Page 46 of Yard Sale

“Why the hell is it so bright in here?” Ah, the gruff voice of my dad. I’d been hoping to avoid him until I had another place to go.

His heavy footsteps shuffled into the room, and then he stopped moving. Turning my head, I caught a glimpse of him—his brown cardigan and his house pants and slippers. From what I could see, he was a lot greyer than the last time we’d gotten together, and his profile seemed thinner.

Maybe he was sick.

“Am I talking to myself?” he demanded.

I rolled my eyes. Usually, he got pissed at me for addressing him at all. “I need it to see what I’m doing. I came in for tea.”

“Tea’s on the counter, and I’m sure you can cope in the dark. We’re not wasting electricity on you.”

I blinked rapidly. “Are you serious?”

“Do I sound serious?”

I said nothing. It wasn’t going to make a difference, and I did my best not to groan when he flicked the light switch and the entire kitchen plunged into darkness just before his shuffling steps headed for the back door.

Turning away, I spread my hands on the counter and tried not to bash my head against it. It was cool marble, a little dirty under my wandering fingers. As my sight gradually disappeared, I started to notice that people who cleaned with their eyes never did the best job.

My mother would be horrified to hear it.

After taking several deep breaths, my heart started to calm down. “This is what you expected,” I reminded myself aloud. “He hates your guts, your mom will never stand up to him, and your brothers are jackasses. And this is your own fault for being foolish enough to fall for Thierry’s bullshit.”

In all honesty, I deserved whatever they threw at me for thinking that, even for a second, they had changed. I knew better. I hated that I wanted to believe things would ever be different.

I hated that, even after all this, I still wanted to be fucking accepted.

“Who the hell is pulling up to our house at this hour?” someone shouted, drawing me out of my thought spiral. I could hear the voice clearly from the back door that was cracked open. It sounded a bit like Peter. “Did someone order DoorDash?”

“They don’t do DoorDash out here,” my mother said.

It really was late—past nine now, so who was coming up to our house? As much as I’d wanted to flee, I hadn’t ordered an Uber, and it wasn’t like my family made friends everywhere they went, so…

“Aravind,” I whispered aloud. Oh god, it had to be Aravind. He was bold enough to do it and reckless enough not to care what a stir it would cause.

And fuck me, but I wanted it to be him so badly I nearly cried. I could still taste him on my tongue, and while I should keep hating him for being an ass, he’d been the only person who treated me kindly in the last twenty-four hours.

But I was also too afraid to get my hopes up. It could be delivery. It could be some late-night Amazon order. It could be⁠—

The doorbell rang, startling me out of my thoughts, and I heard footsteps on the floor. “I’ll get it!” Sarah called out. “If this asshole wakes up the twins, I’m going to kill them!”

There was a loud creak of the front door swinging open, and then…silence.

I took a breath, then strained my ears to try and hear what was being said, but whoever it was spoke too quietly. Was that a low, rumbling voice? Was it an awkward laugh?

“Tiago! Someone is here for you!”

I jolted at the sound of Sarah screaming my name, and it took me a second to remember which way I was facing and which way the front door was.

I could barely think as my fingers touched the wall and I guided myself toward the sound of the people at the front door. The light grew brighter as I turned the corner, and while I still couldn’t see for shit in the dim house, I knew it was him.

Aravind.

It was like I could sense him.

“Tiago,” he breathed when I was almost at the door.

Sarah was in my way, and I cleared my throat. “Do you mind?”