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  And yet, the strangest part about the new distance from Patrick is that I find myself missing the sound of his voice. I’ve started to forget it, like a fading echo. Every time I want to call him, right before I get into bed, I run through the reasons why it’s a bad idea. Sometimes, I dream about the boy in the soccer photo. Other nights, I dream of his voice asking me to come into his room. Those are usually the nights I wake up sweating, with an ache between my legs.

  By the end of July, I’ve gone through every recipe I know and finished all five of the downstairs rooms. The living room is going to be next but that’s a huge project to paint, and I have the perfect remedy.

  “Hey, Pat?” I call out for him at the stair landing.

  “Yeah?” He doesn’t even hesitate. There’s a clanking sound like metal falling on metal.

  “Is it okay if my friend Mari comes to help with the living room? It’s a big job and since I’m leaving in a month, I want to make sure everything is finished.”

  His familiar silence drags on for a bit. I wonder if he’s thinking about me leaving at the end of August or if he’s wondering if he even wants another person here. Mari is a gem, but he doesn’t know that.

  “That’s fine. Just let me know when she gets here.”

  I lift my eyebrows in surprise, but shoot Mari a text message to come on over before he can change his mind.

  When she arrives, her usual olive tone skin is a deep bronze tan after nearly two months in Greece. She’s in metal sunglasses, hair brushed neatly back. Her painting clothes are a lot more glamorous than my painting clothes, which include a raggedy pair of sweatpants and a tank top that I’ve washed so many times, it’s nearly see-through.

  “You got your nose pierced!” I shout as she runs to me from her car.

  “It’s my senior year look,” she says, framing her nose with her hands. The little gem twinkles in the summer sun, and I usher her inside to get down to business.

  After she’s done inspecting the place, and after I tell her she has to keep to the first floor and only the first floor, she spends the entire time we paint telling me about the beautiful men she encountered across the Greek islands.

  “Did you also have a musical montage,” I say, then gasp, “which one is the father?”

  “What are you talking about, My Lena?” she asks, dipping the roller in the storm-gray color I chose for the main wall.

  “Please tell me you’re old enough to know about Mamma Mia.”

  She deadpans confusion, then can’t hold back her laughter. “I do, I’m just fucking with you. You are so easily tricked.”

  “It’s my most annoying quality,” I say.

  “So.” She takes on a flirty tone. “How’s everything with Pynchon over there?”

  “First of all, ew. Second of all, things are fine. We get along a lot better than we did at first.”

  “Is he cute?” she asks, wiggling her eyebrows as she rolls Xs on the wall.

  I try to signal her with my eyes because Patrick might be able to hear us.

  “What? I’m just saying it would be perfect if you fall in love and then stay in this house forever since you’ve basically done all the work to put it together. I can be your live-in friend and we can start a sitcom about our adventures!” She raises her roller so high she splatters paint on the floor. I’m glad I put down plastic everywhere.

  “Oh my god, can you not?” I say. “Also, I already have enough of those love theories in the required reading Scarlett gave me.”

  “You could be the lady of the manor, painting away, and turn one of these thousand rooms into your studio.”

  I shake my head, but I know there isn’t much I can do about Mari. I love her as she is, and Pat will just have to deal with this theorizing of hers. After we finish the main walls, there’s only the area around the fireplace left, for which I picked a matte peacock blue.

  “We’ve earned a break,” I declare. “Are you hungry? There’s still leftovers from lunch we can eat by the pool.”

  Mari is already ahead of me, out through the kitchen door and racing along the blue-tiled path that leads to the pool. I carry the bowl of watermelon and feta salad and two forks. We change into our swimsuits. She jumps in, but I hang back because my phone beeps.

  It’s Patrick. My heart feels like it’s on an unbalanced weight.

  Patrick: I didn’t think it was possible to have someone in the house louder than you.

  Me: You wouldn’t say that to my face.

  Pat: Touché.

  I look up at the window of his room, blocked out by the sun. He’s standing there, his shadow not moving.

  Me: Come down.

  Pat: I don’t think I want an audience for the first time we see each other.

  Me: Are you planning on breaking your own rules?

  Pat: I could.

  Me: Don’t tease me, Patrick.

  Pat: Lena?

  Me: Pat?

  Pat: Thank you for lunch.

  Mari pops her head up from the water. Where did she find a pool floatie? “Magdalena Martel, who has you grinning like a fool?”

  “No one,” I say. “Where’d you get that?”

  She swims over to me, a purple noodle under her arms. “Your pool house, duh. You were too busy texting. Would I be correct in assuming it’s Soccer Star Patrick?”

  She cranes her head toward my lap, but I raise the phone over my head. I don’t want to explain this thing between me and Patrick because it feels fragile, breakable, too-thin glass testing the weight of iron. Something like that doesn’t have a good foundation.

  “It’s my sister,” I lie. I set my phone facedown on the poolside and dive into the warm water.

  Whatever this is, I don’t think I’m imagining it. Maybe Mari is right about the way I try to take care of people. But I think in this instance, maybe Patrick and I both are a little bit stray.

  8

  I Walk the Line

  PAT

  “How are you?” I ask Jack.

  “You know, doing my best impression of a calf taking its first steps.” He scoffs, but he seems in an okay mood.

  “They treating you okay?”

  “As best as they are able. It helps that I’m the handsome one in the family.” We’re both quiet. I know my brother isn’t trying to be a dick. Between the two of us, that was always my reigning title. We’ve always had this joke, even when it was the three of us and it was clear that Ronan was the one that women went wild over. After the accident, it’s different. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  I chuckle and remember when it was our father who would dust his calloused hands. We’d be having dinner or sitting out back in one of the few weekends he was home and Ronan and I would be fighting over who got to call some girl, who was taller, who was more attractive. Dad would say the same exact words Jack spit back at me and we’d all laugh it off because it didn’t matter. Because we were family. “You’re stealing all of Dad’s best lines.”

  Still. I trace the scars along my left cheek.

  Jack takes a deep breath, and even if what he said feels like a kick in the gut, I sidestep it and keep going. After all, I’m the one who put him in that recovery room and me in this glass box.

  “How’s it going with Lana?”

  “Lena,” I correct, and know the land mine I stepped on.

  “Whoa, easy now. It was a simple mistake. How’s Lena?”

  “It’s not like that, and she’s fine. She’s in the pool with her friend from school.”

  “How do you get that lucky even when you’re a miserable old man?”

  I shake my head, walking into the kitchen. I grab a glass of water but it’s a shitty excuse because I have water bottles all over my gym and my room. Every part of me just wants to be closer to where she is. “I’m not watching them, you pervert.”

  But I can’t lie. Seven months ago, the guy who drove that car, the guy who was doing shots out of a girl’s belly button and trying to talk his best friend out of
getting married, would have absolutely watched Lena and Mari sunbathing by the pool. When I danced with the guys of Mayhem City for the very first time, I didn’t really understand the point of shaking your ass on a stage when you couldn’t touch. I’d been to strip clubs with friends for all kinds of reasons, but I never liked them because I had always preferred physical interaction. The spark that comes with looking into her eyes and knowing that we want the same thing. Then, on her go, we’d get into bed or whatever location inspired us.

  Ricky was the one who showed me how to loosen up on stage, to not be so stiff. It was just after my knee surgery, when I had wanted to be someone else. I even took my mom’s last name instead. I didn’t think Dad would mind because he was dead, but the guilt still dug its heels into me. It was before the days of truly invasive social media, so it was easier to leave my past as a failure behind. The Donatello name is a ghost around these parts, and that has saved my privacy. At least while I’m home. But with Mayhem City, up on that stage, I learned the instant attraction that comes with watching a body move. The instant want. Desire. Lust. All of it.

  Lena is not on a stage, and she is not for me to ogle at when she isn’t aware. But from the open window, I can see her and Mari sunbathing facedown, giggling to each other in a way I never hear Lena laugh when she’s with me.

  She isn’t with you. She works in your house, ijit.

  That realization alone gets me averting my eyes. Focusing on my brother’s words.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I said, my doctor says I’m making an improvement. That maybe I’ll be out of here by the holidays.”

  “Good. You’ll be home soon.”

  “Can’t wait to see what you’ve done with the place,” he says sarcastically. “Hope you haven’t stuck to the same chrome dome aesthetic you had going on.”

  “No,” I say and clear my throat. “Lena’s already finished the first floor. It’s nice. Not what I imagined but it feels—” I want to finish that sentence. I want to say it feels like home, but I know the implications that come with that. “Better.”

  Jack sucks his teeth and mumbles something I can’t quite make out.

  “What was that?”

  “I’m asking if she’s going to still be there when I get back?”

  I shake my head, a leaden feeling beneath my ribs. “She’s out at the end of August.”

  “You shouldn’t be alone, Pat.” The worried change in his tone gives me whiplash.

  “I’ll be fine, little brother.”

  He takes a deep breath but doesn’t fight with me about it. Instead, he tells me about the nurses who are the nicest to him and about what his career options look like after this. That Ricky had always wanted to hire him even before the accident. I was never sure why I didn’t want Ricky hiring my little brother. It wasn’t because I wanted to protect him. It’s a good life with good pay and he’s a grown-ass man. Was I jealous of my own little brother upstaging me?

  I don’t want to think about it anymore.

  When we say goodbye, I want to tell him that I love him and that he’s going to be all right, but the words are only half formed, and by then, he hangs up on me.

  Lena’s laugh draws my attention. Whatever her friend is saying has her rolling over on her back and clutching her stomach. Jealousy surfaces hot on my skin because I want to be the one eliciting that laugh. I want to coax more than a laugh from her pretty mouth. From the kitchen window, I see her eyes glance back.

  She can’t see me. I know that, because of the glare. But somehow, she knows that I’m right here. Her hair is a glorious tangle of black over a warm brown shoulder, and her eyes are squinting against the sun. Water drips from her skin and for a moment, I can’t breathe when I imagine what my fingers would feel like running up and down her spine.

  That sensation moves down my chest and settles around my crotch. It is safe to say that I haven’t had this feeling since I got home. The first few months I just laid in bed. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I sure as hell didn’t jerk off. I wanted to remove myself from this body, this thing that wasn’t me.

  For the first few months I thought there was something wrong with me because no matter how much porn I watched, I couldn’t get my body to cooperate, my dick to move. It’s not like I wanted to, either. But I grew increasingly fucking frustrated. I just wanted to know that I still could. It was one of those things I couldn’t bring myself to tell my doctor in California or Kayli when it became clear I wasn’t going to leave the house. At one point in March, I lost the ability to want to do anything, even get out of bed.

  Thankfully, Scarlett came to my rescue in the form of books. Perhaps it speaks to my own ego that it was reading the series I modeled for that got part of me moving. Seven months is not a long time to go without sex. But for me, it is. I can’t quite explain the reason I abstain from touching myself in this very moment, thinking of Lena.

  It’s almost wrong.

  No, not almost. It is wrong.

  Dirty in a way too fucked up even for me.

  God, I’m already mortified as I take my painful erection upstairs. It is so fucking hot all of a sudden that I open the window I haven’t opened in seven months. There’s a breeze and it helps. For about ten seconds.

  I throw myself facedown on my bed, but then I find myself grinding against my fucking mattress in a way that is even more painful.

  Lena is laughing again, and I want to bottle that sound forever because it means that she’s happy. She isn’t stressed about putting the towels in the wrong place and she isn’t tearing up because I have, yet again, snapped at her. I get up and go to my bathroom and turn on the shower.

  Why are you like this? I ask the foggy, warped reflection that stares back at me in the glass. I turn the water as fucking cold as I can and gasp when I stand under the shower, raking trembling fingers through my wet hair.

  Right, because pneumonia is the cure for a hard-on.

  I don’t bother with pajamas or even dinner. I jump into bed and take one of the Lunesta sleeping pills Kayli prescribed to me for my insomnia. I haven’t taken any since I started talking to Lena on the phone or through text, but I need it now because I can’t think clearly without envisioning her in that swimsuit, her long muscular legs powerful enough to crush my head between her thighs.

  When I close my eyes, I see her swimming. I see her climbing out of the pool. I see her glistening in the sun, refracting water. I see her coming up the stairs to my house and walking slowly down the dark corridor leading to my room. She opens the door and stands at the threshold. She doesn’t scream when she looks at me, and instead, she keeps walking. She crawls into my bed, under the covers, and climbs on top of me.

  I try to touch her, but she shakes her head, biting her bottom lip, and says, “No hands.”

  So, I keep my arms pressed on my mattress, bunching the fabric in my fists. I feel the cold rush of water turn into hot, wet warmth as she takes my dick in her hands.

  “Close your eyes,” she says, and I do. I do whatever she wants me to do as long as she’ll just keep touching me this way.

  “Lena,” I sigh as she sits on her knees, guiding the swollen tip of my cock into her slick, wet pussy. I can’t breathe as she sinks down, sits deeper until she is all around me. She is everywhere, wholly consuming me, and I don’t want her to stop.

  I try to grab her hips, squeeze the muscles of her thighs. She presses her hands on my chest.

  “No hands,” she whispers, fucking my cock in bold, hungry swivels of her body.

  “Lena,” I say over and over until I open my eyes and a sharp, jerking sensation wakes me.

  I sit up, my swollen dick in my fist.

  But then, I hear a sweet cry come from outside my open window. It’s dark out and Lena’s singing. No, not singing. She’s moaning.

  When I rush down the hall to get a better look at the front of the house, I do not see any other car but hers. Lena is moaning alone in her apartment.

  I return
to my bed. The moment I turn on the bedside lamp the sound stops.

  Fuck. I brush my hair back and instantly regret it.

  I pick up my phone, my fingers possessed as I find our messages. She asked me if I had dinner. She asked if I was okay. She said good night and I wasn’t there to answer her.

  I can’t be the only one imagining this feeling.

  You up? I text.

  Lena types and stops. Types and stops for the most torturous sixty seconds of my time with her.

  Lena: Couldn’t sleep.

  Me: Lies.

  Me: I heard you.

  Then she’s calling me. I don’t realize she’s calling me at first. But suddenly, I’m staring at her name lighting up my phone, my heart racing at a thousand miles per minute.

  I slide my finger across the screen and answer.

  “I heard you first,” she says.

  LENA

  “Come on, Lena,” Mari says, splashing water at me. “I lived with you for the better part of last semester and I know for a fact that you never brought a guy home. You’re the hottest piece of ass in our class, except for me of course.”

  “What’s your point?” I ask, laughing into my beer. Considering we’ve spent all day painting a living room, I don’t feel so bad drinking Patrick’s supply. He hardly touches the stuff anyway. I glance over my shoulder, my eyes flicking to the window of his room. He isn’t there, Lena.

  God, what’s gotten into me? Is it just Mari’s energy after not seeing her for months? Is it because a part of me misses talking to Patrick on the phone most nights? I wish I had an endless supply of patience, but mostly, I just want to face him. I want to know if this feeling he evokes is a figment of my imagination. I want to know if I get the same butterflies in person as I do when we’re exchanging messages.

  “My point is that summer is for flings and you are not flinging. Come with me to the Whiskey Tap tonight.”

  “You and my sister should be friends,” I say. “Especially since the two of you are obsessed with my love life.”