Chapter Thirteen #3
“Intriguing.” I turned to face him. The kitchen was so narrow that when I leaned against the counter, we were barely a foot apart, giving me a marvelous view of his backside.
Alex dried his hands with the dish towel and turned to face me.
He leaned against the counter on his side of the kitchen and crossed his arms over his chest, like he always did when he leaned against counters.
He did a lot of counter leaning, come to think of it.
I drew my eyes from his arms up to the dish towel, which he’d tossed casually over his shoulder.
Was he doing this to me on purpose? How was it fair for him to be so easygoing and attractive at the same time?
Could he hear how loud my heart was beating?
It was practically drumming through my chest as he looked at me.
“You changed the music,” I said when the first song ended and another Marvin Gaye song began.
“I did.”
“Songs I actually know for once.” I grabbed the empty wine bottle from beside me and lip-synched a few lines into it. “My mom loves Marvin Gaye,” I explained. Loved, I thought. There wasn’t much she loved anymore.
“So you like it?”
I shrugged, feeling a little light-headed. “Seems a little suggestive. It makes a person wonder what sort of exciting things Ocean might be into.” I froze, clutching the wine bottle tighter. “Did I . . . say that out loud?”
“You did.” Alex’s eyes darted to the dining room before flicking back to me, and my face grew hot under his gaze.
Damn those Drunken Joeys. And the wine. And that tux.
All I could think about were my burning cheeks, and the silver in his hair, and how utterly screwed I was, because these feelings for Alex were more serious than I’d realized.
He pushed off the counter and stopped right in front of me. Ducking his head, he looked me in the eye. “Are you tipsy, Florida Girl?”
“N . . . no.” I set the wine bottle on the counter, then glanced at the now clean wineglasses drying beside the sink with the pitchers Nina had left behind. “Maybe. Okay, a little.”
Alex looked at me for a long moment during which I didn’t breathe at all. “Good,” he said with a nod. “It’s your party. You should be tipsy if you want to be.” He pulled the dish towel from his shoulder and dropped it into my hands, his eyes bright with amusement. “Here, you dry.”
He stood at the sink again, hands back in the water. Reel it in, Jo, I told myself, and stood beside him. Shoulder to shoulder, we fell into a steady rhythm: wash, dry, put away. Neither of us spoke, though it was the loudest silence I’d experienced in a long time.
Mia, Kitty, and Greyson laughed, and Alex shot me a sideways smile as he passed me another plate.
He didn’t need to say anything, because I knew exactly what he was thinking: there was no better sound in the whole world.
I strained to hear the girls’ voices. Their laughter made me want to be in on the joke, to have one more perfect moment.
“You know what I want?” Mia said when the laughter died down.
“What?” Greyson said.
“Red hair.”
“Red hair? That’s what you want?”
“Yup. But not the natural kind of red. Like fire-engine red.”
“It’s true,” Kitty said. “In that video game, The Sims, she made herself with red hair. She also made her crush, Mason, and had them get married and—”
“Kitty! What did I tell you about playing my profiles?”
Alex’s shoulders shook with barely contained laughter beside me, making it more difficult to hold in my own.
“You should totally do it,” Greyson said. “Why haven’t you?”
“Because Mom would kill her,” Kitty said. The girls fell into silence, and Kitty spoke again, her voice quieter than before. “Red was Sam’s favorite color.”
“Duh. Why do you think I want red hair?” Mia said.
My stomach tightened at the mention of Samson. All the warmth of the evening left me. I looked down at the dish towel in my hands, willing myself to keep moving.
I could feel Alex watching me. His hands stilled in the sink, but I kept moving the dish towel in circles over the already-dry plate.
“Do you remember the night he died?” Kitty asked.
“Yeah, of course,” Mia said, sounding annoyed.
“I don’t remember,” Kitty said. “That whole day, I don’t remember it.
And . . .” Her voice broke, and she paused.
Why had Alex stopped washing the dishes?
I turned away from him and put the plate in the cabinet.
He could see I was fine, really, I was. “I’m starting to forget him too,” Kitty continued.
“I can’t remember what his laugh sounds like. Is that normal?”
“Jo.” Alex put his hand on my arm, but I pulled away.
“You don’t have to remember it,” Mia said. “Just watch his stupid YouTube channel.”
“I forgot about that,” Kitty said.
My entire body ran cold, and I froze, white-knuckling the counter. Samson had a YouTube channel? Beth had never mentioned it. Did she even know?
“It’s just boring gaming stuff,” Mia explained to Greyson. “You don’t even see his face, but he laughs a lot on it. Here.” I glanced at the table and saw Mia pull out her phone.
“Jo,” Alex said again, and I shook my head, pressing my lips together to keep them from trembling.
Samson’s voice suddenly, jarringly, filled the condo. I let go of the countertop, my chest so tight I could hardly breathe. “The mail. I have to . . . I really better go get it . . .”
I left the kitchen without looking back at Alex. Kitty and Greyson stared at Mia’s phone. Mia looked up at me as I passed, but I couldn’t make out her expression through the tears blurring my vision.
I pushed my way out of the condo and hiked up the bottom of my dress, running barefoot down the walkway and up the steps to the beach. I opened the gate with shaking hands and didn’t stop running until my toes touched the water.
The sand was cool just beyond the ocean’s reach, and I sat down near where the turtles had hatched on the night Alex caught me skinny-dipping in the condo pool, hoping the roar of the ocean would overwrite Samson’s voice in my mind.
But the tide was going out and would only get quieter as the water pulled away.
I tried to keep from crying, but a sob broke loose, and once the tears started, I couldn’t stop them.
I cried harder than I had when Mom called to tell me what had happened, harder than I had at the funeral or when I’d snuck into his room.
I cried because I’d been perfectly content standing in the kitchen with Alex.
Because up until now, it had been one of the best nights of my life.
But how could that be? How could it be possible for my life to become wonderful when he wasn’t here?
At the sound of my name, I drew my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms tightly around my legs. Alex. Why had he come here? Couldn’t he see I wanted to be alone?
I kept my face turned away from him. “I’m fine,” I said when he stopped beside me.
“You don’t look fine.”
I stretched out my legs and dug my toes into the wet sand, watching a wave flood in. It washed over my toes before falling back into the ocean again. “I needed some air.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” Alex continued to stand there, not speaking. “Can I help you with something?”
“No,” Alex said, voice gentle.
I pressed my hands to my temples and squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry. Really, I’m fine. I’ll be back inside in a . . .” My voice trailed off as Alex lowered himself into the sand beside me. “What are you doing? I said—”
“That you don’t want to talk about it. I won’t say a word. Just let me sit with you.”
Alex rolled up his pant legs and stretched out his legs beside mine, getting his tux covered in sand.
He looked out at the water, and I remembered how Samson and I used to sit like this and watch the sunrise, maybe in this very spot.
Emotion caught in my throat again, and I tried to keep it in.
I didn’t want Alex, or anyone else, to see me like this.
But then I heard music. Down the beach the bounce of a flashlight moved toward us—a runner with a radio strapped to their side.
As the runner came closer, the music grew louder.
The song ended and commercials played, harsh and obtrusive as they hawked Taco Tuesday specials and CoolSculpting fat loss procedures, louder and louder, until the runner passed, and the sound retreated.
I started laughing: an uncontrollable, stomachache-inducing laughter.
I buried my face in my hands, laughing so hard tears slipped down my cheeks, and in an instant, I went from laughing to weeping.
“It’s not fucking fair,” I said, my sadness turning to anger as I watched the runner’s light fading in the direction of the pier.
“It’s . . . wrong. I don’t understand, Alex.
He was here, and then he wasn’t. He was fine.
He was riding his fucking bike! We were supposed to go to a fucking Marlins game this summer!
My sister, she didn’t deserve this. And Mia and Kitty, they loved him.
They were all so close. Fuck!” I shouted, and closed my eyes, trying to push away the anger, but it wouldn’t leave me.
“I know I’m just his aunt. I should be getting better by now, right?
I have to be there for everyone else. But he was family.
Beth and Mark and the kids, they’re the only family I have. ”
Alex hardly moved through the laughter and the crying and the ranting.
I thought of the closeness that had grown between us and the strange combination of ease and tension I felt whenever he was around.
I’d told Nina it was easier to be single.
But there was more to it than that. Wasn’t it obvious I was too much of a mess to love?
And then Alex wrapped his arms around me. I let him pull me to him, burying my face in his chest. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s not fair. Of course you’re still upset.”
I cried, taking in the comforting, never-changing smell of him, which only made me cry even harder.
If I let this smell and the reassuring sound of his voice shushing into my hair become familiar to me, that meant one day they would be gone, whether by choice or, as Alex would call it, fate.
And then what would happen to me? Anyone could be taken in an instant.
They could die, or leave, or change. You could spend eighteen years together, like Mark and Beth.
You could do everything right and still not make it.
I thought of my sister and the question I’d wanted to ask her ever since the night Samson died.
Was it worth it? If you’d known what would happen, would you do it again?
When my breathing was even, I looked up at Alex.
His face was inches from mine as he held me.
His hands were firm against my back, and as I searched his eyes, full of warmth and kindness, all my excuses for why I couldn’t have him fell away.
All I could hear was the roar of the ocean, the quiet rhythm of his breath on my cheek.
Before I could think, before I could change my mind, I leaned forward, drawing closer as if pulled by a magnet.
Alex’s arms tightened around me, but he didn’t move.
His lips were a mere breath away, one more moment, and we’d be—
“Jo,” he breathed. He pulled back gently, the smallest of increments, and shook his head. “I don’t—”
“Oh, oh my God,” I said. I turned away from him.
“I’m so sorry.” I shrugged off his arms and stood.
Alex reached out to grab my hand but only caught air.
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m just so .
. .” I pressed my palms to my eyes. How had I read things so wrong? How had I let myself get so close?
“Jo, wait—”
“You’ve been such a good friend, Alex.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “That was a mistake. I didn’t mean . . .”
Alex got to his feet. He stepped closer, but I turned away and caught sight of the pool glowing softly up by the condo. If I looked at him, I’d start crying, and what if I said something I regretted? What if I embarrassed myself again?
“Jo, listen—”
I needed to leave before he could try to make me feel better.
He’d say it was no big deal, or that he understood, which would only make me feel worse.
I felt his hand on my shoulder and pulled away.
“I have to go,” I said, and ran back up the beach, the wind swallowing the sound of him calling my name.