Lake
LAKE
I glance at my watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. Ryk and I are supposed to go to the movies, but he’s running late.
He’s never late.
In fact, he’s generally almost obsessive about being on time. Something about having to skate laps when he was late to practice when he was a kid. I tug the sleeves of my coat lower and rub my hands together. I forgot my gloves, so my fingers are freezing.
It’s a welcome sight when Ryker rushes around the corner, jogging toward me. He’s wearing a pair of jeans, his coat is unbuttoned, and underneath it he’s wearing the cream cable-knit sweater his mom gave me for Christmas this year. He’s also stolen my favorite woolen beanie at some point. The level of remorse is clearly zero for that, because when he sees me, a bright smile appears on his lips.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says once he reaches me. And then he hugs me. Right there, in front of people and all. It’s something he’s started doing ever since that night at the diner.
My heart is trying to beat itself out of my chest. His lips brush over the shell of my ear.
“We need to hurry if we want to catch the movie,” I manage to get out.
His eyes shine, and there’s something luminous about his smile tonight. It’s almost as if he’s glowing.
“I want to show you something,” he blurts.
“Okay? Right now, or…?”
He glances toward the movie theater as if only now remembering it’s even there.
“Now would be good. If it works for you.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re being weird.”
He just laughs at that.
“Come on.” He drags me to the subway with no further explanation.
He spends the whole train ride smiling to himself and humming under his breath like some six-foot-three reincarnation of Pollyanna.
We get off the train in Brooklyn, which isn’t our usual haunting grounds, so I honestly don’t know where we are exactly, but Ryk seems to be familiar with our surroundings. He confidently takes a left and starts to walk.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You’ll see in about five minutes. The subway is really close, which is convenient,” he says brightly.
“Uh-huh. That’s nice.”
We walk in silence for a little bit.
“It’s a nice neighborhood,” Ryk says then. “Did you see all the trees?”
“Did I…” I shake my head and try to not look as weirded out as I feel. “Yeah. Lots of trees for sure.”
“There are a couple of great bars and restaurants around here,” Ryk continues. “And access to the park.”
I stop walking, and it takes him a moment to realize I’m not next to him because he’s busy praising the virtues of prewar architecture.
He turns around and raises his brows at me in question. “You okay?”
“Are you okay?” I counter.
He sends me a dubious look. “Perfect.”
I’d argue that, but in the end, I just shake my head and catch up to him.
It only takes us a few more minutes of walking before we stop, and he smiles at me. I look around the quiet street, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be seeing. By all accounts, it’s just a regular street in a residential area. Granted, it’s a very nice street, and the houses have the kind of elegant charm that comes with age, but that doesn’t make it any clearer what it is Ryk wants to show me.
Ryk stands behind me, takes hold of my shoulders, and turns me until I’m facing the redbrick building on my left. He waits for a beat and then marches me across the street until we’re standing in front of the house. Once that’s done, he pulls out a key and unlocks the door.
Next thing I know, I’m being ushered inside.
I look around the dark foyer. A moment later Ryk flips the light switch, and we’re bathed in the light of a single sad bulb hanging from a wire in the ceiling.
I turn to face him after another moment of resultless contemplation. “Okay, what am I looking at here?”
“It’s the house my parents want to sell.”
“Weren’t you dropping off the keys to the realtor the other day? Why are we here?”
He blows out a breath and runs his fingers through his hair, gaze moving over the walls before he faces me again. “I want to buy it.”
I digest those words for a bit. For some reason, buying a house feels like an impossibly grown-up thing to do, and hearing he wants to do that impossibly grown-up thing makes me feel distinctly not grown up.
Who buys a house?
He nudges me with his shoulder. “You still with me?”
I swallow and nod. “You want to buy a house?”
“Yes.”
“This house?”
He laughs softly. “Yes, this house. I want to buy it for us.”
“But…” I really don’t know what to say to that. The high ceiling in the foyer doesn’t really help with me feeling very small, so I walk farther into the house until I’m in the living area. That, too, is impossibly spacious. Not that Ryk and I live in squalor right now. It’s a perfectly respectable one-bedroom apartment. But it’s not roomy like this house. I back away a few steps until I hit a wall, and then I slowly sit down on the dusty floor and look around.
Ryk comes and sits down next to me, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, and thigh to thigh. He’s very calm, and I’m very not.
“Why?” I ask after a bit of silent contemplation.
He looks at me, eyes imploring and serious. “I want us to have a home. A permanent one. A place that’s here for us no matter what. Something that’s ours. Like a safe space.” He takes a look around. “I like Vermont, and I like Boston, but I love New York. I can see us settling here for good. I mean, I might get traded, or you might get a job somewhere other than here, but we can still keep this place. Rent it out while we’re away or… I’m sure we’ll figure that out if or when it happens.” He takes my hand and links our fingers. “But that’s only an idea. We’ll only go through with this if you want to. If you’re not into this place we can forget the idea and get on with things as we are.”
I draw in a big breath and force myself to see past the apprehension.
“You can see us here?” I ask. I sound pathetically vulnerable, but with Ryk it doesn’t matter.
“I can see us anywhere as long as we’re together. I like this place, though. A lot.” He gets up and holds his hand out to me. I grab it, and he pulls me to my feet.
“There are two bedrooms upstairs. And here…” He pulls me forward. “Here we could have a sitting area, and a kitchen there. We’d put in bigger windows here. There’s another bedroom through there.” He points to another door. “I figured we could have an office for you, so you’d have a place to study.”
He keeps walking around, describing what he’s seeing in his mind, and the empty space around us fills with his imagination. By the time he’s done I can see everything he says so clearly in my mind’s eye.
Some of the apprehension is still there. How could it not be? This is still a lot to take in at once.
But it’s also enticing. To have a home. A real brick and mortar home. A place of our own. Something that belongs to us and only us.
It’s the kind of security that’s been lacking in my life for a long time. Forever. I’ve never even acknowledged to myself this might be something that’s missing for me, but somehow Ryk knows it and wants to give it to me.
And I’m hovering and trying to find cons in this plan for some reason.
“What do you think?” Ryk looks at me expectantly. Hopefully. But at the same time, I know that should I say no to this, he wouldn’t be disappointed and would just accept it like he does everything else when it comes to me.
In the end, I nod. “Let’s make your parents an offer.”
A few days later, I’m in the chemistry lab, packing up my stuff, when Paige stops by my desk.
“Hey, you,” she says brightly. Honestly, hats off to her for the persistence. I’m not sure what it is that keeps her coming back to me, since I’ve been determinedly a standoffish asshole to her from the start.
I’m not exactly sure why now, at this exact moment, but I’m suddenly intensely aware what a dumb move it is to isolate myself from people like Paige—the ones who aren’t afraid to put themselves out there and who seem genuinely interested in getting to know me.
“Hi,” I say a bit belatedly, then I add an unnecessary, “Hey.” Because double greetings make up for previous dickish behavior. Obviously. I also put on a smile, which makes Paige give me a surprised look, so I tone that down after a little bit.
I clear my throat. “How are you?”
This is small talk, right? This is how people do that, right? I should take lessons. It’s New York. I bet somebody’s offering.
Paige’s smile widens. “Great. Busy, of course. Some days I feel like I’m slowly collapsing under the workload, but aren’t we all?”
A guy stops right behind Paige. “Aren’t we all what?” he asks.
“Oh!” Paige presses her palm to her heart. “Charlie. You startled me.”
Charlie lifts his hands apologetically and then nudges his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I thought you heard me behind you.”
Paige’s smile widens, and she flips her hair over her shoulder. “We’ve got to get you some shoes with soles. Well, you do have soles on your shoes. Louder soles, I mean. Like steel soles? Is that a thing?”
Her face gets all flushed, and she’s starting to get that mortified look about her that people get when they really wish they would’ve stopped speaking about three sentences ago.
“What kind of shoes are those?” Paige asks, peering down at Charlie’s feet, and as socially incompetent as I might be, even I realize this might be the moment to step in and interrupt.
“Hi,” I say. “I don’t think we’ve officially met. I’m .”
“Charlie,” the guy says, and we shake hands before he pushes his glasses up his nose yet again.
“So, Charlie, what have you been up to today?” Paige asks now that she’s dropped the shoe investigation.
Charlie scratches the back of his head, and Paige flutters her lashes at him, which the guy doesn’t seem to notice at all.
Interesting.
“School,” Charlie says, while looking somewhat surprised by the question. “We’ve been in the same classes the whole day.”
“Sure, sure.” Paige is starting to look flustered by now. “Do you like cake?”
“I think most people aren’t opposed to cake,” Charlie says.
Paige nods. “That’s cool. What… kind of cake do you enjoy?”
Charlie tilts his head to the side and purses his lips for a moment. “I’m not sure I have a favorite, but if I had to choose, I guess chocolate?”
“I make the best chocolate cake,” Paige says immediately.
“That’s cool.” Charlie adjusts the strap of his backpack. They both fall silent, and I’m too busy watching them to talk.
“Well, I should get going,” Charlie finally says.
“Oh.” Paige sounds disappointed.
I wait.
She doesn’t say anything else.
“See you on Monday.” Charlie starts to walk out of the room.
I look at Paige, and when she meets my gaze, I raise my brows at her and tilt my head toward Charlie’s retreating back.
“What?” she mumbles, blushing again.
“You’ve got a crush,” I whisper.
“No,” she scoffs, then adds a loud, “Shh!”
“Ask him out.”
“So, I can ask him more intelligent questions about cake?”
I look at her, then at the door Charlie disappeared through.
“Why do you have that look?” Paige asks.
I hurry after Charlie and call his name in the hallway, just as he’s about to exit the building. He turns around the exact moment Paige comes to a halt behind me.
“What are you—” she says.
“Paige and I were going to grab a bite to eat. Want to come with us?”
Charlie blinks for a moment, eyes huge behind the lenses of his glasses. Then he shrugs. “Sure. Why not?”
We end up in a pub a few blocks away, and once there are drinks in front of all of us, Charlie gets up to go to the bathroom.
I send Paige a smug smile.
“Dick,” she says, lips twitching. “But thank you. And please, God, stop me if I go off on a tangent about cake. Or any dessert for that matter. I can’t bake!”
“But savory food is okay?” I ask innocently. “If you want to discuss soup flavors it’s fine?”
Paige laughs and drops her forehead on the table with a groan. “You don’t understand. I’m awesome with people. I was voted most social three years in a row in high school. But whenever I’m near Charlie, I just… My head goes completely empty and only stupid stuff comes out of my mouth. Every other conversation I have with him is about the weather, for God’s sake!”
“It must be love.”
“Ha ha.” She makes a face, and I nudge her foot with mine underneath the table.
“Relax. I’ll be your wingman tonight.”
“Wingman.” She rolls her eyes. “I need a miracle.”
Charlie comes back to the table then, and soon after, the waitress appears with our food.
We talk about school for a bit because that’s easy common ground. We discuss the exams and classes, then move on to more personal topics from there. The light, get-to-know-you questions.
“Indiana,” Charlie says when Paige asks him where he’s from. “Smack dab in the middle of the Corn Belt. My parents have a farm, and my brother and sister both work there, too, so I’m a bit of an anomaly. What about you two?”
“New York. Born and raised,” Paige says with a grin. She’s much more relaxed by now and more like her usual self. At least, the usual self I know from the few times we’ve interacted. “My parents run an advertising agency together. I’m an only child.”
They both look at me.
“Vermont,” I say. “There’s just me and my mom, and she lives in Australia.” I leave out the more complicated details for now.
From there, it’s easy to fall into a conversation and get to know people. New people.
It’s less scary than I thought. I don’t feel exposed in a bad way. It’s more that I’m choosing to invite people in and finding that I like the feeling.
That there’s belonging in it.
That maybe it’s okay to expand the circle. Open up. Let people in.
Okay, now it feels scary again.
I spend a few seconds trying my best not to hyperventilate.
It would be so easy to give in to these thoughts and keep hiding.
But right as I’m about to slink away, a sudden thought hits. If I don’t take this risk, Scott wins.
Scott wins.
John wins.
Am I really going to let them dictate how I live my life?
I’m… not sure. This is what I’ve been like for so long.
But I sort of know that for the first time in forever, the thought of having friends—new friends, real friends—doesn’t feel like something to avoid at all costs.
That maybe, instead, it’s worth the risk.
The first step is the hardest.
“And now I live here,” I say. “With my boyfriend.”