was here. Like he’s constantly thinking deep thoughts. Why is he friends with your brother, again?”

“Shut up, dude. He was hot!” I said without anger, shoving Austin before standing up. I turned away from Austin’s rolling eyes toward my locker, pulling balled-up clothes from my gym bag.

Austin may have been right about the serious part. Turner had seemed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders during the one stupid, short week he’d spent with us before Christmas, almost exactly two years earlier. He’d spent some of that time hanging out in the toy store. At first, my dumb fifteen-year-old heart might have thought he was there to see me, but it became clear pretty quickly that he really liked hanging out with Miss Anita. She would tell him stories and teach him things about the shop. That part was cool because she would teach us both at the same time, and I would get to be in his presence, watching him as he asked really smart questions, and Miss Anita looked really impressed. It made me want to ask really smart questions, too, and engage with the two grown-ups who were talking about running a business.

It had been a memorable week for me, between the new job, the hairy calves, and the remarkably handsome guy my brother had dragged to the beach in the dead of winter. It was a week that had started with me finally feeling like I was growing up and had ended with me having a dramatic, angsty crush on my brother’s friend. I didn’t know at the time how long-lived that crush would be, but two years later, Turner was still my standard for hot guys and also for cool, down-to-earth, angsty guys who hung out with Miss Anita and loved Breakwater Toys and Gifts as much as I did.

“If you say so,” Austin snarked. Apparently, handsome men with wavy hair, chiseled jaws, and dark-brown eyes weren’t his thing. Swim-team bros were apparently more his speed.

“So you don’t think your brother still hears from him?”

“I don’t fucking know! It’s not like I can ask him. I hardly ever see Brett; he works all the time. Just like …”

“Yeah, like your dad. Brett seems to like it, though.”

“Shocking, I know, but I really think he does. Also, he met a girl at work. Ever since then, he’s complained much less about the long commute and about working for dad. I think he might even move out of the house, closer to his hotel.”

“Closer to that girl, you mean.”

“Yup. That. You coming to mine for dinner?”

“Sure.”

I rooted around in my bag before zipping it up.

“You know, I think that might actually be my sock.”

A quick drive later, I was wiping the floor with Austin in a video game in the family room, the two of us being louder than was probably necessary, when Brett barged in the front door, talking on his phone. For some reason, I quieted down and stopped punching my best friend in the arm.

Austin leaned in toward me and whispered, “Don’t they work together? Does he have to spend the whole drive home on the phone with her too?”

“Dude, they talk all the time,” I said. Brett tugged off his gloves with his teeth and yanked off his knit hat, stuffing the gloves inside before shrugging out of his jacket. He tossed all the winter gear on the bench in the hallway, putting him close enough for us to overhear him, not that I really had any interest in listening to him talk to his girlfriend.

We got back to playing, but my fingers froze when I heard Brett say, “You know, you don’t have to live in Wisconsin, man.” Wisconsin? Man? Not his girlfriend, then. My ears perked up, and a weight I had carried in my stomach exactly one time before returned as I ignored the TV screen and my best friend and focused on Brett’s conversation with … someone.

“I know your family’s there, but I’m gonna be real with you: Your family kind of sucks. Or I mean … I’m sorry. I guess that might sound harsh if you were a conservative Christian who lived for going to church seven days a week. But I know you. Dude, you were kind of slutty in college.” Brett lowered his voice perhaps a little too late and not low enough that I couldn’t still follow along. The weight in my stomach dropped, and my heartbeat pulsed around the sensation.

“Don’t deny it. You were super gay and slutty, at least toward the end, there. Dude! Remember when you hooked up with my frat brother? I couldn’t believe it. It was like …” I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but clearly, Brett had been interrupted.