Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Me and Danny met each other freshman year, when our dorms were on the same floor. My roommate was a guy named after his dad’s favorite college football team. Danny’s roommate was another hockey player like him. They tried to keep the student athletes together in the building by the sports complex. And yeah, he’s basically always looked like this. Tall blonde and built at 18. Well, 19, but a freshman. 

We weren’t best friends or anything. Sometimes a bunch of us would all go somewhere that didn’t card and usually he couldn’t come but sometimes he could, and we’d talk on the way to the bar. Danny was a man of few words. Considered words. I liked finding something that would get him going for multiple sentences without thinking about it. Never anything that important. I don’t even remember most of it. He talked most when we were fucked up and not much the rest of the time. 

I have the opposite problem. Most of the time, I can’t shut the fuck up. 

It was a family joke as long as I can remember. Out of all of us Russos, I’m the shortest, loudest, and middlest. Runt of the litter. Always saying something at the wrong volume and wrong time. Third of five. My part of the joke was denying those traits, and trying to be as tall and stoic as everyone else. The deck is stacked against me. Junior is oldest and tallest. Stef’s the princess. The twins are two years younger than me, so I basically got no time where anybody was interested in what I was doing before the twins were doing it younger, faster, and better. 

And I guess in my family’s defense, my parents are really the only ones who ever said stuff like that. The twins didn’t mean to do anything. We were a pack of three in the halls of Saint Ed’s—me, Luca, and Joey. We had fun. End of the day, though, they were twins and I wasn’t. I was close with Stef growing up, which Dad never said he hated but always totally did. And then I went to college six hours away, where hardly anybody knew who my brothers were, and for the first time I didn’t feel like I was in the middle of anything. I was just me. 

Danny’s somewhere in the middle of his family too. That was not a topic I could get him to say more than two words about. I learned more in other conversations with him, words and letters at a time. Brother. Kansas. Sunday dinners. Sister. Sisters. Water tower. Brothers. Farm. 

It took until that last one for something to click. We were in the common room trying to get shit done — him more successfully, me less. It was eleven. I had a thing due at midnight I’d written half of. He was trying to tell me something he remembered from home and started by saying, “on the farm,” and then failed to look like he’d meant to say that in any way. 

I looked away to give him a second. “Careful. You almost told me something about yourself.” 

“It’s not telling you, it’s…” Danny started to say, and then I could feel the gears grind to some kind of halt. 

My chest lit up hot the next time I inhaled. “Well, whatever that means I’ll try not to take it personally, man. Jesus.” 

“It’s just my family,” Danny finished. “They still don’t have internet. My parents.” 

“Oh.” 

“And the guys were already calling me a hick. And stuff.”

His accent came out a little bit when he drank. I didn’t want to tell him if he didn’t already know, because I didn’t want him to try and stop it from happening so for once I didn’t say anything. I kept thinking. When it was just the two of us, sitting outside on the curb and catching our breath in front of a building pulsing with sound, or walking down dark roads together with our friends a block ahead. Or now, nobody else in the buiding awake. Now was the first time he’d opened up when I could see his face, and his cheeks were getting blotchy and pink. 

“I don’t know,” Danny tacked on. “Forget it.” 

And because I didn’t know how to tell him I never would, I ended up letting him think I had for a while. 

Freshman year was rough. I had the flu for like a month. Nobody was as willing as they said they’d be to come get me, so the only times I could get home was when I could get a ride with one of the guys — the couple I knew coming here from Ed’s with me, and the other people from near home I’d met here. But I always forgot to ask them before Friday of whatever weekend, when they’d usually already left, so basically I never went home. 

Danny and me were the last people on our floor to leave for spring break. The campus shut down, so we trekked twenty minutes to the nearest drugmart and got protein bars and orange juice. My parents were coming here after a hotel, coming this morning to load up and drive back, and I hadn’t told them about the two hundred dollar fine because I hadn’t done the whole thing to get approval to move out late. I’d forgotten that part and focused on my half-dozen assignments I’d missed across three classes until it was too late. I was forgetting a lot of things, which wasn’t exactly unusual but had never gotten so bad before. The only reason my RA didn’t want me dead was because Danny was already moving out late too. So somebody would’ve been there either way. And the only reason I didn’t want me dead was because Danny was there too. Otherwise, I would’ve just been sitting there, anticipating how mad my parents would be. 

“You gotta do something about that,” Danny said. 

“Oh, thanks. Hadn’t thought of that.” 

“No, like.” The words took a second to come to him, but now I knew to expect that. It was a moment where I looked at him, and he’d try to beam the words into my head so he wouldn’t have to say them. Never worked. He sighed, and shrugged with his whole body where he was sitting on the floor. I was on the one across from him. All of our stuff was in the lobby, just waiting for our rides. “Maybe you’re ADHD or something.”

I hated that he meant it. “Yeah, maybe.” 

“That’s not bad. They have, like. Pills.” 

“You just want my adderall.” 

“No. They test us all the time.” 

“Oh.” He didn’t have to think I was funny, as long as we were moving past it. I shifted positions, trying to stave off a sore ass. My parents said they’d be here twenty minutes ago. 

“Don’t you play something?” Danny asked. “I thought North Tower was all student athletes.” 

“Nah, I quit the program. It was, uh. Football.” 

“Okay.” 

Even with him, that wasn’t going to be the end of it. I could tell. So I lied. “My parents wanted me to focus on my grades.” 

I was like 60% sure that he was going to ask me a question and my whole story would crumble. All he said, though, was “Well, glad you’re here.” And then my parents were finally there. 

Danny helped us load up. Mom walked in mad, sunglasses on, and Dad didn’t come inside at all so I didn’t say anything besides, “This is Danny, he’s staying late too.” 

“Don’t even start with me,” she said back, so I didn’t. 

Her, me, Danny, and Dad got the car loaded up in just a couple trips. Dad started his running muttering commentary midway through the first one, and I was in too much shit to try and say anything about it. So Danny heard whatever he heard. Probably heard Dad mention one of the dozen of times he came back to the topic that I had quit the team to get some gay-ass liberal arts degree, and that now I fucked around too much to even do that right. 

Mom didn’t say anything. 

Danny tried to have a second with me when the car was loaded up. We got about as long as it took for the trunk to close. “Is, uh,” was all he got out, and then my mom said my name like she was already about to leave me behind. 

“See ya next year, man,” I said, and went. 

Moving back into my dorm in January was less hectic than the first time. Plus, on the first trip inside, I saw Danny was already here too. Door to the room propped open, sheets on his bed. I didn’t see him until I’d unloaded the car halfway on my own. Stef was on the phone with Mom talking about the drive, but she would’ve found some other reason not to help so I wasn’t even really upset. I was glad when Danny said he’d help, though, when I ran into him in the hall. 

“How was break?” he asked while we were walking out.

“Great. How about you?” 

“Cold.” 

Maybe because I didn’t ask any more questions, neither did he. 

Well, one more. He wanted my number.

I thought of a lot more things to text him about than I ever actually sent. Like I’d see a funny clip of something and have the thought, but somewhere in the process of sending it to him I usually stopped. He never did anything like that. He texted like he talked, a word or two at a time, and I didn’t want to be that guy who always has too much to say in every format, so I just matched him. Told him where we were when he asked, asked if he was going to the gym, yeah I was free or sorry not tonight man. And eventually somebody made a group chat with a bunch of us who were cool, and everybody would just throw plans in there and I barely texted Danny at all anymore. Which was fine. Honestly, I didn’t have the time. I really had to buckle down and nail the gen eds for the last month. I wasn’t sure I’d survive another C- with my parents already making threats all December about me having to pay my own tuition. 

Every once in a while someone besides my roommate would come by to tell me that what I was doing at my desk wasn’t studying, and I’d say I was aware, leaving out the painfully part. I’d tell them to trust me, that it was part of my process. And it was, but the process wasn’t great. Or complicated. All I had to do was have zero fun, go nowhere, and do all my assignments in the last hour they were due because the rest of what I did was just stare at what I had to do and not do it. 

Sometimes Danny came by. He never said the thing about ADHD again, but I could feel him thinking it. He’d ask what I was doing and I’d say studying and he was the only person who’d just say nice. “Come find me when you’re done,” he’d say, and I’d agree like a filthy liar, knowing that I was going to be right here doing nothing until the actual last second. 

By the skin of my teeth I got it done. All B’s and an A. It wasn’t like those were bad grades—for me they were great—but I still felt like everybody in my family expected me to be better at it if it was all I was doing since I gave up something I was way better though still not great at just because I hated it. And I felt like that because they did. 

Sophomore year, I lived a house with a bunch of the guys. I didn’t really know any of them that well. Anybody I knew better had ended up in a frat. I’d missed that. Missed a lot, so I overcorrected. I was out more nights than I wasn’t, always running into people I sort of recognized but didn’t really want to talk to. Usually wasn’t exactly sober enough to get away from them, so I’d bounce around between groups of people trying to find somewhere I wanted to be besides back in North Tower with all those guys. I never saw Danny anymore. I didn’t want to be desperate and text him without a reason to. 

Even better than going out was when the boys threw something at our house. Tom, the junior who’d came with the house, would run down from the attic hooting and slamming on all our doors with an inflatable caveman bat, and that was how we knew that in like an hour, the house would be full enough to have its own heartbeat. We took turns buying liquor on our parents’ cards. I was actually excited for my turn, and my chance to use the ID I swiped from my older brother over the summer. Vinnie and me looked alike enough that our own parents had mixed us up in baby photos, and it had gotten me in at any bar we’d tried so far. So I walked to the liquor store with my backpack, and got everything in 5s. Vodka, whiskey, rum, and mixers. 

The checkout girl looked tired. Her face was round, hair dyed black and long, hiding most of her as she scanned things and moved them aside. I got my bag out, but I didn’t start putting them in yet so she wouldn’t think I was antsy. “Long day?” I asked, and she kinda snorted a yes. I’d count that as a win. “So I won’t invite you to this party I’m throwing.” 

“Good.” 

Okay, I didn’t need to talk. I could just wait, and be cool about it. But basically right away I got really aware of how much I wanted to tap on the counter and had to focus anywhere else. The shirt she was wearing was huge. She was grabbing every bottle with the sleeve over her hand. For some weird reason, that made me really want to see her hand. I did not act on that desire. I waited patiently, and handed over the ID when she asked. Our fingers didn’t touch, but I thought about it. 

“You don’t look like a Vinnie.” Her voice saying more than one word caught me off guard; I got startled into looking at her. She had a septum ring. Her eyes were lighter than I thought they’d be. The dark bags were really setting them off. For a second she looked less than hostile, until I ruined it. 

“You can call me whatever you want, babe.” 

Her face hardened right back up. “Will that be all?” was all she said, and continued to be all she’d say to me whenever I went back.

In the interest of getting laid, I started by trying to find a girlfriend. It wasn’t difficult—or I mean, it wasn’t easy either, but. It wasn’t torture. For a couple weeks I went out and talked to girls. When I found one who seemed into like somebody my family would approve of, I bought her a drink and took her home. Our first time was fine. Maybe better than fine, because I got her number. And like a month later, I asked her out. And just like that, I had a girlfriend. Gia. 

It was like riding a bike; I’d always had one in high school. This, at least, I knew how to do. We went on dates. I remembered her birthday. I picked up White Claws for her, too, when I did the liquor run. Good boyfriend shit. My grades weren’t great, the house had an increasing number of holes in the walls, but all of that felt better with a girlfriend. She’d come when I’d go out with the guys and whoever they were seeing. We met up for lunch at the student union, or did study dates in the library. She did actually help, too. It was easier to focus when she was reading things back to me or helping me talk through a paper. I did better in classes. Things were clicking. 

I learned the name of the girl at the liquor store. Not exactly under the best circumstances. I was in there by total chance, actually. It was Tucker’s night to get the drinks and he underbought as always and I was the guy standing nearest the door that Tom handed two fifties. We were out of punch, and it was my job to save the night.  

The store closed at 2, and it was definitely in the 1:40 neighborhood when I got there. I was expecting her to be even more terse than usual, but I didn’t really mind it. In my twisted mind, it was kind of sweet that she didn’t try to pretend. I also had about half a dozen beers onboard. So that was the mindset I was walking in with. 

Part of our routine was to walk past her on the way in and play it really cool. Usually she was busy. Today she was out in the store, pacing up and down the refrigerated aisle. There was an open bottle in her hand. “Whoa,” I said out loud, and she whirled around and glared at me. No makeup on, or maybe rubbed off. Her face was red. What the fuck. Behind her, one of the doors was smashed out. Glass on the floor.

“Get what you’re gonna get,” she said. 

I went as fast as I could without looking like a total dweeb. But then I got stuck on the math, on adding up twenty-one dollars times however many and tax so I put four on the counter and then went back for another one, and then froze. 

“What are you doing?” 

I answered without turning around. “Failing to do mental math. I have a hundred bucks.” 

“Four is right.” 

“Thank you.” 

“No problem.” 

“What happened to the glass?” 

She turned to look at it like she didn’t know what I was talking about, which was pretty funny. After a few seconds of regarding it, she said, “Oh. Some asshole slammed it.”  

“Yikes.” 

“It’s fine. Thanks for asking.” 

“Sure. Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever caught your name.” 

She only hesitated for a second. “Chloe.” 

“Nice to meet you,” I said as normally as I could. Friendly and normal and definitely not harassing her at work. No, we were sharing a moment. “Hope the asshole never comes back.” 

“I’ll call the cops if he does.” 

I liked that. I liked somebody who’d do something about a situation. I liked her putting a tough face on it, and I liked her still wiping tears out of her eyes while we talked. So many feelings. No fake polish. I was used to a lot less to work with out of a person. 

Even though I knew I was probably ruining it again, I had to try it a second time. I needed her to say yes. “There’s a great party a couple blocks away if you’re gonna be up for a while.” 

“Still no.” 

“You hate fun?” 

“I’m bad with people.” There was almost no indication if she was joking, and then she took pity on me and sort of smiled. “Or so they say.” 

“You’re great with me,” I said to make her smile bigger, and it worked. She grinned and called me a liar and locked the door behind me after I left. 

After that night, she would at least entertain small talk with me when I came in. It was a thing we did together, thirty seconds at a time of mostly the same words. How’s your night — good, how about you — good, thanks — your total is whatever — have a good night — you too. That made life more bearable. 

Gia visited me over winter break. We planned a whole long weekend of dinner with my family and going ice skating or whatever. Honestly she planned most of it, and I liked her taking charge more than she did. That weekend she complained about everything she chose and having to choose it. She didn’t like hiking, or the mall, or apparently even ice cream. She really got along with my family. I broke up with her on Saturday morning.

In about twenty minutes, she was gone and I was out on the deck avoiding how mad everybody was at me for ruining their fun. It wasn’t snowing but cold enough to be, and I didn’t have a coat on because I felt like I was about to ignite anyways. My face was so hot. I couldn’t get enough air in. I needed to talk to somebody, so I called Danny. I couldn’t think of anybody else who might pick up. 

The noise on the other end had me convinced it was an answering machine or something, but then louder, Danny said, “Hello?” 

“Hi. Uh. Sorry.” 

“For what?” 

“Calling out of the blue.” 

“I’m not mad,” Danny said. His background got quieter, and it sounded like a door closed. “What’s up?” 

God. I missed his voice. I took a deep breath in through my nose. Above all, I did not want to tell him about Gia. Fuck, I didn’t know what I would even say about that, but that was another day’s problem. “I, uh. How are you?” 

“I’m good. You?” 

“Uh. I’ve been better.” 

“Yeah?” 

Another deep breath. I meant to say something charming and grateful and funny. Something that made him forget the distance and the time between the last time we sat in a dorm room and shot the shit. I hated that I couldn’t remember the last time we talked. “I feel like I’m a different person. In a room with my family.” 

“Different how?” 

“I don’t know.” 

I could feel him thinking over the phone. I took another deep breath. “Are you?” 

“Am I what?” 

“Different.” 

“I wish,” I said on accident, which was the exact opposite of playing it cool. I needed to backtrack. “I don’t know. I guess I just missed the sound of your voice, man.” Worse. 

“Okay.” There was a smile in his voice, at least. That was good. “Where’ve you been?” 

“Uh. Got a girlfriend,” I said stupidly. Like an idiot. 

“Oh, me too. Awesome.” 

Awesome. I got off the phone as fast as I could after that, and went inside to nurse my new cold, numb fingers back to feeling. 

The worst thing about knowing Danny was knowing he would follow up with me after that. He was too nice not to. But really, I’d made the mistake of letting him know I was struggling in the first place so anything that came out of that was on me. When we were all back at school, he texted me and I let him talk me into meeting at a dining hall and catching up. 

It was so great to see him. Still big and blonde and placid with a big smile for me. I almost felt like I shouldn’t look at him. If I did, he’d know everything I wasn’t saying. 

I let him go first. Mistake. He told me all about Anya, the girl he was dating. She was older than him, a junior, on the field hockey team, and loaded. He was a minute into the ramble when I realized how little prompting he’d needed. His cheeks were pink just talking about her. And after the big long description he said, “What about you? What’s your girlfriend’s name?” 

I had to just tell him. I couldn’t look him in the eye and lie. “Yeah. Gia. We broke up, actually.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah,” I said again, and the silence he was leaving me felt a lot like one I should talk during. Say more than the absolute minimum, maybe. Since Danny had gone to all the effort first. “I mean, she was nice. But I just wasn’t feeling it.” 

“Meeting your parents didn’t go well?” 

I forgot I told him that. “Yeah, not exactly.” 

“What happened?” 

Swear to God, I opened my mouth fully intending to lie like a normal person. But somewhere between my brain and there I got distracted by the fact that I hadn’t actually told anybody what had happened. Not for real. Stef got a version, but she hadn’t really been listening. I wanted to say it. “I just didn’t feel like she gave a shit. I was checking a box, for her. And with my family, it was just…” If Danny had tried to suggest a single word, I would’ve agreed to it just so it would be over. But him, more than anybody, was willing to just wait it out with me. I wanted to live up to that patience. I kept talking. “I think she liked them more than she liked me. I know that’s supposed to be a good thing, but. I don’t know. She said I talk too much.” 

“Matter of opinion.” 

I shrugged. His face hadn’t changed, which made me brave for a second. “Well, everybody else laughed."

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, man.” 

“Wait, what? She met your family and they all started talking shit?” 

“Kinda.” 

“That’s messed up.” 

“Yeah. And. I don’t know.” There was more, but I didn’t want to push my luck. He was on my side right now. I just shrugged it off, and seamlessly transitioned into bullying him into coming out with all of us the next night he was free and in town. It took very little. He said yes when all I’d said was that I had an idea, and then smiled the whole way through the pitch. So we were friends again. 

Just like the year before, the end of the spring semester was like two months of pure panic. Unlike then, it was kind of hard to focus on homework when my walls were shaking from the music downstairs. And unfortunately, it turned out that every second of useless silence was necessary for me to get things done. It turned out that I was stupidly and pathetically susceptible to distractions like Tom banging on the door or Gunnar bringing a bottle of rum room to room. So my grades were bad and not getting better. Not that I’d fail out of college, but enough to piss off my dad. 

I tried hiding it and did for a while, but Stef eventually ratted me out. The family groupchat was going a mile a minute once Mom found out, and I tried to keep up with it for a while but then I dropped my phone behind my bed and decided that was a sign. No more phone. I needed to do something to feel better. 

No phone meant no Danny, unless I wanted to walk across campus. I didn’t want to talk to him about this. And I had no car, so I had to stay close. I could go to the gym, but no phone meant no music and that seemed psychotic. If I had a smartwatch next time, that could change everything. But this time, I really only saw one thing to do. 

Even though it was a Tuesday and daytime, as opposed to the usual weekend liquor run, Chloe was still there behind the counter, reading. She was usually reading. I’d noticed it might make for good conversation one day, and was waiting for the right time to bring it up. Now was not the time. Now, my card declined and I had to explain to her what was happening. I wanted it to be clear that I was not trying to waste her time and didn’t know what happened, but it was also starting to make sense. I didn’t pay this card off. Dad must’ve not done it. Probably on purpose. 

First thing, my voice cracked when I started trying to explain, but she didn’t stop me. Since she was letting me, I started over. “Not a big deal. Just. My folks kinda hate me,” I said, with a winning smile. Joking, joking. “I’ll put it all back. Sorry.” 

Chloe didn’t move besides narrowing her eyes at me. “What does that mean?” 

“Just about everything you’d think it would.” 

“I’m sorry, dude,” she said real sympathy.

My smile didn’t waver until she said that. And then my eyes got really blurry, and I was crumpling, air sucked out of me. Crying. I hadn’t cried in forever. It felt like a lemon juicer in the chest, piercing burning pain making me hot and cold all over. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hands. Didn’t make things any better. “I’ll just put these back,” I repeated, to try and make an exit. 

“It’s okay,” Chloe said. “Somebody cries in here like a couple times a day. Usually it’s me.” 

Because there was something really wrong with me, I cried more. Sniffed hard before I said anything else. “I do feel like it’s worse because I’m sober,” I finally got out, not nearly as casual as I wanted it to be. 

“Worse than what? How? Relax. It’s fine.” 

“Yeah. You’ll just never look at me the same again.” New tears. Great. 

“What?” 

“I don’t know. My girlfriend said that.” 

“She better be your ex.”

“Yeah. She is.” 

Chloe didn’t give me a second to think about what she was saying before she hit me with another question. “You seriously don’t have Apple Pay or something?” 

I still couldn’t look at her. “I don’t have my phone. I’m taking a break from it.” 

“Ah.” 

“I’m kind of in trouble, and I don’t know if they’ll let me come back next year,” I told her. And once I said it, it felt like the thing I needed to say the most and the reason I couldn’t talk to Danny about it, all wrapped up in one. 

“That sounds like a lot,” Chloe said, and not that I needed to stop snotting up her store, or that I was a loser, or that I needed to do less whining. She offered me a tissue from the box behind the counter, and helped me put back the bottles I’d picked up until somebody else walked in looking for something specific. I finished up with fixing everything before she finished helping them out, and then I just lurked in one of the aisles, waiting to be dismissed, to have somewhere better to go, to be given permission to say what I was feeling again. 

Once the other people walked out, I avoided her eyes and played busy. Maybe she’d tell me to get lost. This was probably technically loitering. “I’ll get out of here,” I said loudly from over here. 

“Hey,” Chloe said louder, and I looked at her. That was what she wanted. “What’s your name?” 

I didn’t know what to say. It felt wrong to protect the last months of drink runs before I could use my own adult ID. Truths tumbled out. “Matt. Russo. Vinnie’s my brother.” 

“Big family?” 

“Five kids.” 

“I’m kind of the oldest of four,” she said, her voice warming up. 

We went back and forth for another couple rounds. She grew up here, I didn’t. I was in school, she wasn’t. All her half/step sisters were way younger, and I told her how I was in the middle. She was 24 last month, and she let me say I wouldn’t answer that question.“Then tell me this. What’s here that you’d miss so much?” she asked. 

I couldn’t say it was her, it was more her than she’d probably believe. So I just said I’d miss my friends and Chloe nodded several times, looking like she could see right into me. I thought of one last thing I had to say while someone was listening, and I said it because it seemed like she could maybe read my mind already. “And I’ll miss feeling like my own person.” 

She sucked a breath in through her teeth. “If that’s how you feel at home, you’ve got to get out of there, man.”

“And do what?” 

“Work at a liquor store,” she suggested. And although we both thought it was funny, I wasn’t sure she was joking. 

When I woke up the next morning, not as drunk as I’d planned on being, I was thinking a lot more clearly. Chloe was right. I didn’t have any better options besides finishing college. I had to figure this out. 

I texted Danny and asked him if I could study with him at some point, and he told me I could come over that night if I wanted to. I did, and I did get a couple things done because he was sitting in front of me doing his own homework. It was easier to focus with him right there. He was a good example. I missed being around somebody who gave a shit about me too, I don’t know. Maybe that was selfish. But I got a lot done, and he didn’t complain, so it had to be fine. 

“Who’s texting you?” Danny asked after a couple hours of me jumping every time my phone buzzed. 

“My dad, mostly.” 

Something gave me up. Something caught his attention. Given what had gone without getting commented on, it had to be obvious. Danny looked at me, eyes a cold splash, and observed, “Hard to focus.”

“Yeah,” I said. Yeah but it always was. 

I did see Gia again, out late getting pizza with some of the boys. She flipped me off from another table. Later that night, she sent me a bunch of angry messages, and I answered which was dumb because she only sent more. Nothing funny, either. It just sucked. And Danny was away for the weekend, playing some team in the middle of nowhere. Besides him, I could only think of one person in town who might actually listen to what I had to say. Once I got home, of course I went to see Chloe at work even though it was late, but I just kept thinking about how I didn’t want to be seeing her at work. I wanted to see her outside of work. I needed to talk to her but only if she really meant wanting to talk to me too. 

The nights weren’t that chilly anymore, so I was sweating by the time I pulled open the door. The bell jingled and she looked up to see me. “Hey,” she said in her version of a friendly tone. 

“Hi.” 

Chloe frowned at me. Someone else was in here, so I went down an empty aisle to pretend to shop until they left. My breath was loud in my ears.

As soon as the door touched closed behind the last other person, Chloe said, “Get over here, Matt. What’s going on?” 

First time she said my name. I was not going to be a freak about this. I came to find her at work when I was upset, which was already freakish enough. I obeyed, obviously, and stood in front of her feeling like I was on the stand. “I think… we’ve got something. Or would. If we knew each other more. So I want to get to know you.” I’d never been this scared to say anything to any actual girlfriend. 

Chloe looked like she hated the concept, but she didn’t call the cops. “Okay. Well, I’m not exactly available.”

“That’s—I don’t mean…” 

“Breathe,” she suggested. Good idea. I leaned on the counter and tried. “Why are you hyperventilating? Is that something else?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“If I let you go stand in the fridge for a second, will that help?” 

I stared at her. 

“It will. Come on.” She motioned me around the counter with her, and then she grabbed my shoulder to push me in front of her. “This way.” 

After two minutes of standing in the freezer, pressing my forehead against an ice-cold metal bar like she told me to, Chloe pulled me back out. Her hand was hot on my arm, more strength in her grip than I was expecting. Solid. I was still unsteady, so she backed me into the door I just came out of. “I feel like a kitten,” I said without thinking. 

She smiled. “Sorry.” 

“Not a bad thing.” 

“So what’s going on, champ?” 

I forgot how much more careful I meant to be. On the walk here I had thought of a lot of things to say to her to that effect—how careful I wanted to be not to be a terrible person. I didn’t think I was entitled to this, I thought it was something real. All of that went straight out of my head when she asked. Everything was quieter back here, the loud humming of the coolers sealing us in, and she called me champ. 

The story wasn’t a particularly original one, and I’d just lived it all so I tried not to belabor the details. My ex-girlfriend was an uptight control freak, which was what I liked about her first but then it got weird. She wanted me to have strong opinions about everything she had opinions about so we’d fight about them, and then she’d get mad every time I didn’t win the argument. Then she started giving me all kinds of input on stuff, like she hated some of my clothes. Or if I started to tell her about something that was bothering me, she’d say I was acting like a girl. I didn’t really know how to say why that bothered me so I laughed it off, but she got mad when I didn’t take it seriously so then we’d fight about that too. And when I did break up with her, in the upstairs hallway of my childhood home, it was because she said my brother was hot. 

“Oh my god. What a weirdo.” 

I blinked at Chloe. “Exactly.” 

“You know that all sucked, right?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. That was bad. No wonder you’re fucked up.” 

“My family said it was funny and I overreacted,” I said, in case that hadn’t been clear in my storytelling. 

“Okay. Well, I guess they’re free to be wrong,” Chloe said. 

My parents would say she didn’t know enough to talk. They’d say what they said again—I was making way too much out of it, and Gia was a great girl. The thing was, though, that all felt pretty different when they were telling me I was overreacting about classes being tough too, and I was sitting there knowing how hard I tried. There wasn’t a second in the day where I could’ve tried harder, except when I was dating Gia, who I was pretty sure didn’t really like me, and she was the only thing about me they approved of.

“I’m probably making it sound way too serious,” I said. 

“Well, that’s definitely not the problem. You’ve been smiling like most of the time you’ve been talking. Which you don’t need to do. It’s fine that you’re having a bad night.” 

Uh oh. Another stupid first time—I couldn’t say if I’d ever thought it was fine to have a bad night or day or anything. I just barely managed to keep myself from saying it out loud, but I knew I easy to read. She stepped in closer while I was talking. Her face was so close. I could see the smudges in her dark eyeliner, the flecks of darker shades in her blue eyes. If I kept looking at her, I’d want to kiss her, so I closed my eyes for a second. And then I had to keep them closed, because I was pretty sure if I opened them, I’d cry again. The cold door at my back kept me stable. 

I could feel her breath when she talked. “Why aren’t you talking to your friends about this, dude? I know I’m not first choice. What’s going on?” 

“Most of my friends aren’t really talking type of guys. And we broke up before Christmas.” 

“So you’re supposed to be over it.” I nodded. “Those are pretty shitty friends. No offense.” 

“How could I be offended? You’re taking my side.” 

All the things I said that felt like mistakes, all the things that usually annoyed people about me made Chloe keep warming up to me instead. I could tell because she kept trying to hide it. She fake glared at me. “Don’t give me too much credit. There’s no other side to take, here.” 

That only made it worse. I wanted to ask her to push me around again, but I didn’t want to cross the line of whatever not exactly available meant. It wasn’t like I really wanted to cross it, anyways. Or not totally just that. For once, I didn’t want to cheapen it by acting like I only wanted to fuck her. I wanted that, but only after she told me stuff and after I told her more stuff. I wanted to talk to her without the cash register ending the interaction. I wanted her to meet my parents. 

Before I walked out but after she locked the door to close, I borrowed a piece of receipt paper and a sharpie and wrote down my phone number and my address and my email address. The marker smelled good. But also I wanted her to be able to reach me however the fuck she wanted. I’d give her my location if she asked—another thing Gia and I fought over that I could only think about in the context of Chloe. Chloe wouldn’t tell me I had to. If Chloe showed up somewhere I was, I would love it. 

This was, of course, insane. Way too much way too fast. But I was totally fucked up, and we’d been out since eight tonight so it was what it was. Chloe seemed to understand that I was wasted, so I had to be showing it a lot more than I felt it. She wasn’t hurrying me out, and that was good because I wasn’t sure I could hurry. I wasn’t sure I could write. I made her read it before I left. 

“Yeah, it’s legible. You want to go get food in daylight or something?” she said. And I agreed that sounded alright, so a couple days later we did that. 

We got burgers. She didn’t look like she’d really dressed up. Sweatshirt and her hair was up. But she listened to me talk about my family in as much detail as she told me about hers, and she gave me an actual opinion taking into account all the different factors and then she paid for me because she remembered I was cut off. Obviously I remembered that too, I had cash I’d borrowed from somebody but she told me to keep it in case there was an emergency. 

I didn’t tell her how much that meant to me, but I did send her a video about annoying customers and she said it was funny. So then I sent some more of them, and she sent me a couple things back, and then we were texting. 

Danny noticed. “Who’re you talking to?” he said one time we were studying, when I was looking at my phone instead of studying for probably the fifty-millionth time. 

“My friend. Chloe.” 

“Who’s Chloe?” 

“Somebody who lives in town. She’s cool.” 

He took longer than his usual second to answer, but I couldn’t exactly read his face to figure out why. “Okay. Cool. But you know you’ve got stuff to do, yeah?” 

“Yeah.” I could only stand him telling me what to do because he sounded like he hated to do it. And he was right. I told Chloe I had to lock in, and put my phone on silent, and then Danny distracted me for like twenty minutes anyways figuring out which game of his I should come to. But after that, I got stuff done. 

The thing about getting to know Chloe was comparing it to the last girl I really got to know and figuring out where everything went wrong made me feel like a genius. Like, I figured out that Gia was not good at talking about herself—and neither was I, but that didn’t exactly make for a great relationship. There was nothing but rules with her, but I never felt like I understood what she wanted out of me any better. That was bad too. 

And, also, then there was how Chloe was the opposite of all of that. The more I talked to her, the better I knew her. She always said exactly what she wanted, or her face did if she didn’t. Nobody had ever told me right where their sore spots were so I could avoid them. I didn’t know that was something people would do, but now that felt like not being aware of water. Of sunlight. Of air. I wanted to know what Stef would do if I talked to her like me and Chloe talked. If either of the twins would sit up and meet me at the same level. If Danny would, or the other guys. 

Danny was about to be done with his season, going more colorless every time I saw him, and seeing him play was hard because he looked so great every second he was dying out there. But I went to as many games as I could get in for free, because he smiled so big when he saw me. His girlfriend only came to a few. That was part of it, too. None of that was ever a good time to talk to him like I talked to Chloe. So I just kept wondering.  

It was the second to last Saturday night of the semester. I was so close to caught up, and having fun for like ten hours before I buckled back down. Tom and the guys were doing a beer pong tournament that started at noon out on the lawn, so all day I did laps between there and the kitchen, talking to whoever I ended up near. It was like swimming. It made my mind go pleasantly blank while the sky went black.

I was watching the quarter finals when I noticed the person who’d walked up to the house had long dark hair and a septum ring. And, in the light, was Chloe. 

It took a second to find my voice, but then I was calling for her and waving. A couple of the guys seemed curious who the hell this was, but then Tom missed and everybody cared about that. 

Chloe gave me a hug when she was close enough. Her hair smelled kind of stale. “Hi. Is this weird?” 

“No,” I said before I knew if it was true. I said it because even if it was weird, then she was the last part of the equation that needed to change. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” 

“Can I smoke?” Her voice cracked. 

My heart jumped. “Go for it.” 

Out of her messenger bag, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Halfway through the first one, she started talking to me. To just me, close enough that I was breathing smoke too. She’d told me about her boyfriend before, soon-to-be-ex. That was the complicated part of her situation, she said, but it felt much less complicated when she said he was following her. He was in his car across the street right now. She said he was probably pissed he couldn’t see her more clearly, but he’d probably get bored or fall asleep in an hour or two. And now I had a taste of the tables turned; she was telling me stuff like it was normal and I was just staring at her in shock. 

“You want to stay here?” I asked the moment she stopped talking. “You can sleep in my bed.” 

Chloe blinked at me. She kind of always looked tired. I wondered if she got followed home a lot.“Just sleep, right?” 

I put my hands up. “Hey, you don’t have to. Or if it’s me, I can… I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ll stay downstairs. You tell me, dude.” 

Her shoulders dropped, and she reached out to nudge my arm with her wrist. “I’m just asking. Given the vibes.” 

“The vibes,” I agreed, not quite following. 

“You guys get laid at these parties?” she asked, nodding at the cluster of girls near the winning side. 

“Yeah, sometimes. Sorry, what do you mean?” 

“Am I ruining your night?” She threw her arms out when she was asking. Maybe she’d grab me again, I was thinking, and then she just did, holding me in place with a hand right near my neck to look deep in my eyes. “Would you rather be getting laid?” 

I remembered I had to answer and did my best. “No, no, never. Come on. Fuck that guy, he doesn’t get to look at you.” 

Chloe stubbed out the butt of her cigarette—third or fourth—in the porch ashtray on her way inside, and then was pretty quiet while I led her upstairs by the hand to my room which was messy but not disgusting. Smelled fine. I opened the window just in case, and in case she wanted to smoke again. My room was on the side of the house, so nobody was seeing in here unless they lived with Paul and his weirdo friends which generally, most people avoided doing. So we were all the way into my room before I realized she was crying, and then when I did realize it I panicked and wrapped my arms around her. “Hey, oh no. What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing, you’re just really nice,” she said miserably. 

“That’s my line.” 

“I’m serious. I didn’t know they made guys so nice.” 

“I’m trying to pay you back. That’s all that’s going on here.” 

That got her to stop crying and smile, even though it was a little judgmental. I’d be corny to make her smile. I’d say anything. I let her look around my room and sit on the edge of the bed. “Not too gross, right?” I said to say something. 

“You should see how my dad lives.” She started taking her shoes off. 

I watched with rapt interest until I realized how weird that might be, and then I kind of spun around and awkwardly put my hands on my hips. “Well, uh. Do you want me to put something on TV? Or get some music on? And I’ve got an air mattress in my closet, I’ll-” 

“Can you just come here? I feel like…” She made a face. “I feel like I’m floating away.” 

Finally, she was telling me to do something. I nodded as big as I could to make sure the message got across, even though I had to say, “One second.” There was beer all over these clothes, and I did usually try to not get in bed disgusting. And now there was a girl in there. Oh. “Actually, I should shower,” I said, proud of that thought, and her giggle followed me into the bathroom. I found myself under the water, thinking over and over that oh my god, she liked me. She was scared and came here because she thought it would help. 

I kept the bathroom door open in case the dude came in here and she screamed, but nothing like that happened. The house was pretty full. A creep wouldn’t feel great coming in here while everyone was here, I thought, but I wasn’t going to take any chances in the future. Not with Chloe’s safety. Tonight I was out in less than five, clothes mostly on and hair still dripping. I towel-dried it in the room, and then I crawled into bed with her. 

“Now I feel like I smell,” she complained, but I promised it was fine. She’d been sitting in air-conditioning all day. I let her borrow a shirt and peel off her jeans that reeked like mop water, and then she just smelled like her. And, then, once she was done changing she got under my blankets and under my arm like she knew where she fit already. She put her head on my shoulder. “Is this okay?” 

“Yeah. Yes. Would…” She said she felt like she was floating. I moved so I was leaning on her harder, and she let out a good sound. Probably not one that was sexy at all, but I was still glad to be so drunk I wasn’t getting hard as easy. I put my head back, and willed myself zen. It got easier every passing minute as her breathing evened out. When she knocked her hand against my knee, it took a couple times to get my attention. “I don’t have to stay. I can leave in a couple hours.” 

Parsing the suggestion took a second. I was getting sleepy already, and even more not at my best. “Whatever you want. But don’t go unless you wake me up so I can walk with you.” 

“You don’t have to do that.” 

“I know. I want to.”

Chloe huffed out a laugh. “Okay, dork.”

Time was passing. We were slumped lower and lower in bed, and then she was napping with her head basically on my chest and I was asleep too because I woke up to that, and held her tighter before I went back to sleep. She slept heavily, but lightly. Little bit of snoring, but when I moved she’d stir and wait to see if something was happening. So I stopped trying to move. I fell asleep for real trying to remember the last time somebody had held me this long. 

She woke up for good when the sky started lightening, sitting right up and not trying to hide it. The cold of her gone woke me up too. I rubbed my eyes but didn’t open them right off the bat, waiting to see where this would go. After sitting up, she didn’t do anything else for a while so I didn’t fully make it conscious. Actually, in the silence I got worried she’d gone and I missed it, so I reached out blindly and hit her bare leg. And she didn’t say I hit her, she picked up my hand and kissed the back of it, and then she held onto it. 

I’d never been so comfortable in this bed. I fell asleep again, snd she was still there when I woke up again, curled up against me and typing on her phone. 

It went on for kind of a while. I woke up more, and eventually asked, “What’s going on?” 

“My dad’s mad I didn’t come home.” 

“You live with your dad?” 

“Long story. You want to eat before I work at noon?” 

So that was the second time I got food with her. The second time we talked through the whole meal, her humoring all my stupid attempts to keep the conversation going and adding in her own. She said that was the best she’d slept in a while. She said I was cute drunk. 

I meant to ask her if she’d want to date me when she was more single, but I forgot to. In my defense, I’d never met somebody who liked talking to me so much. The knot in my chest I couldn’t remember ever going anywhere, that thing was loosening up after a few hours with her. And something started to occur to me: I didn’t know where I was going after college, but I knew I wanted to be near her. The only person I knew so far who thought I had something to offer. 

 The last time me and Danny hung out before summer, we ended up the only people who wanted to call it and not head to a third place. He looked at me when I pointed that out, nodded the second I suggested we didn’t need to say any goodbyes, and just like that we were walking home together. We didn’t need to pick which home or split up for a while. 

“How you doing?” he asked me. 

“I’m okay.” 

“When are you going home?” 

“Uh, I think Friday. That’s what my folks are saying right now, at least.” And I would be coming back. I’d scraped through another round of classes and my parents had also seemed to have mostly forgotten about threatening me this time around. 

Danny’s voice was soft. “They seemed pretty mad at you. When I met them.” 

“Yeah, they usually are.”

Took til a second after I’d shrugged it off to realize this was Danny trying to talk about it in his way. Opening up the door to see what I’d say. Here I’d been wondering what he’d say, and he’d been trying to show me. He was looking at me when I glanced over like he was just waiting to see if I could make myself tell the truth. Shit, maybe he could see through me too. So I said some more. “I don’t know. The twins have distracted them this year, so it’s not as bad. Chloe says my family sucks.”

Danny didn’t miss a beat. “Sounds like a great girl.” 

Before we split up to go home, when we were just standing on the corner talking Danny asked if he’d ever get to meet Chloe. He wouldn’t look at me when he said it, so I figured he felt weird that I was talking to somebody so much all of a sudden. He didn’t know the whole story, and I didn’t know how to tell it. I promised he would meet her and I meant it, because she was the only other person who’d be able to explain. But then I put it off, because every time I started to tell her about Danny to make plans with all three of us I couldn’t figure out how to. And then I’d get distracted and forget as the days passed and then it was Thursday. 

Well, Friday morning. I was basically nocturnal at this point. I was packing last-minute which was more acceptable than usual because I was living here next year too. It didn’t matter if I got it all done or not. Honestly, I’d thought about staying here for the summer. The only problem was that I had to go home if I wanted to eat. But I still wasn’t sure I really wanted to go home. Maybe I could just mow lawns down here or something. I didn’t have a lawn mower. So I was going home, and I was packing when my phone rang. 

I almost didn’t pick it up. Unknown number and everything, but Caller ID said it was maybe some kind of hospital.

“So who’s hurt?” Chloe asked the second I opened her car door. She drove a shitty little Toyota that smelled like grandma. I’d woken her up—she was clearly in pajamas with a jacket zipped over, glasses crooked on her nose. 

Danny was my best friend. I could say it because of the urgency. Because I couldn’t get any scareder. I hadn’t even spoken to him. They’d just told me he was in a car accident, and he needed someone to drive him home and I’d called Chloe before conscious thought, like how other people might call for their parents. Chloe had her own life and her own problems that I knew a lot more about now. She was just home from closing when I called. She kept yawning on the drive. But she listened to me try to explain all of who he was with nothing to say after besides “got it” and she put her arm around me when we walked inside. I couldn’t tell what was happening. I couldn’t think enough to try. I’d been up since six that morning, worrying about what the summer was going to be like, and now I was here worrying worse, more. 

At the intake desk, she did the talking and gave me her hand to hold. I couldn’t hear anything, so that was probably the right call. I went where she pulled me, and then we were standing in front of him. Danny was in a hospital bed, blood down the front of his face, holding an ice pack to his head. His right forearm was mummified in gauze, and I couldn’t stop looking at the cuts in his shirt, the drips of blood, the sparkling shards of glass caught in his shoe laces. 

The room was even quieter than the hallway, which was saying something. Everything was dead silent at this hour. Not that much happened here. Besides a car accident. Danny didn’t look up right away. Chloe obviously was hanging back because this was my best friend. I told her he was, and he was, and he was hurt. I still wasn’t capable of taking charge. I didn’t know what to say. Who was driving? I couldn’t ask that first. 

“Hey, man,” I said out loud. 

It took another sec for Danny to acknowledge me, and then for me to lead Chloe closer for introductions, and then there was a second where I could tell there was something comforting I was supposed to do. Something, but I didn’t know what. I put my hand on his shoulder, since it looked pretty whole, and he got tense so I had to be doing it wrong. 

“Hey, I’m Chloe,” she said, and I realized at least one of the things I was doing wrong was I hadn’t said her name. “This is weird, but can I give you a hug?” Danny’s eyes welled up with tears and he nodded so fast I felt guilty I hadn’t thought of it. He didn’t melt in my arms—he did in hers, and I just got to watch. 

It went on for longer than I would’ve thought, because Danny held on with his good hand like she was the only stable thing in the room. If I’d thought of hugging him in time, that could’ve been me. 

While she was still holding him, Danny apologized. Both of us told him not to be sorry and then we both said we wanted to be there, and in a weird way that did more to explain who she was to me than anything else so far. Danny was still teary-eyed and moving slow, but he was here. He was him. He thanked us when we wouldn’t accept apologies, sincere and awful. We got the story out of him in bits and pieces. They were on their way back from the next town over, where a friend got them into somewhere that had some kind of deal on fishbowl somethings. I knew those guys, I knew they did bumps in the bathroom and Danny probably didn’t but whoever was driving probably did, which probably was how the car ended up flipping on its side in a ditch. Danny’s side was the side that got flipped onto. He could’ve fucking died—he didn’t say that, but I looked at Chloe and caught her thinking it. 

He showed us his injuries then too. Scrape on his arm and wrist that he couldn’t move. Bruises on his shoulder where the seatbelt had done its job, and nothing worse. Some of his affect had to be shock, whatever drinking they’d been doing first. Also, the four in the morning of it all. The longer we were talking, though, the more he perked up. As Chloe inspected his injuries and looked at his face up closer and made sympathetic sounds, I watched Danny come back to life. 

“Where are your parents?” she asked. “Or somebody. Don’t they need to know?” 

“A thousand miles away,” I answered for him. 

Danny spoke too. “It’s fine.” 

“It’s fine? You were in a car accident,” Chloe said. “You definitely have a concussion.” She was waking up, tuning in. 

“Not my first.” 

Chloe looked to me for help, and I was as useless as ever. I didn’t know how to get through to Danny. I just had bullshit. “Well, that’s why you got me. I got the cavalry. I know you’ve been wanting to meet Chloe.” 

I didn’t expect Danny to get red in the face when I said that, but Chloe was on her game. She took it exactly right, and said, “Please, I’ve been dying to meet you too, man. I hear you’re always on the road.” 

I had to guess I’d talked about him more than I remembered, because Chloe really did seem to get Danny on sight. She was gentle with him, and she slowed down without getting mean about it. I didn’t know I had trouble with how people treated him until I saw her with him, but actually now that I was thinking about it—no. Now wasn’t the time. So Chloe liked Danny, and Danny seemed pretty into her too. Kept smiling at her, that was for one thing, I’d never seen him smile so much in my damn life. I almost wanted to remind him about Anya, but that wouldn’t be cool plus he hadn’t done anything. I was just being jealous. She was tired and trying to lighten the mood. They weren’t leaving me out or anything, and even if they were I wasn’t mad about it. Maybe in a few minutes I’d put a hand on his shoulder again, and figure out how to do it right. 

When the nurse came in, we learned a lot more. The other guys were in other rooms or in surgery. Driver broke his arm, and it was Aaron so he was dead to me. Mostly importantly they said soon as we got Danny’s insurance information together, he could go. There wasn’t much they prescribed besides rest. 

Chloe pulled me to the other side of the room while Danny was filling out his paperwork. I was gearing up for her to tell me I’d wasted everybody’s time. “You knew his family wouldn’t come,” she said in an undertone.

“Yeah. And his girlfriend went home for the summer already.” 

“Okay. I’ve decided I won’t be mad about this.” 

I couldn’t tell if she was joking. I just had to learn that apparently she wasn’t when she really didn’t get mad, even when I had to go before she did to meet my parents at my place so they wouldn’t be pissed about me blowing them off. Everything was going wrong, but Chloe and Danny both promised she’d get him home and Danny got me an uber so really the least I could do was go. Maybe he’d be able to actually relax when it was just her there, and I couldn’t relax with my parents in town so I had to get out of there. I wouldn’t want me there. But Danny stuck his arm out to give me a hug goodbye after Chloe did, so it wasn’t all bad. That would keep me going for a while. 

&&&

The first thing the kid said when Matt left was, “You don’t have to stay.”  So obviously I was staying. 

It wouldn’t be a problem with work. The semester was over, so Uncle Bob wouldn’t care if the store opened late, and more importantly, I couldn’t just leave this guy here. He was barely not a teenager with a black eye and goose egg on his forehead and his name wasn’t even Danny, by the way. Danny was a nickname of his last name, McDaniels. I wasn’t sure why I thought that would’ve come up in the dozens of times Matt talked about him, but it felt like it should’ve. 

I didn’t say anything to Matt about any of this while he was here because he was already on the edge. 

The other main thing I didn’t bring up was how Matt’s best friend who was always out of town playing sports was so sweet. That seemed like it’d just complicate things. But he was. He had that gentle giant thing, constant smile on his face with his split lip. So blonde. Matt was cuter, big puppy dog eyes. This guy wasn’t that. His long limbs were built lean. He had sharp chin, sharp blue eyes and still somehow standoff-ish, even up close and trying to be friendly. He waited to put the ice pack back up to his head until Matt was gone, but now he held it there firmly. There was blood under his fingernails. “Is this awkward?” he asked miserably. 

“No. It’s…” He raised his eyebrows, and I flipped him off for rushing me. That made him snort. He was an easy laugh, and that kept making my chest tight. I told him, “It’s the head injury. And me not sleeping in like fourteen hours. We’re totally clicking.” 

It took a second to identify the expression on his face, since I didn’t know him as well. Bashful, maybe. He relaxed after that, and we could just talk. I liked talking to him. It barely felt like real life, because I didn’t have anything to lose with these college guys. They’d be gone in a couple years, and I’d still be here in my mom’s house, missing her every day wishing Dad had died instead. I could sink some time into them. I could be the person that gave a shit about them, since nobody else seemed to. And if all this happened to take my mind off of my own monumental pile of shit, then so be it. I deserved a little compartmentalizing after the year I’d had. 

I let him set the pace of small talk and matched what he told me. Not a student myself. I was from around here. Yeah I’d been in a couple car accidents, and I told him about the one in the parking lot because it was the best story. Nothing worse than dent in my car door. I skipped the part where Dad tried to get me to call the insurance and take it all back so he could report it and get the money to his guy who was a mechanic or whatever his dumbshit plan was. I skipped to talking about the weird little guy at the body shop, that was fun too. 

As I was talking, Danny put his hand on top of mine where it was resting on his leg. Not moving with any intention I could be scared of. Not quite holding it, in the end. “Sorry.” It took his voice breaking the silence for me to realize I’d stopped speaking. “I’m not trying to make a pass, I just… you don’t have to talk about it.” 

“What?” 

“I don’t know.” He met my eyes easily. There was nothing in there that told me anything. Danny didn’t know what I didn’t have to talk about, he’d just felt there was something and said something and put his hand over mine. And the part where he claimed not to be hitting on me from his hospital bed. Suspicious. I wondered what Matt had told him about the complicated part of me, about Dad and how sometimes he’d follow me places even if I told him it was a fake ex-boyfriend the other night.  Danny could probably feel that too. It was written all over me. 

“I like you too,” he said then, which was so kind of him I didn’t bother telling him I didn’t say that. He was right in the grander sense that that’s what I meant before. I did like him. I gave him my number when he asked in the car, and delayed worrying about the inevitable blow up later. For now, until I went to sleep, I let myself think it could work out. 

Chapter Text

For the first couple weeks I was obviously deeply in agony over not being there for Danny. The agony was slightly lessened when he made the group chat. I wasn’t home yet, still in the back seat of the mostly quiet car, so I watched the notifications come in. Nothing better to do. 

Danny texted me and Chloe together. Thanks guys I’m home in bed

Then he named the group. MY HEROS ❤️🔥💯

The emojis had to mean he and her got along. That was good. I looked out the window and thought about the two of them. Her hands, chipped black nail polish on his arm. Danny wasn’t that tan but Chloe was paler. And, as unfriendly as she looked sometimes—less now with me now that she knew me—Chloe was actually maybe the nicest person I knew. She didn’t know him that well, but she still wanted to help him. 

Rest up champ, Chloe said a little bit later. Same thing she said to me. So she was just like that with everybody. Okay. I hadn’t seen her talking to anybody else she actually wanted to talk to before. I knew I should feel less special, but I just liked it more. I liked knowing she wasn’t treating me any different. It was fun to imagine we might all like each other. 

Glad you’re okay, I sent when I was sure it was a regular thing to say and then remembered I hadn’t said it. Danny answered with a thumbs up. 

We checked in on Danny for the next couple weeks. He was the first topic of conversation. Chloe did most of the texting then. She was herself even when she was babying him, which helped me not feel like a weirdo for caring. I catalogued all the ways she asked, making mental note of which ones I could try out myself. 

How are u doing? 

Arm feeling ok?

What’s ur face look like lol 

Update pls 

All out of the blue, but Danny kept answering. His head felt crazy on the flight, thanks for asking. When she asked, he sent a photo of the bruise on his face, bad angle and awful colors. I kept going back to make sure it was as bad as it looked, because Danny kept telling the two of us he was fine. But I only did that when I was alone, because looking at the pictures of this injury made me kind of dizzy or something. I had to lay down. 

When I wasn’t forgetting to, I did my best at saying stuff too. 

Glad you’re okay

She’s right

That looks crazy

Turned out Danny was pretty quick at texting most of the time. I wasn’t sure why I thought different, maybe I’d made it up. Was I the one that was supposed to be texting first? Would he always have replied to me like that?

I wondered about it so much and then forgot to try it until I was at one of the after-work mixers that Dad was making me go to as part of this fake internship thing. It all spilled over then. I was sitting at the bar while he was in the bathroom, still in the fucking blazer the records department required, and I just missed them. I wanted to tell them about stuff, and I didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before, but it did then—I could. I literally could. 

Got a summer job with my dad btw.

Chloe texted back like she’d been waiting for it. Tell me ur joking

Oh my god, I could finally take a breath. Felt like it’d been all day that I’d been fighting against a tight chest. I put it into the words that I could. Nope. It’s fun. Now I’m at happy hour with a bunch of cops.

As in your dad’s a cop? 

I guess I hadn’t said that to either of them yet. Dad wasn’t really a fun topic, so I tended to avoid it. Yep. The first thing I learned as a kid was not to talk to cops. 

Explains a lot, she said, and then she sent a heart. 

Something like a half hour later, my phone buzzed on the bar again. Danny. Thts gotta be tough 

Hope ur having a better summer than me, I sent back. I didn’t think about it too much, the way I thought about it way too much to ever text somebody like this before, because Chloe was in here too. Lowkey humiliating to be so sappy, but whatever. I was used to it, I got embarrassed at this internship all the time. It didn’t feel half as bad with the two of them in my head with me. 

We were catching up now, me checking my phone whenever Dad was talking to someone else. They both said how their summers had been, they both said stupid stuff about how hard this had to be for me, and the next thing Danny asked was when I’d be in town again. He said he wanted to come back early but the dorms didn’t open early. So then I found myself saying I wanted to come back early too, and Chloe said she’d be there either way. 

And then we were texting all the time, more and more, all three of us. I could send Danny memes and shit. I always could’ve. Sometimes he didn’t get it and I got to explain it, which was always fun because he would say things like ohhhh lol and then sometimes he’d send something back later, same joke another version, and I’d feel like running ten miles or doing two hundred pushups or something. It was nice to be thought about. Nice to know both of us—all three, even, were thinking about seeing each other again. 

My sister Stef noticed how I was on my phone all the time. She had to be in a good mood because she only brought it up when we were watching a movie and our parents were bed. Good thing, because I got defensive right away. 

“Calm down,” she said after I sputtered long enough. “I’m glad you have friends. I was worried for a while, y’know.” 

“Of course I have friends,” I shot back. 

“Not what I meant.” 

Right. Because Dad treated his only daughter a lot differently than he treated his middle son. Stef got to have sleepovers all the time or go to the mall or whatever. She got a car for her sixteenth birthday. I got mostly my brother’s old stuff. Some good shit too, especially when I was younger and doing what Dad wanted still but I hadn’t been doing that for a while. All summer Dad wanted me to pay rent, something no other kid in my family had to do at any point. That was why I had to do the internship. I kinda thought he invented the rule for that reason, but Stef had a hard time believing it was really as bad as I said. She thought I was being dramatic. We’d been through this last week or the week before. The summer was getting hazy already. 

“Then thanks,” I said to keep the peace. “They’re pretty cool.” 

“You know what would also be pretty cool?” 

I knew she’d say me getting a girlfriend. I still hated every time she said it. 

I did think about Gia a little bit, since I was home. When she’d been there, all I wanted to do was escape the situation. It was total animal instinct. I would’ve gnawed my foot off, if that was what it took. Now that I was thinking about it, though. It wasn’t just that she said Vinnie was hot. It was when she said it; after the night of watching Shark Tank reruns where he wouldn’t stop trying to set me off. She said he was kinda hot after I said sometimes I felt like he didn’t like me. She said it because she was trying not to agree with me. Like it was hard not to. 

That was the primary feeling I remembered getting from girls most of the time, actually. Or anybody that came over to my house. They saw something, and however cool we were before then they all decided I was the problem. Chloe was the only girl that seemed to find herself on my side. That had to be love, right? I was falling in love. 

Danny didn’t end up coming to town early. His parents bought him a plane ticket without talking about what he wanted, and they couldn’t change it. I believed that was true, but also I wished desperately for Chloe to chime with something that told me how to feel. She’d been quiet for a while, and when she did respond she skipped those messages. 

End of July and all of August, Chloe didn’t say hardly a thing. She’d like the jokes and say something when we were asleep, but that was about it. I texted her on her own and she didn’t answer that either. So most of the time it was just me and Danny having fun, goofing off to see who could make her laugh react more. Even that felt okay, until I was back. Danny was getting in two days from then but at least, I figured, I’d get to see Chloe. 

So much for that. Chloe wasn’t at the liquor store three days in a row. She didn’t answer texts anymore. The school year started without her. 

The first few weeks were fun enough. Danny and me texted all the time, got food and went to the gym and went out together. He looked like he spent his whole summer outside, his hair lighter than his skin for the first few weeks until his tan faded. He came to town tired. It was a couple weeks until he looked what I would consider good. And then there were only couple weeks until the season started, and he started getting exhausted again. 

I thought about Chloe a lot. About the two of us taking care of Danny, and how right that felt. I wanted to ask where she was again, but I also thought if I sent a million texts she’d be way less likely to answer, in the world where she hadn’t already decided to execute a slow fade. So I didn’t say anything.

There were tons of other girls on campus I could fall in love with, and for a while I gave it my best shot. I put some numbers on the board. Hit up the bar on the best nights, or found a friend of a friend’s friend and tried to have a one-night stand that made me feel like Chloe had with her hand on my shoulder. 

After the first night that the girl seemed to enjoy but I found pretty unsatisfying, I figured it’d take time to find the right one. After the tenth, I thought I had pretty bad luck. Somewhere in the teens, I figured it was a problem with me. But what was I supposed to do, stop? If I stopped, I’d have to think about how none of this was more fun than texting Chloe and Danny had been. Or I’d have to think about my classes. 

I kept trying. 

In February, Chloe texted the group chat finally. Hey guys I’m back. I was in the hospital for a while but I’m fine. Would love to see you sometime. Hope ur season’s going good Danny, and Matt, hope you’re starting strong. 

I read it over and over, trying to figure out what that meant. What put her in the hospital? Was she not saying because she didn’t want to tell us? And that was without even getting into whatever starting strong was supposed to communicate. 

Danny texted before I did. Hope ur ok Chloe! Seasons not good lol

That was an understatement. Danny was getting out of practice banged up and frustrated. Concussion had affected his reaction time, he was scared to decide that was true and kept putting off the final call on. Maybe it was just growing pains, or a bad week, or the yips. He’d say something like that and I would agree because any other route through this conversation would be five times as long and I’d probably lose him halfway through. 

I forgot to text Chloe back, ultimately. Another thing that sent the kind of message I didn’t think about until hindsight hit. 

I survived about two days and a handful of hours before I found myself making the pilgrimage to the liquor store. It wasn’t even dark out yet. Seeing her car in the back corner of the parking lot had my throat squeezing up shut, but I was already here and I couldn’t leave without talking to her. 

Chloe looked up at the bell. Her face didn’t exactly light up, but I had momentum on my side and I didn’t stop until I got to the counter. I couldn’t tell if there was anyone else in the room and I didn’t want to look. “Can we talk?” I managed to say semi-normally. 

“Go for it.” 

The second I had permission, I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth.  “Why were you in the hospital?” Okay, not the worst thing I’d blurted out. Decent place to start. 

“For my mental health,” she answered. “How’ve you been?” 

“Fine.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, getting out there and meeting people.” 

“Is that code for getting laid?” Her tone was a little less dry than usual. It almost seemed like she was in a good mood. Not mad at me, which was good because that would be crazy. We weren’t dating. We weren’t anything besides in a group chat. So I told her yeah, it was. She asked how that was going, and I told her it was going good because I couldn’t tell her it was more like a routine at this point. And denying the routine was part of it. Nobody liked feeling like a notch in the bedpost. Nobody liked the guy who slept around to be too proud of it so I wasn’t. I was repeating all the same motions I went through weekly, nightly with other girls with her, starting to think nothing would ever feel right again, and then Chloe asked, “Are you making them come?” 

I stared at her, shocked out of the pattern. Somehow I managed to tell her that getting them to come wasn’t the problem. Other way around, I said on accident, which was true. I drank so much that sometimes I had trouble staying hard, but also I knew I was decent in bed in part because I didn’t come the second it was getting good, so. It was working for me, or I’d convinced myself of that until I was describing it to Chloe and she said, “Wait, are you having a good time, though?” and I found myself saying not really. 

Her mouth was a tight line. “So what’s going on?” 

“I don’t know. It’s fine, but. Nothing’s right. And I’ve been asking, for like.” I referred to the list in my phone notes. “Chelsea said I was doing too much. Ava said I breathed weird. Katie told me I didn’t lock in.” 

“You’ve got all the constructive criticism on your phone?” Chloe couldn’t seem to help but sound sarcastic, but then she added, “Dude. Give it to me.” 

I did. My mouth was dry. If she wanted to see my dick pics or Tinder profile, she could. If she wanted to see what I said to everybody else that wasn’t her, I decided I wouldn’t try to stop her. Chloe got any part of me she wanted. 

She took my phone and held it on the counter, face down, and leaned closer on folded arms. “That’s the kind of list you think about but don’t make because it’s so bad for you.” 

“Well, I made it.” 

“Do you think it’s helping?” 

Yes, I meant to say. Yes, I needed to know what I was doing wrong. I needed to know why no girl besides and maybe including her had ever really liked me and meant it. “I don’t know,” I said instead. 

“Are you finding the most critical girls on earth with any particular method?”

“No, I’m just trying to find somebody who...” I ran a hand through my hair, and that was when I realized my hands were shaking. It was setting in. She was right here, and she was talking to me like normal. “Wait, so. So you weren’t trying to, like. Ghost me.” 

Chloe didn’t move for a sec. “What part of me texting you when I got my phone back was ghosting you?” 

“Yeah, but that was two days ago. I’ve been…” I’d been mourning her for months at that point, but I did realize that saying it would probably be way too much for somebody who I started to get to know by harassing her at work. Especially when she was at work now, here. “I don’t know,” I said again, because I had to say something. “Actually can I go stand in the freezer?” 

“Thought you’d never ask.” 

She didn’t walk me back there, she stayed up front because she had to do her job for a second. Which made sense. We were at her job. But standing in the cooler without her right outside was not nearly as relaxing. I kept thinking that she’d forget I was in here, or that I’d made up how normal she was being. Too normal. Her mental health was bad recently. I should’ve asked about that, instead of getting in my head about my body count. Shit. I’d forgotten everything I’d learned about how to like somebody like Chloe. 

The freezer smelled like wet metal and ice. I read labels until I stopped shaking so much, until the cold was actually making it worse, and then I pushed the heavy door open for the blast of warm room-temperature air. I took a second there before I saw her again, to think about how pathetic it was that the back room at her job was maybe the only place I wanted to be right now. I could’ve sat there for the whole shift. She was in the hospital and I didn’t get to see her once—I thought I should probably say something about that at some point. Then I did see her, hand on hip watching someone count out change. Her face was in customer service mode, but from back here when she didn’t know I was looking I could see so much. 

As soon as we were alone again, a question fell out of my mouth. “Do you want to hug me maybe?” Before I was done talking Chloe pulled me in by whatever she could grab first, my shirt, to get me against her faster. She went up on tiptoes to throw her arms over my shoulders, and then I was kind of holding both of us up. Oh. Oh, I thought again on purpose, oh, she needed this too. She’d said she felt like she was floating. “I’m really glad you’re okay,” I said. Some of her hair got in my mouth. 

“Me too.” She cleared her throat. “You know, since you didn’t say anything I was thinking you must’ve moved on.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well judging from the fact that I can’t breathe, I’m going to guess you didn’t think of that,” she wheezed, and I consciously loosened my grip, which I guess I had tightened when she said that. I felt her inhale. I felt her hand move into my hair. “Which is fine.” 

“No it’s not.” 

“Sure it is. You’ve got your own life. Texting back is hard.” 

Oh. I’d forgotten why I was coming here. I had to tell her that I wasn’t interested in my life very much these days. I had to say how much I gave a shit about her, how many questions I had about her life. 

It took a while. I had to duck into the back halfway through when she had to man the counter again, and when I came back out she didn’t hug me again. Standing alone in front of her I did say all what I wanted to, or most of it. By the end I was feeling like I could use some more time in the freezer again, and I was pretty sure I’d stopped making sense a couple commas ago. Somehow I’d ended up talking about last night with Jessa, who said I was weird for wanting her to get on top. I noticed all the things she didn’t do all over again. Chloe didn’t say I was weird, she didn't say too much info, and she didn’t seem to think Jessa had even kind of a point. “You must be misunderstanding. That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard."

Awkwardly, I scoffed it off. “I wish you’d actually been there. So you could tell me.” My face was hot. I couldn’t look at her. 

“Oh great idea. If only.” 

“I could text her,” I said, in case she only sounded sarcastic. 

Pause. “Would I like her?” 

“No.” 

Without looking up I could still see how Chloe put a hand out, palm up. “Then no, dude. What are you doing?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Why are you inviting me to a threesome like that makes more sense than asking to just have sex with me?” 

“Okay. Can I have sex with you?” I asked obediently. It felt too easy. 

“Do you really want to?” she said in bewilderment. “It sounds like you’ve got a lot going on, I don’t really understand why you’re trying to involve me.” 

I stepped in closer, trying to split the distance between normal and as close as I wanted to be. “Dude, I’ve got a lot going on because I was trying to see if anybody would… if somebody could make me feel like you did. Do.” I risked a look up at her. She was studying me as I talked. “If you’re actually interested, I’d stop talking to anybody else. Hand to God.” 

“I didn’t realize it all meant that much to you,” she said after more thinking.

“It does.”

“Okay.” She nodded a bunch of times. It did feel different for her to be quiet and thinking about it to keep talking, not quiet and wishing I hadn’t spoken. And when it had been an actual second, she reached out for me. She grabbed my hand and held it. “I need you to get tested first,” she said, and I wondered if the gesture was so I couldn’t run away and slam my head into a brick wall like I immediately wanted to. “Absolutely zero offense, okay? I got herpes when I was 19 and I really don’t want a repeat.” 

“Yeah, fine,” I mumbled, embarrassed to be reminded that of course I didn’t remember to wear a condom all the time. Nobody did, except for like, responsible adults. Fuck, she was so out of my league. 

Judging by the look on her face, Chloe was picking up on all of that stuff I was thinking. She didn’t let go of me. “And I want you to plan on staying over,” she said in the same steady way. 

I forgot to be embarrassed any more. It was that easy. “Okay. Are you sure? Should I make dinner? When?” 

“Yes, if you want to, and that’s up to you. Soon as you’re cleared.” 

“Okay.” I could probably go to the health center in the next couple days, but it would probably take time to get the results back. But that was fine, I could survive any amount of time now because Chloe was back. We were both back, and we liked each other. 

Wait. She felt me think of the question and was ready to hear it when I looked up. “Are you doing this out of pity or something? Because I don’t want that.” 

Her face got kind of funny after I said that. She pressed her lips together, and first I thought she was mad but then I figured it was holding back a smile. Or something like a smile, but not exactly. She used my hand to pull me into her where she was leaning against the counter, and widened her stance so I could stand between her legs. Right up there against her, so close she could definitely feel that I was not exactly soft and getting harder. These shorts weren’t capable of hiding a lot, and feeling her legs on the outside of mine, her hands on my shoulders, that was doing a lot. 

Chloe smelled like smoke. Her hair looked nicer than usual. It occurred to me for the first time that maybe she hadn’t been doing so hot when we first met, and that was part of why she seemed so unfriendly—though, once I thought of it, it seemed obvious. Nobody was upset for no reason. She’d been struggling, and I’d just tried a line out on her. Shit, I had a lot to make up for. “Not pity,” she said up close. “I like you a lot. You were right.” 

“I was?” 

“Yeah, we got something,” she said with a little smile on her face. “But you know my life is complicated. I warned you.” 

“I don’t care.” 

“And it’s complicated with my family, just so you know.” 

“I don’t care.” 

Chloe smiled for real, with her teeth. There was a gap between the front two. It made her whole face look younger. “Careful. You’re winning me over.” 

I hoped fervently she couldn’t tell how much that was exactly what I wanted to hear, but I had a hunch she knew. She let me use the bathroom and didn’t say anything about how I was absolutely rocking a boner at this point, so that was basically like permission to jerk off into the toilet. I came in like a minute flat, and then I washed my hands and got back to her as fast as I could with a million ideas like me sticking around to catch up with her, or me going to get her food, or her coming over after her shift. Chloe, however, correctly predicted that I had a lot of homework I wasn’t doing. 

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,” she told me, and tried to convince me to go do it. I wanted to ask her if she was sure. I wanted to get those words tattooed as proof she said it. I did go and do my homework, she made me promise to text her when I was back at my house. 

And I did. I’m back. Buckling down 🫡

Good, she answered. 

I’d never met anybody who thought I was so good. I didn’t know what I’d do without it. 

It took a couple weeks to clear up the the whole STD thing. They were shockingly productive weeks after one day Chloe said, Can I give you totally unsolicited advice? and obviously I said yes always, and she said, It really seems like you have ADHD. Or something like that.

Danny said that too, I sent back. 

Smart guy. Have you gotten that looked into ever 

No

Do you want to?

No

Have you noticed it helps to be around other people when you have to do book stuff

Yeah but isn’t that true for everybody? 

No but I’ll let you sit in the office if you want to work on stuff here while I’m here. 12-2. 

I was like a kid over every detail with Chloe. She told me her schedule. She had to like me. Another piece of evidence hoarded. Obviously I was there the next day, walking up while she was still unlocking the front door. “My my, nice and on time,” she said approvingly as I squeezed past her, and I tried not to be smiling too big in the first five seconds I saw her. Girls didn’t like when you were too nice—I knew that if I knew anything. “It’s nice to see you,” she said, and then I really had no shot at not beaming my face off. 

“A guy could get used to getting treated like this,” I said, mostly as a joke but also, really, to warn her. She couldn’t know how much she was giving me so fast. Somebody had to tell her. 

She just rolled her eyes. “God forbid you get used to people liking your face. Come on. My uncle owns this place, by the way. So don’t be a dick.” While she talked she led me back, so mostly I was focused on trying to keep up with her until we were in the office and I blinked and my brain caught up. Her uncle owned the place. She was trusting me with family shit. 

In the office, she held the roller chair still for me to sit in. The desk was clean with plenty of room for me. I wondered if she’d cleaned it. “Sit here. I’ll be back here in the lulls. Get shit done, yes?” 

“Yes.” 

And then I accidentally sat there for a while not doing anything besides thinking about her out there knowing I was in here because she told me I could be. Because I wanted to be near her even like this. Maybe she was thinking about other ways that she’d want to keep me around. We still hadn’t had sex yet so I could imagine that she wanted to do all the things I wanted to, like tell me exactly how to make her happy and then tell me if I’d done okay. I thought about that a little too hard and lost track of time until she came back and I’d just startled into laying out my books. 

Chloe crossed her arms in the doorway, the big zip-up hoodie she had on twisting around her. “Dude. What’s going on?” 

“Sorry.” I was almost smiling. Okay, I really was smiling again even though I was a little scared because I was realizing in that moment that I wasn’t actually scared to disappoint her. She was only fake mad, the way Danny only ever fake told me what to do, and then she was behind me in the narrow space of the office, squeezing with her hands on either side of the base of my neck from behind. “That feels nice,” I said. Stupid, but I had to say something. 

“You need to focus,” Chloe kneaded her hands a bit. “You know that.” 

“Yeah.” 

“What were you thinking about?” 

“You,” I answered honestly. 

“I’m here.” Her voice was soft and reassuring. 

“No, I know. I can do it. I’ll do it.” The words put a weird twist in my gut to say. All the other times I said it, I felt a lot more inadequate. For instance this summer, when somebody decided something new was part of my job and my dad got mad I hadn’t been doing it all along if he heard about it. But Chloe could feel my self-doubt. She stopped pushing and put one hand in my hair from combing from hairline back to the crown of my head. For a few seconds, she just did that. 

“What are you gonna get done?” she asked then.

I named a couple things I know I’d finish, and then I did it, and when she came back again she told me about the girls she’d just checked out and the insane combination of flavored vodkas they’d gotten. We talked about what they could possibly have been making for like two minutes, and then she tousled my hair and walked out. When she came back again, she didn’t ask me what I’d been doing again either. She waited until I told her how it was going, and then she cheered me on, and I thought at some point she’d get tired of the little trips so I was ready to be forgotten but any time she was gone a while she’d come back again and tell me what she'd been doing out there.  

Eventually, she had her break and chose to take it sitting on the desk right next to me, her shoe on my arm rest, scrolling on her phone. I was in the middle of something still, so I tried out not talking to her right away. Seeing if she’d wait. All she did was her own thing on her phone until I put my hand on her thigh to get her attention, and she gave it to me without hesitation. Without trying to make me pay for making her wait. She invited me here to do work and meant it. It was so weird to have someone doing exactly what I hoped they would.

Danny and me were a little better at talking these days. I’d text him for no reason because I knew I could and he liked it, and he’d answer when he had the time. When he wasn’t too dead tired. I wanted to tell him about Chloe, I was bursting with it, but there wasn’t the right time ever. He was tired, and too happy to see me, and not playing well anyways. His reaction time was off. I didn’t know if he’d said it to himself, but it was undeniable at this point. Not performing the way he needed to. Not even close. So, not the time to gloat and tell him all about the mutual friend I was going to fuck and was probably in love with, but sometimes I still wished I could get his take. I wanted him to tell me as another person who’d met Chloe if she made him feel like the king of the world too. 

In slightly over three weeks, my tests came back clear and I sent Chloe a screenshot. So when are u free? I added. 

Again. No games with her. Lol Sunday night? 

Ok. Class at 1 on Monday tho

Roger. When u want to come over? 

U tell me, I said instead of telling her that I would be over the second she asked. When she suggested doing dinner first like I said, I was so down. I had some money to get stuff myself. Even with the whole process of getting all the ingredients, I didn’t believe this was happening until she picked me up. Until she was pulling up in front of a split-level house, and I was getting out with her, handing bags to her, walking in. 

The house was pretty normal. Bikes in the front grass, a front garden bed that was overgrown under a big window. Chloe held the screen door open with her hip while she got the right key, and I felt like my heart would beat out of my chest just from this much, from seeing her front door and knowing she wanted to let me in. And then I was in, and she was telling me to ignore all the shoes on the ground. There were a lot of kid shoes. She talked about her family, but I hadn’t thought about kids. 

Nobody was there now, though. The house was silent besides us, talking through cooking together. I made her my mom’s chicken alfredo. 

“This is it, huh? Your first date meal?” Chloe asked as I loaded up her plate and handed it over. The kitchen was not so bad, since she did dishes as I cooked the whole time. I still felt like I was living in a dream, even when she suggested this was all just a move. Not the first time she did that tonight, but I was starting to understand that was not an accusation as much as it was a fear she was saying out loud. 

Still. I got defensive. “No. It’s not that, it’s just something I’m making for you, I don’t have a standard…” I forgot to keep talking when she took a bite. I forgot to breathe. 

Chloe hummed. “Oh my god, Matty. This is so good.” And it was like something cracked inside my head. Whatever was holding all the parts of me that got so scared, it developed a leak. I had room for all sorts of new stuff. 

For one thing, my brain was working overtime analyzing every single physical object around me. It was one of the only times I was grateful to be so all over the place, because I was talking to Chloe on one level but then I was looking at the art on the fridge. Kids art. A report card. School photos of Chloe on that flat grey background all school photos were on, framed. Family photos. Cousins in a big group. There was a cat clock on the wall. The walls were sponge-painted purple, dark on light. I’d never seen a house with so many imprints left on it, a house that was not just a building that held people and stuff. 

I asked her who painted it, and the answer was her mom. A lot of the answers were her mom, as the night went on. This was her mom’s house, and, as she was up getting seconds and not looking at me, Chloe let me know her mom had died a couple years ago and it was not a big deal. 

“Oh,” I said, super fucking smart. 

“Yeah. So just so you know. That’s my deal.” 

“I thought you said your dad lives… or…” I couldn’t exactly remember, and I opened my mouth again to apologize for speaking. 

Chloe beat me there, first and louder. “My dad is not first date stuff,” she said definitively, and then she came back to eat more in front of me and ask me all about how I learned to cook. 

I kept it short here. Boring and cliche. My mom taught me, it was the only time she’d let me help her with anything and I did it because Stef didn’t like doing anything for anybody else when she could avoid it, and obviously the firstborn son wasn’t going to cook. That’d be a shame on the family, or whatever. I tuned out when Dad started talking about that stuff. But since I turned out to be the only interested kid, I was the one with the recipes in my head. I told her about all the things I could make her next time, how with a crock pot I could get a marinara sauce together in like a day. 

I was feeling pretty good until I learned she wanted an hour or two before she’d be ready to fuck. 

“It’s a heavy meal!” she said in her own defense. 

“Oh, so this is my fault.” 

Chloe leveled a look at me from where she was fishing tupperware out of the cupboard for the leftovers. “It’s nobody’s fault.” 

Because I felt so good with her, I could finally figure out how to ask a question without feeling like my father. “Are you stalling? This feels like stalling.”

“No. And you’ve got to stop doing that.” 

“Doing what?” 

“Freaking out.” 

That sounded about as doable as flying. “Right.” 

“I’m not going to change my mind,” she said, like maybe it wasn’t clear—though, I was doubting her like she thought I was so I had to admit clarity wasn’t a bad idea.  

“Okay.” 

“Unless you’ve got somewhere to be, or something.” 

“No.” I said it too quick. She laughed at me, but not really at me. Like, she laughed and then she kissed me, and then she told me I wasn’t leaving for at least twelve hours, hand over heart pinky swear hope to die. That helped. She wanted me to get on the couch with her, that was nice, and then she turned a movie on and pulled me into her lap to play with my hair until it was over. So that was pretty awesome too. Plus, then I was half hard by the end of that, so when she said, “You ready? You in the mood?” I said truthfully that I’d never been more ready. 

More things Chloe didn’t do to me were piling up. She didn’t tell me I was taking my clothes off too fast, she didn’t turn the lights off, she didn’t wait for me to take the lead. “I’ve got some ideas."

“I love ideas.” I was in my boxers, standing in her bedroom. Oh my god, I was in her bedroom. I wanted to see every single thing in here. I wanted her to tell me about the posters on the wall, all black and red and white. She had a full bookcase. There were photos taped up all around her big vanity and mirror. I was hoarding these facts to hang onto forever and ever, and then I realized I had not heard something she’d said and was waiting for me to answer. “Sorry, what?” 

Chloe smiled at me. “Can I sit on your face?” 

Like I said, she really was great at helping me focus, and this idea was another all-timer. I’d eaten pussy before, obviously. I was a thoughtful and considerate one-night stand partner. If somebody gave me head, I gave it back. It wasn’t my favorite thing, not when I was awkwardly crouched between somebody’s legs in bed, which was the only position any of them offered, and it wasn’t like I knew what to suggest, so that was why it was so amazing that Chloe had other plans. She let me get in her bed, on the black sheets and right in the middle with my head on her pillow—it smelled like her—and she kneeled on top of me just over my stomach for now. Her bra was off, underwear was off, and I did not hear whatever she said because I was looking at her boobs, bigger than I thought they’d be with nipples I wanted to touch. I was getting harder just looking at her, and then she was tapping me. The middle of my chest. 

“What?” I said, once it was clear I had to say something back. 

“If you need me to give you a break, bump my leg, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

“Something else on your mind?” 

“Would you be mad if I said your tits?” 

She laughed, a real belly laugh with no hesitation. I watched her chest move with it and I had to remind myself to swallow. “Oh yeah? I thought you were into size zero sorority girls.” 

Her saying that was the first time I’d done that side by side in my mind, her body and any other girl I’d been with. I didn't know how girl sizes worked, but Chloe came out on top. The truth I’d have to tell was that it didn't matter what anyone else looked like because I never was in love with them, and I didn’t want to tell the truth so I just said no, and helped her get on top of me. 

The world was quieter with her thighs on either side of my head. Softer, warmer, calmer. I heard her heartbeat or mine, not that fast so probably hers. Even with my hands free, there wasn’t much I could do to move her if she didn’t want me to. I understood the importance of the tapping now, and I tapped on her leg just to show I knew what to do. “I can tap out,” I told her, to prove I was listening. 

“Great. And I will be judging you, just so you know.” There it was again, that dry tone that got me squirmy, dying to please her and so relieved to be in on the joke with her in the meantime. 

It was, unfortunately, the best sex of my life, so the being in love with her thing wasn’t going anywhere. Nice that it didn’t feel like she wanted it to be over every second. I was starting to realize that was the point of being friends with somebody first, the wanting to be around each other part. I didn’t need any help with that. I ate her out until she was dripping off of my chin and then some. I would’ve done it longer, I did not tap out but Chloe said she wanted to do something nice for me as if the rest of this wasn’t already so fucking nice. She sat on my cock just like I’d told her I wanted Jessa to do so bad and ground her hips in tight little moves, keeping me deep inside her, holding herself up on me. Even the way she fucked me made me feel like she wanted me. And after all the bragging or complaining I did, I was about to come in like a minute. In my defense, I hadn’t counted on feeling like the center of attention. 

“Are you close?” I asked, out of dumb desperate hope to do a little bit more. 

Chloe shook her head. “But that’s fine, go ahead.” She shifted to bear down on me as I came, squeezing tight enough that I almost couldn’t breathe. I came with sparks behind my eyes, just short of air enough to feel like her kiss right after had air in it. 

“So what now?” I asked her as soon as I could breathe. 

“What, like you want round two?” she asked. 

Truthfully I had not dared to dream I would get this far, but yeah. I had to admit I was down for another round if she was. But that also wasn’t what I meant, and I did clarify that as soon as I remembered to. After round three, actually, when it was like midnight and I was in the process of coming to terms with being too tired to have sex with Chloe again. I was lying with my head on her stomach, and she was holding my hand and scratching through my hair. “You like this?” she asked me. “You get boneless.” 

“Yeah. But Chloe.” 

“Huh.” 

I paused to savor the moment of me using her name and her acting like I had the right to. I could think of a million things I was so excited to try with her because I wanted to try everything. Sleeping over, sure, but I mean anything. I wanted to fly a kite with her. I wanted to do her laundry. I wanted to talk all night.

Chloe tapped my hand with her thumb, same rhythm as the other times that I was starting to pick up on. “What, baby,” she said to prompt me. 

For a second I couldn’t remember, but Chloe didn’t rush me after that. She kept playing with my hair, her heartbeat and guts all churning under my ear. Since I didn’t get worried I’d lose my turn I figured it out. “Oh. No, but what now as in like. Are you my girlfriend?” 

“Can we do that tomorrow?” 

“Okay. Do what?” 

“Hash out the details.” 

I pushed myself up on my arm to see her face. “Like what?” 

She glared at me with one eye. The only lights left on were the little twinkle lights down one side of the room, but my eyes had adjusted to see fine. Her cozy room, and I was watching myself ruin it without being able to stop. “You know what you’re doing, yes?” 

“No,” I said instinctively, and then wondered, did I? What was I doing?

“I said can we do that tomorrow. And you said okay, but now you’re trying to do that now.” 

“Sorry.” 

Chloe didn’t say it was okay. She got up, and put a shirt and shorts on— disappointing—and walked down the hall. I heard her in the bathroom brushing her teeth, and it looked like she left the bathroom light on even when she came back. “You want to use the bathroom?” she asked, and I did. Good idea. It was late. I brushed my teeth and tried not to look like a guy who was about to lose it all. 

By the time I was back, Chloe was in bed facing away from me. She didn’t say anything when I got in bed next to her, but her phone was open in her hand, I saw the light over the side of her. I’d been given more than enough signs to recognize the signs: she was mad at me and giving the silent treatment. Fine. Fair enough. I could take it like a man.

Except I couldn’t, and I had to push it just to see. “Night. I’m sorry I made you upset,” I whispered, as I moved the covers. That would probably wake her up anyways, she couldn’t be too mad about the whispering.

Chloe hummed. “‘M not.” 

“What?” 

She shifted, and cleared her throat. The next words were enunciated carefully. “I’m not upset, I’m asleep.” Man, even when she was annoyed at me and half asleep she was nice. I wondered who’d taught her how to do that, and if it was transferrable. “Night,” she said belatedly, and then she was out. Her breathing got heavier, not quite snoring.

Chloe was sleeping with me in her room. I was sleeping over. The only time I’d gotten to do this as a kid was with my cousins. I wished she wanted to stay awake talking with me, but I wasn’t too proud to settle for looking all around her room. There were things from all ages. The art above the bed looked newer, the posters older. She had a lava lamp on her vanity, the green and blue shifting light playing over the ceiling like a galaxy lamp. Stacks of books on so many surfaces that it took a second for me to recognize the other things mixed in. Folded paper. Weird mug. A bong, which, I’d still never hit one, to my roommates’ eternal disappointment. I heard my dad in my head too much to try, and the chance that he’d drug test me at some point when I was home was never zero. That would be the perfect excuse to pull my tuition. 

I didn’t like thinking about him here. The point of school was getting away, so I never wanted to poison the only time I got. Tonight it felt different. I had the courage when I was just staring at the ceiling. Dad wasn’t here. I was in somebody else’s house, in her bed, and Dad didn’t even know her name. I was safe. I still couldn’t fall asleep. Those things were unrelated. 

The only thing I cared about was that Chloe stayed out, so I tried not to toss and turn too much. She didn’t move in her sleep hardly at all. At one point, she turned over towards me and put her arm over my chest, her hand limp against my arm. She was tired. Of course. She told me she was tired, and it was late, and she’d gone out of her way to fuck my brains out this evening. That was what she told me and it made sense. She didn’t need to be mad at me. She wasn’t mad. Even though I’d been so annoying. 

But heading down that rabbit hole felt like doubling back on a spiral I’d just pulled out of. I paused for a sec, and that second stretched out long and I fell into it. 

Chloe was up before me but not by much. Long enough that the coffee was finishing up by the time I followed her to the kitchen. I looked at the clock and blinked, processing the numbers. It was ten. Class was at one. That meant I had time. “Hey.” She turned to lean against the counter facing me.

“Hi. I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” 

So I tried to explain the situation. I was real fair about it too, I explained that I’d been real fucking annoying but only because I thought she was awake and mad at me and not talking to me. I didn’t realize she was asleep and not talking to me because she was sleeping. 

Chloe narrowed her eyes at me. The coffee maker was hissing behind her. “Who did that to you?” 

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have anything prepared. She got the long version, because I didn’t know what to cut. My mom would pretend to be asleep sometimes when I’d go to say goodnight if I’d made her upset. I’d hear her talk to somebody else later, when I was in bed, and that was how I knew I’d been punished. Or sometimes Dad would look like he was asleep on the couch only he’d be awake the second I unlocked the front door. Or if Stef didn’t want to talk to me when I knocked on her door, she’d pretend she was asleep like she didn’t know I’d hear her Tiktoks later through the wall because she never turned her phone down below blaring. And, I added, I would understand if that was what Chloe was doing because in her defense, I was being really annoying after she’d been so kind to me. 

“Alright,” Chloe said loudly with a grimace. “You must stop. Come here.” 

I didn’t know how to feel about stop and come here when they were back to back. I liked it enough to do it, and that worked out because she wanted to put me between herself and the counter while she made us both mugs of coffee around me. Or she started to do that, but then she put the mugs on the counter and just hugged me from behind, locked her arms around my middle. I held still at first. “What’s this?” 

“Nothing.” 

“You can’t look at my face,” I guessed. 

“No, I can’t. You’re right.” 

“Because I was so annoying you never want to see me again.” 

She flicked my chest. “No.” 

“Because I’m ugly.”

“Stop guessing.” 

“I’m good at guessing.” 

“You’re sometimes good at guessing, and I want you to stop.” 

That was clear enough to get through my thick skull. I shut my mouth and let her hold me for a second. The least I could do. And it was nice, morning in this house with just her. The clock ticked, and every time my chest expanded I felt her arms again, thick and safe. Then she let go of me to spin me around by my hips and kiss me. That move would’ve made my heart jump even if I wasn’t in love with her. And since I was, well. I was glad the counter was there to hold me up. 

Chloe stopped herself after a second, and moved back to look at me with her eyebrows down. 

“What?” I said. 

“You can wake me up, if you want to. I like hearing what you’ve got to say.” 

I frowned back at her. “You don’t want me to do that. You’re exhausted.” 

“Well sure I’m exhausted, but I never want you to think I’m trying to punish you for something, Jesus.” She reached up for my face, paused, and then couldn’t seem to help completing the gesture. Hair combed back from my face and then she brought her hand around to under my ear, holding my chin. I wished her hands were bigger, to fit more of me. My face felt hot. I didn’t say all that so she’d feel bad for me. “You were annoying. You’re sorry. It’s over.” 

“Okay, it’s over,” I said, as in I would drop it but also as in I’d believe she had too. No more asking if she was mad or if she had been when she wasn’t totally awake. She was awake now, pouring me a cup of coffee and offering creamer. She smiled when I leaned in for a kiss and then did again, just to see. Still smiling. No hint of secretly still mad on her face. 

“Does Danny know we’re doing this?” she asked before I left. 

“Not yet.” 

“You guys still talk?” 

“Yeah, all the time.” 

Chloe gave me a look. “Okay…” 

It was so irritating it felt comfortable. “Just ask me the question, if you’re going to do that.” 

“Okay, well, why haven’t you told him?” she asked in a friendly way. A curious way. I’d almost forgotten how much they’d talked while I found my voice this summer, but now it all came rushing back. She liked Danny. She could maybe do something. 

I had to start getting dressed at that point. Chloe followed me back to her bedroom to watch me change while I told her about how he hadn’t been playing the same since that night we’d all three met. Since the accident. He’d actually caught a puck to the face the other day. That was the last time we talked, and the reason I’d chosen again not to drop the bomb that I’d closed on Chloe. But as I told her about it, I could see how I’d almost missed the window where I could dropped it casually. Shit. To try and make up for it I said I’d tell him soon, and she said okay like it wasn’t her business. And it wasn’t, but she’d asked, so I wasn’t sure where to go from there. 

The carpet in here was covered with rugs, all kinds layered so the floor had a little variation to it. I liked how Chloe gathered up stuff she liked and put it everywhere. I had furniture that I didn’t care about getting destroyed, or at home I had whatever Mom let me. 

“I’ve got an idea,” Chloe said. So she’d been thinking about me. “Is he still dating that girl? We could do a double date.” 

Chapter Text

There weren’t exactly fine dining options in this town, and we had to find a day when Danny was free, so we ended up at the kind of restaurant that had all the same appetizers you got everywhere else and were never too mad about. I didn’t know this one, but I knew the vibe inside would be chaotic, and the booths would be a nice healthy size. Exactly the kind of place to come with your girlfriend for loaded baked potato skins, $5 Long Island iced teas, and people-watching. 

Chloe held my hand on the way in. She sat on the outside of our side, close enough to my size to make me feel blocked in. Actually she was wearing kind of a lower-cut top than usual, and I got distracted by her boobs as she got settled until I directed my attention at the table. “You’re dumb,” she said when she caught me looking, and hooked her foot behind my ankle. Honeymoon phase was hitting like a truck, because every second we were together I lost track of any other measure of time. We were there long enough to get drinks before Danny and Anya joined us. Chloe and I were fiercely discussing best Batman when they walked up, and Anya got a look on her face that I hadn’t seen before. It made the back of my neck tingle. 

Ignoring that, I said hellos. Or I tried to. Danny and Anya were having a short quiet disagreement about who’d get in first. She wanted him to. He wouldn’t. When Danny decided something like that, he became immovable. It was part of what made him such a good guy to have out on the ice. So he won that interaction, in the end. He went silent and stood there until she scooted in across from me, frustration just another way her face looked incredibly symmetrical and gorgeous. 

“Hey Anya,” I said again. 

“Hi.” 

Danny raised a hand to wave at me, and he leaned in to congratulate us. “Never thought the kid would make a move.” 

I protested those false accusations strongly, but I also didn’t miss that Anya flicked a look Chloe’s direction that didn’t seem to get it. Her. Her being here, being with me, being somebody I’d been in love with forever—any and all of things were fucking offensive, but she hadn’t said anything so I told myself I’d misread it. I was defensive. Everything seemed bad when I was already wound up. 

“Do we want to do a pitcher of margs for the table?” Chloe suggested. 

Tequila was a good friend of mine, she knew that, and Danny liked lime but Anya made a doubtful sound. “No thanks. That makes me think of high school.” She ordered a vodka soda when the waitress came back around. 

Again, not a crime. Not technically. But it felt pretty fucking unfriendly. 

I didn’t bring it up. Danny and me were still going through all the catching up topics, so I kept doing that but also I felt Chloe decide to sit back. She pulled one leg up, tucking her foot under the other thigh and letting her knee rest on me. I liked the pressure. I didn’t like the look in her eye, the old flinty look from when she didn’t know me but now directed at Anya. 

I could only guess that Danny had never been to a restaurant with Anya before, the night was that painful. She couldn’t be miserable like this all the time or else he would’ve said something. Complaint after complaint. She didn’t like anything here. No good parties recently. All she’d been doing was conditioning. She wasn’t sure she could make his next game, it was her only night off. Danny didn’t look psyched about that, but he said okay. It was one thing after another that made him go quieter and stiller, looking down at the menu with obviously no intention of reading it. I didn’t like it. Plus, all of a sudden Anya was being weird to me, too. Like, laughing at what I said on purpose. It was strange, and the lighting was dim so I just kept focusing on whatever caught the light. Her nails were not that long, bright and shiny navy. She held her phone in her hand the whole time, clear case. She kept her shiny dark purse straps over her shoulder. She kept trying to finish Danny’s sentences for him. And I kept thinking, was she always this weird? Did she always suck this much? Or was it me? Was I different from the guy that liked her fine before? 

Chloe was doing what Danny did, actually. As this kept going on, she got quieter and quieter, and then I was talking to Anya trying to get her to say something positive about her drink, the one she ordered special just for her, and failing. That was when Chloe and Danny decided to have their own conversation about something that made his face warm up, finally, something I didn’t catch. 

Anya saw it too or saw something. It made her mad. “So how’d you meet?” she asked me, and when I hesitated, she asked Chloe louder. “Where’d the two of you meet?” 

“In town,” Chloe said pleasantly. “I’m here year round.” 

“Did you already graduate?” 

“Nope. Never went to college,” Chloe repeated so that was clear, in a tone that I caught being mad but I didn’t think Anya did. “What are you majoring in?” 

When I thought Anya was a safe distance into her answer, I glanced at Danny. We hadn’t really been in any situations where he had to walk tight social lines. Mostly he was quiet when things got tense. He was quiet now too, eyes open but not seeing anything as he chewed on a boneless wing. There was a bruise on his face from the puck, fading brown already. I wondered if he was still seeing double sometimes, the way he told me he was a while ago. 

Dinner was tense enough for long enough that I started thinking ahead just to get myself out of here. After dinner Chloe said I could come spend the night again, and she wanted to see my grades. Not that she was like, enforcing anything, but I asked if I could tell her how the semester was going and she said yeah. I would get to sleep in her bed. 

Chloe put her hand over my arm. “Babe.” 

I’d missed something. “Sorry,” I said automatically. This time, with Danny and Chloe both fine with it, I couldn’t help but notice that Anya was the odd one out for rolling her eyes at me. 

“Do you want to go Danny’s next game?” Chloe repeated with a squeeze above my knee. Duh. Of course I did, so we all agreed we’d meet up there. There was no way to say it, so I had to just hope that Danny knew the only part I didn’t care about was the part about Anya being there. He was pretty zoned out. I wished he would’ve just said he wanted to stay home. At least he’d be back there soon; none of us got any real food. The vibe was officially read. When the checks came, Chloe covered me and Danny paid for him and Anya—another thing wrong according to Anya’s face, which I was getting tired of. 

Whatever. I survived the dregs of the conversation, and then we were scooting out of the booth to leave. Chloe was telling some kind of story to Danny on the way out, so I walked a few steps back and Anya brought up the rear. I only noticed because when Danny ran his foot into a weird step up and stumbled, Anya snickered. 

Outside, as we all said goodbye, Danny leaned in and gave Chloe a hug. Nothing untoward. One arm and not too long, but Anya was mad again. 

Was I supposed to be mad? I wasn’t. If I thought about Chloe wanting Danny, it felt a little bit like charity given how much she already did for me but I didn’t have any doubt in my mind that his life would be better.

Then again, Anya didn’t seem like a hugger. Not touchy, and I’d say that Danny wasn’t either except the happiest he’d looked was now, as Chloe teased him about his shiner. I reached out for a handshake and hug too, clapping him on the back big and friendly a couple times. I don’t know, I thought I was helping, but Anya didn’t say goodbye, she just peaced out when Chloe lit up. Walked away. It made me really sad to see Danny following her, alone, down the sidewalk. 

“Is she like that a lot?” Chloe asked through a mouthful of smoke. 

“Were you trying to piss her off?” 

She smiled at me, caught. “A little bit.” 

I laughed — was that too much? Was I smiling and laughing too much all the time now? I didn’t remember being this easy to amuse before, but that had to be the love again. I loved Chloe so much that everything she had to say was fun. But also everything she had to say was fun. 

“Sorry,” Chloe said over me. “I’m sorry. I know it would be great if she and I were best friends like you and him, but—“ 

“That was not the goal, here.” 

“No?” 

“No, the goal was seeing him and telling him and that part went great.” 

Chloe linked her hand with mine and moved, so her smoke would blow past me not at me. “Good point. You think about him a lot?”  

Feeling and sensation drained from my limbs leaving only icy coldness, and my first thought was that whoa, it’d been a while since I felt that. True, physical adrenaline. I used to miss passes because my arms would freeze up in high school. All the other times I freeze up I miss it. On the field Dad didn’t let me. Chloe was holding my hand, and she was as hot as the burning red end of her cigarette. She smoked joints at home sometimes. I hadn’t worked up the nerve to join her. “Come on,” I said, to say something. Because I couldn’t say anything else. She did kind of have me dead to rights there. 

Chloe stepped in closer. “Hey, whoa. Just a question, my love.” 

“You’re not calling me gay?” I wasn’t sure about saying it. It felt wrong like it always did to get upset about it, but here I was upset anyways and dumb enough to talk about it. The way Chloe took it too, that made me regret it even more because she’d never looked at me like that before, like when I said gay as a bad thing. For a second we were strangers. 

“Okay, sure. I kinda was,” she said as nice as she ever sounded. “Sorry, I won’t joke about that, if—“ 

“No, I mean. If it was just joking…” 

“Well, it wasn’t just joking.” 

I studied my shoes. My nice sneakers. I’d tried on a couple different ones. Now all the words and lightness and freedom of the distant past—three minutes ago—were totally gone and I didn’t know what to say. The only things I could pull were things I’d said about him before. “Danny’s cool. He’s my best friend.” 

“Yeah, he’s a good guy.”

“A great guy.” 

She tried the original question again. “You think about him a lot?” 

And I confessed, “Kinda.” 

Chloe pulled me in around the waist, and I put my arm over her shoulder. She was almost in my jacket with me. It was going to smell like smoke. “Okay. So what time should we get to the game?” 

Normal questions, normal talking. She really was just asking. I didn’t really know what to do with that besides think about it forever and a lot. 

I showed Chloe my grades on her bed because she wanted to hang out there. Fine by me. I liked her bed, and how much shit there was in there. Giant pillows and heavy blankets. She moved things around so we were both sitting back against her headboard, leaning in towards each other, laptop on a pillow in our lap. I wanted to tell her because I thought she deserved the credit. Everything I’d gotten done this semester was because of her. I never had As two months into the semester. 

‘Nice,” she said. “You got this.” 

“I definitely don’t. That’s why I wanted you to see it before I fucked it up.”

Chloe leaned over to bite my shoulder. It hurt only a little, but I liked it a lot. “No,” she said around me. 

“No?”

“No.” She let go and kissed the same spot, and sensation blossomed. “I don’t do that. We’re one day at a time over here. You’re doing good.” 

“For now,” I added, to piss her off.

“You need therapy like, immediately, dude,” Chloe said instead of getting mad. I almost wished she’d just yell. 

Another first for us: first three hour roadtrip. Danny’s next game was a long drive away. He asked us to go to the second one that weekend, said he’d need the pick me up. When we parked, Chloe told me I was the best copilot she’d ever had, so yeah, it went pretty well. I was riding high on that even before Danny said we could come say hi in the locker room. This place wasn’t as nice as our rink, with our million-dollar donors, but the guest locker room was still pretty big. Chloe snagged my hand again. I was starting to think she wanted to do that as often as I did. For all those reasons I was feeling pretty fucking incredible.

When I first caught sight of him, he was talking to a teammate, arms crossed. This season was a little different than the others. He was putting on muscle easier now that he was older. I used to think about that all the time, when I’d hit that shift into adulthood and how my game would get better. How my parents were still saying I’d hit puberty late when I was eighteen when what they meant was I had to be taller to make the NFL. They’d be so happy if Danny was their kid instead. 

He hugged me with both arms here, and Chloe too. “How was the drive?”

“Just fine,” Chloe answered. “No traffic, and he’s better than the radio.” 

Danny looked at me to make sure I thought that was funny and only then smiled. That made me think of something. “Where’s Anya?” 

“Not picking up her phone.” 

Everybody talking around us got louder for a second. Somebody was cracking up across the room. 

“It’s fine,” Danny added, so late everybody could tell it was a lie, and then changed the subject. He talked sports with me for a sec, or acted like that was what he was doing I wasn’t totally sure but it seemed like his eyes kept going to her hand in mind. He was blinking a lot too, and dug his knuckle in the corner of his eye a couple times. 

I only remembered those things about him because in the second quarter he was headed down the ice, fast and graceful one second and then somebody tumbled in front of him and he went down worse than I’d ever seen. The other guys had all recovered and Danny wasn’t getting up. He was rolling onto his side and I was on my feet, cold in all my layers because I was watching my best friend live my worst nightmare. 

&&&

Matt was on his feet before I understood what had happened, but this was his turf. He knew the signs, and he knew it was bad. “Get up.” I wasn’t sure he knew he was talking. “Oh shit.” I was up by this point too, standing and staring at the patch of blue and white jersey that was Danny. The refs were circling, so weirdly fast on their skates that they looked like buzzing flies. One of them, now two, were helping Danny get up. 

“He’s not using his leg,” Matty told me as I noticed it. 

Fuck, things could change so fast. The night was a different thing now, and I was a different thing in it. We waited, watching as the game picked up around him. They had him on the bench, and then somebody was helping him hobble back towards the tunnel. His helmet was off, but I couldn’t make his face out. 

“Can we…” Matt took a step into the aisle, took the next step up, and I knew what that meant from him already. I said yes by following, hand on his back to urge him faster and promise I agreed. I was gathering this wasn’t one of those moments I was supposed to shrug off, like a puck to the face or something—though, I wasn’t over that either, if anybody was asking. We were walking so fast now. 

Something else was going on with Matt. Not his whole Mr. Popular thing which I knew I was only beginning to scratch the Freudian surface of. Not the normal way he butched it up in public. Not even the detachment of the hospital the first time around. There was a terrible curiosity on his face, a need to know that was exhausted by reality as soon as it encroached. Matt led the way into the locker room and through various other sets of doors until we found Danny laid down by the team doctor and half-dressed on a thin bed in what had to be something like a nurse’s office. As soon as Matt saw him he lost the power of movement. He laced his hands together and put them on top of his head and stayed in the doorway. I had to squeeze around him to get a look at Danny. First his knee, the left one was bleeding and weird-looking and the moment I saw it I blocked that from my mind to focus on the rest of him. They’d gotten his pants and pads off, so he was there in his socks, boxers and undershirt being poked and prodded at by some dude with a first aid kit. The two guys closest to me were debating how long he’d be out. 

Like he could feel me looking at him, Danny’s eyes found mine. I felt my heart in my throat, and now I was the one being moved by concern on its own. I knelt at his side and clasped his hand in mine. He wet with sweat, every part of him. His shirt was drenched, his hair left a dark mark on my shirt, his thigh shined wetly under the light and the blood coming out of his knee did and blood and sweat was dripping off of him, onto clean white—

I looked away on purpose down into his eyes. Danny’s face was wet too, tears mixed in. He wrapped both his hands around mine. “It’s bad,” he said in a thick voice. 

“Yeah. Yep, but we’re here.” 

The guy doing the prodding, who was already in my bad books for it, made it worse for himself by saying, “And who exactly are you two? It’s family only in here.” 

“She’s his girlfriend. I’ll go,” Matt said instantly. Another side of him, new to me, kid who said whatever he needed to say like he’d known it all his life. Matt gave me a look begging me to go along with it, and when he broke out those big pleading eyes I was helpless. He cared about this guy so much he barely wanted to admit to me that he thought about him. Tonight, I was Danny’s girlfriend so I could stay with him during all this on Matt’s behalf. I nodded, Matt did, and he left the room. 

I fully intended to mind my place and be support, but the problem was that Danny was delirious. All he could do was try to catch his breath between moments he had his jaw clenched while this random man kept turning his leg this way and that. At that point, I started to take my own stock of the situation. I had a thought that probably occurred to Matt the second this happened—this could be the end of Danny’s athletic career. This was was in the running for worst moment of his life, this moment we were living right now. He probably wouldn’t want us to call his parents. The best he had was his buddy’s girlfriend. Oh man. Somebody oughta start keeping an eye on his mental health. 

Look. The instincts I had last time were not my most healed ones. Some would say that focusing on the problems of strange boys who were nice to me a couple times was probably a coping mechanism to avoid my own. Sure. That didn’t mean there wasn’t this feeling too, though. The ache in my chest of realizing that this guy was younger than me and more alone with two living parents, just like Matt. And a new feeling, a double-bad feeling of realizing the two of them seemed to be all they really had when the chips were down. There was really no way that I, a person with a heart and soul, did not have empathy for that. 

Danny hissed a breath in and tightened his grip on my hand. I gave him my other one. Empathy felt like a vice around the base of my spine, the hold it together feeling. I had to do something. What if he was my boyfriend? What could I make myself do? What had I done for Mom? 

I started by introducing myself to the man touching Danny first, pointedly, and repeated his name back to him. “Mister O’Connor, okay hi. So what’s going on?” 

“Blew my knee out,” Danny said helpfully. It sounded like he was trying not to breathe, but his grip on me was measured. 

The doctor guy said a bunch more words to mean that, specific bones broken and ligaments torn. The coaches introduced themselves. I nodded all the way through. “So who’s called an ambulance?” I said as soon as I could. 

“I was about to do that,” Mr. O’Connor said. 

“Awesome. Let’s get on that. I can call, if you’re busy.”

The men took it like a threat. I was glad they were that astute, because I kept accidentally thinking about what it would feel like, to be in too much pain to speak in a room full of people who were talking about recovery times. I kept noticing how Danny would let tears out of his eyes before he’d ask this definitely-not-a-real-enough-doctor to stop. Every glimpse of his knee I got was gnarlier. And he was younger than me. I didn’t care if he liked these guys; right now I hated their guts.

“I don’t know why Matty said that,” Danny said to just me, while everyone was on speakerphone with the operator. He was catching his breath finally, the redness fading from his cheeks. 

“I do,” I answered, and squeezed his hand. “If they’d believe he was your brother, he would’ve said that first, I swear.” 

“But you didn’t sign up for this.” 

“Oh. I’m fine with that. You’re best friends, it’s…” 

Danny’s face made me pause. That was news to him, but even with me giving him a second it seemed like he didn’t have it in him to question it. God, his face was so open. I wanted to cover it with my hands. I wanted every single person out of here now that his leg was tightly bound and not free bleeding. His hair was drying a little bit now. I got him one of the towels from a nearby stack so he could wipe himself off. He’d only let go of me with one hand. He pressed the towel into the crease under his jaw, into each eye, rubbed it over his hairline. He tossed it over his face and left it there for a second. 

Grounding moment. My instinct had been his too. That was verifiable. 

We were waiting for a while. Ten minutes or something. The main coach guy came over and gave Danny a pat on the chest while he said all sorts of positive things that added up to suck it up. I kept my arms crossed so as not to piss anybody off with my awful feminine desire to comfort him. And then, “Sit up, McDaniels,” the other guy said. 

I was looking at Danny already; I was kind of looking at only him, so I caught the second of dead-eyed dread that crossed his face before he started to obey. In response, I leaned on his shoulder with my weight to stop him. “Hang on. Wait. Does he need to? Can we minimize the moving? Sorry, my mom’s a nurse. I’m just extra careful.” 

They pretty much hated me after that, but I didn’t care. Not when Danny held my hand against himself, grateful and silent and still a stranger. 

&&&

Before the ambulance left, Chloe tossed me her keys. “Meet us there,” was all she said, but I was the one who told her she wasn’t my girlfriend tonight so that was fine. 

I caught them and saluted. “Will do.” 

“Thanks, Matty,” Danny said loudly. And I said of course, because I’d let him borrow my girlfriend as much as he wanted as long as he thanked me.  

Actually, I thought of another thing I could do to get him thankful. I did that on the way. 

&&&

For an hour, I was glued to Danny. He wouldn’t let me go on the walk out to the ambulance, barely did during load-in, and because he was the one paying close attention to me now, he noticed that I knew my way around an EMT situation.  I knew they’d be putting the IV in his left arm so I moved to his other side. Stuff like that. I also knew the secret of hospitals, which was that being polite but firm when refusing to leave somebody’s side in a medical emergency had a huge success rate. I wasn’t going anywhere. 

In the ambulance, they got him on some intravenous painkillers. Danny’s head lolled when they hit. “Whoa,” he sighed. His hand started going lax around mine. “I’m dizzy.” 

“Water?” I offered, and he nodded mostly with his face. Whatever they’d given him had bottomed out his coordination. That was fine. I didn’t need any help to get the top half of the gurney up, I knew how it worked. He noticed that next. “You know everything,” he said before taking the sip of water I offered. 

“I’ve been in an ambulance or two,” I said. 

“I’m so glad you’re here, man.” 

“Oh, thank you,” I said back, as sweet as I could to make him brighten up. Anything to put a smile on his face. It got a little strange, with his inhibition gone. He was staring at me with his mouth open for a sec, and then he tried to look down at his leg. “Whoa.” He blinked at his injury.

“Don’t look at that, look at me.” 

“I still don’t think you want to be here,” he said as he sorrowfully met my eyes. Lights were on but nobody was home.

“You gotta stop saying that. I do. You’re thinking about your last girlfriend,” I said pointedly, teasingly. “I want to be here.” 

Danny snorted once he got it. “Oh. Right.” We went over an extra big bump and he didn’t even flinch. Not gonna lie, I was incredibly grateful that he wasn’t writhing in agony anymore. That was pretty hard to stay calm for, even with all the meds and therapy. This was better. As long as I avoided looking at the knee. “And I can’t kiss either of you,” he added in an accusatory tone, as if we'd been talking about that too. 

I raised my eyebrows. “Excuse me? Both of who?” 

“You.” 

“I don’t think you mean to say that.”

He shrugged. 

Then we were there, weight gathering at the front wall as we slowed to a stop, and I got out of the way for the EMTs to move him. Danny said my name when he got too far from me, and I had to Marco Polo back. Which was fine and all, but I just kept wondered if he meant it, wanting to kiss me, and if Matt would care. Something told me he wouldn’t. It was so weirdly selfless, what Matt did, volunteering me. So weirdly presumptive too, for a guy that spun out over asking me for anything any other day. And the weird fucking cherry on top was how it was working the way he thought it would. Danny was glad I was here, and I was too. 

For our second time together, we navigated intake forms and telling the story of the wound to doctors. One of the guys from the team, Assistant Coach Steve Sullivan, got here and was part of that conversation. My new mortal enemy. He was the guy who’d told Danny to sit like he was a fucking dog back at the rink, and he’d been making comments under his breath about bouncing back. He hated me being here, but Danny had regained control of my hand and wouldn’t let go. Especially when we got the news. 

His knee would need surgery, but for now they made us wait while they got a leg brace in the meantime. We were looking at being discharged soon, after they stitched up the split in Danny’s knee so they could cut their way in later. I wished this was Grey’s Anatomy or ER or something, one of those situations where they’d rush him right into the operating room and he’d tearfully promise the doctor he’d play again soon. But this was a medium-sized suburb late on Saturday night and we were at the closest hospital, not the biggest. They basically made sure it wouldn’t get any worse, far as I understood, and then we were just waiting for the brace.

Steve Sullivan wanted us to leave without it. “We can get you one at home. If we leave now, you can still make it on the bus. Come on.” He had a nice smile, and a well-groomed beard. Type of guy who’d make you want to do things for him by being so nice about it. 

Danny sat up like he was going to obey, but the moment his knee wasn’t supported by the bed anymore his face twisted up. His eyes found mine, and again I just knew. He didn’t want to do this, but he wasn’t going to say no. 

“Actually, I drove. I can drive him back,” I said. Danny could nod when I took the lead, and he nodded a lot until the conversation was over. Once Steve Sullivan was gone, I pressed our hands against the center of Danny’s chest. “We’ll go as soon as we can.” 

It was the first second I’d had to think this whole time, and my first thought was Matty. I pulled my phone out with my free hand and checked—Matty had texted me a bunch. 8 notifications. 

Hey I’m gonna get Danny’s stuff from the locker room

Have a feeling we’re not coming back here 

I’m really freaked out :( 

Oh wait

I’m gonna get his stuff from his hotel 

If they let me in 

They did :) 

Packed up omw

“Good thing you didn’t go with him, because Matt’s got every one of your belongings in town in my car,” I said to Danny as I typed my text back. He’d need the room number. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” 

Danny let a breath out. “He’s a great guy.”

Same thing Matt had said about Danny to me. The phrase had to mean something I wasn’t getting. “Real great,” I agreed.

Matt didn’t quite run into the room, but he was walking pretty fast. His shirt was sweaty when I hugged him hello. In a crazy twist, he hesitated when I went in for the kiss. Red flag. But he did recover and kiss me, and he took a second better try at it after. “Sorry,” he said, and opened his mouth to explain and then just left it there.

“You’re freaked out,” I said for him. 

“Yes.” 

That was written all over him. Matt could barely keep his eyes anywhere, especially on me or Danny, and his hand kept combing through his hair unconsciously. He started with an apology. “Hey man, sorry if that was weird. I thought you’d want somebody with you.” 

Danny shook his head. “Not weird.” 

“You need surgery?” He almost couldn’t ask. 

“Yeah.”

“How long are you off your feet? I know that’s a loaded question, I don’t mean, like.” 

I didn’t know that, but Danny appreciated the disclaimer. “It’s fine. Six to eight. Weeks.” 

“You think…” Matt started, and then stopped. 

“Coach wants me back faster,” Danny said like he was agreeing. 

Oh. It was a different type of painful for Matt to be here. I understood that now even if I didn’t know exactly why. The sports stuff between them was like a secret fucking code. Another reason why he must’ve thrown me in. I could speak plain English.

Matt turned back to me. Words had failed him again. I nudged his arm. “What’s going on with you, baby?” 

He tried to get out of it. “It’s a long story.” 

“Well, we’re going to be on the road for a while.” 

&&&

I was supposed to play football. That’s where I started. The only reason I was in that dorm with Danny freshman year was because I pulled out of playing a few months before the school year started, when I felt a vice closing around me and knew I had to chew my own foot off or get eaten alive. The university had already assigned my dorm and they wouldn’t reconsider, which meant I lived with all the people doing the thing I’d quit. Honestly, Dad couldn’t have dreamed up a more fitting punishment. 

Let me back up. 

My dad played football. He was fine at it. His junior year college football photo had been on the wall of our house as long as I could remember, up with us kids and the wedding shots. Up with his headshot from the force, family reunions, and Mom’s weird photos of babies—Chloe just heard about this, so I explained to Danny. Like The Office. Babies in baskets of food or whatever. She couldn’t get enough of them. It was Dad's junior year photo because he was cut at the end of that year, which always kind of made me think he couldn’t have been as good as he said he was, but whatever. Dad’s time on the team was so formative that he followed some of the guys to the police academy. According to him, it was everything. He made sure of it. Games on TV were the sound of Sundays. We had a family game on Thanksgivings, and we’d go out in the street and throw footballs around whenever the cousins were around. 

Vinnie played football. Decent for sure. He didn’t get drafted, but he didn’t want to be. By the time he graduated, we all knew he was headed straight into law school after. Nobody could be mad at that, and also I felt like Dad couldn’t say anything because Vinnie made it further than him. 

“Can you give me the exit number?” Chloe interjected, and I read it to her off my phone. “Thank you. Sorry to interrupt.” 

“Are you kidding? Thanks for listening.” 

“Oh baby. We’re just getting started.” She reached over and squeezed my leg, which made me want to crawl into her lap. I settled for telling her—them—more. 

For a long time, I played football my whole life. I remember arguing with Vinnie about how to hold the ball for tighter spirals in the early single digits. The ball never went as straight and far as when he threw it, my hands were smaller so he won every time, but I believed I could catch up. Not to be a dick, but I’d always been smarter than him. Better at school when I actually tried, which was part of why my parents were so mad that I never did more than the minimum required. 

As somebody that played with my older brother and Dad my whole life, I was always one of the better kids on the field in my age bracket. On the field, all the need to go that fucked me over in the classroom translated pretty directly into multitasking and quick thinking on my feet. I was quick, ended up a running back because I could slip between offensive linesmen and get away before they’d turned around. 

Me being the smart one also meant I knew I wasn’t going to be as good as them before any of them would admit it. And that was the game of genetics, right—when you had the classic big dad/little mom combo, some of the kids didn’t turn out tall. Stef was about my height, which felt taller for a girl. She always said that. Still had no good comeback, not once I figured out somewhere in my teens that I wasn’t growing much more. After that, it was pretty simple. I wasn’t good enough to not be bigger. I kept not being good enough. Good for high school, good enough for the not particularly great college I was going to offer me a partial scholarship, but not really good. I wasn’t going to get drafted. And the more I heard about about what happened to the players that made it to fifty, the more it felt like I was just signing myself up for a life of back and brain problems. Like Dad. I finally had to admit, in just this one small way of all the million ways, that I didn’t want to be like him. “And he’ll basically never forgive me for it. So.” 

I got really aware of my own voice as my thoughts petered out and the car felt really quiet, all of a sudden. I’d been talking too long. I’d been bragging too much—backhanded still counted, and besides, it was pretty full of myself to think they’d be interested in the gory details of how I peaked in high school. 

That whole spiral only took a couple of seconds. Chloe didn’t even take her eyes off the road. “What about your mom?” 

“What about her?” 

“What’s she like?” 

“You should probably ask somebody who annoys her less.” 

“I don’t care about them, I’m asking you.” 

I looked out the car window at the night. Shades of black and blue, broken up by spots of light from houses and street lamps. “Mean.” 

“You didn’t want to tell me?” Danny said eventually. 

“No, I did. I almost did. But I was scared.” I meant to say of what, but then I thought that was worse than just letting it stand. I was scared. Of everything about acknowledging the situation was real. 

Danny moved around back there; I craned my head to see him adjusting the seatbelt. “Of me,” he said when I looked at him. 

“No.” 

“Then what?” 

“Of… everything.” 

In the on-off moving streetlights, I saw Chloe throw a glance my way. “Your parents had you thinking that was gonna be the end of the world, huh.” 

“Yeah.” 

She made a sympathetic sound. “Oh, sweetheart.” 

Embarrassment—that was the flash of heat at the back of my neck, the sudden knot in my throat. I couldn’t quite figure out why, but I was embarrassed for Danny to hear it. But also my stomach was flipping for other reasons. I couldn’t figure out why for that either. 

We were stuck in the same car for the next couple of hours no matter what.  That gave me the guts to just ask. “Hey Danny. Is this weird, man?” 

“What.” 

“Being around me and my girlfriend being … cute. And after I told her to act like your girlfriend for a while.” 

Danny thought it over thoroughly. Long enough that Chloe couldn’t help but snort. “Probably,” he finally said, smile in his voice. “Yeah. Probably. But.” He paused for another moment. “I don’t care.” 

“No?” Chloe inquired. 

“Nah. I liked it. When it was me. So have fun.” 

Man. Had the real answers I wanted always been waiting behind a single word of follow up? I wanted to run somewhere. Kick something. I settled for bouncing my shoe on the floor. Chloe never seemed to notice or care, even now. I looked behind her again. Reflected light caught in Danny’s eyes so easy. I could see him looking right at me. “Anya didn’t make it?” I asked. 

“Nope. I think we’re over.” 

“You’re definitely over,” I said, and remembered I had his phone to give back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop, but she was sending like, walls of text while I was packing.” 

Danny took it back and looked at his phone for a while in silence. We had a lot of time, so I tried not to be in any hurry. I wanted to enjoy it. Our first time all three of us hanging out without a heart monitor. But I had to finish the story. 

“Well. I’m finishing college because it costs my parents money and a degree isn’t a bad idea. And then I’ve got no plans and my family’s probably cutting me off. So. That’s what you’re getting into.” That was directed at both of them, and both of them answered. 

“No shit,” Chloe said as Danny said, “Okay.” 

&&&

Matt burned out after two hours of nonstop talking and wound up napping against the window. I stole glances at him whenever the road was dead enough. He was high contrast and sharp lines. Nose, jaw, chin. His hat on backwards was cute. His chain, the thicker one he wore to be fancy. And knowing that too, knowing how silly and particular and dorky he was when he wasn’t pretending to be so cool, I was becoming quite fond of him. To say nothing of Danny. I remembered to look back at him too. “You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, you?” 

“Great. I’m nocturnal.” 

“Right. How long have you worked there?” 

“Since my mom died. Her brother gave me the job.”

“Oh.” 

“She was a nurse. My mom.” I’d told Matt that much by now, but I still glanced over to see if he was stirring. He always woke up when people were talking around him. Sure enough, he was rubbing his knuckles in his eye. 

“Is that why you’ve been in ambulances?” Danny asked. 

“Yeah, and I tried to kill myself.” 

The slow wake-up was immediately over—Matt’s hand shot out to grab mine. “Hey.” 

“Whoa,” Danny agreed. 

And here I was thinking I was way too obvious about it. “It’s okay. They wouldn’t let me out until I was fixed, don’t worry.” When I was the one making jokes and avoiding things, Matt didn’t really seem to know what to do. He was just looking at me with big guilty eyes. “That is not something you were supposed to know,” I told him.

“Right.” 

“I’m okay,” I said, because I wanted that to be absolutely clear too. I was fine now and I did not want to talk about all the gory details no matter how nicely people asked. 

That wasn’t what Matt wanted to know. “Will you tell me if it gets bad again?” 

Bad. What an understatement he couldn’t really understand. I didn’t want him to, either. I wasn’t going to torture him with my shitty mental health in the year and change he had left here. “Sure,” I said, because it wouldn’t get bad that fast. I’d be fine that long. 

They were kind of quiet after that. Understandably. 

The silence was nice. On nights like this one, I always felt like I could drive forever if somebody would let me. When I’d been driving enough I start to feel like I could feel the road through the car, my feet mapped onto the tires through pedal translation. My car started feeling like me. I liked how orange and green the display was in this car. My other car before had blue, and that was too bright. And I liked how the car sat with more people in it. Safe and full. Him and him and me.

I had things to say, obviously, about the way both of them seemed in love with each other. Too fine with sharing to be anything but. But that had to wait. The more Danny woke up the more miserable he was, even with a tough face on it, and I couldn’t do anything about that besides distract him. I made Matt sing along to my music with me so at least when I dropped them off they were smiling. One last thing I could do on this shitty day. Paying it forward. When my mom died, one of the officers that came to tell me gave me pity laughs when I couldn’t help but try and joke. It was the nicest thing anybody did for me that day. I think about it all the time.

Chapter Text

Danny not doing great was not improved by ruining his knee. I barely saw him the rest of the year. We’d text, even all three of us sometimes, but he wasn’t going anywhere to meet anybody and I was also kind of busy. 

Turned out having a girlfriend could take up a lot of a person’s time. Not just the having sex all the time, which we did, but also she kept throwing out other things we could do. See movies, go for a walk, get a drink. She let me sit in the back at her work all the time now, and I was rocking straight A’s headed into finals week. Those were the happiest months of my life, the clearest I’d ever felt, and I knew I couldn’t go home for the summer. That would ruin everything. 

I didn’t have to. I’d already brought everything I cared about with me. Not everything by a long shot, but I was starting to understand how things were also baggage. Leverage even. Weight around my neck. So I didn’t text my parents for a ride home, and nobody asked which meant I felt like they might show up whenever. I wished I could be somewhere else that wasn’t home. 

And food. I’d saved up some cash betting on football with the guys, but I could do the math and I did not have enough to make it all summer even if they didn’t stop paying my rent. 

The solution in my dream world was living with Chloe. As far as I could tell, she liked having me around and ate the food I made. I could pull my weight and pay in other ways. I just couldn’t figure out how to bring that up without begging, without offering to do whatever she wanted forever and then probably over-explaining then that the idea of her taking advantage of that offer sexually was something I’d gotten off to more than a couple times already so she could totally do that too. Like sometimes when she pulled my hair on purpose I imagined what it would feel like if she pulled harder. 

There was no casual way to drop that. Just like I still hadn’t told her I was in love with her even though I was more sure it was true than ever. I could be normal about this. I could follow her lead. 

Instead of saying anything, I kept thinking about what my parents would think if they knew I wanted to live with a girl older than me and let her tell me what to do all summer.

Chloe texted me and Danny. Can we hang out sometime before you guys leave for the summer?

Yes, Danny answered.

Totally but I was thinking I might try to stay? I typed it out, read it over, deleted the question mark and put it back and sent it. 

Immediate but not illuminating response from Chloe. Omg. 

As in you hate that?

How did you know

No as in thts news to me

Ok. Can we talk about it?

Yeah bb

Danny answered a couple hours later. I wouldn’t admit to waiting for it, but I was watching as the second one from him came in right after. Fr?

I wish I could

You could stay with me 

As long as my dad keeps paying my rent ig

Chloe did not address that. She just said, Pizza + movie here Monday? 

We both said yes. She said she’d pick us up. It really was always that easy with her. 

On our way to Chloe’s house, she stopped for pizza. I ran in to grab it. Danny was walking again by then, but both of us could tell how much his leg hurt after a workout and the day before he’d done some conditioning. She got him frozen blueberries once we were at her house, and Danny left them on top of him until they were mushy and wet. 

Chloe was in charge of the conversation. She announced that, from her seat on the floor in front of us. The coffee table between us was full of pizza and paper plates, and also, her phone open to a list. “I’m going to ask all the questions I have first, okay? I think that will help us all be on the same page.” 

I did not expect this level of seriousness. It was kind of exciting, to feel like she wanted to be this serious with me. But that feeling only lasted for a second. Her first question was for Danny. “Why don’t you want to go home?” 

He was surprised too; he pointed his finger at his own chest while chewing. 

“Yes, you,” Chloe said. 

“Oh. Because I want to spend the summer at the rink.” 

She narrowed her eyes at him. “No rink at home?” 

Good point, actually. I looked at him too. “No time at home.” After a another bite, he added, “My parents expect me doing chores if I stay there.” 

“On the farm. Like a lot of them,” I said, and he side-eyed me but nodded. I knew this, or I’d guessed it. He came back from summer wiped. Probably why he was in such great shape all the time, but not great for building back up a broken knee. “Well, like I said, you can stay with me.” 

Chloe answered before Danny could. “Hang on. If we could just let me get through my questions, please.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Danny said. Maybe it was a little sarcastic, but whatever it was it made Chloe freeze up for a second and then take a steadying breath.

“So like—“ She referred to her list. “Yeah. You can’t stay where you are this summer, why?” 

“I live in the dorms still. Full ride.” 

“Okay.” 

“And if I stay in town, the coaches can help me get back on the ice.” 

“Got it. Matty baby.” I forgot to answer because I liked that so much. Good thing she asked the question anyways. “You want to stay here because…” 

Because going home makes me miserable but she knew that, so she had to be asking wanting a different answer. The more real answer. It always made me miserable. What was different now? “I want to be around you.” 

Her eyes on me were piercing. “That is a very sweet thought.” 

“I mean it.” 

“Yeah, but.” After a long second of thinking, she gave up on that and ate for a while. It was nice to be able to just sit through that and not worry she’d pretend she didn’t have anything else to say. Nice to watch her ramp back into her point once she knew how to say it. “Okay. Look. I own this house. My mom left it to me. I don’t pay a mortgage.” 

“Right,” I said as if I was following. 

She smiled, catching me, and connected the dots. “Well, so if the two of you were looking for a free roof over your head, I can do that. But if you eat my food I’ll kill you.” 

“Never,” I swore. 

“I’m not your mom.” 

“You’re not,” I agreed. 

“And you need to help out around the house.” 

“I will.” 

“Have you ever done chores?” she asked, her voice taking a little hint of the tone that made me want her so bad. 

I sat up straighter. “Yes! I did the dishes all the time and cut the lawn and do my own laundry. Actually.” 

Chloe held her hands up, delighted to be so totally wrong and also, it looked like, a little bit genuinely sorry. “Okay. Great. If you’d do that, I think we’d be in good shape. And Danny, I see a question on your face.” 

It sounded like he’d been waiting anxiously for permission to speak. “What do I have to do?” 

I thought I watched Chloe come up with something on the spot. She offered him vacuuming as an idea, which he agreed to, and then she said they could see what he had time for. “I kind of just want you to rest,” she said, and I was so glad someone had. “Sorry. I know you don’t want to hear it, but.” 

“I do,” he said in an unusually quiet voice. He was looking down at nothing in particular. “I would.” 

Chloe stared at him. I was waiting for her to tell me how to feel about that, and then she reached out to squeeze his toe. “Okay. It’s just the summer, too.” 

“Trial period,” I suggested. “Probation.” 

“Sure.” 

I would agree to any way I could prove myself to her, and this was the biggest one she’d offered. Even if it felt like she thought I’d get it wrong, I figured I owed it to both of us to give it a shot. Her terms were reasonable: in August, both of us went back to where we lived. We agreed, and Chloe asked “Would you put it in writing?” 

Neither of us had a problem with that. It was important to her, so we did it. She had actual, like, contracts ready to go. I had to guess that was what came with being an adult and having a house. There wasn’t anything crazy in there. Just that rent was 0 dollars for three months, and we wouldn’t take her stuff and we agreed to vacate immediately after. She’d filled the date in with move-in weekend after asking Danny. 

Both of us signed on the closed pizza box, and Danny gathered mine to hand them over. “Have you had to evict somebody?” he asked as he did. 

“Yeah,” she said, pretending to read the papers. I saw her eyes get suddenly shiny. “Not a big deal. Just. My dad.” 

&&&

I was being stupid, but I wasn’t an idiot. Matt really cared about me. He made me come sit with him so he could wrap me up in his arms before I told them more. I didn’t mean to do that. Just, Matt was pretty good at getting me to open up. He looked so happy every time he tried it and I didn’t like, smack him and call him a pussy or whatever, that I couldn’t help but feel the urge to share back. 

Not all the story. The parts they were in town for. My mom died when I was 20, less than a year before I saw Matt for the first time. This was her parents’ house. She left it to me in her will, and I had to use legal means to get it to myself. That was all of last summer. It was hard being here alone, and other stuff happened. And I’d always had a hard time with wanting to stay alive as it was. I was one of those kids who was on antidepressants in high school because it was that obvious. I was whatever I was for them, this soft place to land and easy break from their regular lives, but I also couldn’t help but blurt out all the things I thought this was to them too. Fantasy, maybe. Idealized, definitely. I was not an easy person to be around. 

“Bullshit,” Danny said. “You’re easy to be around at three in the morning.” 

“When your boyfriend was following you,” Matt added, to one-up that. 

I blushed easy, so my face had to be red-hot in color like I was in temperature. “Well. I’m just trying to warn you.” 

“I bet you get annoyed with me first,” Matt said brightly. The desperate gleam in his eye made me think he thought this was inevitable. Man, he made me so sad sometimes. Danny too, Danny who smiled when I was nice to Matt but shrank when I was nice to him. He seemed to think it was fake.

A funny pattern over the hours: Danny kept trying to get me something on his way somewhere but all that did was make Matt notice he was trying to walk again and he’d jump up to get it instead. And he banged around in the kitchen like he thought we’d forget where he was if he didn’t make enough noise. 

“We’re not a package deal,” Danny tried to tell me one of the times we were alone. “You can just want him here, y’know. I’m not your guy.” 

Ow. My chest ached. “Offer stands.” 

“Because why?”  

“Because Matt cares about you, and we get along.” So far.

Danny made a face, and he didn’t try to hide it as Matt came back. “Okay, but for the record. I’m not cheating on him.” 

Fascinating word choice. I blinked. “Okay. Yeah, no.” 

“Guys,” Matt said in anguish, hurrying to kneel between the two of us, and offered Danny his filled water bottle back. “Who’s cheating? Nobody. Please. It’s fine.”

“While we’re saying things for the record, he brought it up out of the blue.” I motioned at Danny. 

“Well, I’m being careful,” Danny said stubbornly. 

Sometimes I could feel my meds working overtime. Keeping my heart rate down. Disconnecting a second of feeling pissed from the part where I did something about it. A second to think. This kid could barely walk. Of course he wanted to clarify my intentions. We didn’t know each other. I’d just seen him over the last year in all kinds of pain, alone. I only knew home was the wrong move based on what Matt’s face did when he thought about it. That was the real answer. Matt’s face said he didn’t like when Danny went home. That wasn’t sayable. So I put my hands up, and I carefully chose some words of my own. “Hey. I’m not doing anything all three of us aren’t fine with. Alright? That’s what I’m saying.” 

“And that’s great,” Matt tried to answer for both of them. But it wasn’t. Danny was way more fixated on what I wasn’t saying. Admittedly, there was a whole hell of a lot, but nobody had ever taken it like this. Nobody had seen all of it in the room with me everywhere I went. Honestly, since Mom, nobody’d cared. 

&&&

Life with Chloe in the summer went something like this. I’d wake up in her bed before she did and kiss her cheek then head to the university gym, which was open during business hours all summer as long as I had my student ID. Danny was up for hours at that point, working with Coach Sullivan on overall tone and physical therapy. That stuff was like, 8am to whenever, so I went to the gym on my own and then ran back home to see Chloe before she left for work. I’d make sure she ate something, and then I’d make sure the sink was empty and then honestly, I’d sleep on the couch for a few hours. I was tired all the time, and Chloe didn’t say anything about it besides asking if I’d slept well when I finally answered her texts. 

When I’d caught up on Zs enough a few weeks in, I did some other things around the house that I’d noticed. There was a patch in the drywall in the den that wasn’t painted yet, so I found the can in the basement and put a towel down over the carpet and painted it. I pulled all the weeds out of her front garden beds. I mowed the lawn. Every time I did it, she acted like she thought the previous time was the last time I’d ever do something for her. It was new gratitude over and over. She wanted to fuck me more when I did stuff, too, so I failed to see how this was a bad deal for me. It was kind of everything I ever wanted. 

The thing was, money. All of a sudden, it was my main problem. Food cost money, and all the other things I wanted to get Chloe and Danny. I needed a job, and after a couple days walking around town, I found one. The place Anya hated so much, they needed a barback and they were paying minimum wage plus tips. Working every Friday and Saturday kept me from feeling like I was totally useless. Plus, the tips were great. 

On my third shift, I made a hundred bucks in tips from few old librarians. When I brought it home, I brought it straight to Chloe in her room. Danny was already in bed, the door to his room shut, but Chloe would wait up for me. Tonight she was in her giant black PJ shirt, curled up on her side. “I’m home,” I said with a little knock on the door. Redundant, but I loved saying it. She’d applaud or fake cheer or, like tonight, stick her arm out until I came and ran into it to be squeezed hello. 

“Hi, honey. Good night?” 

“Fine,” I agreed, already stripping so I could get straight in the shower. Sometimes she was more awake, and she’d be in the mood before bed. Tonight she was almost out already, which meant I rinsed off as fast as I could so I could snuggle into the pillows with her while she was still awake enough to talk a little bit. I could talk to her almost whenever I wanted to at this point. Spoiled rotten. 

She turned over to face me when I was getting in bed with her, and snuggled up to look at my face sideways, both of us on our pillows. “How’s Danny doing? I barely see him.”

“Good, I think. I don’t know. Well, probably bad.” 

Her smile from up close in bed was best, bright and near and only mine. “Interesting.” 

“Well, he’s doing what he wants to be doing. But.” Another tender spot I was discovering the first time I tried talking about it. Hard to find the right words. “He always pushes himself.” 

“Right. And they encourage that. The coaches.” She yawned. 

Yeah, but I couldn’t say that. If he found out I was saying that, he’d think I stopped playing because I was too fucking soft. So I just kinda shrugged, and said something else that was true. “You’re the only person I’ve ever seen who could get in the middle of all that and win.” 

“Yeah? As in you want me to do that again?” 

“Maybe. I don’t know.” I was scared to say yes without knowing a whole hell of a lot more. 

If I’d made a bigger deal about it, maybe she could’ve stopped it. 

&&&

“Hi, we have you listed as the emergency contact for a Mr. McDaniels?” 

It took a second to process his name. Danny. Then it took another second to process being his emergency contact—like, since when—and another to process what they told me. He’d hurt his knee again, but they didn’t say again they just said torn ACL and I said I was on my way. 

Matt was with me from the start this time, from the moment I yelled out Danny in hospital and he came thundering down the stairs to get his feet crammed in shoes. We were a well-oiled machine in this exact scenario now, third time the charm and all. I told the ER desk I was Mr. McDaniels’ girlfriend and Matt promised he wouldn’t be too miserable waiting out here alone. I gave him a big hug. “I’ll keep you in the loop,” I promised. He let me go without complaining. Matt could be so selfless like that, when Danny was involved. 

This time was different. It was the middle of the morning, for one. I’d have to weigh this against needing to open the liquor store later, sure, but I was fully awake and thinking. I was firing on all cylinders. I was able to catch the significance of being his emergency contact between the last time and now. At some point after he’d moved in, he’d decided he wanted me to be there when things went wrong. What had changed? Just the domesticity of sharing a house. He knew now that I’d get him the exact right brand of protein thing he liked and that I switched his laundry over when I saw it and that I let him know which leftovers were up for grabs, that I would do all that and this. 

When I walked in the first thing he did was hug me tight for almost a minute. Him in the bed and me standing, we were almost the same height. Knew how to fit already for the several long, steady breaths I felt him take against me. There was a hitch in his chest. He only let me go when it had mostly smoothed out. “Hi,” he said then, not meeting my eyes. 

“Hi, babe.” 

“Coach is here.” 

“Okay.” Not in the immediate vicinity, but I was on the lookout now. And I was clued in. Matt had told me on the car ride what this was going to mean. Had to mean. Danny would need surgery again and six months off the ice minimum. In sports with shorter seasons, football I was guessing, Matt said it was called the season-ender. He said that this was probably the end of Danny playing hockey at this level, and he’d never be back at a hundred percent. And then he said it was a good thing I was the one going in there, because I wouldn’t be thinking about that. 

I reached back out for Danny, and he let me bring him in for another hug. Longer. He smelled like sweat and ice. This happened at practice, obviously. Trying to get back from the previous thing. My back started hurting from the angle, but I made him let go first. Even that didn’t help, he just sat there in his shorts and a sweatshirt, blank-faced, his leg stretched out in front of him. At least he hadn’t told me I didn’t want to be there yet. 

“You cold?” I asked him. 

“Can’t feel anything.” 

I touched his shin gingerly. Not too cold. His heart was probably still racing. “What do they have to do before you can leave?” 

Danny shook his head. He didn’t know. 

“You want me to go find out, or stay here?” 

“Stay,” he said before I was done asking. 

Shifting my weight between my two feet, I texted Matt. Got him. Gotta find a nurse and get some facts. Looks ok. I was trying to think of if I wanted to say anything else when Assistant Coach Steve Sullivan, my nemesis, came in from the hall. “McDaniels.” 

“I’m off the team, right.” Danny’s voice had never been so lifeless. 

“It’s hard to say at this point.” 

“Six months off takes us to January, if I got surgery today.” Steve agreed. “And I’d have to get back in shape after six months of not using my leg. And even if you try to rush that again, I still wouldn’t be back in time, would I?” The words were coming faster. He’d been thinking about this. 

Steve had no choice but to admit that no, he would not. 

“You gonna let me come back the year after?” 

“I can’t commit to—“ 

“Then I don’t have anything else to say to you.” 

“Michael,” Steve said in a voice meant to be deeper. Oh, he was getting stern. 

It was like Danny’s brain clicked right into place. His posture changed, and his eyes were sharp. “Steve,” was all he said. 

I watched Steve Sullivan realize that he’d lost him, and maybe get a little scared. I would be too. Danny had the vibe of an animal in a trap, ready to sink his teeth into something. I kept getting that feeling off of him the rest of the day. While he let them put a brace on him again, and during the whole process to get outside and in the car and home, and then even when he was on my couch and hopefully comfortable. The whole time, Danny looked trapped. 

&&&

Man. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was I supposed to say to him now. We slept in the same house but for the days after his injury I barely said anything besides hey. If I talked about the knee I didn’t want him to think I just wanted him back on the ice. Or that I thought he wasn’t doing enough or that I thought anything, honestly. I didn’t have any opinion one way or another what he was doing but I had a hunch I might sound like I did because of all the stuff I’d tried to tell him about in the car. All the things my dad said that were caught in the cobwebs of my head, that stuff came out sometimes. Chloe would glare at me and call me a loser when something like that made its way out, but Danny was raw. I couldn’t do that to him. 

I tried to think of other things to say to him, like apologize for not noticing that he was pushing himself that hard, or ask why he hadn’t told me. But that would be even harder to say right. He’d have every excuse to bite my head off if I did that but then, I was sensitive too. I worried I’d take it hard. So I went for not saying something but being around for a few days. Around, and not judging him, and not scared. 

Chloe did it way better. She was actually all of those things for real. 

&&&

One morning when Matt wasn’t up yet, I went and disturbed Danny’s peace. He’d taken to sleeping in. Sleeping until one of us made him eat. Usually Matt, because I took Danny’s concerns about cheating seriously and had been giving him space, but I had other priorities today. I knocked on the door and then, when he didn’t answer, opened it and took light steps across the floor to wake him up. I had a mug of coffee for him that I put on the bedside table, and I sat on the side of his bed. He stirred when my weight moved him. 

“It’s me,” I said. 

“Hey.” He cleared his throat, and then stayed where he was flat on his stomach. The brace was off, so I made my mental note to be careful. His leg was soft and naked in just sweats. So was the rest of him, he had a sheet tangled around his middle and no shirt on. And he didn’t move to do anything about it, he just stretched and then shifted closer to fit around me. 

“I got you coffee,” I said. 

“You want me to wake up?” 

“Would you mind?” 

Danny shook his head, and turned carefully onto his side, hurt leg on top of his good one, and leaned over to grasp the mug I’d put down. He had a big sip. He had another. Then he flopped onto his back with his eyes mostly open. “I’m up. What.” 

“I just want to like, open the discussion. About your future.” 

“What about my future?” 

“Well, seems like you’re not moving into the dorms this August.” 

“No. Probably not.” His hip was warm against my side, thick and stable.

“Do you want to go home? With your family?” 

“You want me out?” 

I shook my head. “I just want to know what you’re thinking. We haven’t really talked about it.” 

That was all it took. Danny leaned over for another sip of his coffee and told me the truth. “I wouldn’t want to travel like this, if I were picking.” 

“Okay. So once you’re back on two legs. Where are you going?” 

“Out of your hair.”

“Well, you don’t have to be in a hurry to leave. I like having you here.” 

“You like having me freeloading in your spare room,” he said dubiously. 

“Yeah.” 

“Getting in the way of you and Matt.” 

“I don’t think you’re getting in the way of anything. But if you’re gonna stick around I do think we should talk about that. All three of us.” 

Danny nodded into the mattress. “Okay.”

“And I hate to beat a dead horse, but. Man, where’s your family? They should be here for you, for this.” I did my best to sound as honestly worried as I was, to avoid any sharp edges. He still hid his face in his pillow, and I patted his back a couple times like he was a little kid. “Come on, I have to ask.” 

“They’re home,” he said into the pillow. “They’re at home, and I don’t tell them about every little…” Mid-sentence, he stopped himself and looked at me and I would swear he knew what I was going to say. 

I said it anyways. “This isn’t little.” 

He sighed deeply. “Yeah.”

“It’s not.” 

“I know.” 

Okay. I had to get out of here. This was weird. I was forcing him into telling me stuff, and it was coming out three words at a time. It was too early. I stood up. 

“Wait.” He rolled over to reach for me slowly. I let him catch my arm and hang on. “Now what?” 

“I don’t know. I just wanted to start talking about it.” 

“Oh.” 

“And like I said, you don’t have to leave when we said before. Both of us like having you here.” 

Danny’s glance was surprisingly sharp after I said that, but I knew these guys better now. I remembered how sensitive Matt was about this very topic. “Both of you,” he repeated. 

“Yeah.” I couldn’t help it; I ruffled Danny’s golden hair, and he held still until I backed off. The room was getting a little glow around the edges as the sun rose outside. It smelled cleaner in here than I would’ve thought a guy his age smelled. It smelled like the chest Mom kept the blankets he used in. I wondered if it felt like a hug to him too, or if it was just musty. 

&&&

Chloe was at work, but I was off. One of those nights where me and Danny stretched out on the couch and watched the Olympics all day. Neither of us really knew what to do when the front door unlocked and a million kids ran in. Danny called Chloe. When some lady in pink boots stomped in behind them and demanded who we were, he was the one who answered and explained that Chloe was on her way. But I was the one who convinced most of the kids to watch the Olympics with us, while that lady went and made an angry phone call in the kitchen. I scooted closer to Danny. The kids didn’t seem interested in fucking with his leg brace, but just in case. 

Not even ten minutes after Danny hung up with her, Chloe was coming in through the front door, eyes wild until she saw us. She locked the door again, deadbolt too, before coming over to hug me and then Danny, both the same desperate way but me with a kiss. “I’m so sorry,” she said. 

“We’re fine,” I promised. 

All the kids hobbled her by piling into a hug—except one, the boy who’d put himself in the chair at the far side of the room. He had dark eyes, unlike all the girls who had blue eyes like Chloe’s. I watched him watch her with them and thought about all the shoes in the front hall. Why hadn’t they taken those with them? 

Chloe sent the kids to their bedrooms with ease. With authority. All of a sudden she looked taller, in the space. I thought again, like I did kind of routinely, what she might be like with my dad around. She wouldn’t blink. She’d say she liked me anyways. She was looking at me expectantly. Oh. “What?”

“I’m sorry my stepmom and her kids showed up and ruined your night.” 

“They didn’t. It’s fine.”

“Okay.” She ran a hand over her forehead anxiously. This was really freaking her out. 

I stuck my hand out, and Danny copied me which I didn’t complain about. It made Chloe smile to hold both our hands, and I was pretty sure she gave me an extra squeeze. “Let me see what’s going on. It’s fine. We’re fine,” she said, which definitely sounded more true when she said it twice. 

“Wait. Let me come.” I said as soon as I thought of it. “You’re my girlfriend. I’m your backup.” 

&&&

My heart jumped at being claimed. He said it so easy. He moved fast to be standing puffed up big at my side. I wasn’t mad to have him with me. Stacy was a lot. I tried to remember as little of talking to her as possible. 

Long story short, my dad was gone again and the kids had nowhere to go and Stacy had an interview to get an apartment, and she just need somebody to watch the kids for an afternoon. It was not a good sign that she showed up here. Things were getting bad again. I ended up telling her they could stay overnight when she hinted that would be better, even with Matt squeezing my hand in concern, and before I could take it back she was out the door again. 

As quickly as I could, I ran him through the facts. Both of them; Matt perched on the back of the couch by Danny to listen to the short version. 

The girls were all my half-sisters, Nora and Ashley and Sabrina, but Mason was a kid that didn’t belong to anybody. Stacy had him when she was 17, so he was pretty grown up for being so young. He was her friend more than her kid, as far as I knew. I didn’t know much. I’d seen him for about six hours at a time every year or whatever. I didn’t know him. But I was thinking about him a little bit now. Mostly I was hoping he never wanted to play any sports. 

Stacy was gone. She’d left about sixty seconds after I said yes. The kids were my responsibility now. The weight settled onto my shoulders right back where it used to be. Nora was quiet so I had to make sure she really went to sleep. Ashley skipped brushing her teeth if I let her. Sabrina needed to be tucked in. Matt raised his hand. “What’s up?” I said.

“Just thinking about bedtime for six.” 

“Can I help, or would that be creepy?” 

Good question. I decided Matt could monitor tooth brushing while I managed the shower assembly line in the other bathroom attached to my room. They all looked a little grimy. Sabrina first, because she was quickest as littlest. Ashley didn’t want me in there anymore. Nora was in and out, and then Mason hopped in and we were almost done. 

Danny was the last up. I heard the creaking of him doing a perimeter pace of the lower floor before he climbed the steps, and I met him in the hall in case he needed a hand. The carpet up here could be annoyingly slippery, worn down after all these years. “Hey. Mason’s in the shower. There’s an air mattress I’ll blow up and put down in the living room for him. You don’t have to move, okay?” 

I couldn’t see his face very well. The only lights on were in the bathrooms. “If it’s just for a night, I could crash with you and Matty.”

That was possibly the last thing I was expecting to hear. “Oh yeah?” 

“So the kid gets a room.” 

“Sure. Yeah. That’s nice of you. Just run it by Matt too. How’s walking, can I help?” 

Now that I was asking, he held his arm out and I let him lean on my shoulder for the last steps to my room. “Thank you,” he said a couple times, and I told him it was fine every time. He really was struggling. Wouldn’t use the crutches anymore.

Sabrina and Ashley ran out of the bathroom and into their room like roadrunners, and Matty followed them until he caught sight of us. “Hey, my favorite people,” he said brightly. “Can I get in there?” 

I allowed him get in here. Danny was heavy, and Matt was able to support him better on the way to bed. For a second, I watched. Matt threw himself into it, wedged under Danny’s arm so he was structural support. His arm around Danny’s back looked strong. “Let me just get the kids all settled,” I told them, and Matt promised that was fine. 

The girls were happy to be home—ugh—and easy to put to bed. I tucked in Sabrina. I gave Nora a hug. Then I went back to my room, to wait for Mason to be done in the shower. I’d forgotten how exhausting kids were. So many needs, and I’d promised I’d talk to the boys too. It was tempting to dread it, but I just couldn’t once I saw them. Matty was sprawled out diagonally, watching as Danny took his brace off and, as I walked in, tossed it onto the floor. 

“Hey, baby,” Matt said to me. 

“Hello, my love. I figured you’d be down for a sleepover.”

“Yeah, sure, I.” He cut himself off when the bathroom door opened and Mason came out. The kid looked cautious. “Hey buddy,” Matt said in a friendly way. He was good with kids, which kept making me feel something. 

Mason was standing with his old clothes balled up in his hands, stiff and weird the way kids got sometimes. He did not get less weird when I told him he’d have the spare room, but he asked if he could close the door. 

I said, “Sure you can. Just leave Danny’s stuff alone in the closet, alright?” The folding door always got stuck closed. I’d hear if he tried to open it. I didn’t tell him that. Paranoia did not always need to be voiced, and it was just a night. Besides, the kid nodded and went, closing my door behind him. We were fine. It was fine. 

Matty looped his arm around me and tugged back towards the bed. “Stand down, officer,” he said teasingly, softly, and I did get into bed up at the headboard, squeezing him in against the wall. He bounced up to his knees. “This was really nice of you,” he said for starters. “Letting them all stay here.” 

“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.”

“What do you mean?”

Shit. Right. I hadn’t explained this part. I kind of laughed, and crossed my legs so I could lean on them. Danny offered me one of my squishmallows, which I politely declined. I didn’t need a comfort object to talk to them. I trusted them. Of course I did. Danny, who said on the phone that he’d kick Stacy out if I wanted with ice-cold certainty but now was melting into my pile of pillows, listing towards us. And Matt. I’d kind of been meaning to tell him since our first conversation. Since I said it was complicated and he said he didn’t care. I kept putting it off because I liked him so much, but I owed him the truth now that it had shown up and burst out all over. 

“My dad had a second family and tried to move them in here when my mom died. I don’t know if she knew. But. It’s not the kids’ fault. And Stacy’s had a drinking problem for a while. Probably because of my dad, because he’s an alcoholic.” 

Both boys were holding still. Matt’s eyes were fastened on me. Danny was looking at nothing. 

“I had to get them evicted. Dad was trying this whole squatter’s rights thing. I don’t really understand it, but. I know what to do if he tries it again, I don’t need you guys to get involved or anything. You guys can stay like we planned.” 

“Why’d you let them in, then?” Danny didn’t look up. It almost felt like he didn’t mean to speak. 

“Because it’s not their fault our dad sucks. And Stacy does too. Nora told me they’d been on a road trip sleeping in the car.” While I was coming clean about things. I looked at Matt. “My dad was the one following me that one night. Not Connor. I haven’t seen Connor since he dumped me.” 

“Oh.” 

Now it was all coming out. “I’m sorry. I thought… well, I thought they’d hold it together for longer, and you could go home and—“ 

“I don’t want to go home,” Matty said like it was a pre-rehearsed, only everything else about him made it clear how much he meant it. “Me saying they’ll cut me off—they’ll cut me off if I don’t go back and work for Dad, and.” His words got stuck in his throat. “Babe, I’ve been doing everything I could to show you that I could stay here, if you wanted me to. That I’m a good roommate ’n shit.” 

At some point my throat had gotten tight. I sniffed hard, trying not to cry. “You are.” 

“So what if I came back after the school year, and we gave it a shot?” 

The thing about helping him figure out how to talk about his feelings was, it was really exposing the things I had trouble saying out loud. “I’m not opposed to that, but. I really need to take it one day at a time here.”

I forgot I didn’t need to worry about Matt getting mad at me. If anything he got more excited when I told him no. He tripped over himself to tell me that was fine, “as long as that’s the only thing you’ve…” 

“Lied about? Yeah. Fair question, but that’s really it.” Matt nodded at me. He bit his lip. I wondered if he could say the same. He’d lied to the coaches so easily. Sometimes I didn't even know if he knew the ways he was dodging the truth. And that was what I meant to talk about with them anyways, so I went few a couple things. 

&&&

My girlfriend basically called me gay for Danny like five different ways and then asked me if I wanted to keep doing stuff like that. The stuff that she'd just explained was so gay. And honestly, when she laid it all out there i wasn't sure. I said and did all those things. Danny was all those things to me: closest friend and favorite guy and all I had. I wasn’t gay. That didn't make me gay. She had to know that. She was the one having sex with me and she had rave reviews so far. And and, she told us both this was coming, so she’d been thinking about it for a while. As in while we were fucking even, maybe. 

Then she said the other part of it. “And Danny, I’m glad you’re here and I was happy to step in with you, but that’s not exactly something everybody’s fine with all the time, so. I think we should make sure we’re all on the same page. If you're going to stay around us so much, we just have to—“ 

“—talk about it,” I finished with her. 

“Yeah.” 

“Easy,” Danny said. “I think the two of you are a smoking hot couple, and I’m not trying to get in the way of that.” 

Chloe, frustrated, looked at me. She had changed into pajamas at some point, a thin T-shirt and boxer shorts. I did not look at her boobs because I had a sense of mood and timing. Even with a good-looking girlfriend and friend in bed with me, I could focus. I knew what she meant. What she was trying to ask about but too polite to really say. 

There was something behind me telling her to take care of Danny. Yeah. Something about how I found the one person who ever understood me and all I wanted to do was give her away—well, as if she was mine to give, and of course she wasn’t, but I guess I meant I wanted to give her permission or something. I got something for once in my life and needed to share. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Danny or her, and I liked the idea she could feel that way too. That all three of us could together. 

The broad strokes was easy. The hard part was the rest of it. 

Danny tried again. “I love you guys,” he said, and not just to her. 

“I love you guys,” I repeated like an idiot, because I should’ve said it first. “But I don’t… I mean, can I be honest?” I knew Chloe would say yes. I needed to check if Danny was into it and he was, he bobbed his head and he listened. My face had never been hotter. “I don’t see why you’d have to be getting in the way. Feels pretty good to have you here right now.” 

Chloe was proud of me for that one, I could tell from the way she reached over to pet her hand over my back. 

“Well. Still. I can get the air mattress,” Danny said after a second. 

Unacceptable on a million levels including making him go down and up the stairs again, but I didn’t have to say anything. Chloe did it for me. “I was actually thinking you should be in the middle tonight. Once everybody’s ready to sleep.”

And just like that, Danny gave in. He shrugged. “Sure.” 

It could not be this easy. I was missing something, because when bedtime came Danny, who was barely touchy with his girlfriend, crawled right up between us and plopped down. The whole side of his body was pressed against mine. I couldn’t do anything about it, either, there were too many pillows. How the hell was I supposed to sleep like this? 

On his other side, Chloe spoke up. “We could hug him right now. There’d be nothing he could do.” She lifted her head to look at me. 

“Come on,” Danny sighed. I knew that voice. I’d only heard it a couple times. He didn’t get embarrassed often. 

Chloe was not deterred. She reached over him, her fingers searching and wiggling until they found me. “Get in here.” 

I wasn’t about to stop listening to her now. I threw an arm in the mix, and then Danny made a sound, he moved, and when he was finally comfortable it was tucked under Chloe’s chin, breathing into the space between him and her chest. It was a great spot. I liked it myself. I wasn’t even jealous when she had me lean over him to kiss her. “I love you,” she said to me over Danny’s head. 

Oh. Now I got it. This was what saying it was supposed to be like. Not a box checked and held over my head, but something true we’d got around to saying because it was another thing we could share. “I’ve been in love with you for probably months,” I confessed, looking at the back of Danny’s head, his straw-colored hair. “And I really mean it.” 

Maybe this was too weird. She could totally call me on it, if it was, if she wanted. Like, how much could I really love her if I was secretly in love with my best friend and not her? But she didn’t say that. She made me come back for another kiss and all Danny did was move so he could tuck an arm over Chloe right back. She got the lights. Then we were sleeping. 

It was different to be sleeping next to him instead of her. So much longer than me, and solid with muscle instead of the way that Chloe was softer and kinda my same size. I didn’t know what I was allowed to do, either. He’d probably hate it if I got too close to him, and if I thought too much about him and her together I’d end up with a boner easy. No matter what we just said, that seemed pretty unacceptable. So I ended up lying on my back most of the night, listening to the two of them breathe and trying not to think. It was probably the best night of my life. 

&&&

Stacy was back like she said to pick the kids up first thing in the morning, hammering on the door and then fumbling with the key to open it herself. Matt hopped out of bed first and fastest to be with me and say bye to the girls and Mason. He locked the deadbolt behind them. “We should get these locks changed. And did you ever get cameras or anything?” 

“No.” 

Matt evaluated my face, hands clasped in front of his mouth. “You don’t want to talk about it.” 

“I don’t.” 

“Could you try?” 

I sighed, and did. “Cameras are not going to make me feel any safer.” 

“Okay, but new locks should, right? And the fact that you could call us and have two incredibly and equally athletic sexy men at your side in minutes.” 

“Men!” I repeated, disbelieving enough to probably sound rude. 

He just smiled. “Young men.” 

“That is nice. I won’t lie.” 

“Did you sleep okay?” 

I didn’t know I could sleep that well again. I hadn’t even moved. “Yeah. How about you? You want to do that again?” 

“Yeah,” he said with hardly any shame. 

I kissed another smile onto his face, to try and hide how I wanted to cry every time I even sort of looked at him. He was being so goofy. So himself, like normal, but it was like we’d unlocked the ability to include Danny without freaking him out. Simple as that. I wanted to cry because, like, was it? Had he just been waiting for someone to tell him it was okay? Just because he liked getting bossed around in bed didn’t make him anything, I wasn’t making any assumptions, but. I saw him look at the crease of Danny’s neck and shoulder. At his ear lobe. All these places that I’d noticed on another girl only when I already thought she was pretty. It wasn’t like I could bring that up, but it sure was telling me something. 

From upstairs, Danny called out. “Hey Matty?” 

“Coming,” Matt yelled back, and ran off on light feet. 

For the purposes of conversation last night, I’d made several concessions with regards to what I believed reality to be, but now that I had a second to myself while making coffee, I evaluated those concessions again. Matt said he wanted to live here. He wasn’t planning on going home. He’d been trying to tell me that, and when I didn’t get it he came right out and said it. He was everything I figured he never would be, and he was trying to make long-term plans with me. He deserved a chance to back out. 

I heard them make their way down the stairs. Danny limped right up to me and extended an arm. “Hey.” 

“Morning.” I leaned in and completed the sideways hug. He made it long. I thought I felt him tilt his head against mine like a cat before letting go. “Why are you up?” 

“I think we have more to talk about.” 

“Like a threesome?” 

“No. Or… sure. But.” 

Matt had been following casually; now, he rushed in to link his arms around my neck when Danny said that. “Hey. Everybody relax, okay. Maybe once your leg’s better, bud.” 

We were standing pretty close, all three of us on the one rag rug. Danny had asked me a question and I made myself answer it. “Look, the only thing I had left to say was that I understand if either of you thought about it and decided I’m kind of a lot. In a too much way. Stacy’s probably going to be back more, that’s gonna be a whole thing. And I am gonna crash eventually. It’s just how I’m built. I don’t want you guys to feel like you owe it to me to deal with all that because I let you live here.” 

Matty was vibrating with interruptions but he waited until I was done to say, “But we do, though. Because you let us live here, yeah and it’s not just that. It’s… you changed what soda you buy because of me.” He let go to look at me better. He crowded me against the counter, and I could feel Danny looming at our side. “Dude. You care. Let me.” 

“Nice, Matty. Good way to say it.” Danny’s low voice surprised me. Kinda got to me. The idea of the two of them both wanting to impress me with their openness. Getting competitive with it, maybe. And just like that I wasn’t thinking with my head. I had to make an effort to tune back into the conversation we’d just been having. 

“Fine,” I said. “You care about me. Whatever.” 

“She’s super romantic,” Matt said to Danny, and both of them cracked up. 

&&&

So I just got to live with my two favorite people in the whole world all summer and talk to them whenever I wanted. As if that wasn’t great enough, after that first night all three of us I got to anticipate another chance to suggest we try that. It felt greedy to be too desperate for it when me and Chloe spent every other second together as it was. We’d go to the drug store together. She got a weight bench off craigslist for me, and put it in the basement and she’d sit down there on the closed washer to talk to me while I did reps. 

Danny was there too, but he was doing a lot of sleeping and not much else. He got surgery a few weeks after the injury and that seemed to only take more out of him. He needed a lot of help to get around Chloe’s house. Wasn’t ideal with the stairs, but he wouldn’t even talk about sleeping on the couch. He had his room and he slept there, door closed. Whenever he got up he’d come and find whoever was home to hug us and then he’d lie down on the couch and sleep some more. Sometimes I would share the couch with him, heads on opposite ends and legs towards each other. Sometimes we’d make dinner for Chloe together. 

Chloe, who’d been assuming I wanted to ditch her. That kept hitting me after we talked. I really hadn’t done my job. I’d been so busy trying not to make her mad I forgot to notice when she was other things. Like scared, or struggling, or busy worrying about a family full of people disrespecting the memory of her mom. I had to do better for her. 

&&&

Uncle Bob was actually really happy when I said I didn’t want to work six days a week, twelve hours a day. I only worked those hours in the first place because I’d begged him to let me get out of the house and make every cent I could. Legal problems and all. 

It meant something, had to, that I wasn’t feeling that way even with a recent Stacy spotting. My house was a place I wanted to be most of the time. It had people that liked me in it. It was nice playing house while Matty was trying to impress with how many chores he could do. When he was the one keeping the sink empty, I was a lot more inclined to do stuff like throw their laundry in with mine and deliver it where it went. 

Danny’s door was closed, so I knocked to leave it somewhere in there instead of on the floor. “Come on in,” he said from the other side, and I opened the door. 

I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose at the wave of stale air that hit. He had a lamp on, but it was dark in here. The big brace was on the floor next to his bed. “I’ve got fresh clothes for ya.” 

“Thanks.” 

I tossed the pile on top of the dresser for now. Different immediate concern now that I was looking at him. It looked like he was struggling to move, every movement thick and slow. Oh, I knew that feeling.

“Where’s Matty?” he asked. 

“He’s at work, but I can help.” 

“It’s fine.” 

Not fine. If I had antennae they’d be twitching. My ears were pricked up. All the metaphors. He was trying to sit up and mostly failing. But also he wasn’t Matty. He told me it was fine and he was an adult that surely got tired of his friend’s girlfriend telling him what to do. I took a step towards the door. 

“Are you busy?” he said in a small voice. 

“No, man. I’m just doing laundry. What’s up?” 

I caught a flash of eye contact from him, guilty and shy. “I need to get in the shower,” he said, like he was sure I knew that already. And to be honest, I had a hunch. “Is he getting home soon?” 

“I think so. Knee hurting?” His lack of an answer was worse than anything he could’ve said, because Danny had been pretty honest with me until now. Now he was mute.“You want me to help?” I asked one last time, and he stuck a hand out for me to support him as he stood. 

We made the walk to the bathroom together, mostly. I took him to mine, and he went where I directed without questioning it. Other priorities. Each step he took, he put so much of his weight on me that I had to time my own steps right so I’d be solid when he needed me to be. We were both out of breath by the bathroom. He wavered on his feet, put a hand out to steady against the counter but he didn’t try to sit down on the closed toilet. He didn’t show any sign of letting me go, either, he was just standing there in his pajamas, big loose long-sleeve shirt and sweatpants. Something about him smelled scared. It stunk. 

He'd previously insisted he didn't need the seat in this shower. Now he didn't try to argue. 

I wanted to ask if I should stay, but I already knew he’d probably take it as me trying to get out of here and just struggle his way in on his own. After our tribulations to get here I wasn’t sure his knee was load-bearing at all. So if he asked me to, I’d leave. Otherwise, I was here. 

I put his hands on my shoulders and made him hold onto me so I could do the undressing. First his shirt, which I helped him shed one arm at a time. Danny was kind of smiling at the toddler of it all, at how gentle I was moving his arms for him. Of course I was being gentle. Every time he wobbled his eyes welled up. I was catching hints that he was having a crash of his own. “No funny business,” I promised, and went for the hem of his shirt. 

Guys didn’t care about being shirtless much in my experience, but I caught him getting self-conscious. Caught him with hands on his hips as his knee gave out when he moved without thinking. “Fuck,” he let out, and his voice caught, which seemed like his final straw. Danny pulled his own pants and underwear off to climb into the shower in one big push. Not very fast. I had time to grab a hand towel and hold it up for privacy. I wasn’t looking, this wasn’t the time. I threw him the towel to put in his lap when he sat down. He needed my hand then, too, to sit down without slipping. I caught him wiping tears off his face when I was getting the water running, while I picked hair out of the drain and closed the shower curtain for him. 

At that point I really couldn’t help but talk, the way you talk to a kid who’s fallen down. I told him he was being so strong and brave, and that I was right here, I was happy to do what he asked me any time. He didn’t say anything back, but that wasn’t why I was talking. I really needed him to know that I was here, not begrudgingly. Here and not trying to rush him or take advantage, doing only exactly what he asked. 

&&&

Chloe was really such a solid one for letting me borrow her car when she wasn’t working. Not that I wasn’t capable of walking home, but when it was one in the morning and I was dead on my feet, I appreciated not having to. Driving home meant I got to pull up to Chloe’s face and see her house glowing with warmth. I had her keys, I could let myself in. 

The lights were on all around, but I didn’t hear Chloe down here, so I kicked my shoes off and climbed the steps. “Chloe?” I raised my voice. 

“In here.” 

She was in her bathroom, looking a little damp and a lot upset. The shower was running and somebody was in there. I hugged her first, because she was there and also because I couldn’t believe she liked it so much. “Hey, what’s wrong? Is that Danny?” 

No prize for guessing. There was basically nobody else that Chloe would help into her shower that I was aware of. Danny said hi but he didn’t sound great. I peeked in on him, and saw he was sitting in there, head bowed and not moving. His leg, the bad one, was stuck out straight. Had to be bothering him again, if Chloe was here looking like this.  

“Gotta get you some physio, man,” I said over the sound of the shower.

“Why.” 

“So you can walk around the house, for starters.” I kissed Chloe, who I had not yet let go of. “So you can stop scaring Chloe.” 

Chloe poked my back. “And you, right?” 

“And me. Yeah.” I kissed her again, and then her cheek, and let her go. I opened the shower from the other side, the side near the faucet so I could see Danny’s face. “Hey,” I said to make him look at me. 

It only kind of worked. “What.”

I resorted to shock factor tactics. “Can I get in?” 

“Sure.” 

Yikes. On the other side of the curtain, Chloe met my eyes agreeing. “I’m gonna get snacks.” 

“Perfect. And we’ll finish off in here.” I went ahead and started taking my clothes off too. There was something about this that made me think about sleepovers and cousins and being around people before I knew what being naked was. Like this was way more fine than it actually was. I couldn’t let myself forget it. Getting in a non-locker room shower with one of the guys was the kind of thing that was only okay because Chloe was here. “Did you have a good day?” I asked her, because I wanted to make her smile. 

That totally worked. I got to see the big one. She liked me. “Great day. How about work?” 

“Good. Except that you weren’t there.” 

She leaned in and kissed me again after I took my shirt off. “Alright, sweet talker. Hang in there. I’ll be back in a sec.” 

For a second, all I could think was how perfect she was. So perfect, totally perfect for me, at saying the exact right combo of words to check me for being corny while also making it clear she still loved me. For saying something sweet to me but not too sweet so I knew she meant it.

The sound of the shower got my attention again, and the guy in there. I climbed in the shower between Danny and the spray before I could make myself remember I’d just been joking. 

“She likes you,” Danny said. There was a towel over his lap, not that I was looking but I did think about it because my own cock was out. I absolutely could not look down and check that everything was fine in that department. I was standing and he was sitting, my dick was right at eye-level. He was looking up at my face impatiently. “Dude.” 

“What?” 

“She likes you a lot.” 

“I know.” I squatted down and put my hand on his good knee for balance before I really thought about if it was a good idea or not. Big broad knee. Solid, except he was trembling. “She likes you too. If I didn’t get home I bet she was getting in here with you in the next five minutes. You’re worrying us.” I had to scrape my hair back, it was getting soaked. This shower was weird, the angles were different. Looked like it was made to work sitting down. Lucky. 

Danny kneaded his hand down his thigh towards the bad knee. I watched his fingers. Man, he still looked incredible even out of shape for him and curled up in a miserable lump. He cleared his throat to talk. “Can you just give this a once-over? I can’t reach.” 

“Say no more.” Mission acquired. I got Chloe’s body wash and got a squirt of it to rub into his leg. I used both hands around his calf, up and down a couple times for lather. Then I inched higher, towards the shiny pink scars over his bad knee. Danny didn’t move. I hadn’t really gotten to look at this up close yet, not the scene of the crime. It looked a lot more normal than I expected. The tear was internal and the surgery laparoscopic. I ran my soapy thumb over a patch of tender skin a little too hard and he winced. “Sorry,” I said fast, but he kept on not telling me to stop. The shower spray beat over me, into his lap. The towel there was soaked, the air between us thick with humid mist. Shower was usually a peak sexy location, but I couldn’t even pretend like I wanted to be in any other mood than so so worried first that Danny was letting me touch him like this. On purpose. Like, nobody ever did this shit with their friends, so second of all, I kept thinking how wrong things had to be for him to be letting it slide. Maybe he was dying. I had to get us out of here. 

I turned my back on him for thirty seconds to wash off the day, focused on the problem areas. Pits, crotch, limbs. I washed my hair as fast as I could, and I was rinsing the suds out when Danny said, “I need to suck it up.” 

“Who said that? No.” 

“You guys are just being nice to me because my life is over.” 

“Not true at all. False.” I turned the water off and opened the curtain. The door to Chloe’s room was still open. It was so weird to not have to worry about who would walk in, not siblings or parents or anybody who would say we’d been in there too long. Or anything else. It’d only be Chloe, and she was fine with it. She never bitched about the water bill. 

She actually did come back while I was helping Danny climb out—most athletic thing I’d ever done—and brought clean clothes for us with her. I didn’t need to ask for her to help me and Danny get dressed again. She was right there, holding us up and letting us leave wet handprints on her T-shirt. Not making it weird. And when we were all fresh and Danny was sat in bed with the peanut butter toast she made him, she said, “Danny baby. You want to stay in here with us tonight?”

He grinned so big I almost got jealous. “You sure?” 

“I don’t think you ever have to ask Matt twice.” I was ready for that to be a joke. I considered myself good at taking jokes, but I didn’t know how to take it when she didn’t twist the knife and it turned out she was just saying I wanted him here. And I did. 

Danny spoke up.“If I’m not in the way.”

I blurted out well speaking of that like an idiot which made him frown for a second until I went on and asked Chloe if we could move stuff on her bed so Danny could stretch out and I could try a couple things from online for his knee. I thought I might have to talk him into it but he said I could do whatever I wanted and took a big bite of toast. So I did. I made a pile of homeless pillows and blankets on the floor and stripped the foot of the bed down to the fitted sheet. Chloe watched when I moved her special things to make sure I was careful enough, but mostly was on her phone sitting up at the top with Danny while he ate. She had gotten him water too, and he was drinking it like somebody who forgot he needed to drink for a while. I was adding things to my daily mental to-do lists, like making sure Danny ate enough and moved and smiled. 

“Which website are you on?” Chloe asked me. “Mayo Clinic says you should start slow and do like ten reps the first time. And stop when it hurts.” 

Danny found that dumb, judging from his face. Joke was on him. I also was looking at the Mayo Clinic page. They were a reputable source. Once he was done eating, he stretched out for me to work. 

It really was like, barely anything. Moving his leg inches, and having him lift it back into place or flex a specific part of his foot. I kept having to check my phone for the directions until Chloe offered to read them to me. Danny would do it, to the letter, but I could tell he was getting really fed up with it until all of a sudden one of the things made him break form. His leg fell onto the bed with a thump. 

“Whoa, okay. Done with that one, yes?” Chloe said to me. 

“I can do the other six,” Danny tried.

Chloe made him wait for her to scroll to the top of the page so she could read to him again, “‘Some people can walk with a torn ACL. But don’t force yourself to move or use your knee if it hurts.’ Doctors say that. Doctors, Danny.” 

He didn’t argue, but I was pretty sure he still thought we were babying him. 

Whatever. There were other days to push it. I did ten reps of everything. Even when it was twisting his leg one way and twisting it back, me touching his thigh like I was allowed to while Chloe compared our form to the instruction, Danny didn’t tell me I was a weird freak or something. “Doesn’t feel worse,” was all he said after.

&&&

It was pretty funny, objectively, that Matty was feeling up Danny’s leg for twenty minutes and then the moment he stopped he looked like he thought I was going to say something mean about it. I had plenty of time to do that already, man. Then he gave me those big guilty eyes again, and just like that it wasn’t funny anymore. I remembered how little and scared he’d sounded when he said Danny belonged here. He wasn’t sure he got to say that.

“Your turn in the middle,” I told him. 

Matt bounced over me to obey; bounced and then froze and tried to contain it while landing because he didn’t want to jostle the injured. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine,” Danny sighed. 

“Well you wouldn’t tell me if it wasn’t,” Matt said back, a little snappy. 

For a second nobody moved. The tension was going to kill me, until Danny said softly, “I’ll tell ya.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, if that’s what you want.” 

“Yeah. I… uh. I want to help you out, dude.” Matty was looking over at Danny. I couldn’t see his face, but I saw Danny looking back at him. “You still need that leg, y’know.” 

“I know,” Danny said and meant something else. 

Okay, actually, this was fine. It felt more like watching two kittens figure out how to play together—a comparison only heightened when Matty flipped over to talk to me and Danny just kind of grabbed him while he wasn’t looking. Literally, he just reached over with both arms and slipped one under Matt’s armpit and the other over his side and clasped his hands in the middle of Matt’s chest like they were kids wrestling. Leave it to boys to make spooning into an ambush-based activity, but I didn’t say that. Matt had frozen up even before Danny leaned in and put them cheek to cheek for a second. I couldn’t make him feel dumb now. 

Now that they found themselves in this moment, it didn’t seem like either of them knew how to get out of it. They both wanted me to do something, I was pretty sure, but I gave it a sec. Let them figure it out. Let them try not to like it. Finally, in absolute crisis, Danny looked at me over Matt’s head. “Kiss him,” I suggested, since he was asking.

Matt was absolutely convinced that this was the wrong thing to say. He covered his eyes. I noticed, though, how that arm up was holding Danny’s arm there, too. A stolen couple of seconds of hugging him back that I wondered if he even knew he was taking. And I was willing for Matt to be right and me to be wrong. I loaded up an apology in the seconds before I knew which way this was breaking. Just kidding, I'm tired, nothing meant. Danny was too quiet to make a big deal about it, it'd be fine.

Danny just snorted, though, and he let go but not in a hurry. He gave Matty a firm couple of pats on the chest, a signal that made Matty hold himself up and let Danny pull his arm free. “Maybe when my leg’s better,” Danny said at last.

It was over. Matt looked so relieved to call him an asshole for using his own joke against him and leave it there. But I knew Matt, and I knew he hadn’t really been joking before. He'd been the kind of careful in the bathroom that only came with some level of awareness, but the way he settled in with Danny's back to him and arms around me got sloppy with comfort. It made me want to wrap him up in my arms, put him on my hip like a baby and defend him. I didn’t want him to get hurt. I didn’t know if any part of that was in my control. 

Chapter Text

Money. Man. It was embarrassing how I didn’t really understand the concept of it until I was 21 and about to start senior year of college, but it was better than later. Chloe made me feel better by saying she had a major wake-up call when she was around my age, but that wasn’t it. She grocery shopped different than me. Like, she knew how much money she could spend.

Part of that was my brain. Now that I saw how other people truly lived, how Chloe could lock in on a book for hours without effort or how Danny would sit through games without breaks to run around or eat something or get a second thing to do, it was easier to admit that I was different. ADHD, sure. That seemed to fit. Easier to admit it too when neither of the people I lived with used the term as a curse or an infection. Now that I thought about it, that whole thing was kind of off-limits for my family. None of us had any diagnoses like that, we were all just loud and talked over each other and all the other things I took for granted. 

Like money. I wasn’t a stranger to food shopping, but I’d been buying groceries on my mom’s credit card since I was in high school. I wasn’t cutting coupons or comparing sizes. Which, Chloe didn’t do that most of the time either, but then sometimes she’d ask me why I got the brand that was a dollar more and I didn’t have a good answer. I hadn’t noticed before. 

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she’d pretend to scold me, and then she’d kiss me if I puckered up. This was absolutely giving me a big head, but fuck it. I was enjoying getting spoiled. It had never happened before. 

&&&

When the semester started, Matt was gone half the time. He had all this drive, too. Not new, but activated. Just about anything was possible when I offered the most minor of rewards. Thanking him was enough to get him to get up and get me about anything. Kiss on the cheek for taking trash out, for getting his homework done, for bringing in the mail. Favorite dinner when he took my car in for me. I was saving blowjob for something good. Given what he was like I half-wondered if he had thought of that already too, if he was looking forward to it like I was. 

Kept scaring myself with that, when I caught myself counting on Matty more and more, planning on us being together. He said he wanted to go to a football game, and to build me a better coffee table, and for me to meet his parents. All these concrete, actual things he wanted to do, with me, for a reason. And he didn’t say it like he was trying to talk me into letting him be around that long, he started to sound like he actually believed he got to. It was contagious. I couldn’t help but take him more seriously, too. 

The weeks passed. Matt kept doing all his agreed-upon chores and eating me out and generally keeping his life together. No, not just his. My life was a lot easier with him as part of it, too. Everything went faster now that he was doing it with me. Making food after work was even fine, and I’d never really figured that out in the past. Usually when I was tired I usually ended up eating a protein bar and drinking some OJ in the kitchen by the stove light. These days my boyfriend waited up so he could entertain me while I ate leftovers of whatever he made a few hours ago. He never got tired of talking my ear off, which was sweet most of the time but sometimes annoying. Worse, he could always tell when I was done with him. Right when I was sick of him most he’d give me the saddest face and shut up and it was worse than if I’d just said something. That was how he ended up conditioning me into teling him when I wanted him to be quiet. It was easier to say, “I love you. I need a sec.” If I did that, then he’d let me have some silence without getting in his head about it as much. As long as I made sure to finish up the interaction and find him when I could talk again, then we were fine. 

So that was Matt. Danny was a whole separate case. 

Even with him around most hours of the day, I didn’t know Danny any better after a month of living with him. Not after two months. Just, now he could walk more and more. I couldn’t help but notice that this big man in my house was not doing the things Matty was doing. Doing enough chores, sure, but then he was just gone. Locked in his room or absent in the same room with me, looking ambushed every time I tried to talk to him. So I stopped trying.

&&&

Senior year felt like the last day you give your dog before taking him to get put down. Too good to be true, but I was dumb enough to try and believe. While everybody around me was freaking out about finding a job and moving somewhere, I kept my mouth shut. Not to be that guy, but I didn’t need to figure out where I was going. I had my destination and my direction. 

Chloe. Just her. 

We did Thanksgiving together, the three of us. Not the full shebang, but me and Danny made turkey legs and mashed potatoes and green beans and we ate at the table together, like a real family thing. Candles lit, nice place settings, Chloe pulled out all kinds of family keepsakes. Pumpkin tealight holders and autumn leaf placemats and a basket for rolls. 

I’d made a pie too, or helped Chloe make it. She had a recipe out of the family binder and too many nerves to try it herself, so I took the lead. Pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream. Danny took a piece to the couch to watch the game, but I stayed at the table with Chloe to see what she thought. To watch every bite, honestly. Nobody was better at eating my food and making me feel good about it. She asked a million questions about what kinds of pies I’d made before, what the secret was, and how I got the crust to be like that. Something new to say every bite. “Homemade whipped cream just feels so fancy,” was the thing she said that made me convinced she was fucking with me at least a little bit. 

I played it humble and rolled my eyes. “Come on, babe, it wasn’t hard.” 

Chloe frowned but did not look up from the perfect forkfull she was constructing. “So I can’t appreciate it? It feels fancy, babe.” 

“Okay.” Watching her eat, I forgot to say more. Her lip was so full, shiny with something. Her bites were neat slices. I’d never seen somebody eat like that. And then she caught me looking, and words slipped out of my mouth. “You’ve said too many nice things.” 

“Too many?” 

“You don’t have to do that.” 

She blinked at me. “I know. I was kinda just deciding to tell you about how your version of this pie is better than my mom’s.” 

“Whoa.” 

“Yeah. So relax. I’m really that impressed.” 

Sure, but bigger issue raised that she was side-stepping. I couldn’t let her. “You thinking about your mom a lot?” I inquired, nice and casual. 

Chloe kept her eyes down. “Yeah. I’m.” She hesitated, took her final bite. “I still always am, just so you know.” 

“Awesome. I mean, thanks for telling me.” 

I didn’t correct myself in time. Something about that clued her in, or set her off, or something. she looked at me funny, got up with her plate and fork and rinsed them off in the sink. My eyes followed her like a spotlight, trying to discern what I could from her back. From behind she just looked like hair and comfy sweater and legs. All the parts I could read were hidden. 

Like she could hear my thoughts, Chloe turned around and leaned back against the edge of the sink. “Do you do stuff for me because you’re scared I’ll be mean if you don’t?” 

“I do stuff for you because I love you,” I said before I finished hearing what she said, and then I scrambled up to my feet too. “No, babe, what?” 

Chloe held a hand up preemptively, and I was eager to stay where I was to show her I’d listen. The cat clock ticked, tail flicking and eyes moving. “It’s just,” she started, and then stopped. She was quiet for a long time, and then she backtracked. “We don’t have to do this. It’s a holiday.” 

“No, I want to. I want to know what you think.” I couldn’t remember how to look sincere on purpose. Hadn’t needed to fake it with her like, ever, but I wished I could turn it on. Turn it up. Make it so, so clear. All I had were stupid words. “I want to know everything you think about me forever. Especially if it’s not good.” 

Chloe said that was part of the problem and that for the record, most of what she thought about me was good. To make a point, she said a couple of those things. She thought I was a good boyfriend and smart person and an amazing cook. It was unbearable. I was honestly relieved when she transitioned into saying the other stuff she was actually thinking right now. 

Back at the table over our half-empty cups of coffee, Chloe fixed her big eyes on me like a tractor beam and really let me have it. “Can I tell you some things I’ve noticed?” I nodded, desperate to know already. “It seems like whoever taught you how to do stuff had really high standards.” 

“My mom.” 

“Right. And you never really talk about her. Which is fine. But I kinda feel the things you’ve been worried I might be thinking come from somewhere. Like. When you said that shit about water spots on the wine glasses. Was that her?” 

I nodded. 

“Yeah?” 

“Mostly.” Her turn to reach out for my hand. She sandwiched it between hers. I was so glad, because I couldn’t move at all. “I love my mom,” I said for some reason. 

“I know you do. I can tell.” Now Chloe, that was somebody who had sincerity down. That didn’t sound even possibly shitty. “But it can be complicated.” 

It was. It was like hours and hours of talking complicated, and I was pretty sure we’d get to all of that but first I had to give her my other hand. There were all four of them, in between us. Twenty fingers. “I like talking like this,” I said. 

“You don’t have to.” 

“I don’t have to, I do. I seriously do.” 

“Me too. I haven’t gotten to do it a lot before,” she admitted, all shy about it. Most of the time I thought about Chloe, older than me, as having an inherent kind of stability, but she looked so young when she said that. I tried to figure out why. Her mom died when she was my age, just a couple years ago, and she had her own other parent she never talked about. I still didn’t know anything about her dad. Now I had a template where I could try and bring that up some time. She really did everything for me. We were interlocked with each other, sharing something. Holding it in between our palms. 

&&&

The fall was over and winter grey set in. Danny wasn’t getting much better. He was still just sleeping and not really even eating much for him. Laundry and vacuuming had become his sole domain, which was nice. Once I came home and found him up cleaning the gutters, which I wasn’t sure he should’ve been doing. Sometimes Matt would help him stretch his leg out, and that was getting better. He could walk. The problem with that was how I was becoming aware that he was a big guy, getting bigger, walking around my house with no solid plan on leaving and nothing to say. I didn’t know much about how he spent his time. He was using my wifi and eating Matt’s food. Sometimes he’d seethe. He’d get so mad at something on his phone or something I hadn’t been there for and then my house would have an angry big guy in it for hours at a time. And I wasn’t so much of a fan of that either. 

Still. I wasn’t uncomfortable most of the time. Especially when Matty was there, when he was making Danny smile and talk so much easier than I ever could when it was just us. So I kept on biting my tongue, right up until Danny brought it up himself. 

I was pretty sure he waited until I was alone on purpose to say it, the kind of sensitivity that made me automatically see him as more sympathetic. Matt was at a final and Danny skulked up to me when I was watching Survivor. His shoulders up let me know something was coming, so I paused the TV since he was going to be passing in front of it. God he was tall. 

“Thinking I’d get out of your hair, finally,” Danny said. 

“You have somewhere to go?” I immediately regretted asking. Should’ve just said great. Awesome. Bye. 

“Uh. Yeah, I can go home. Talk to them about it over Christmas. I’m going home for a couple weeks then, they got me a plane ticket.” He’d prepared these things to say. They came out easier, but he just couldn’t help sounding morose about it. As he talked he sat sideways on the opposite side of the couch so we were more level. He bent his knee without wincing, too. That was huge.

Of course, now that I was getting exactly what I wanted I couldn’t just be happy anymore. He was talking. I was desperate to know anything. “They’re a good option?” 

“Yeah.” Even with the distance between us, he was stiff and weird. This did not feel like a guy I’d known for a year. A guy whose emergency contact I was, who I’d helped into the goddamn shower. He lurked in his room most of the time and barely spoke to me. After a while, it was hard not to take that personally. 

Fine. I would be glad he was gone. I had enough on my plate. Matty wanted me to come home with him for Christmas. 

&&&

December was a rollercoaster. Finals for the first two weeks, and before I even had every grade I was driving home with Chloe. Ideal timing to be driving. The roads were clear but snow covered the hillsides from the heavy fall a few days ago. The sun was hard, almost white, and everything down here on earth was so sharp I felt like I had new eyes. My heart was in time with the engine, with the wheels spinning and I was spinning. More all over the place than usual. Pointing out the mundane landmarks I knew on the way that I thought she might find amusing. I read her billboards. We sang to music. I couldn’t close my mouth. 

Something Was Up. Both of us were aware of that. The whole car. Chloe let something be up for a second. For that, I loved her more than I could say. I just hoped she could forgive me for letting her be the only thing I had going for me and not even telling her. If I didn’t say something now, my family would handle telling her for me. There was still time. 

“I can do all of Starships,” I said so she’d make me prove it. Chloe let me have a couple takes to get it perfect. She kept looking at me. I considered it a top off.

&&&

The places Matt grew up didn’t look so different from home until we were in his neighborhood. His family lived in a McMansion, in a spacious development of houses similar but customized. Pristine concrete streets with white-painted curbs. Mailboxes had never looked so stunningly crafted. Blue-green grass that made me remember the history of the lawn and how they used to be status symbols. Lawns like this definitely still were. 

I parked at the back of the fleet of SUVs. “People here already?” I thought we were getting here before anybody else. Not my preference, his. 

“Just my brothers and sister,” he said, and led the way up the front walk. 

Nothing spectacular inside. Beige and white and clean. Hardwood floors and big soft rugs. It looked like a catalogue. It looked like it was only for show. 

Matt kept being weird like he was the whole way here. The whole drive, he wouldn’t acknowledge where we were going or that he was worried, which was different enough that I didn’t even try to push it. Fine. We were on a nice long drive to nowhere. The moment we got inside, he stood so straight that he practically felt like a different sized person. Somebody who felt bigger than me. I was the shortest person here, his mom was second. Even his sister, the twins younger than him. All taller than him besides his mom. Okay. Things clicking, as we said our hellos and everybody loomed. 

&&&

I couldn’t think when everybody was in the same room. I’d forgotten how to not speak my mind. “Wait, what’s your major?” Stef asked me, and I came dangerously close to telling her what we already both knew—not what Dad wanted, and that was the only metric that mattered.

&&&

Matt policed himself more than usual here. Of course he did. His dad shaking my hand was a cop. Matt’s were in his pockets. When I bumped into him he bumped back, but he didn’t take the hint and put an arm around me or anything. We were separate islands in this tan kitchen, crowded around the island talking. This was the kind of family where everybody yelled over everybody, a cacophony that could be comforting if only Matt was part of it. And he wasn’t. He didn’t try and when he did they didn’t listen. This was a long-established dynamic, clearly. Everyone had a part except Matt, who seemed to spend all his time trying to be someone he wasn’t. Someone specific, actually. 

Vinnie. From the ID. Vinnie played college football. He was over six feet tall, dumb as a bag of rocks, not nearly as pretty and half as funny. I didn’t need anybody to tell me Matt had been locked in a perpetual futile effort to be Vinnie his whole life. To be a lot of things, sure, but all of them added up to Vinnie. Listened to, liked. Approved of. Everything Matt did pissed somebody off here. 

“You’re shaking the whole house,” his mom told him when his leg was bouncing.

“Lot of energy this early. Can you relax?” his sister said when he was talking about Danny’s injury. 

“You’re not really in game shape anymore, though,” his brother said when Matt tried to suggest they go throw the ball around outside. 

Okay. Okay. So this was why it felt like he was always dodging. Here were the shots he was trying to block, the reasons he was always on high alert for any sign I was ever not totally happy. They were just jokes, of course. Or they were things said expecting to be laughed at. Matty managed miserable little smiles some of the time, but I had to stop letting myself see those. 

Instead I tried committing his family to memory so I could picture them right when we talked. His dad was bald and broad-shouldered, with a mouth and nose that were always wrinkled up in stern disapproval. Even his laugh came out of that mouth. Stefani looked the most like him, she had his hard expression, but the boys all looked just like Mom. Matt the most. Dark eyes that always looked like they were smiling, thick unruly hair, the same chin. That was as far as I got in memorizing. I did not really try to distinguish the twins from each other when they proved just as willing as the rest of the family to make Matt the butt of the joke. Fuck those guys. 

And Matt. God. It was like Matt forgot I was here. We barely spoke. Deeply insulting, obviously, if I chose to think about it that way. If I was stupid enough to think that the guy who waited on me hand and foot was just situationally over me, sure. I was starting to understand that was how this went wrong with other girls, how Matt got so deep in his own head trying not to be himself that anybody with him could feel kinda ditched. Then, how easy it would be to fall into the rhythms here and take a shot of my own. Or not even that, just say something that was mildly critical of him and let whatever happened happen. 

“You’re quiet,” one of the twins said to me, and Matt zoned back in to look at me. God, I fucking hated how I could feel his held breath, waiting. This was not what I thought this would be, heading home with my rich kid boyfriend. It probably couldn’t have been anything else. 

“Hey, I’m just happy to be here,” I said, and knocked my foot into Matt’s when everybody had laughed or scoffed and moved on. Not expecting anything besides letting him know I was exactly what I said. Happy to be here, for him.

Eventually it sunk in. Matt stood up to take our plates to the sink and rinse them, and when he came back he stood next to my barstool and dropped his arm over my shoulders. “Thanks, babe,” I said, and he kissed my cheek. That was better. 

When brunch was winding down, Matt said he’d show me his room. We were adults, so I didn’t exactly expect pushback from his parents but I did notice how little they gave a shit where we went. 

Matt tried to make it a me thing. “Figure you don’t want to hang out with everybody every second,” he said as we climbed the stairs. 

“Sure, and I want to see your Spider-man sheets,” I teased, and his annoyed response sounded more like himself. 

The upstairs hall was covered in photos between doorways, cream and carpeted. Graduations, sports headshots, family photos. Matt’s room was last on the left. He closed the door behind us, and I glanced around before he showed me anything. His sheets were just navy. Blue-block bedspread, a black bedroom set that was obviously parent-picked. He had a desk with some of his stuff on it, a dresser with trophies and certificates on top. 

“Babe,” I said. “What’s going on.” 

“What do you mean?” He paced a few steps away to peek out a window.

“Well, I can’t do this if you won’t even look at me. That’s mostly what I mean. I’ll fake appendicitis.” 

“And leave me here?” 

A joke, sure it was a joke but I couldn’t help but look at him like he was crazy for saying it anyways. “Is that a real question?” 

The question punctured the puffed up strangeness he’d been putting on all day. I watched the air go out of him. “No,” he said, visibly remembering. “No, of course not.” Deflation came with embarrassment. His face pinked as he stammered out an apology. Man. I just couldn’t find it in me to be mad about this. Frustrated, sure, but not at him. He was so obviously miserable, was the thing. He begged me to come here, he was so excited about it and now he wouldn’t even talk to me if his family was in the room. We both knew that was bad. There was no disagreement. 

“I love you,” I said, and he said he knew. “So what the fuck is going on? Why do they treat you like that?” 

&&&

Until today, I would’ve said that I told Chloe everything. Now I had to amend it—everything I knew how to talk about. That would always be what I told her. Subject matter TBD as we kept trying things out. 

“I don’t know. That’s just always been… how it’s been.” 

“Jesus, man. I’m so sorry.” 

That was the last thing I expected to hear, so last that I was sure I heard her wrong until she repeated it and said a lot of other nice things. She said they were all being hypercritical and unfriendly. “And Vinnie sucks.” That part was with real feeling. 

I wondered if she remembered what I said about Gia, and then, separate thought, I discovered that was askable. “Are you just saying that because you know I really want to hear it?” 

“Not just. But it factored in, sure. I like saying what you want to hear, remember that?” Chloe kicked her shoes off and crawled into my bed. I wished I ever felt like I belonged the way she seemed to fit there in with my pillows. My girlfriend, in my bed. Oh shit, I could get in with her. When I did, she smiled. “Okay, so it’s not me.” 

“No, it’s all me. I’m so fucking dumb around them.” The words were clumsy. Not quite what I meant. 

Chloe pulled me closer by the ankle, and I scooted cooperatively to be basically in her lap. “Stop. You’re the smartest person in that room and they all know it.” Now we were in the same spot, legs sprawled over each other, hands linked. She was looking right at me, all of me, looking close. “I want to brag about you. Or something.” 

I couldn’t even take that how I was supposed to. “What would that look like?” 

“I don’t know. I’m just saying. I like you. I’m sorry your family doesn’t seem to,” she added when I gave her enough time to. And then I kept on giving her time. “In case it’s not super clear, I don’t give a shit what they think. We’ll leave whenever you want. Say the word, okay?” 

If somebody had told me I got to wish for a hot girlfriend that helped me bail on family dinners because she cared about what I wanted, I actually think my life would’ve been worse until I got it. Based on how much I needed Chloe right now, it would have to hurt so much more to know what I was missing out on without her when I needed it more. I couldn’t have let myself know it. I had to have an eyewitness tell me. And I was so lucky it was her. She said Vinnie sucked and meant it but also said it because she remembered.

“You’ll like the cousins,” I told her. “That’s why we’re doing today. We play these really intense go fish games.” 

“Oh. Well that’s obviously exactly my shit.” 

“I know. Carey’s a freak about it, you’ll love her. I think she’s kind of your age. My dad’s sister’s kid.” 

“Your dad,” Chloe repeated, and when prompted continued, “Nothing, I just think he’s scary.” 

Dad liked to say he wasn’t trying to be our friends. That was my honest first thought. “He’d be happy to hear that.” 

“I can tell. I know how this kind of guy works.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“My dad’s not great on holidays either.”

“Oh my god, right.” I wrinkled my nose. “Do you hate this?”

“I hate the idea of you alone more.” 

Alone was kind of a crazy word to say to me in my family’s house. I wondered how she knew that was exactly how I felt. “I love you,” I said to her, because I hadn’t before. “I’m so glad you’re here.” 

“Me too. Now fill me in. What’s the cousin rundown?” 

I was spoiled to be talking to somebody who wanted my version of things and nobody else’s. Not just spoiled—trusted. My version was her version. She met my brothers and hated them. Exactly what I didn’t feel allowed to want out loud. 

&&&

The cousins really were fun. There were six of them. Carey, who Matt matchmade with me, had an undercut and half a sleeve and Matt’s exact same smily eyes. We had fun accusing each other of cheating and then turning on some hapless boy who tried to join in. Sometimes the boy was Matty, and it felt like a dog rolling over to show us his tummy. He was just so happy to be included. 

The cousins didn’t seem to mix particularly well with Matt’s other siblings. The twins and Vinnie were talking about football with the uncles and grandpas most of the night. They didn’t seem interested in card games. I was already pissed, so I decided they weren’t interested in anything they couldn’t win. 

We stayed long enough that Matt’s mom started making noise about us staying the night. One look at my boyfriend let me know what I thought of that. “Sorry,” I said. “I have to be back for my family stuff tomorrow. But this was really so much fun.” 

Matt said nothing, just put his shoes on and stood by the door. None of his immediate family came to say bye, and all of a sudden I decided we weren’t waiting. He took my hand on the front walk like the house itself had stopped him. 

Ten minutes into the drive, he kicked his shoes off. “Could we call Danny?” 

What, like I was supposed to say no? 

He put it on speakerphone. Danny picked up on the second ring. “Hey.” 

“Hey man. It’s me and Chloe on the way home. Wasn’t sure you’d be up.” 

Oh right. It was after midnight. “My family’s still partying,” Danny said. His voice was so hard to read through a speaker. 

“Cool.” Matt balanced his phone in the middle of us. “Well, we had fun. Chloe’s a competitive freak.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah, she fit right in. And, she is a firsthand witness to…” He paused. 

I took over. “Yeah, I saw it. His family sucks.” 

Danny snorted. And Matt didn’t deny it. “Whatever,” he told me graciously, and made a kissy sound at me before returning his attention to the phone. “How about you, Danny? How’s McDaniels Family Christmas?” 

“Fine. We do a bigger New Year’s thing. Uh.” 

“What?” Matty said after a second of static. 

“Well, if you guys were free I was wondering if you’d want to come. Let me borrow Chloe and get my mom off my back.” 

For Danny, those two sentences were as good as a panic attack. I knew that even if I wasn’t as close to him as Matt was. Couldn’t fight the anxious reluctance I felt, either. I didn’t know him well enough to be able to tell what he wanted from me here. I thought I did, and then it had stalled out. 

I caught Matt staring at me. “Like both of us?” was his first question, and Danny said that’d be fine. And then Matt did some poking, trying to figure out how real this request was. “Told your folks you’re back home for good?” he asked first, so much more direct than I ever would’ve let myself be. 

Danny answered in the same point-blank way. “Yeah. They’re fine with it, long as I pull my weight.” That seemed like foreshadowing. 

Matt hit pay dirt asking about Danny’s knee, next. 

“Hurts,” Danny said first, and then a few more words at a time. 

“Doing too much.” 

“Chores. And stuff.” 

“Can’t.” 

That painted a great picture, didn’t it. Danny forced back into overexertion by the family he was going to live with and trying to think of some way to break the cycle. And we just happened to call. Matt said we’d think about it, and only asked me what was up after the phone call ended. “Why don’t you want to go?” 

Tons of reasons. I didn’t want to be around a million strangers again, for one. I didn’t want to be the on-call bad guy either. Good at crisis situations, fine I’d accept that, but also a person who could really use some time to relax myself. 

Matty listened to all that, and then he said, “Totally fair, but Danny has never asked me for anything in his life. So I’m going to call my Mom and say whatever it takes to get them to pay my credit card off so I can get myself a plane ticket. I’ll get you one too, if you want. But there’s no pressure. You’re right. You’ve done a ton already.” 

I was right. No pressure, but I’d be spending a week without him after today. That didn’t sound great either. Especially when I knew the holidays were rough for Stacy. She might come by and try to drop the kids off with me again, and both of the boys would be states away. We’d just spent six months together all the time, that was why felt weird. 

Whatever. I changed the locks and left with Matty for a week, with his explicit promise that I was allowed to peel off for a joint or a cigarette on a walk or in the garage whenever I wanted. He promised to handle Danny’s family. No abandoning me to table of girls, either. And if it went bad, I found a motel I could get a couple nights at down the road from Danny’s family house. Contingency secured. Matt did everything else. Flights, packing, carrying the bags, finding our gate. All I had to do was be there. Surely, I could handle that. 

&&&

The airport was a surprisingly short drive away from Danny’s house. He came to get us in a big truck, same scale as him. Our luggage went in the back—my job, while Chloe went up front to say hi. She wasn’t going to lift a finger this whole time, because she’d trusted me enough to tell me that she barely wanted to be here and then come anyways. Same team. 

Danny stretched his arm over the back of the seat to squeeze my shoulder when I got in next to her. Bench front seat. This truck was old. “Glad you’re here,” he said, and I worried.

For one thing, Danny was limping again. We waited for him on the way to the front door, that was how slow he was going. And we were happy to—used to waiting for him, even, but that was a bad sign. 

Then there was his family. Something was wrong with me because I noticed first that Danny was the biggest guy in his family by far. Next biggest was his dad. None of them were short, but he had a couple inches on anybody else. They all had to look up at him. 

Okay. With height out of the way, I tried to pay attention to everything else at the same time. His mom talked a lot, kind of in general. Everybody else squeezed their words in around her. Danny’s constant quiet started to make more sense. It was hard to get a read on anybody but his mom. 

And Danny wasn’t just quiet, he was hurting. Every word he said was through an audibly clenched jaw. I kept expecting someone to say something. Between the polite smiles and Christmas storytelling, there had to be a second where somebody besides me saw that Danny needed to sit down. I wanted to nudge Chloe about it, but she wasn’t even my girlfriend right now. I had no right to pull her aside. I made conversation and waited. 

&&&

The biggest thing I had to get used to right through the door was everybody calling Danny Mike. His mom called him Mikey. I said less than usual trying to make sure I got it right. That was Mike, standing between all his brothers and sisters as we did introductions, his sandy hair falling into his eyes. It had been a minute since a hair cut. Been a minute since I’d seen him, and I was glad to find I’d missed him. 

His family looked like classic American farmer types. Big and fair, broad shoulders, always-pink noses, and barrel chests. One of his brothers did wrestling in high school, and looked like it. The rest of the guys looked like they worked outside. Their hands and faces and rock-solid stances showed it, just like his dad’s beer gut, his mom’s strong forearms, his oldest brother’s wide face. Maybe it was just the house and the people around him, but to me even Danny was softer around the edges, less lean, a little chub on his hips that made me glad to see it. At least he’d been eating. 

Introductions took a second. There were a lot of people standing around the door here. His eldest brother had a wife and kids who were only sort of behaved. Part of my deal with Matt was that he’d do names for me so he was locked in, repeating names and giving handshakes. We were on the younger siblings when Danny reached out and pulled me in front of him with zero warning. Human shield in a hug. He moved me so gently I only remembered I could be scared after, with half his weight on my shoulder. “Sorry,” he said in my ear. 

His mom was looking at us closely, I felt it on the other side of my face. I reached up to pat his arm. “It’s okay. Good to see you too.” Matt and the family kept talking over me. Perfect. I hoped they couldn’t tell how careful he was trying to be while using me to hold himself up. It made me sick that they wouldn’t. 

“Hey, could I get coffee?” Matt said out of nowhere. “Sorry, not used to flying.” 

Danny’s—Mike’s—mom jumped at the request, and everybody followed her and Matt to the kitchen. She had coffee made, she said, but if he wanted to wait for a fresh pot…

“You flown before?” Danny asked me. 

“Nope.” 

“How was it?” 

“Fine. How’s your knee?” 

Mistake to ask that while I couldn’t see his face. “Been better,” he said, and let go of me to make for the stairs. He didn’t ask me to come with him, so I didn’t. I ducked outside to smoke. 

Good start. 

It wasn’t as bad as Matt’s family. For the most part, the McDaniels clan was polite, Midwest nice that was only maybe insincere. We played card games and old board games. We watched Jeopardy together. We sat together after every meal for hours talking and drinking. And for all these things, Danny would come find me, wrap himself around me for a few hours, say nothing to nobody, and then get up and disappear. 

“Don’t take it personally,” Mrs. McDaniels told me when he left the dinner table suddenly. She wanted me to call her Linda. “This is just how he is.” 

“What do you mean?” I played dumb. 

“The disappearing act. Don’t worry, it’s not you.” 

I could feel Matt cluing in to my emotional state across the room, radar perking up. Good instincts. That was a shitty comment. “Oh, thank you,” I said to her face. Awful to see so much of Danny in it. 

No matter what I said, I had a hunch she would’ve kept going. “Mikey always had NHL dreams, you know. He’d say it wasn’t serious but it was. Whole plan, what house he wanted to buy and everything.” The room thought this was funny. I couldn’t let any part of me turn towards Matt. “He wanted a house in Michigan somewhere.”

“Random,” I agreed. She seemed unaware how that might connect to me, but my chest ached. 

Matt started talking about his football stuff to distract them, broad smile on his face like it wasn’t his darkest bruise. I had to guess it was easier to admit he’d failed than to talk about Danny’s forced failure with the people who’d never been at the hospital with us. I was finding that hard too, to be totally frank. As soon as it wouldn’t seem punitive, I went out to smoke. By now they’d let me know the garage was fine. There were a couple chairs in the corner with an ashtray. I’d run into Pam there, the older sister, already. Older than me by a bit. We didn’t have much to say to each other, which was kind of great. But she was inside, so I was expecting to be alone until I saw Danny was out here, sitting in one of the folding chairs. His nose and ears were pink. 

“You get tired of talking too?” His voice was unsteady.

“Yeah. Of smiling.” I approached, pulling my pack and lighter out of my flannel pocket. Seeing him helped. So did the cold air, and the first burning inhale I took. Danny was watching me even though he was also staring at a spot somewhere on the ground. “You can keep on not talking,” I said, a wild guess. “That’s fine.” 

“Okay,” he said, and did. 

Oh man. This was why he’d seemed so trapped. He’d lost his ticket out of here.

Danny had his eyes open when Matt and me made it to bed. Me first. His family had kept us down there with poker for hours. I could probably watch Matt bluff with a big smile forever. Still, I peeled off first with my excuse preloaded. My boyfriend was in bed, I was tired, and so on. “Don’t wake us up,” I told Matt like he wouldn’t get on top of me to kiss me a million times the moment the door was closed. 

“I wouldn’t! I haven’t!” he protested, and everybody that wasn’t me laughed. Uncomfortably, I did love that Danny’s family loved him. Silver lining. I didn’t have to feel guilty about leaving him behind, he wanted to be left as much as I wanted to go. At least there was that, I was thinking, and then Danny was sleepy but awake, a lamp on in his room when I opened the door. 

I closed the door faster. “Hey.” 

“Hey.” 

“Do you want me to call you Mike?”

The big smile on his face made me suddenly suspect that I hadn’t seen him smile all day. “That’d be weird.” 

“I can do weird, if that’s what you want.” 

He shook his head, lips pressed together, and then he seemed to make himself say it. “I like Danny.” 

“Okay. I care about that.” For some reason it felt like I needed to say that. 

For good reason. He nodded, his face so soft, and then he said, “Would you come and...” I was moving before he was done talking because I wanted to be in bed myself. I pulled my bra off on the way, already in PJs so ready otherwise. It was easy as anything to let him snuggle in against me like he belonged there. For a couple weeks way back when, it did kind of feel like he did. We were slipping back into that. 

“Can we wait for Matty?” he asked, voice a little muffled. 

“Sure. For what?” 

“Talking.” 

Okay. Promising. “Of course we can wait,” I answered, and took a slower breath on purpose. Slower. I was in bed, Danny a heavy weight on my right side. I could get my arm out and hold him if I wanted to. He couldn’t speak to me, but he could lie down with me and tuck his head up near my neck and had the nerve to feel like he fit there. I was just letting myself enjoy it when:

“Do you hate me?” 

“No.” 

“I keep making you flinch.” 

I hated that I hadn’t noticed. “Well. That’s just me.” 

“You sure?” he repeated again, softer, and pressed his cheek against me tighter. That didn’t make me startle, at least. 

“I’m sure. But I wouldn’t mind being asked.” 

It felt like he stopped breathing. “Like.” 

“Well you don’t have to say it every time but you could at least look at me. Let me know what’s coming.” Echoes of talking with Matty a few days ago. They brought me in to see what their houses were like, and then they were so scared of what I’d see in them once I got here. 

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know.” 

“Didn’t know you should ask somebody before you touched them?” I said, and then I think it hit me kind of as it hit him. What that sounded like. I did wiggle my arm free to hold him. “Well. Yeah. You should try and do that when you care about somebody. This good?” I asked, demonstrating. 

He pulled my arm tighter around him. “Yep. Got it.” 

Danny’s room wasn’t as sterile as Matt’s had been. He had posters on the wall for teams I didn’t know. Team photos in here. I was guessing he used to be into polar bears. There was one on the light switch, a stuffed one that Matty had claimed down on the air mattress. He hadn’t questioned sleeping down there for a second, but he was a lot happier when we let him up on the bed with us first. I didn’t see why he had to get down, but he and Danny both agreed getting caught all three of us in bed would be a fate worse than death. So fine. He slept on the floor, and never had anything to say about Danny with an arm over me in the morning or vice versa. 

Matt was up a while later. He locked the door behind him and then perched on top of me so he had better leverage to kiss me. A little less long than usual, but Danny was right here and drawing focus. 

“He’s got something to say to us,” I said up into Matt’s face. 

“Oh my god. Another deep conversation in a childhood bedroom. Lucky you,” Matt teased me, which made Danny get all down on himself. He was flustered by the time we were all more vertical and ready for it. I looked between Matt’s brown eyes, sharp and full of stars, to Danny’s light, flat stare. The latter was starting to look scared to me. He might’ve been a little scared most of the last six months. 

“Can I talk?” Danny said to stop Matty’s teasing, and we all shut up and listened. “First, my family’s a lot. Sorry. I should’ve told you.” 

“Please, they’re great,” Matt said. 

Sure, but Danny hadn’t really been talking to him. He looked at me. “If I stay here, my leg’s never gonna get better.” 

Next to me, Matty froze. It was down to me to react in these seconds. I nodded, consciously wetting my lips. “Okay.”

“So you were right. About resting.” 

I was more concerned with not understanding the reason this was the first thing he said right now, with both of us here. Good thing Matt unfroze to say, “Dude, it’s not about that. We care about you.” 

Danny nodded and set his jaw. “Chloe said that before too.” 

“Good. It’s true.” 

“Wait,” I said. “What’s that have to do with your family?” 

Caught. He couldn’t say even the two things out loud too closely. Matt had to do it. “You don’t get rest here. Feels like they don’t care.” Danny nodded, or maybe tried to shrug. “You want me to talk to them? I’ll tell them you don’t get to control how fast your fucking muscles heal.” 

“No.” 

Matt and I caught each other finding the simple truth of his answer charming. “You want to come back with us?” I asked, and Danny couldn’t even say yes or no, he felt so guilty for wanting. 

“Look, there’s tons of options,” Matty jumped in. 

But I didn’t need him to mediate. I needed to make my offer. “I’ll think about it, if you both want. I’ve got a condition.” 

“Okay,” Danny said.

“I need to get to know you. However it happens, I don’t care. But.” Danny met my eyes, and I wasn’t sure about this next part until I said it. “You seem mad lately.” 

He deliberated for a sec, stare going blank again. “I am, I guess.” 

“Trouble getting out of bed.” 

“I’ll get up. I can get a job,” he said, a heartbeat away from begging all of a sudden. 

Again, Matt inserted himself. “What part of that is resting?” he said, very snippy, and the conversation stopped being so serious because me and Danny had to give him shit for that. It was late. We were tired. But while I was falling asleep I was doing some other math, too. My mom’s sister managed the Aldi. Check-out was a six hour shift off your feet. Or Danny could take over at the liquor store and I could finally call Costco back. Two paychecks. Three when Matt was out. It wasn’t a mansion in a big city, but we could be pretty happy at my house, if this was real. And all three of us in this bed making each other laugh, I had to say. It did feel real. 

&&&

I was awake. My eyes were open. 

Well, in that moment they were closed. I was on the air mattress while my girlfriend snuggled somebody else to sleep and something else had to be wrong with me, add it to the list, because all I was was happy to be here. But spiritually they were open. I was paying attention. 

It was a fun couple of days for me, at least. I went out shooting with his brothers. I helped his mom with dinner. We all played pickup ball out in the snow. I got a family with a spot for me, middle boy, and I didn’t even have to feel guilty about taking Danny’s place because all he wanted to do was sit on the couch with Chloe in his lap. 

The only reason I wasn’t too jealous to cope was because I did believe I’d get a chance to join them in the future. Chloe wouldn’t say she was thinking about it unless she knew she was convince-able for real, and she wouldn’t let anybody pull her around like that unless she liked them already. She liked Danny. She wanted to say he could come back. Anybody would think they were really in love, the way he’d just hold her for hours. Hard not to compare myself there. Danny didn’t need to get up and run around, he didn’t get restless or hungry or whatever. He just sat like he was hiding behind her, and Chloe was happy to do that as long as he wanted. 

His mom got kinda mad about it. That’s what I saw with my eyes open. Linda kept sighing at them, and when that didn’t get anything she graduated to comments that I had to shrug off. Her first one was, “Is sitting like that good for your knee, sweetie?” And just like that, Chloe was headed on a walk and Danny disappeared somewhere else. “Was it something I said?” Linda asked, and I lied. That was what I could do for him. 

If somebody asked, I would’ve said my dream job was sitting in his lap too. Not a bad gig.

&&&

We were at the dinner table talking. The stained glass light cover threw warm color over the whole room. Danny had his hand hooked under my thigh. At a couple days in, I was used to being his safety blanket. I think I felt some kind of entitlement at this point, too. He’d been my boyfriend for days. I’d been trying to make myself look like I loved the sight of him so much I forgot I didn’t. Or I was learning I did. I didn’t notice what I was doing at first, when I squeezed his shoulder to get his attention. Not until on top of the first words of my question to him, his mom said louder, “I remember when he’d let me do that.” She was looking at us. 

Danny’s hand tightened on my leg. “Weird thing to say.”

“Hey,” Matty said into the silence. “Everybody’s different.” 

“Mike’s not much of a hugger,” Pam told me.

I made a polite interested sound, and terminally tuned out. Just waiting until Danny got up for dessert and then I went out into the garage and lit up a joint. Man. Not much of a hugger. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his face got, when me and Matt sandwiched him in bed. When he’d hold his arm out to me for a hug basically whenever he saw me in my house for a couple weeks after that. And then he stopped or I did. Why couldn’t I remember which? 

The door to the house opened after a bit, and I briefly contemplated trying to switch out my joint for a cigarette. But it was just Danny, jacket half-on and two plates with forks in his hand. “Figured you’d want cake,” he said, and I did. In response, I offered him the joint. “Oh. Sure,” he said, and we traded. As a general rule I tried not to be a dick to people who coughed after taking a hit, so it wasn’t special treatment when I gave him my coffee mug and he had a sip. He coughed worse the second time he inhaled and handed it back. To be honest, I was thinking much more about the cake. Linda really could cook. 

“I hate when she says stuff like that,” Danny said. 

“‘M sorry, baby.” I loved this layer of crunchy things. If Matty was here, he’d tell me what it was. 

Between bites, I finished the rest of the joint. Danny didn’t ask for any more. He was eating too, finished first. Then, holding his little plate in his two hands, he said, “She thinks I owe her a hug because I can’t send her to Hawaii.” 

“Whoa.” 

“She thinks I owe everybody everything she says. And I wasn’t allowed to say no before so now if I let her know it hurts, she’ll try and. So I let her say it’s not that bad.” At around that point, I began to realize something. But he was still talking, I had to listen first. “And every time she says something to you, it’s just. I thought she’d back off. But she didn’t. And you guys are leaving soon.” 

My thought finally arrived: he was crying, dark splotch on his sleeve where he wiped his face. I made my mouth move. “Oh no, Danny, I’m sorry. Honey.” 

“It’s fine.” 

“It’s not.”

That didn’t help. He wiped at his face with his sleeve again, did a big snotty sniff. “It’s gotta be.” I was already shaking my head but he nodded harder. “No, yes it does because it’s just how things are when you’re not there.” 

This was the first time I got to understand why he wanted me to be. When he said it, another round of big fat tears dripped down his face. Also. His eyes were red, he was high out of his mind. A question occurred to me. “Have you smoked weed before?” 

Danny shook his head. 

“Shit.”

“But it’s true. It is. I’m not just saying this because, like.” 

“I know, I promise.” I actually felt like I might have an obligation to let him say as little as possible now. Less for him to regret later. I got up to stand between him and the door in case somebody else came out here. Same feeling I had before, wanting to shield him from anyone that might see all I did and be less precious with it. 

As soon as I was on my feet, he pulled me in between his legs. I was getting used to this, and I was learning to like it fine. His hands were strong and slow, waiting to feel me give without applying any real force. Very gentle, good adjustment after our conversation a couple nights ago. Ever since I asked him to, he’d been careful to make sure I could opt out. So careful. Too careful. This was turning into a thing with him that I wanted to keep an eye on. It meant something, like it meant something that the guy who only wanted to be alone at home came and found me just now. 

“We came out of her,” he said mostly into my stomach. “She says we’re all hers.”

“Okay. Well. People say a lot of things.” I was also high and not at my most articulate. He was still crying, I felt the heat of fresh tears soaking my sweatshirt. “You know, you don’t have to tell me all of this.”

I couldn’t make out his answer. He had to repeat it. “I know, I get to.” Even then he had to explain it. “I get to, like I’m so lucky. It’s easy to talk right now.” 

“You are so high,” I said, and patted the top of his head. “And part of being a good friend to you is not letting you say or do things you’ll regret. So how about we table this.” 

“No. I want to tell it all, now. So you know me.”  

“Okay, babe,” I said comfortingly, and he subsided into silence punctuated by a big deep sniff every once in a while. That was more like it. 

Then he got himself started again. “I missed you guys. But I didn’t call because I didn’t know if you’d want me to bother you.” 

“You don’t bother us.” 

“Right, but at some point. It’s been great to pretend like that’s not true, but come on. You want me out. You want your house back.” When I didn’t say anything back, he tipped his head up to look for himself. Man, his eyes were red.

I couldn’t help but put my finger under his chin and keep him there, not hiding. He swallowed, throat bobbing, but didn’t try and move. He looked at me and I looked at him and I said, “I  don’t mean it like that. Just… I really had to fight for it. My house. You know?” He nodded into my touch. “It’s nothing against you. There’s a lot of people I like that I couldn’t live with.” 

That set him off again. Fresh tears welled up and spilled down the half-dried tracks on his face, and he was going to just let me watch him cry if I didn’t move my fingers holding him in place. Other things he said were sinking in. His mom made him hug her, and all the awful little things she said whenever we were touching in any way like his body was hers to tell him what to do with. And like, I didn’t think it was good before but now I was really grasping the full iceberg, so to speak, and my stomach was ice cold. Separate feelings, the cold and the weed and the worry. 

I hugged him back against my stomach briefly, letting him dry his face on me again. While he did, I said, “Let’s go upstairs, yes? We’ll be very quiet, so nobody sees us. We can lock your door, nobody needs to know what’s going on.” He said something I didn’t quite make out and wouldn’t repeat. Getting more high as the seconds passed. Okay. My plan was the plan. 

Danny wasn’t easy to pull up, but we made it to his feet. After a few days of rest, he was standing okay as long as it was short, so I left him in the garage while I scouted out the house. A few people in the den, getting ready for movie night. Most of them still in the kitchen. Somebody was in the downstairs bathroom. 

When the coast was clear I pushed him in front of me upstairs and down the hall, hand in the middle of his big warm back. We were quick and quiet on the steps. I detoured to the upstairs bathroom for a second, and he stood in the hallway waiting. Somebody was coming out of a bedroom when I was closing the door to his, but they didn’t knock. Must not have been his mom. 

“Get on the floor,” I said, in case the bed bouncing would make him sick. He looked at the floor, but did not seem interested in being any closer to it. “Come on, on your back. Please. So I can wipe your face.” 

“You’re not high at all,” he said to me in a very accusatory tone. He pointed at me, bumping his fingertip into my forehead. 

“Which is why I’m in charge. Lie down.” I wasn’t snapping at him exactly, but I did get firmer the way that made Matt jump to obey, only it didn’t work exactly like that with Danny. He knew he was choosing to listen to me and he was doing it to make me happy. Both of us were fully aware of that for every second of him getting down onto the ground, and that moment overlapped with another. The night I was his girlfriend, and he was on his back crying. 

This was different. I knelt by his shoulder and folded up the wet washcloth I’d grabbed. Before I asked for anything, Danny shut his eyes. I wanted to call him sweet names, but not without Matt here. If there was a line, this feeling in my chest would be crossing it if I let it live out loud. “Danny. Here,” I said, and let him do it himself. 

Danny scrubbed his eye sockets out first, so much rougher than I’d have been but it did look like it felt good. And once the washcloth was warm all the way through and his face was damp and freshly pink, he tossed it in the direction of his hamper and let himself drop limply back onto the floor. “That does help.”

“Good.” 

“You know a lot of things.” 

“Well. The extra couple years probably do it.” 

“Not like that. I’m trying to…” He lifted his arm to motion in the air in a vague circle. “…notice something. Y’know. About you.”

Okay. This was continuing to walk the line so I pulled my phone out and texted Matty real quick. Can u come here pls?

“Chloe,” Danny said. 

“What.” I remembered. “Oh. No yeah. You’re good. I’m noticed. How do you feel?” 

“Great. Do you want to…” 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t. You’re not my girlfriend.” 

Yeah. That was starting to feel like a problem we were all having. 

Not even thirty seconds later, I heard fast feet on the steps, and Matt busted through the door and stopped short to not trip on Danny’s feet. “Hey!” he said. 

I attempted to smile up at him. “Hey. Danny smoked weed for the first time. Don’t worry.” 

&&&

Well. Okay. I was worried. Danny was a pancake on the ground and his eyes were closed. “Yeah, don’t worry,” he said from there. “I only imagined kissing your girlfriend.” 

My stomach flipped. “Oh. Cool.” 

“This is why I said you should come here,” Chloe said. I didn’t know how to take that for a second. Like had they talked about it? As long as they decided not to do it, I guessed it was fine. But then when neither of them said anything else, the quiet did sound an awful lot like guilt. That was dumb. I wouldn’t even be mad. It was my fault for putting them in this situation. My fault for liking the way she looked at him when she was taking care of him. My fault for not being able to do that for him myself. 

But it was nothing like that. Chloe clarified, “I think we need to check on how everybody’s feeling, because Danny cried when he thought about us leaving.”

That was pretty obvious from the everything about him. The crying part. Even in the dim light of just the one lamp, I could see how puffy and pink his eyes were. I nodded nonchalantly. Not a big deal. No reason for him to get up. To fit in, I decided to copy how Chloe was sitting on the floor on the other side of Danny. Cross-legged, up near his head. She was looking down at him with a little smile. 

Danny said, “I’ve been a bad friend.” And covered his face with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s high,” Chloe said in a low voice. 

“And I’m sorry,” he insisted.

“Why?” I heard myself ask. 

“Because I asked you for something crazy and you gave it to me and I can’t be happy with just that.” He’d never talked this much in his life, even when he was wasted. If this was what weed did to him, he needed to do it way more often, I was thinking, and then he told Chloe that they should end it for real. 

&&&

“Hang on,” Matt said, with a frantic sense of catching up. “Wait. You guys… like.” 

“We didn’t do anything.” The words were damning to have to say at all, I knew that. I was on the knife’s edge of this buzz turning bad, the dark room getting scarily claustrophobic. 

“But you wanted to. To kiss, or something.” 

“That’d be nice.” Danny sighed from the floor, apparently unaware of the vibe. I wished that were me. 

The shock was fading off of Matt, and what I always thought of as his mask from being around other people was wearing off too. He ran a hand over his face, and finally I could read him. Oh. Turned on. So turned on he was having trouble thinking. “That’s okay. I knew this could happen.”

“Sure, but.”

Matt cut me off. He had to know, “Are you breaking up with me?” 

“No. Unless you are.” He shook his head, eyes big and scared, so I said, “Okay. So we’re together no matter what.” 

“Not no matter what, there’s no what,” Danny contributed. 

I sighed. It sounded like it felt really good when Danny did it a second ago, and it did feel great. Air was amazing. I’d never been thinking so clearly. “It hasn’t really been my place to say this, but I’m just gonna tell you, Danny. There’s a couple of whats. And I think the biggest one is that I think Matt kind of wishes he walked in on us making out just now.” 

“Don’t…” Matty started, and cut himself off with a whiny little sound. 

Danny blinked his eyes open with the closest thing he had to haste, and got his elbows underneath him so he could sit up a little bit and look at us, me and then Matt. “Yeah?” was all he said.

“I mean.” Matt’s cheeks were pink. “Yeah, I’d… like to see that.”

Danny sat all the way up. Well, he tried to and got stuck on the way, but me and Matt boosted him so he could make the last inches. Then all of us were sitting, knee to knee. The foot of the bed held Danny up when he wobbled, and me and Matt were both watching close. We almost forgot he meant to talk until he got around to it. “You don’t have to do that,” he said to Matt with unselfconscious tenderness. “I’m still your friend. Best friend.” 

“I know,” Matt said back, visibly fighting the urge to laugh it off. 

“Okay, but so you don’t have to, like.” 

“Danny, I know.” 

“So you’re just fine with… like, what would you call it?” Danny’s eyes were around half mast. 

Matt checked with me, raising his eyebrows. “Open relationship? Not open,” he said, and I shook my head. “Just Danny.”

“Yeah. And discussed in advance.” 

“But if you change your mind you’ll say something.”

“You got it, champ. And you will too?” Matt got flushed again when I said that, cheeks and ears dark. Any time I called him something silly, he got like that. This time, he leaned in to kiss me. Matt tasted like that cake. Everything else could wait for a sec. I went back in for seconds. 

&&&

Chloe sat in Danny’s lap to kiss him for the first time, right then and there when she was done making out with me. He was still sitting against the foot of his bed. Her ass looked incredible straddling him like that, obviously, and I had to get less behind her if I had a chance at watching them kiss and not just staring at her on top of him. 

“Just for my peace of mind,” she said to him from an inch away. “You want to do this too?”

Clumsily, he nodded. “So bad.”

He glanced over at me as she leaned in. I lost a couple seconds. I missed the kiss. I saw the second one, and then Chloe did tucked her hair behind her ear and took his face in her hands. He leaned into the contact. The look in his eyes was so content. She brought something out of Danny that I’d never seen before. I didn’t notice it was her until here, until I saw him with her and him without back to back but whenever Chloe was around, and only then, Danny just went soft. I couldn’t think of any other way to say it but I didn’t mean it like that. He lost all his edges. He stopped trying to be anything besides him, here. Of course I was fine with them when it meant that. 

Of course it wasn’t that simple, either, but I could push that part a little longer. Right now it was easy. My girlfriend on top of him meant I could look at her and Danny both all I wanted, and all anybody was was happy about it. They’d called me here on purpose, before doing this.

Already Chloe was leaning back. She kept Danny where he was with a hand on his chest and leaned over to kiss me with him still on her lips, smelling like smoke and pot and gasoline. “You happy, baby?” she asked me. Her voice was deep, her eyes so dark in here. 

Matter of fact, it was so exactly what I wanted that it made me nervous. It made me think about what she’d let us do next time. 

&&&

After sixteen ounces of water and some Pringles Matty rescued from downstairs, Danny finally let us put him in bed, but it wasn’t without protest. “I’m going to miss stuff,” he complained. 

“You’re already missing everything in sight, my dear,” I told him. 

Danny’s eyes were fully closed. He was still fighting with us with a smile on his face. Arguing, but holding my hand against his chest and smiling bigger when Matty gave him a pat too. It was almost sweet enough to make me forget how wet I was, but not really. The second he did drift off I motioned Matt with me out down the hall and into the bathroom. “What?” Matt asked as I locked the door behind us.

“Thought you might want a handjob.” 

“That’d be great.” He was barely blinking. Barely breathing. “Can I eat you out first?” 

What a gentleman. He helped me strip my bottom half off and sat me up on the counter to get the angle he wanted. Even that seemed to take too long for him; he whimpered desperately at the first taste. For like a million reasons we needed to be quiet, so I focused on that. On getting him exactly where I needed him, locking my legs around him and my hand in his hair, and letting myself come as fast as I could. It was almost too quick. It hurt, in a good way. For a second, I pictured a blonde head between my thighs instead. 

Matt was positively energized when I let him go. He drank from his hand out of the faucet and bounced on his feet. As soon as my legs were solid I hopped down and backed him up to stand against edge of the counter where I’d been sitting. “Are you ready?” I asked him in a whisper. 

“Yes, please.” 

“Well then come on, get your dick out.” 

I knew a lot about Matt’s turn-ons, at this point. He liked eating me out because it was my favorite, and he liked when I teased him, and more than both of those combined he liked seeing me kiss Danny. I’d never seen him so close before I’d even touched him. Matt also decided part of the game tonight was he needed to hold himself still and quiet while I jerked him off. Sometimes he’d do this, make things more difficult for himself just for fun. I hadn’t figured out how to tell him I loved that, and I didn’t now either. I had something else to say. Quiet and in his ear, I told him, “You were right, y’know. I liked kissing him.” 

He came so fast it surprised me. Come spattered on the floor, a few drops on the bathmat. I stopped stroking him when he sucked a painful little sound in, but he still wasn’t letting himself move besides the heaving of his chest. Behind us, the shower kept beating into the tub. The white noise sealed us in better than the door did, making this feel like somewhere totally different. A pocket universe, where we were both half undressed and thinking about his friend. Explicitly. 

In his friend’s parents’ house. In the bathroom with the guy I wasn’t even supposed to be dating. We needed to get out of here before somebody saw us. I wiped myself up with a wad of toilet paper and pulled on my underwear and pants while Matt was still catching his breath.

“You like him?” he asked. I could hardly hear him over the shower. “Like, him. Really?” 

“I like him. Can we talk more when we’re not in the most compromising position in the world?” 

“God. Right. Wait.” He kissed me, the casual peck we traded all the time. It meant so much to get it now, after that. The first time I asked Matt about Danny he wouldn’t touch me first for twelve hours because he was a few seconds away from concluding I thought he was full of shit and didn’t want me. It only ended when I made him explain it to me. The whole spiral, as he called it, and I’d promised that wasn’t how I worked and he believed me on purpose, so much that we got here. To him, letting me climb into his best friend’s bed after basically giving us a hall pass. 

With all three of us were in the bed together again, Matty got on top of me to rest his head right over my solar plexus, the center of my chest. One of his hands wrapped around my arm like a baby hanging on. The other one ended up linked with Danny’s. I saw when Danny lifted both their hands straight up and looked at it. 

“This okay?” Matt asked him. I felt his voice in my lungs. His other hand tightened on me, which I didn’t think he noticed. 

 Danny wiggled their linked arms back and forth in the air. I liked the way they looked against each other, the slightly different skin tones. I liked how they touched, I liked looking so I didn’t notice how long he’d been quiet until he spoke. “You think I’d kiss your girl and not want to hold your hand?” 

“Good to ask,” I said in Matt’s defense, while he sputtered. This was something Matt was gonna want to talk about later. I’d started registering those, and making mental notes. Like, by the way Matty, at this exact moment Danny didn’t sound to me like somebody who just wanted to hook up with one of us. It kind of sounded to me like he thought he was both of ours now. I wondered how they’d take it, if I said that part out loud. 

The other thing I was making a note of: it was so tempting to give in. I could do it. Tell Danny he could move back in when he never moved out and ignore my minor discomfort. It wouldn’t kill me. The three of us were good roommates together. I liked him, and Matt really wasn’t the same kind of settled when Danny wasn’t in the house. I said I’d think about it, and I kept that promise tonight. I thought about it for a long time, after both of them had passed out for real. I was still thinking when the sun rose. 

&&&

I was used to being up first and letting the two of them sleep in, but that was harder when I woke up directly between Chloe’s tits, with Danny snuggling my arm like a stuffed animal. Even with my best Mission Impossible shit, I woke up Danny trying to wiggle my hand away from him. 

“Hey,” he said with his eyes closed. 

“Shh. You’re asleep.” 

“I’m not.” 

I was not too proud to bargain. “Let me go and I’ll bring you coffee.” 

“No. I’m coming too.” 

With that many words grunted, Chloe started stirring too. My cover was blown, so I gave up, sat up, and tried to bargain with her next. “Morning. Stay here, I’ll bring you coffee.” 

“Thanks, babe.” She turned over onto her side, pulling the blankets up over her shoulder. Danny and me both watched, and then caught each other watching. Which was fine. I tipped my head at the door and he followed me out. 

“She’s gonna want to talk,” he said on the stairs. 

“Yeah, I know.” 

“Well, how about we have something to say, then.” 

Usually people were reminding me that people weren’t always their best in the morning. Now I was the one feeling too tired for this, even though I slept great. “Hang on,” I said. “Coffee.” 

I knew how to use the machine better than he did, so he let me do it. I’d made the first pot all but the first two days we were here. He squeezed into the corner of the counter next to me to watch and try to give me directions anyhow. I slapped his hand away when he was gonna press the wrong button, and thought about holding it again. “What do you think we should say?” I asked him, since he brought it up. 

Danny was slouching, arms crossed, not as tall over me as he should be. His eyes on me were the same temperature as the tile floor through my socks. “You still pay rent at that house?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Then I think we should say she doesn’t need to change her mind. I can go there full time, or both of us can. Give her space. The family stuff is recent. I think she needs to recharge.” 

He’d never, ever talked so much about somebody. I’d never gotten so much of his opinion. I think my mouth hung open while I listening but only for a moment. I got control of my face and communicated all my surprise. “Okay. Damn. Really?” 

“Yeah. Being forced to be around people isn’t the same was being able to relax around ‘em. I think she needs to relax. And she can’t pick who’s relaxing to be around.” 

He meant himself too, and wasn’t sure if I’d get it. We were standing so close I wasn’t sure I could point to any particular feature that clued me in, but. I had to let him know. “Hey. That’s fine. Anybody should get that. Even though I like talking to her. And you.” 

“Well nobody’s forcing anybody to be around you. Everybody likes you. My whole family.” 

“Whatever. As long as you two like me, I’m good.” That sounded wrong, but I tried to stop thinking of it like that. He’d been so indignant about the hand-holding stuff last night. A guy could start to wonder what else he thought was normal, what else he’d do with me while he was kissing my girl. I think he wanted me to. 

I must’ve leaned in thinking about it, looking at him; I only realized how close I was to Danny when I heard somebody on the stairs and had to make a little space. Not a ton. He grabbed me by the pocket of my sweatpants to keep me from going anywhere. “You think that’s okay to say, though?” he asked, while his mom walked into the kitchen. 

“Yeah.” I glanced at Linda over his shoulder with a big smile. “Morning!” 

“Good morning boys,” she said brightly. “Morning, Mikey.” 

Danny didn’t acknowledge her. “I want her to know I respect her,” he continued to me, tone suddenly tense. “And that I’m not taking it for granted.” 

“Dude, nobody thinks you’re doing that.” 

Linda came over pretty close. “Girl talk?” 

“Private conversation.” 

Danny wasn’t rude, like ever. This was kind of blowing my mind. I couldn’t tell if it was normal or not; his mom burst into tears and went to the next room and Danny still had a couple fingers in my pocket, a tether I wasn’t about to fight. I’d have to explain to his mom why I didn’t check on her. Man. I didn’t really care enough to do that, when he wanted me here with him. Like how I wasn’t exactly psyched about the idea of moving out of Chloe’s but I did like that he wanted me to go with him. 

Chloe did not stay in bed, she came down in a big hoodie and made a beeline for Danny to kiss his cheek and snuggle into his chest. I watched that make him more comfortable in real time, her arms around him, and I wondered if he’d let me do that sometime. 

“What’s going on over there?” she asked him quietly. 

“I was a dick,” he answered. “We could talk in the dining room.” 

While the next couple people awake went Linda’s direction to ask what was wrong, we ducked around the corner into the living room with our cups of coffee and stood near the sliding glass door at one end. Time was ticking. His mom was gonna be back and we needed to be not talking about all three of us then. 

“Okay,” Chloe said to Danny. “I’ve been thinking. I don’t want your place to live to depend on us getting along. Even though we do, it’s just pressure. It’s messing with me.” I’d never seen her level with somebody the way she did with me, so I’d never seen it from the outside. I didn’t know if her hands always balled up tense when she told the truth or if she was different with me. 

Danny nodded. “Good way to say it. We were thinking I’d live at Matty’s.” 

Chloe heaved a huge sigh. “Really? I would love that.” 

“Yeah, and you guys just let me know… like. Whatever you end up wanting. I don’t remember what we said last night,” he claimed. 

I didn’t know what I’d say about last night either, but Chloe had a version. “We said it’s a friends with benefits thing for now. Us and you,” she said, looking right up at him without a single qualm, not one. She made it sound like he was here for both of us the same way, like her and me both got benefits, and he just nodded.

On New Year’s Eve during the day, Danny had me and Chloe get dressed up for outside and come with him. He borrowed the truck and loaded us into it with a satisfied little smirk when we kept telling each other how surprised we were. “You’re full of shit,” he told us, and put his arm behind Chloe across the seat like last time. His hand rested on my shoulder, and nobody had anything to say about it. That was a benefit. 

We were only driving for ten minutes, maybe. Around a couple turns and through a grove of trees that hid the house, and then he pulled over on a shallow ridge. I was so keyed up my brain was only taking snapshots. The key out of the ignition. His elbow resting on the steering wheel as he turned towards us. 

Danny just kept on being able to talk to us, once he started. It sounded like it got easier after the first couple words. “Now. Neither of you guys have tried to skate more than a couple times so I thought you might want to practice a little bit. And this is where I learned.” This was a pond, man-made and gorgeously round. Snow rounded the edges on all sides, snow in all directions made the afternoon bright and warm for how freezing it was. 

The two of us agreed without question, and sat on the back of the truck to make the switch to skates. He’d brought stuff borrowed from his family for us. While I figured out my size he squatted down to help Chloe lace hers up, fingers moving with undeniable muscle memory. Hadn’t brought anything for himself. “I’ve had enough for a while,” was all he said. So this had to be killing him. 

Neither of us were any good. I suspected he gave us sticks just for the balance. The third point of contact made it a lot easier to drift in smooth circles, pretending to be doing something on purpose with the puck. The reason we were doing this wasn’t to be good at it, though. I picked up on that pretty fast. No matter how much we toppled over or came to a sudden screeching halt, Danny was smiling. He liked giving us pointers, figuring out how to make us do what he wanted, and I liked getting them. I liked gliding or feeling the blade dig in. I didn’t even hate falling, because he’d come shuffling over to give me a boost back up. Even in shoes, he was more graceful on the slick surface than either of us. And when we were all pink-faced and out of breath, he ushered us to the blanket he laid out in the bed of the truck, covered us in about six more big outside blankets, and served us hot cocoa from a thermos with a Tupperware of holiday cookies he’d stolen from the kitchen. For the sitting down and eating part, he put himself across from us. It was perfect. 

“Nice pond,” Chloe said after three cookies. “Good size.” 

Danny nodded long and slow. “Yeah.” 

“And it’s gorgeous out here.” 

“Isn’t it?” 

My small talk was a lot less casual. “How’re you feeling, though? This was a lot.” A lot of standing, but I wasn’t sure if those last two words were offensive so I left them out. 

“Fine. Walking around has never been the problem.” 

“What was?” Chloe asked. Her pink cheeks made her eyes look like the same color as the sky around us. She was the only dark thing in view, everything else shades of frigid white and blonde and steam. 

Danny lifted a shoulder. “Well, shoveling the driveway wasn’t great. Had to do that twice so far. And we did a Christmas football game I couldn’t get out of.” He squinted to look out over the horizon away from us except in glances. The driveway was like two miles long. I nodded a bunch, getting madder. 

“Couldn’t get out of it,” Chloe repeated. 

“Yeah. I hate how they cut me off. When I try to talk.”

Chloe stripped her gloves off and wrapped her bare hands around the hot cup in her hands. “Wouldn’t you know it, I hate that too.”

I nodded. “It’s bullshit. That’s why you’re staying with me.” 

Her reaction just clinched that I’d said the right thing; she tried to play it really cool, which she only bothered doing when she thought I’d be upset with anything else. “If you guys didn’t have other options, this would be a different conversation,” she said to us both, and we told her we knew. I patted the top of her beanie, and then remembered I could do other stuff. Tear one glove off with my teeth so I could lace our fingers together, for instance. Wrap my arms around her and all her layers and feel her relax.

“Shouldn’t be, though,” Danny added, his brows furrowed. “No matter what’s going on with us, it’s your house.” 

Swear to God, I watched her fall in love with the same thing about him I loved in that moment. Nobody deserved that much devotion, but I liked trying to. And actually. After what he just said, it felt like loyalty demanded I stop being so chummy with his mom. She liked me, sure, but it wasn’t real. Not like this. 

“I always came out here when I needed a second,” Danny said, but only when we were getting in the cab to go and nobody could see his face. That didn’t do anything to disguise what he said. I didn’t let it. He brought us somewhere his. Not just Chloe, me too. 

&&&

New Year’s Eve itself was anticlimactic. We knew Danny was coming home with us for days at that point; he’d gotten himself a ticket on our flight back with us. I wasn’t clear on if his parents knew or not, despite seeing them more than ever before now that Matt was sticking by Danny’s side too. They all seemed bemused that Matt had decided to hang out with the duds—my interpretation, sure, but Danny felt it too. We were about twenty minutes into our night, clothes barely warm after changing into them, and Danny’s mom tried to peel Matt away from us fully three times already. She needed help with the veggie platter. Drinks were out and he could get one. He just had to meet her sister. 

Matt did know how to say no to people, turned out. Smooth as butter, as silk, as the metaphor of choice, he sidestepped every invitation in favor of staying in the awkward corner of the kitchen talking to me and Danny. And good thing, because what he had to say was insane. “Well, I always have a resolution about getting a workout in five times a week,” he was saying, and I was trying to decide if I wanted to kiss him more or stop him from speaking when Linda came back. 

I felt her attention first. Danny’s shoulders got tense all of a sudden. “Heads up,” he said under his breath, and pulled me in closer with an arm around my neck. 

Just in time. His mom came back over and I caught her eye in a weird way as she joined the circle between me and Matt. It made me think about what she thought about me. Us. If Danny wasn’t a hugger in her mind, then what was this? 

Whatever it was, she was used to being able to monopolize Matt. “Honey,” she said to him basically only. “We’re talking football, come on.” This one was firmer than the other attempts. She was trying to force the issue. 

Again, Danny’s reaction was wordless. It was every core muscle tensing and his silence turning sullen and sharp. 

Matt slipped away from her by swaying away. “Eh, that’s okay.” 

“You can have a little fun. They’ll be fine,” she said, referring to me and Danny. 

“This is fun.” His smile was big and broad, too light-hearted and blank for her to be able to say really anything. Oh, he had skills I’d never seen still, because this was exactly what his mom did. Matt iced Linda out, and waited for her to give up before he dropped it. “Don’t worry,” he added to Danny. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

Danny seemed to know what he was talking about, because he protested. “You can. It’s fine. I’m gonna keep it short.” 

“What?” I asked. 

I didn’t get an answer before an aunt was pushing past me to give Danny a hug, which he endured one-armed-ly. “So you’re done playing hockey?” she said with sympathy that I uncharitably read as ambulance-chasing sick interest. 

“Yep.” His voice was forcedly high. “Sucks.” 

“Well you never know, too, with the injections they can do these days,” she said knowingly, and made him introduce me but not Matt, who was standing there with a boring look on his face. I didn’t know he could be the boring one. I hadn’t seen him turn it off like this. 

“What’s your plan B? Have you thought about it?” the aunt made sure to ask before she left. 

Danny waited a pointed beat. “Good question,” he said then, on the right side of sarcastic but just barely. 

I took over then, despite being the clearly less interesting party, and eventually she ditched us. I could feel the secondhand reputation of being the grumpy one. It did not put me in a better mood, and I said that just for the record. And like with Matt before, Danny found my sympathy too good to be true. 

“You think I’m an asshole?” he asked, after the tenth time we ran that play with various extended family members.  

Matt was white-knuckling his holiday cocktail. “You’re a delight.” I let his answer be mine, and saved my words for Danny’s family. It took both of us to fend them off enough to get Danny to eat. 

Midnight came fast. I kissed Danny while Matt cheered with the other singles, and then while Auld Lang Syne was playing he peeled off, loaded up with stuff from the kitchen, and took me and Matt. 

The moment the bedroom door was closed, Matt pushed me up against it to hang onto me, no kiss yet. “I’ve been dying to do this,” he said into me. 

“Me too.” 

“You’re a hero, babe.” 

“Thanks.” 

Danny hung back, hands in his pockets, watching over Matt’s shoulder from not far enough away to be truly casual. “That bad?” he asked. 

“Not anymore.” I hugged Matt tighter, and pushed the breath out of me. The room smelled a little funky after all of us being here for a week, especially after the alcohol and perfume of downstairs. I didn’t hate it. 

Sooner than usual, Matt was pulling back and pushing Danny into me next. “Come on man, that’s the deal. She does something for you, you pay her back.” 

Danny let Matt move him into me. More used to this right now, but he had none of the easy comfort Matt did. Still careful. Good sign. “How do we pay you back?” he asked when we were still linked. 

“This. I’m a cheap date.” 

“You’re a good date,” he corrected me, and Matt grinned in agreement. He was even closer than Danny had been; as I noticed, he reached out for one of my hands. That felt righter. “And I will pay you back for all this. I’ll show you, like Matty did. I’m… I can be good.”  The words got clunky at the end but maybe only more truthful. 

“I believe it,” I said, and meant to mean it. Did mean it. Would. 

&&&

Even the airport felt like a dream came true. I sat between him and Chloe at the gate. She wanted to zone out, and no problem with that. I held her hand with as little fidgeting as I could and talked Danny’s ear off about our soon-to-be-roommates. There was a lot he needed to know. Keeping the peace was key. 

Plus, saying all that made it feel so real. Danny was going to be there, all six feet whatever of him. He’d probably be the biggest guy in the house. Tom was jacked but not naturally, and we’d lost a couple men who’d been replaced with sophomores. Nobody in Danny’s weight class. This would totally change the power dynamics. I had not thought through all these details until now. Classic me. 

There was a part of me expecting Danny to call it whenever he had something to say. I wanted to preempt it every time he opened his mouth—and this is too weird and you’re out, I get it—but that was never what he was actually saying. He had questions. We were talking the whole way onto the plane, and then I gave Chloe the window so I could keep talking Danny’s ear off in the weird rushing flatness of a plane cabin at night. 

“What about you?” he asked. “What do I have to do to keep the peace there?” 

“Nothing. We’ll be fine.” 

“We will?” 

“Yeah. I’ll do whatever you want, I don’t care about. Bedtime, or shower dibs, or whatever. You tell me, bro.” I thought this would be the shortest answer, but the problem was that he kept leaving silences after the end of my sentences that I kept trying to fill. It was too quiet loud here. I was all out of wack. 

Somewhere during takeoff Danny had let his leg lean out into mine. This knee was the bad one. It felt solid. “You’re the guy in school. You tell me.” 

“See?” I couldn’t help but say. “We’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve seen your dorm. You’re cleaner than me. If anything, I should be asking you.” 

Danny nodded several times. “No eating in bed,” he finally said, so then I was thinking about how we’d be sharing a bed. And I couldn’t really let myself do that, so I let him make up more stupid not-rules and stopped thinking for a while. 

&&&

Getting everything we ever wanted on this trip had left me in the pretty awful position of realizing the reason I wasn’t happy was, unfortunately, still just me. I liked both the boys, but I wanted space. They’d come up with a way to give me that and stay around. The first hour alone in my silent house I thought I was going to throw up. 

Home hadn’t felt the same since I tried to kill myself here. Since Mom died before that. There were levels like geology, layered up on this place. Eras. Fossils. I’d thought about how long it would take for home to feel like it did before all the time, but I’d never thought about trying to find somewhere else to belong. 

Getting away from his family and home town was the best thing for Danny. Obviously, and not just physically. And to follow that to its conclusion, now that I had to come back home, I discovered I was jealous he got to try it. Leaving. When I had to fight so hard to stay. 

That was part of the stuff getting messed up in my head, the pressure being put on us just when they were in here with me. Even after all of the holidays, even with them being the people they’d proven themselves to be. I wanted to help, but I needed my own help more. I needed to be the first person I thought about for a while. 

I did not say all of that. I said I needed space, and both of them kept saying that made sense. Matt managed to give me ten days before he started asking what he could do to see me even for a second. At two weeks, he talked his way into dropping by with Chinese food. While he swore via text that he was fully prepared to drop it off and leave, I could feel how glad he was when I opened the door and gave him a hug. 

We held on long enough that he felt compelled to fill the silence. “Miss you. I mean, in a really mature, secure way. No pressure.” 

“I love you,” I said firmly into his shoulder. “I also miss you. I appreciate the patience. How are you?” 

“Good. Got the room all divided up.” 

“How’s Danny?” 

“Also good.” He took a moment to judge my apparent interest. “Looking for a job,” he added, when he was sure it wouldn’t annoy me. 

“Oh. I had an idea for that. You guys want to come by next weekend? We can do, like, pizza and movie again. Or something.” Finally, after multiple minutes of holding him, I pulled back. “And if you fall asleep on the couch, maybe I’ll let you sleep over.” 

He lit up. “Yeah? Okay awesome. Danny too?” 

That was why I’d waited so long. I needed it to be real the next time I said, “I want to see both of you.” 

Chapter Text

“Dude, let’s go.” Danny had never kept me waiting to go anywhere, but just would not come out of our room that he’d shut me out of. I had to resort to threats. “If we don’t leave now, I’m making you walk.” I wouldn’t. But he did open the door and he was wearing sweatpants. “This is what you spent so much time picking?” 

“Shut up.” 

Not because he told me to and only because we were running late to see my girlfriend, I did. Danny didn’t like being late either. We hustled downstairs and out to the garage. Town was so small that we hadn’t bothered with a car besides Chloe’s yet, so I hopped on the back of Danny pedaling my bike with both our bags over my shoulders. 

It was a quick ride, so it made more sense for him to be the one pedaling since he was like a hundred pounds heavier than me. Still. The math felt less defensible when Danny grimaced as he got off the bike and took an awkward step on the way up to her front door. “She would’ve come picked us up,” I said to him while we were waiting. 

“Shut up,” he said again. 

“I’m just saying.” 

Chloe opened the door and gave him a hug hello, then me a hug and a kiss. And she did look better. Less pale. Her eyebrows didn’t have that crease between them anymore. She kept smiling at us even when we weren’t being funny. When Danny tried to slip past her to the the sectional, she stopped him with a hand on his chest, in the middle of the quarter zip he agonized over. “You want something cold? I’ve got frozen corn.” 

“Actually, you have a heating pad? That’s been working better.” 

“Yes I do. Good call.” She gave him a little pat. Felt like maybe I was watching that a little too closely, but neither of them noticed. “You look good,” she told him, and he was standing there looking down at her like nobody had ever told him that before. 

“What about me?” I didn’t mean to say it out loud. Usually that had dire consequences. 

This time I got everything I ever wanted. “You always look good,” Danny said, and Chloe agreed with him.

&&&

It was totally stupid, the difference that time to myself made to how much I liked having them here, but it was a big one. I could appreciate how comfortable they were here without resenting their presence. I didn’t have to worry about who needed to be doing what. These were guests over, and I could let everything slide. 

The boys were also on their best behavior. Me and Matt had coordinated on ingredients, and he was making us what I always thought of as sports food. Pigs in blankets, cut veggies, chips and dips, and all kinds of frozen stuff heated up in the oven. He insisted me and Danny let him do it alone, another way he was being thoughtful, because I was pretty sure he knew I wanted a chance to see what Danny wanted without his family putting pressure on him to need me around. So I helped Matty get set up, helped him pick out the plates to serve on and then I cracked beers for all of us. That way I had a reason to go back to Danny, and it wasn’t like I was being pushy. He’d been here for less than five minutes. If he needed time to get settled, he’d get it, I’d go back to Matt. I was on my best behavior too. 

“Hey,” he said as he saw me coming. His smile was on purpose. “Thanks.” 

“No problem.” 

“You gonna sit with me?” he asked as I handed the bottle over. Right when we were closest. His eyes were tracking me. Couldn’t say no at that point. Didn’t want to. I sat where he opened his arm up, against his side. It kind of felt like he was on the same page as me, wanting to know if this worked when nobody was watching. 

Danny did look good. I hadn’t been trying to start anything, I just thought it and said it. When he wore dark colors I noticed how light he was so much more. Paler than me, maybe, if he ever didn’t have a tan. I trapped him a little with my leg pressed over his. No leverage for him to get up like that. In response, he set his head down on the back of the couch and let out a breath towards the ceiling. 

Oh yeah. This was more like it. “You getting alone time again?” I asked him, and he was embarrassed to say he was. “And you and Matty, you’re having fun being roommates?”

“So much fun.” He tipped his chin down for a drink from his beer. “How’s it going over here?” 

“Fine. Nothing to report. I’m just crazy.” 

Danny pulled me in with his arm over my shoulder and kissed my cheek with cold wet lips. “Stop that,” he said mildly, and settled back into his divots in the cushions. “You heard from your dad?” 

“No. Uh, I wanted to tell you I had somebody for you to call, if you wanted a job where you’d be off your feet.”

“Oh. Thanks.” 

“Course.” 

We lapsed into silence, but even that said plenty. I hadn’t counted on just how much I could put together from seeing him at home and then seeing him here. From seeing him dodge any common room with a person in it to seeing him plant himself in the middle of my house and relax. I’d been dissecting what he said while high, every word I remembered, and above all I could picture his face when he told me how much he didn’t want his family to know that he was in pain. He couldn’t run away. That was a trust he’d been extending to me from the start. I couldn’t decide if that made it mean less when it was just me ruminating. But now he was here, and I felt it again. Not moving from my side all night with no one making him be here was a love language, and probably the only way he knew how to say it. I saw his family. His mom did truly all the talking. 

Matty called out from the kitchen, asking if we were in hurry. Both me and Danny yelled back no. “He’s pretty great,” I added to just Danny. 

“He’s the best,” Danny agreed. And that was all we said for a while. We both had more of our beers. He didn’t try to get free of my weight, even when Matty came with the food and put it out of reach. The comfortable heat of him under me was constant, and the arm over my shoulder. 

All three of us had gotten a crash course in exactly what was wrong with each other over the holidays. I was pretty sure I felt us all trying to account for it. Them being extra careful to thank me and wait on me, which was so nice it was unfair. Us giving Matty more attention than usual just to make him smile, letting Danny be quiet without commenting on it, these kinds of loving somebody that I’d never thought about because nobody around me ever wanted something like that. I’d never been around people who wanted me to figure them out. 

&&&

“I should tell you guys about Connor. The real Connor.” 

The room was mostly dark, lights from other rooms filtering in. She was stretched out between us. I had her legs over my lap. Her cheek was smushed against Danny’s shoulder. 

“Go for it,” I said, when she didn’t keep talking. 

“He said I was too emotional about my mom dying. And he cheated on me.” 

“What a dick.” 

“Anya cheated on me,” Danny volunteered. 

I leaned forward to look at him. “Dude, what?” 

“Yeah. The guys on the team told me. Some guy flew her to Cabo with his dad’s jet.” 

“What a bitch.” I was glad Chloe said it since I wasn’t sure I got to. 

“Well, I don’t have to worry about gold diggers anymore.”

I never knew what to say when he got like this, so I was interested in Chloe’s take. She reached out to squeeze his arm blindly, not too serious but not kidding. “A very thin silver lining to your shitty situation.”

“And I don’t have to move away from here.” 

“Also good.” 

“And I’m not tired. No more concussions.” 

My stomach was cold. “I like that.”

“Kinda attached to your brain,” Chloe added. 

“Yeah. Lot of positives,” Danny said morosely. Deep sigh. 

Chloe was not thrown. “I really do think you’ll believe that one day,” she said, and I patted her shin in silent support. 

“Do you really?” he asked with a little bit of an edge in his voice. I knew where it came from now. I knew his mom would get so mad, for real, if he said something like that, and that part of what Chloe was for him was someone who knew what he meant even if he sounded wrong. She called him an asshole but also she kissed him and said yes she did. I watched him look forward to every word she said and take it in as gospel. 

&&&

Winter got to the coldest part—technically spring, when the days were longer but the ground itself was still frozen. The guys kept coming over. They were over a day or two most weekends, and they didn’t spend all that time trying to talk about how much they wanted to be here or negotiating with me. They didn’t push. They left when they said they’d leave. It let me miss them more. 

Once the semester started back up, Matt would come over and shut himself in the spare bedroom to study, which meant Danny would be somewhere alone if not with me. So I told him I wanted him here. We got a few evenings in together. He did whatever I wanted to whether or not Matt was with us. A puzzle. Cookies. Grocery shopping. 

Sometime at the end of January, we had a date night planned that got thrown off by Matt’s job fair thing rescheduling. We still used the same group text. You want to just cancel? Danny asked me when Matt said he couldn’t be over for hours, and I said no only because I meant it. 

Danny came over alone, in the huge dark red zip up that always showed up when he started the day tired. I’d fallen asleep with my face on it more than once already. Today, when I saw him in it the only thing I could think at first was how much I wanted to see it as the only thing on him some time. Hanging off his shoulder, soft skin underneath. The stubble on his face prickled when we kissed. “Thanks for letting me come.”

“Totally.”

“I was kind of counting on seeing you,” he added, too late to be nonchalant but clearly stubbornly honest. 

The statement caught my attention. It was designed to. “Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah. I don’t feel good.” He had to screw up all his courage to say that.

So I made a big deal about it. Did he need something to eat, something to drink, some kind of temperature change—with a host of nos I bundled him off to the couch and let him sit in his corner. I perched on the edge of the cushion next to his legs.

It felt like watching a car get stuck in the mud. Wheels spinning, looking for solid land. Danny opened his mouth and stalled out and then, this time, recovered. He put a hand on my knee. “Uh. I was thinking you were trying to say something about it at my mom’s. If you wanted to, uh, say more.” 

I did my best to remember what part of his mom’s he could mean. “You feel mad?” 

Danny wrinkled his nose up like a kid, a Matt thing that was so cute to see somebody else doing. “Not exactly. I was wondering if you wanted to say what it was like for you.” 

“When I crash?” 

“Yeah. Like what’s that mean?” 

“Uh. Well usually it starts with me not showering for a week and then all the food going bad in my fridge before I eat it.” His eyes lit up with understanding. “Then I stop answering the phone, and I don’t brush my hair, and at some point I notice I’m surrounded by trash but I’m too tired to do anything about it. And as long as I don’t stop taking my meds, I’ll snap out of it before it gets worse.” Snap out of it was generous. Sometimes it felt like the only thing meds bought me was time at the bottom, time where I could feel my bones grinding against each other every time I moved. But then, I always reminded myself I had the disease of the mind that made everything feel not worth it, and if anything was, meds were. 

“Hard to be around that,” Danny said. 

“Yeah, I guess. I mean I wouldn’t know.” 

“You’ve been around me.”

“Oh.” Duh. He started this asking about himself. It was kind of hard to think when he hadn’t looked away in minutes. When Matt wasn’t here, all Danny seemed interested in seeing was me. 

He smiled when I didn’t have anything else to say. I did too, because of how much I liked him leading the conversation. “Well, so. I’m sorry. I’ve been a lot.” 

“Well, it’s kind of been the worst year of your life.” 

“Yours too, right? Up there.” 

“Up there. Yeah,” I stalled. He wanted me to do something with that apology. Like accept it. Sorry he’d been a lot, which was nice and all but I couldn’t. I waited to talk until I could explain my hesitation. He was patient with the pause. Just motioned me closer, so I could sit with his arm around me. And this meant something to him, pulling me into arms’ reach. I kept remembering that on purpose. He made it look easy but it wasn’t. “It’s fine, just. It won’t go away. You’ve gotta do something about it.”

“Like what?” 

“Find a psychiatrist. Or therapist, if you want to try that.” 

Information acquired. He nodded, and then he started shifting in little scoots and looking at me pointedly until it clicked that he wanted me to get on top of him. Hold him. “Incoming,” I said, and he smiled. 

Once we stopped moving he was almost flat on his back and I wasn’t in his lap as much as most of my weight was on his chest. I was on my side; a pillow kept my head up next to his. I was looking at his ear more than his profile. He linked his arms around me, took a really deep breath once I was there, and then he did it again. 

The house was so quiet around us. My phone buzzed, and I shifted closer so I could look at it over the top of Danny’s head. My sleeve was probably covering his eyes. He didn’t say anything about it, just, “Want to get a movie on or something?” 

“In a sec. I missed you.” 

“Thought you had too much of me.” 

Bold words coming from the guy breathing into my collarbone. “No way,” I said, and pressed the point home with a kiss to his temple. 

I noticed so many small things about Danny from this close. His blonde eyelashes, so long and delicate. The blip of a scar on his cheekbone that he said was from his brother. He always smelled good. And now when I said things I noticed about him, he came back with things like, “Well yeah, I need you to know I can take care of myself,” and explained that he meant especially after I had to help him shower. And it occurred to me, then, just how much he did specifically in response to something I said months ago. He didn’t make such the big show about wanting to make me happy that Matt did, he just did stuff. Depression be damned, he had never skipped his chores. I knew how hard that was. I was embarrassed to have missed it. 

Eventually I got up for snacks, and to get the remote and blankets. Dark outside already, and Matt wasn’t due for another couple hours. The house was dim, so I was turning a few lights on too, as I went. When I came back and caught him mid-stretch, the waistband of his boxers and strip of his stomach visible, I thought about what we could do when Matt was here. His arms above his head had me thinking. 

“You want me to move?” he asked when I’d been looking a little too long. 

“I want you in my lap.” 

Danny got up quick. I definitely noticed that he was squirmy when I finally got him between my legs, but for a second both of us were trying to get comfortable and that didn’t seem weird. I settled with my arms over his shoulders, his head tucked under my chin. In the interest of acting on the rights we agreed I had, I combed through his hair a couple times with my free hand while I worked the remote to get a movie on. Feeling generous, I let him pick. It took until the opening titles were playing for me to notice the bulge in his crotch, and only then because he kept fidgeting with his pants, trying to make the folds hide it. 

“Oh,” I said, like an idiot. Maybe he wouldn’t know what I was talking about. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. He knew. 

“No, it’s fine with me.”

Now that we’d broached the subject, he leaned over and grabbed a blanket to arrange it in his lap with palpable shame. “Matt would be so pissed if we didn’t wait.”

“I know. I never said—whatever. Yes.” I wasn’t going to argue about this when we agreed. Not the point. 

Danny didn’t say anything else. He didn’t try to get up or anything either so I let the movie keep playing. It only felt like a tentative peace. I didn’t know if he believed me. I didn’t want to breathe wrong. Then Danny snagged one of my hands and spent time moving my fingers around in his big soft grasp, feeling all the little bones. The last two on that hand had gotten crunched in a door and healed crooked. The upstairs bathroom door, right at the top of the stairs. I could say that. He was messing with those two fingers for the most time. I wasn’t even sure he knew he was doing it, except for how I’d never seen this guy need to fidget with anything in his life. Now he massaged my hand for like an hour, and only let me go when he got up. 

I couldn’t help but look. No half-chub anymore. 

“You want something to drink?” he asked me. 

“Eh. I’ll get up if I want it bad enough.” 

“What would it be?” 

Mildly embarrassing to explain it, but he was standing there asking and I wasn’t going to tell him he couldn’t do it. “Well, I do like. Two thirds apple cider, one third vodka. Squirt of lime juice.” 

Danny just nodded and trundled off. When he came back a few minutes later with drinks for both of us, he made me taste it before he sat down. I said it was good. Still he didn’t sit. The room only had a couple lamps on, so his face was more in shadow all the way up there, TV on behind him. 

“What, baby?”

“I haven’t met any of your friends.” 

The last thing I expected to have to talk about; and this was the problem, again, that I had with Matty. The moment they figured out how to, they started asking me questions back. I sat up more and had a deeper sip of my drink. “Good point, I don’t really have any,” I said into the cup, and repeated it when he asked. 

“Why?” 

“Because teenagers aren’t great with dead parents, and I stayed in the place everybody wanted to get out of. And they were scared of my dad.” 

“Is he bigger than me?” 

Looking up at him, I didn’t have any trouble imagining my dad next to him. “Nope,” I said. 

The smirk on his face was uncharacteristically sharp. “Cool,” he said, and squeezed back in next to me.

By the end of his third beer, he was mostly horizontal and kinda on his stomach, one leg thrown over me. His head was somewhere behind my hip, in a little pocket of space. When he shifted closer, I could feel his junk on my thigh. Swear to god I felt both of us going: allowed. Not weird. “We’re waiting,” I said, in case he was wondering.

“I know.” 

With that caveat, I set my hand on his thigh. Danny hitched it up a little higher in response, closer to me, so I swept my hand over more of him, following the shape of his lax muscles. It was his bad leg, so I was careful. Not too close to the knee so I wouldn’t make him flinch. A little closer to his butt when he stayed relaxed about that. Only a couple passes, because I was so aware that this was new ground for us and he was dead silent. I was ready to take that as a sign to stop, but then he said, “That feels good.” 

Those words were pretty much seared into my mind permanently on impact, because I realized as I heard them that I’d never heard him say that before, to anybody. “That is all I ever want to do, babe.” I meant it to sound like a joke, but it came out too honest on accident. 

That meant something to him, too. He clung to me closer. And the least I could do was more of the only thing he’d ever enthusiastically consented to, so fuck everything else—I was here to rub his leg back and forth until my hand felt weird, until my arm was tired. I let the TV play whatever it played next, I had to pee and waited, I got on my phone left-handed to see if Matt was on his way. He hadn’t said anything. Maybe Danny had dozed off. Whatever. I could keep this up indefinitely, and did until he got up on his knees over my lap and swayed there, giving me time to take him in. His eyes weren’t sleepy exactly, but something about him was dazed. His hair was a wreck. The zip up was hanging off one shoulder. One of his knees was between my thighs, his thick leg making warm contact with mine, and he was looking at me, waiting for something. Good thing I couldn’t ruin the vibe with a boner of my own. 

“Done?” I asked him when he didn’t talk.

“No. You?” 

“Nowhere near. Come back.” 

With that permission, Danny urged me more into the corner and leaned in, stabilizing himself with a hand on the back of the couch. I wasn’t sure where we were going until he was there, curled up sideways in my lap pretending to not notice half of him didn’t fit. Since we were in the corner, I didn’t need to hold him up. His arms around me were just for the fun of it, one of many elements that made it feel like he wanted to be inside my skin with me. His hair tickled the side of my neck. He was breathing down the collar of my shirt, so instantly comfortable I kind of couldn’t believe we hadn’t tried this before. Just those couple nights all three of us, before he got depressed thinking about moving home and we all backed off. Before we went to his home, and I got to see that he actually wouldn’t do this with anyone but me. Maybe Matty.

I linked my hands on his hip like I was holding a kid. My arms barely fit, even with him making himself as small as he could. Big kid. As we got comfy, I slid a little bit with the weight of us both until I got my heels braced somewhere good. His hip was kind of out of reach here, so I moved my arms up to around his neck. Totally blocking his vision, so I took a few pointed moments to be adjusting my position in case Danny wanted to shake me off. He had every chance to. He just didn’t. 

&&&

There was basically no worse possible night than knowing Danny and Chloe were hanging out without me while trying to convince some guys that looked like my dad to hire me. I dressed better than most of the other candidates, that was good. Chloe had fucked around with my resume in Word a lot, it was nice and clear. I liked thinking about her every time I saw it, it kept me focused on the reason I was here. I was going to pull my weight. I was going to take care of her. And, as soon as it was acceptable and wouldn’t be rude, I jogged out to her car and sped all the way home. 

The key to her house had never left my keychain, even when I moved out. I thought about it every time I let myself in. Space with her wasn’t a secret sign that she was over it. I was trying not to ask her that over and over—trying to ration out what I asked and when. Another thing I kept meaning to ask her was what she wanted for Valentine’s Day, because I kept second-guessing it. Maybe she just wanted me to make her feel special and asking would ruin it. Asking had never ruined it before, but I wasn’t really confident about how to do my first real Valentine’s with her and I ended up doing nothing so far. Maybe we’d talk about that. Probably couldn’t get a reservation in this short notice, unless I talked to my old manager and got really lucky. 

“Hey, guys,” I said as I shut and locked the door behind me. Lights on told me they were down here watching TV, and both of them calling back to me confirmed it. I had a smile on my face before I even saw them. And then I saw them. 

I didn’t realize I was seeing both of them for a sec. It was all Danny, until Chloe freed a hand and pulled her hood off. He was sitting on top of her. It looked really intimate, that was the only word for it even with both of them fully clothed, multiple blankets between them in various places. Chloe didn’t act like she’d been caught doing anything. She waggled her fingers at me until I came over and held her hand. “How was the thing?” 

“Good, I think. We’ll see who actually calls in a couple days. They loved the resume.” 

She scoffed, moving Danny too. “You’re just saying that.” 

“I’m not.” Lame comeback, but I’d become aware that Danny was looking at me too and had to meet his eyes. As I looked at him, he stuck his hand out too. So then I was holding both of their hands, standing over them on the couch. Danny’s head was down on her shoulder, blonde hair against her cheek. I couldn’t think. 

Chloe squeezed my hand. “Matty.” 

“Huh.” 

“Are you in the mood?” 

“For sex?” Both of them smiled. She nodded. “Yes. Let me just get out of this.” My only suit that fit. I took a step back from them to pull free, and hooked my fingers in the tie to tug it loose. 

“Well hang on. Slow down.” Chloe’s voice was deeper now. “I want to watch.” 

“Oh. You’re like, ready to go.” I couldn’t get any air. Danny was right there, here, between us and showing no sign of intending to go anywhere. If I hadn’t been living with him for a month, I might not have had the guts to say this right to him, but what the hell. We’d had to talk to Noah about the smell coming out of his room together. This was nothing. “You too?” was all I got out.

He nodded, looked at Chloe for guidance. There was a red mark on his cheek and neck from how he’d been lying on her shoulder. I wanted to touch it, but I wasn’t sure how to get closer. 

Chloe knew. “Well let’s get these blankets off,” she told Danny, and then said to me, “Get comfortable. Get that dry clean only stuff out of the way.” 

I obeyed. Usually I talked to her more while I did stuff, but it had just kind of clicked for me that I was going to have sex with my girlfriend and also my best friend was going to be involved somehow too. And all of a sudden it seemed too late to clarify if I was supposed to be into him or just into her and cool with them. Needing to ask would be a problem. 

“My love,” Chloe said, and I realized two things: I had frozen, and there was no doubt that was me. Third thing: Danny wasn’t fazed to hear it. When I turned to look at them, he was in her lap leaned back against her, a layer stripped off them both. My eyes caught on his and hers bare arms. Their hands were tangled in the middle of his chest. “How should we do this?” 

I felt my brain fizzing, sparking, trying to keep up with all the things I was supposed to do—undress, not fall over, look at them, answer her, not be weird. I had to focus. First three first, and when I was in my boxers and socks and undershirt I did my best with the last two. “Uh. Whatever you guys want.” 

“I want you to tell me what you want,” she said more clearly. 

There was absolutely no way I was doing that, so I pitched a joke instead. “Well. You could start by getting to second base.” 

Chloe squeezed her arms tighter around Danny for a sec. “Yes?” she asked, and he nodded, “You want me to feel you up?” We thought that was funny, but only until she slipped her hand up his shirt and started to do stuff in there I couldn’t quite see. Groping, and pinching, and then he started biting his lip and holding back sounds. I saw him starting to get hard. His shirt rode up as she moved around, showing his stomach, his belly button, the fair hair leading from there into his waistband. I knew what he looked like naked before, but not like this. Not shivering in Chloe’s lap, crotch tented, fully aware I was here. He’d never looked better. 

“Now what?” Chloe asked me. Apparently she was done with that. His shirt was still half up. Her hands rested over his stomach tenderly, moving as he took steady deep breaths in and out. His arms were limp at his sides. He’d barely struggled, because he was obviously exactly where he wanted to be. It was everything I didn’t know I hoped it would be, seeing them touch each other. It made my dick so hard I needed to sit down soon if I wanted to be sure I wouldn’t fall. “Babe.” 

“Huh?” I processed it as I spoke. “Oh. Uh, third? Base?” 

Chloe leaned forward to kiss the side of Danny’s head. “Third sound good to you?” 

“Everything sounds good to me,” Danny said. He couldn’t mean that, though, not really everything. Like he knew I’d doubt it, Danny was looking at me already when I glanced at him after he spoke, and his jaw was stubbornly set. It was the same weird offended vibe like when we were talking about holding hands. 

“Hands behind your back,” Chloe told him. 

Probably because he wanted to impress her, he wrapped his arms further, all the way around her back. His triceps looked so big like this. Better, too, how just like that, he was helpless under her touch. All he could do was watch how she grazed her fingers over the no man’s land between his stomach and his crotch. I sat where I was standing, perched on the edge of the coffee table for the best angle I could get just in time. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to stay up when she started on his waistband, given that I barely stayed conscious. 

&&&

Danny’s arms around me were securely locked in place, but not tight. He watched my hands move over his belly down into the crease of his hip. I tucked my fingertips into the very top edge of his briefs. His breathing got shallower as I pressed deeper in, through coarse pubes down to the base of his cock. I used both hands to get him arranged, tucking the waistbands under his balls with a little snap, just to make him forget how to speak. The total comfort he was giving off made me want to push him until he was as dizzy and overcome as Matt already was. 

One thing at a time. Maybe two. He was already less composed with his dick out and both of us ogling. Now that he had permission to look, Matt didn’t seem to remember what else to do besides stare. I hooked my chin over Danny’s shoulder to get a better view myself. His dick was bigger than Matt’s, lighter pink and a bit thicker in my hand. It stood up on its own when I let him go to adjust his pants again, twitched as I fiddled around to make him more comfortable. 

When I got back to business and gave him a good firm stroke from tip to base, Danny let out a a breath that was narrowly not a sound. I pressed my palm over the thin skin of his hip bone with my other hand, as if I could hold him still. He stilled as much as he could anyways by holding his breath, and I rewarded him by continuing to keep my hand moving over his cock. Slow, even strokes. 

The only time Matt didn’t want to be talking was in his sleep, but he’d been absolutely silent for the last however long. His mouth was a little open actually, and he hadn’t even tried to move. I kept stealing looks at him. It was so amazing to see proof that this was exactly what he wanted, already. I didn’t even have any of my clothes off. Danny was only about a third naked. 

“Now what?” I asked again. 

Matty seemed to be out of ideas, and I could probably predict why. He wasn’t going to tell me to fuck Danny, so home run was off the table. And he was doing another kind of calculation, I could see it. If this was wrong, if he was wrong to want it, how far was going to be the thing that made this break. 

Actually, seeing that on him made me curious what Danny was thinking. “You like being in my lap?” I asked him, and he nodded. “Yeah? You like your buddy telling me what to do to you?” 

“Yeah.” 

I felt him tense when he said it, so just in case I slowed my hand down on his cock. I didn’t want him to come yet. In a moment of sudden desperation, Danny tried to fuck into my hand. The strength in even that half-hearted thrust made me wetter; I wrapped my leg around his to feel him better, to stop him from having any leverage. My thigh outside his, my knee over his, my foot tucked under him tight to resist his struggling. Not much of that—the second he felt my leg holding him down he stopped fighting. I held him tighter where he was, fixed on the sight of his fluttering half-exposed stomach, trying to resist and breathe and be good and get more all at once. I forgot everything else. 

Except then there was Matty. He had moved one hand, half closed, to the front of his briefs, not exactly touching himself on purpose. I wasn’t sure he was doing anything on purpose. He blurted out, “You should make him come.” 

“Good idea, baby,” I said, and Matt checked to make sure that was true. The expression on his face made my chest hurt. Somehow he looked exactly like he was only now realizing that Danny and me both wanted him here to have sex with, for real. Just now realizing everything that could be possible in this moment, and then worrying he shouldn’t get to have it. He was not totally there. “What about you? What do you want?” I asked him. 

“To fuck you,” he said automatically, so I agreed he could do that as soon as we were done here. 

Even pretending to ignore Danny for the few seconds we were talking was winding him up tighter in my arms. I was just holding his cock near the base and he was a hot, sweaty mess, squirming against my grasp. Clearly new to this type of thing, because he kept forgetting and re-remembering that he meant to listen to me and not do what he wanted to, which was touch his cock if I wouldn’t immediately. When Matty said he wanted to fuck me, Danny let go of me with one arm to wedge his hand around my leg. Still out of the way but getting my attention. “So I don’t get to?” he said plaintively.

There was only one answer, to keep this game going. To make Matt feel special and not push this too far the first time we tried it. “Not yet,” I said. 

While I was thinking about not pushing things, this was a lot pretty quickly for Danny. Holding him down, teasing him like this, drawing it out. We needed to actually talk soft limits before I took it any further like this. I was a casual dom, but still a safe, sane, and consensual one. Matty and me talked way back when, but I didn’t think he’d remember it right now. I wasn’t sure he knew his name. 

Apparently, Danny was done waiting. He brought his other arm out from behind my back to cover my hand with his and try to move it over his cock for me. I slapped him away, and stopped touching him whatsoever to move his hand all the way over to Matty’s knee. I pressed them together tightly and let go, and Danny kept his fingers there, holding on for dear life. 

“What was that?” I asked Danny, and he mumbled an apology out. “Are you done playing?” 

He shook his head. Of course he did. Answering that question no was probably his most worn-in instinct. 

I made the call for him. “Done for now. You did good.” I rubbed the meat of his leg, letting a little bit of fingernail scratch into him. Danny whimpered. I’d never heard him make this sound except when I wasn’t supposed to enjoy it. I felt myself clench, and turned to kiss the side of his head as I started jerking him off again, this time for real. His hair smelled like sweat, I tasted salt. I wanted to eat him. 

The moment Danny was done coming, Matty was on me and trying to get my pants off with Danny still between my legs. “Hang on, babe. Hang on,” I said, while I did everything I could to wiggle free. Danny wasn’t letting go of me, I had to negotiate with him, give him my hand to hold while Matty was turning me, pulling on my pajama pants by the ends and going back for my underwear too. I’d never seen him so eager, and that was saying something. He pressed kisses to the inside of my thigh as he scooted up between my legs and pushed a couple fingers into me. I was so wet he could hear it, Danny could probably hear it wherever he was. Danny had my arm, somewhere far away from my body. I felt fingers interlocked with mine, other contact I couldn’t identify, and Matty was half-kneeling on the couch, leaning in close. He had another finger in me now, his cute little face so focused on me that I felt a twinge of self-consciousness. 

Only then, three fingers in me and cock dribbling against my thigh, did Matty remember how to talk. For me, because he felt the second of hesitation. “All good, honey?” 

“Good,” I agreed. He glanced past my shoulder at Danny, and his fingers inside me twitched. “But Matty?” 

“Huh?” 

“If you don’t make me come in the next thirty seconds I’m going to take matters into my own hands.” 

The lopsided grin on his face helped, and the overstimulation of him yanking his fingers out of me and shoving his dick in. And the thumb he pressed over my clit, and then he leaned down to kiss me instead of breathing. With the arm Danny didn’t have, I pulled Matt closer however I could. He had the same idea; he stayed deep, in short, quick thrusts until I was tingling, pussy twitching, and he could tell I was close. Then he sped up, driving me up the cushions and into warm skin and clothes. Danny. Danny was kissing my hand, my wrist, and I came biting down on Matty’s lip until he came too, a few thrusts later. 

“Might’ve been more like forty-five,” he said before he caught his breath. 

I huffed out a laugh. “Close enough.” 

&&&

This was a dream. It had to be. I’d had a lot of dreams a lot like this, woke up with sticky sheets or a hard on that I had to do something about in a disappointingly single way. It was the same fear as before, times about a million; they did that for me, they had to have because it was so exactly what I wanted, and that meant it was a matter of time until they resented me for it. 

“Hey babe?” Chloe knocked on the door and came in. Her bathroom, so I wouldn’t dream of arguing. “Hey. Can we talk?” 

Here it came. I slicked my wet hair back from my face and opened the shower curtain a crack to see her face. Not afraid of it, obviously, but I had a bad feeling. “Course. What’s up?” 

“Did you like that?” 

I blinked. It felt like that shouldn’t be a question, but then I was having trouble figuring out what to say in a way that ended up sounding like no. “You were super hot, babe.” 

“Thank you, babe.” She leaned in when I puckered up at her, and gave me a kiss and a little smile in her eyes even though I dripped on her sweatshirt. “Not an answer, though.” 

My dick was into this line of questioning, but my brain wasn’t. “Uh.” I let the curtain fall closed and dipped back into the spray behind me, letting it beat on the back of my neck. Did I like it. “Can I get back to you on that?” 

“Sure.” 

I shut my eyes, and leaned back more so the water went over my face. The silence felt like a blank I was supposed to fill, but I didn’t. I didn’t ask her anything. 

&&&

The bell above the door jingled. “Hey,” I said without looking up. 

“Hi.” 

At the sound of his voice, I looked up and flipped my book facedown on the counter. It was Danny. I wasn’t even sure he knew where the store was before this instant. He filled up the doorway, in his big coat. “Well, hi, honey. What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” he lied, shyness making the deception look sweet. “Are you busy?” 

It was 3pm on a Wednesday. The store was dead. I promised it was okay for Danny to be here to talk to me. Once he believed it, he leaned over the counter on his forearms. We were almost the same height like this. 

Danny steeled himself to speak, so I tried to also be prepared but ultimately wasn’t at all ready for what he ended up saying. “You think Matty likes me?” 

“Yeah.”

“No, I mean. The same way he likes you.” 

“Yeah.”

Danny blinked. Adjusted. “You think that’s why he’s being weird now?” 

“For sure.” 

“Man, I should’ve asked you first thing,” he said, with an embarrassed little smile growing on his face. “This has been driving me crazy.” His hands were open, the space between them inviting. I needed to touch him. 

“What do you mean, driving you crazy? Get back here, give me a hug,” I said, and he obeyed with a sense of having wanted this secretly all along. He even jogged a couple steps, and swept me off my feet. His coat was cold from outside, his ear, but his cheek was warming against mine. I could feel his heart in his chest, in his neck. 

By the hand, I took him around the corner so nobody would see him right away. Danny’s shoulders were up around his ears, but he did let me look him in both eyes. Words started spilling out of his mouth. “I think we might’ve fucked this up. He won’t look at me, and he’s acting like everything is fine.” 

“Yeah, but that’s what he does.” 

“Okay, well I hate it. I want him to. Look at me. And.” The last words were halting, but Danny was used to pushing through discomfort. “I want him to like me.” 

This was why I wanted him out of sight. The moment he tried this out loud had to be mine. I didn’t want to say anything in case I interrupted something else on its way out. And then the feeling changed, a flicker where we both weren’t sure what might happen, and that was what told me it was my turn for real. 

“Okay. I was hoping you did,” I hurried to tell him. 

He didn’t believe it. “Hoping I’d have a thing for your boyfriend, huh.” 

If he wanted to try and cheapen it, then I couldn’t hesitate to overcorrect the other direction. “I think we’re the two people who love him most in the whole world. Right?” 

“Yeah,” he agreed, afraid of wherever I was leading him. 

“And you knew him first.” 

The corner of Danny’s mouth pulled up a little bit. “Come on, that’s not… it’s not a competition.” By the end of the sentence he knew where I was going, finally, but then the bell on the door jingled. 

I kissed his cheek. “Wait here please?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Danny said, and stayed. 

While I sold a group of sorority sisters a whole wine cellar, he must’ve been practicing. He hit me with a whole bunch of shit when I got back there again. Danny told me about his older sister Pam and the handful of years when she’d been at college and told people she was a lesbian. She didn’t talk about that stuff anymore, except to say it was in the past. And then he told me how some of the guys on the team would get caught looking at other guys’ cocks and get really upset about getting caught, and Danny hadn’t ever had that problem but he’d thought about Matty while jerking off since about the day they met. That was how he kept saying it, like he didn’t expect me to believe him but had to make the point anyways. Not gay, but Matt. 

“I get it,” I promised, when that seemed up for debate in his eyes. “I didn’t plan on him either.” 

“Yeah, but.”

“And just because I haven’t met somebody to make me switch teams for good doesn’t mean I never would.” 

There were still questions in his eyes, but that helped a lot. He stopped looking like he thought I’d be upset, at least. “Oh.” 

“I mean. It’s not like I’ve ever done this before,” I started to say, but I heard the bell that meant I had to do my job and again, I asked Danny to wait and he did with an earnest enthusiasm that made me want to get him a treat. 

Next time I spoke to him I had an idea. “You can sit with me behind the counter if you let me do my job when people come in.” 

Danny liked that, he got out of my way so I could roll out the office chair and direct him into it. He was down lower than me on my stool, but that seemed fine with him. Danny’s legs took up most of the space back here when he got comfortable. One of his shoes was wedged against the foot of my stool. He looked around from this vantage point, a warm contented look on his face. “Wow.”

“Pretty luxurious,” I agreed, and then I waited him out. I wanted to hear what he’d say first, without me leading him anywhere. As much as both of us loved doing it that way, I wanted more. 

The heat kicked on, vent creaking. It didn’t take long at all. He was comfortable here. “So you’ve never hooked up with a girl.” 

“Who said that?” 

Danny raised his eyebrows. “Oh. So it wasn’t for you.” 

“Not that either. Dude. Let me set the timeline.” I used hand gestures. “High school. Dating Connor. Mom got sick senior year. Died. That same month, my dad tried to move in with me. It took almost a year to evict him. Got dumped. I met Matt while that was all happening. Who I hypothetically want to fuck hasn’t really been top of mind for a while.”

“Me neither.” 

“No?” 

“Hockey.” 

I put my heel over the toe of his shoe and pressed down a little bit. “I thought hockey players bagged all sorts of chicks.”

“Better ones do. Hotter ones.” I ended up narrowing my eyes at him as I processed that, and he took that as suspicion. He reacted by giving in more, with a deep sigh and a slump. “Dude. It took me a year to get one girlfriend. Girls think I’m stupid.”

Oh. I wanted to back out of that immediately, not just because it gave me chest pain. “I was kidding.” 

Danny stayed shy and sincere. “Well, whatever, that’s probably why I wasn’t good for you guys either.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I didn’t listen when you said to do stuff. Didn’t take care of you at all, or get you over the finish line.” He was counting on his fingers.

“It’s okay.” 

“If you let me try again—“ 

“When,” I corrected him loudly. 

A smile picked up the corner of his mouth but only barely. “I’ll do better.”

He’d started this whole thing asking about how much I liked girls. Thinking about his competition, probably. I shut that down. “Stop. You were perfect already, I’ve never come that fast in my life. I just hope you’re ready, I’ve got a million ideas.” 

Danny spun in the chair a little bit, his mouth screwed up. “Yeah. If Matt ever talks to me again.” 

“He’s going to talk to you. He lives with you. It’s just. This is a whole thing for him, his family’s weird about people being gay.” 

I was testing the word out on him, to see what he did. No wince. His cheeks got a little darker. “Yeah. Mine too.”

“Okay, so be patient. You can’t kick that stuff overnight. But you like each other. This is going to work out.” 

Both of us let the sentiment sit there in the air, equally unwilling to jinx it with doubt. I meant what I said with totally unearned confidence. Or maybe a little earned, because the boys let me have anything else I wanted. So that made this the moment I knew I wanted both of them. 

Danny spent the last hour of the shift with me, which I thought might’ve been part of the plan. He knew my schedule. As much as I’d have loved it, he didn’t talk my ear off the whole time. At some point, he made himself busy on his phone so I went back to my book. That worked for me. As it got busier when people got off work, I was fresh and able to focus. We had a decent little rush, and I would almost say I’d forgotten he was back there except I couldn’t forget it at all. He moved his foot between mine on the floor from his seat behind me. I kept glancing down at it, the toe, to make sure this was real. Same tan shape every time. Danny wore work boots everywhere. Another thing that probably marked him as different from the preppy kids here. 

One of the old man regulars commented on him. “Bob finally got security?” he asked, and I just said yes. True enough. Danny wouldn’t let anything happen to me. After that comment I liked looking back over my shoulder at him in glances and thinking about him as here to keep me company and safe, both. I liked thinking about him watching me, keeping an eye on the things I couldn’t see. 

I liked something else, too. The way he didn’t get out of that chair until I told him to. Like explicitly. I had to say, “Come on, get up. Brian gets annoying if I’m here too long.” 

“What does that mean?” Danny rose to his feet.

“It means he hates women,” I said because I couldn’t really explain it and didn’t have the time. I had just enough time to get out of here. My leaving routine was probably my oldest muscle memory at this point. Taking out my drawer and moving it to the back, counting out bills, locking the safe—I did all that with him waiting around nearby, and finished right as Brian came walking in. 

Another thing that happened right around then: Danny, who’d been giving me my space while I worked, had his hand in mine all of a sudden. “You know what you’re gonna eat tonight?” he asked. 

“Uh.” 

“So no.” 

“I’ll figure something out.” Where was this coming from? That was the thing I’d ask him if we were alone, but Brian was brushing past us. “Hi Brian. See ya later,” I said to him. Danny stepped in closer to me to let him pass. 

Brian, a dude a bit older than me who wore exclusively drug rugs and always shorted people on pennies, didn’t stop walking. “Bye,” he said over his shoulder. 

Danny didn’t like that. He watched Brian walk off for an extra couple seconds, and then he walked out behind me with a hand on my back. “That guy sucks,” he said, and I agreed. 

He wouldn’t let me drive him home. “It’s a good walk,” he promised, and kissed me a bunch. Soft on purpose with me, even though he came here to talk about the guy were both in love with. The thing that was so special about us was how I believed, no doubt, that we were all into each other. Danny had the goofiest smile on his face, talking to me while I unlocked my car and put stuff in it. He’d asked how my week was. I was telling him about the extremely bad movie I watched, and I caught the look on his face being the one I’d seen that tipped me off from day one about him and Matt. His eyes sparkled. I said more, making less sense, to keep seeing it. 

Finally, I called it. I opened the car door to make my point, but then I thought of one more thing to say. “I’ll make soup and grilled cheese,” I told him, hanging onto the half-open door. 

“There you go.” Danny got a look on his face. He leaned in, and I opened the door wider. That was enough of an invitation; he stepped into the space with me and wrapped his arms around my waist, hands linked at the top of my ass. I liked that he was getting handsy. “When am I seeing you again?” 

“Friday. If Matt hasn’t said something to you by then, then I’ll nudge him. Okay? Is that quick enough?” 

He bobbed his head as I was talking. “Yes. Thank you.” One final kiss, because neither of us could help it. He was getting better at kissing me. I imagined him running drills. And then I imagined him running them with Matty.