Page 44 of On His Mind

“Are they together yet?” I ask.

“I think they just like to fuck.” He pushes a hand through his hair. His other hand is still on my drawing.

“Charming.”

“What about you?” He’s smiling. He’s been smiling since he walked in.

I look at him for a second. Then I cap my pencil, square the sheet to the edge of the table, and put the pencil back in the cup where it belongs.

“There’s wine in the cabinet above the fridge,” I say.

He goes and finds it. He pours two glasses without asking how much I want, and he talks while he does it — the game, a defenseman he doesn’t like, something Drew said in the locker room. He hands me mine. I hold it. I set it down full on the counter, and I don’t touch it again, and he doesn’t notice.

He touches my hair, tucking a piece of it behind my ear like it’s his to move.

“You want to go to your room?” he asks, near my ear, and it isn’t really a question. It’s a place he’s already walking toward.

“Yes.” I say it clearly, and then I take his hand and walk down the hall ahead of him.

Afterward, he lies on his back talking about the game, and I look up and count the recessed lights in the ceiling until he stops.

There are six.

Near one, out in the kitchen, Drew’s hunting through my cabinets for a glass and telling Ivory the score.

“Four-one. And they still lost their minds. Hawthorne’s going till dawn.”

“They won one game,” Ivory says.

“It’s the freshmen. They can’t handle themselves.” He laughs. “That place’ll be a wreck by tomorrow.”

They leave shortly after. Ivory’s door shuts. The apartment settles, and I sit in the dark on my couch with my knees pulled up and my phone in my hand.

I’m the one who keeps the distance. I have spent my whole life knowing exactly how far back to stand.

Me: Hawthorne still doesn’t have a decent drink, does it?

It sits there, sent, which means I can’t take it back. A sentence that means nothing, and my heart is going like I’ve handed something over. I turn the phone face down on the cushion, look at the window, and pretend I haven’t done it.

It buzzes almost immediately. He always answers.

Percy: Not one. Still here.

I read it four times, and then I put the phone down on the arm of the couch and don’t text back.

Chapter 11

Percy

Istareatourtext messages longer than I mean to. I’ve read it enough times that I could write it from memory.

She didn’t come to the party. I stood in that house for four hours with the noise going and the front door opening and closing nonstop. Every time it opened, I was looking at it before I could stop myself, and she never came through it. Around midnight, I stopped watching the door and went upstairs.

Now, it’s ten in the morning, and I’m in new boots because Blue came home and needed his back. I put them on and decide it’s time to break them in. I walk to the store and walking out here in the cold reminds me of Mike Deveroux. He’d swear at me in French if I complained about how cold I was, so I practiced not saying a word.

Once I reach the store, I walk to the produce. I think I’ve been in this section maybe five times in my whole life. The recipe I’m following says to use mango, and I have no idea what it even looks like.

The recipe is simple. I need strawberries, mangoes, mango nectar, sugar, limes, and vodka. I find the strawberries easily and double-take at how much one container costs. I look at it long enough that a man reaches around me for the raspberries and says excuse me.Forget the price.I put two containers of strawberries in my cart. Then I search the rest of the store for mango nectar.