32. Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
Margot
I kick my shoes onto the rack as the door closes behind us. Shrugging off my coat, I flip on the switch to turn on the overhead light and then hook the coat up. Gesturing toward the open hook, I motion for Alex to hang his things, too. Above us, the light flickers as usual.
“Make yourself at home,” I say, walking into the kitchen to grab two water bottles. Alex follows me and starts rummaging through the cabinets under the sink. “Um, it’s just an expression.”
Alex chuckles, pulling out a white box from underneath and heading back toward the entryway.
“What are you doing?”
Alex walks back over toward the doorway. “Changing your lightbulb.”
Without the use of a ladder or even a step stool, Alex reaches up and unscrews the light fixture from the ceiling. He hands the top to me as I stand bewildered underneath him.
“I can see that. Why are you doing it?”
“Because it flickers.”
“Alex.”
“Margot.”
He removes the sputtering light and replaces it with the fresh one he found under the sink, taking the part from my hand and placing it all back within seconds.
“How did you know we’d have lightbulbs under the sink?” I ask, still amazed by what just happened.
Alex shrugs. “That’s where my mom always kept the spare lightbulbs.”
I nod, a grin forming. “Well, thanks,” I say, handing him the water bottle and we both make our way to the couch.
“Would you tell me about her? Your mom? Only if you want to.”
I pull my knees up to my chest and Alex sits across from me, his leg crossed at the knee. “My mom was…eccentric. And I know most people say that when you can’t say anything nice about the person but I mean it. She was happy and funny, warm and kind. She would spend her mornings making us pancakes with smiley faces before she drove us to school. She would buy us treats at the store just because she wanted to or sometimes she’d plan a spur of the moment trip to some town or other on a weekend and we’d pile into the car and drive for hours.
“One time, she said ‘get in boys, we’re going to the moon’ and then she drove us about four hours north to some frozen cave in Vermont,” Alex laughs at the memory. “We sat in the cave, drinking hot chocolate, and she told us stories about her adventures to space with her sisters.”
Alex pauses, his face being more serious. “We never met her sisters though. She had two of them, I think. They didn’t want anything to do with us.”
He takes a shaky sip of his water. “See, because those mornings she would make us breakfast and drive us to school, those were also the days she would forget to pick us up and chain smoke a pack of cigarettes on the back porch while I threw some frozen pizza in the oven for me and my brother.
“The treats from the store always came with a chuck out the window if we so much as looked at her the wrong way in public and those weekend trips, well…you heard what happened during the last one.”
Alex stops speaking and I have no words to say. I can’t believe he is opening up to me like this. I can’t believe he’s had such a tragic home life. Before I can muster up the courage to say something, he speaks again.
“And you might be asking, but ‘Alex, what about your dad during all this?’” He cocks his head. “Well, he was building an empire, of course. Prescott Cars. Cars for you. Cars for life.” He waves his hands up into the air as he quotes out the motto of his father’s company. “And he loved my mother. Truly, he did. The love radiated off of him whenever he was around her. But when she was going through an episode, when she wasn’t her charming, charismatic self, well, how could he love that person? No, that person didn’t deserve his time or attention. And by extension, neither did her sons.
“I can’t wait until the day that I can get Drew out of that house.” Alex takes a long sip of the water, caps the bottle and then throws it across the room. He runs his hands through his hair, resting his elbows on his knees.
“I’m sorry,” I lean forward, gently rubbing the shoulder nearest to me. “That is so horrible. You and Drew do not deserve that.” Alex surprises me by catching my hand on his arm, he looks up from his lap, his red eyes capturing mine. And then he kisses me.
This kiss is unlike the rest. It’s a kiss that’s meant to help him to forget the past, rewrite the bad memories with good ones, ones we can create together. I lean into his passion, allowing him to lose himself in me as he leans me back onto the couch, pulling his body on top of mine. His hand travels down to the seam of my shirt and then he grips his way underneath, clutching at my bare waist.
My hands are in his hair, holding him impossibly closer to me as our mouths mold together. The hand under my shirt moves upward toward my lacy bra and I thank myself for putting on a matching set.
I move my hands down to the bottom of his shirt and with very little force, yank it up and over his head. Our lips part for mere seconds before he’s on me again, his smile against mine.
Our passion continues and I release a moan when Alex’s hand wanders down toward the button of my jeans. I want him there, more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Alex pulls back to look into my eyes, a silent question. I give him a nod and he kisses me again, his free hand releasing the clasp of my pants. Slowly, the zipper moves down.
And then the key turns in the lock and our eyes bolt open. We’re on the living room couch. Alex is half-naked and my brother is about to walk through that door.
My frantic expression tells him what he needs him to do and Alex follows direction well as he jumps off the couch and runs into my room, slamming the door behind him, just in time for the front door to open.
“Y'all are back early,” I comment breathlessly, smoothing out my hair and clothes before standing up from the couch.
“Bar got lame once you guys left, turns out you’re the life of the party, Mars,” Arden says, kicking off his shoes and hanging his coat. As that happens, Danika and I have a silent conversation.
Danika: Alex leave?
Me: He’s in my bedroom.
Danika: Yes, bitch!
Me: Eye-roll
I stifle a giggle and look down to hide my blush. It’s then I notice that Alex’s shirt is still on the floor. My laugh dies in my throat. Sydney, having clocked the entire silent exchange, jumps into action.
“Arden, can you get me some water from the fridge? These heels are so uncomfortable, I can’t walk another step.”
My brother, being the southern gentleman that he was raised to be, could never let down a woman in duress. He jumps up and immediately sets toward the fridge. Once his back is turned, I swipe the shirt from the floor and run for my bedroom door.
“Well, okay, goodnight!” I say as a final goodbye before slamming the door and resting my back against it. I have to cover my mouth to keep the shaking laughter inside of me. Alex is standing in the center of my room, shirtless, entirely delicious and I can’t help the laughter that erupts.
“That was not funny,” Alex laughs too and he walks over, running his palm down the side of my face. He leans down and scoops me up into his arms, his right arm supporting my weight while his left continues to caress my cheek. He kisses me lightly. “Nothing like a big brother to ruin the mood,” he jokes, resting his forehead against mine.
“That was so close,” I sigh into him.
“Would it have really been so bad if he caught us?”
I lean back to look him in the eyes. “Let’s just say, he doesn’t just hunt for sport.” Alex immediately drops me, letting my body fall against his as I grunt in surprise. “It’s a joke, you big baby!” Using both my hands and most of my strength, I push him down onto the bed, his laughing form bouncing once against my many cushions and pillows.
Reaching forward, he grabs my waist and pulls me up into a straddling position on top of his lap. He runs his hands up and down my back inside of my shirt and the feeling is divine.
“Do you want to stay here tonight?” I ask, my heart in my throat.
“Or leave and risk running into big bro out there? Yeah, I think I’ll take my chances in here,” he says, gripping my waist and pulling me impossibly closer. He kisses my neck gently, then not so gently. I let my head fall back as he continues to pepper my skin with caresses.
“But we aren’t having sex.” Alex looks up as I look down. “I don’t know if you were expecting…”
“I have no expectations, sunshine,” Alex says, kissing the tip of my nose and then laying us both down on the bed, face to face. “Can’t even leave to brush our teeth, can we?”
I push away from him. “Oh, I can,” I say, sticking my tongue out at him as I skip out of the room, grabbing my pajamas on the way out. The living room is quiet as I walk through to get to the bathroom. Hm, that’s odd. Did Arden go back out or something?
I don’t give it much more thought as I brush my teeth, wash my face and run a quick comb through my hair. Shrugging out of my clothes and into pajamas, I give myself a once over in the mirror. I’m about to sleep with a boy. The thought warms my cheeks in the very best way. Even if we aren't having sex, this is still the farthest I’ve ever gone with a guy but Alex makes me feel completely comfortable.
When I return to my room, ready to blow my minty-fresh breath all over Alex’s face, I find him curled up asleep amongst my pink and white duvet set. I curl in next to him, letting my back hit his front but not in a way where I’m forcing him to spoon me.
But, boy does he. Alex pulls me into him, leaving very little space between us. His top arm hugs my waist as he snakes his bottom arm under my neck.
“Goodnight, sunshine,” he breathes into my hair.
“Goodnight, frat boy,” I reply and he’s so close I can feel him smile.
When I wake up, Alex is gone. Before I can completely panic, I find a note resting on the pillow where his head was.
Wanted to make sure we didn’t get caught by big bro so I left early this morning. Stop overthinking it.
Something has me holding back my smile. What if he really just couldn’t wait to get away from me. He didn’t get what he wanted from me last night so he’s left to get it elsewhere. I pick up the note and sigh in defeat before turning it over.
I said stop overthinking, beautiful. Meet me for lunch.
My smile erupts and there’s nothing I can do about it. A date with Alex. Another heavy make-out session with Alex. Another smile because of Alex. Who am I and why has this love-sick teenager taken over my body?
The smile is still plastered on my face as I leave my room, the smell of fresh coffee sending me straight to the kitchen.
“Someone is happy this morning,” Danika taunts, handing me a mug. I shush her with a finger to my lips, gesturing toward my brother’s sleeping form on the couch. She rolls her eyes. “Oh please, he’s out like a light.”
I fill my mug with the life-giving elixir.
“So, spill!” Dani demands and I hit her with that shut up stare again.
“There’s nothing to spill. We slept.”
“You slept?”
I nod, taking a sip of the hot beverage.
“Did you at least sleep naked?” I swat her arm, indicating to her this conversation is definitely over, at least until there are less inquisitive ears about. “Is he still here?”
“He left early this morning so Arden didn’t see him.”
“What a gentleman, sneaking out in the morning,” Dani rolls her eyes but she doesn’t mean real offense.
As much as I want to meet Alex for lunch, I don’t know how long Arden is going to be in town and I need to get to the bottom of what he’s doing here in the first place. Sending Alex a quick text, I let him know I’ll just see him tomorrow in class instead.
“Did Arden go back out last night?” I ask, pouring him a fresh cup of joe.
Danika glances at me before looking over at Arden’s sleeping form. “How should I know?” She leaves the kitchen without another word. Weird.
Brushing off that awkward exchange, I bring Arden his coffee, leaving it on the table for him when he wakes up. For the next hour, I get to every piece of school work I’ve been putting off. All this time spent with Alex and on the podcast has really taken a toll on my coursework. I vow to myself this week to catch up and get ahead of my syllabi to make up for lost time.
“You work any harder, you’re going to run those keys straight through the board,” Arden jokes from the doorway. He runs his hands through his bedhead, yawning once. In his hand is the mug of coffee I made him that’s more than cold by now.
“I can make you a fresh cup if you want,” I say but he shakes his head, taking a sip of the previously piping hot beverage.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Finishing up the last sentence of my Investigative Journalism paper, I close the laptop and take a sigh of relief. “Lunch?” I ask, glancing at the clock on my phone to see the time. There’s a couple of texts that I missed while I was doing my work. Mostly from Danika and Sydney in our group chat. A couple from Alex. I’ll check them later.
“More like breakfast,” Arden scratches his head and pulls his sleep shorts up a bit. Chuckling, I push him out of my doorway.
“Shower, change, be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“Aye, aye,” Arden salutes me before turning on his heels and following my directions. Shooting a quick text to my roommates to tell them where I’m going. Turns out both of them had left the apartment already, Sydney to workout at the gym and Dani to gawk at boys working out at the gym.
Once I’m dressed and ready, I plop on the couch to wait for Arden. Alex’s text looms and I open it.
Why don't you want to have lunch with me?
Having lunch with Arden
And you don't want me to come because…
It's not that I don't want you to, it's just that I didn't think you'd want to hang out with me and my brother
Don't assume to know what I want or don't want, sunshine
Do you want to come?
Yes
Too bad, see you tomorrow
I send a kissy face then close my phone before he sends his response but I feel it vibrate in my pocket. He’ll get over it. I need to talk to my brother without anyone around.
“Let’s roll, Mars,” Arden says, giving the back of my head a light pat as he passes by the couch. I turn on the overhead light by the door and am immediately reminded of what Alex did last night. And then I’m reminded of what we almost did on the living room couch. I feel my cheeks start to flush as the memory invades my brain.
Shaking my head to clear myself of the vision, I whip my coat off the hook and pull my arms through.
“How’s Cafe Royale sound?” I ask as we head out of the apartment.
“Sounds like it has food so I’m in,” Arden holds the door as we leave and the brisk autumn air hits me like a force.
I pull my jacket a little tighter. “So, you just couldn’t wait until the holidays to see me?” I let out a laugh but it’s not sincere. I need to know what’s going on with him.
Arden doesn’t speak for a little while. As we approach the front door of the cafe, I’m about to grab his arm and demand he talk but he beats me to it.
“The factory job isn’t working out for me.”
I blink a couple times. “What does that mean?”
Arden sighs, running his hand through his hair. Alex does a similar move when he’s exasperated. “It means I need to get out of South Carolina. I need to do something better for myself. I can do something better.”
He sounds like he’s talking more to himself than to me. “You can do whatever you set your mind to, Ard.”
He laughs, “Thanks, Hallmark.” Arden holds the door for me to enter the cafe and he follows suit as I walk in and head toward the order counter. After ordering two breakfast sandwiches and two coffees–and after Arden demands to pay we’re sitting at a table by the window, coffees in hand and sandwiches being made.
“Did something happen at the factory?”
“The boss started cutting my hours. No rhyme or reason to it just, didn’t need me as much, he said.”
“Can they do that?”
Arden takes a sip of his black coffee. “They can do whatever they want, they own the place.”
“So you’re not doing as many hours at the factory but why does that mean you need to leave South Carolina? What about Dad and Memaw?”
As much as it wasn’t fair that I was off in college with Arden was home helping Dad take care of our memaw, that was the deal that we made. Dad told me to get out there and make something of myself so that when I came back, I could help more than I could before. We made that deal for the betterment of our family. Something must be really bad for him to want to just up and abandon them now.
Arden sighs. “I just need a change of scenery, Mars. A change of pace.” He sits back in his chair. The waitress takes this time to drop off our sandwiches and Arden tastes a massive bite.
I can’t seem to stomach my own sandwich at the moment. “So what are you gonna do?”
He chews, swallows then speaks. “I’m not sure yet. I just know I’ve got options to weigh, that’s all.”
I nod once, swallowing the words I want to say. The question I want to ask. How does he know it’s all going to be okay? Did Dad get a raise? Is Memaw on the mend? Do I need to go back and take his place as helper of the house while he figures out what he wants to do? It’s only fair, I suppose. Although I really would’ve liked to graduate from TU before having to do that.
Arden, sensing my hesitation, reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “It’s all gonna be okay, kid.”
I nod again, letting him appease me. Or at least letting him think he is. Taking a small bite of my sandwich, I think about what I need to do in order to go home and help out. I’ll have to go to the registrar’s office and unenroll from classes. I’ll have to quit the paper, and that means no more New York Times internship contest. No more podcast. No more Alex.
I choke a bit on a piece of egg sliding down my throat.
Arden peeks up at me from his sandwich. “You’re not going anywhere,” he says. As if he can read my mind.
“But, if you need to—”
“Margot, no. That’s not what’s going on here. You’re finishing school. You’re living out your journalistic dreams.”
“But, Dad and Memaw—”
“Are fine.” Arden places the food down with a sigh. “Will you just trust me on this? Everything is fine.”
I have no idea how I can trust his words considering the situation we have at home but I have no other choice. Maybe after he’s gone, I’ll call Dad and see if he can shed some more light on the situation.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out to reveal a text from Alex.
Dinner then? Cmon, I wanna see you
We're ordering in
Pizza or chinese?
Pizza
I'm in
Before I can respond, Arden is gathering up the garbage on our table, distracting me from the text. I would love to have Alex come and hang out with my roommates and my brother. It does, however, make me question even more what we are. Are we friends with benefits? Co-hosts with benefits? Are we going to announce to the school that we’re together on the podcast? Are we together? Are we in a situationship? Too many questions and absolutely no answers. I need to assess with Dani and Syd. They’ll know what to do.
“What do you have planned for the rest of the day?” Arden asks as we head toward the door.
I shrug. “Nothing, really. You’re here so we can do whatever you want to do.”
“I want to sit on the couch.”
“Excellent,” I reply, linking my arm through his as we walk back to my apartment to do just that.
“Basketball or football?”
I tuck my feet underneath my butt on the couch, balancing the paper plate on my knee. Arden answers, his mouth full of pepperoni.
“Neither, baseball.”
“What baseball teams are there in South Carolina?” Alex asks, shoving the last of his crust into his mouth. Reaching down to where he’s sitting on the floor, I place my crust onto his plate. Alex catches my hand and kisses my knuckles.
If Arden notices the exchange, he doesn’t let on. “None but I still like to watch. I’m a Yankees fan.”
Danika scoffs.
“Problem, brat?”
She hits him with a withering glare but doesn’t respond.
Alex apparently isn’t done with his round of twenty questions to ask my brother. “What about cars?”
“Couldn’t care less about them,” Arden responds, undeterred. He’d sit there and answer questions all night if he could. It is actually a heart-warming sight. I enjoy seeing them bond, even though it only makes the questions in my brain about our relationship grow.
“What do you do in that factory in South Carolina?”
“I pack and load goods all day. Nothing fancy.”
Alex grabs my empty plate and gathers it with his own. He gets up from the floor and grabs the rest of the garbage on his way to the kitchen. “That sounds like it would get pretty boring.”
“It did.”
“Did?” I ask.
Arden coughs. “Does. It does get boring but there are perks to the job.”
“Like what?” Sydney asks from the chair across the room.
Arden takes the opportunity to flex his arms like a Greek god. “Got these amazing muscles to show for it.” He winks at Danika who feigns vomiting before she gets up to join Alex in the kitchen. Grabbing a water bottle for everyone, the two of them join us back in the living room.
“I don’t know what I wish I could do when I get out of college,” Alex says somewhat absent-mindedly.
“You don’t?”
“I don’t exactly have a choice. I’ve been groomed for my career since I was a kid. I’ll be next in line to run Prescott Cars.” He sounds absolutely miserable about the idea of going into business for his father and I don’t blame him.
“I’m guessing you don’t want to do that,” Sydney asks. Alex blows out a breath.
“It’s actually the very last thing in this world I want to do and I’ve been fighting like hell to avoid it since I was fifteen years old but it seems like you can’t avoid the inevitable.”
The mood has shifted suddenly, and all eyes are on the sad college senior who seems to be receiving a death certificate rather than a diploma when he walks down the graduation aisle.
But Alex, being the ray of sunshine that he is, turns it into a joke to lighten the mood. “Another inevitability is a full bladder,” he says with a chuckle, standing up from the floor to use the bathroom. The air is heavy as he walks out of the room but I know he’d rather have us on a different subject by the time he comes back. And I’m happy to supply that for him.