Chapter One
Benjamin
The afternoon sun heats my skin as I doze to the sound of cicadas carrying on their daily lives around me.
This summer day is just that quiet. My feet dangle in the pool, the cool water lapping softly against my ankles as a sense of calm settles over me.
There are many times in this life when I am overwhelmed, when even the presence of a morning breeze is too loud.
Sometimes I’m falling from too far up, and that’s just the day I’m given.
But today—today I’m lying here, and everything is quiet.
Everything is calm. My feet are on solid ground.
“Bear!” A sweaty body falls over mine, breathing heavily and full of the kind of excitement only sixteen-year-old boys can conjure.
“Hey, Fe. How was practice?” Felix drapes himself over my chest, sitting to face me on the warming concrete. He’s grinning, black curls stuck to his forehead, beads of sweat clinging to his lip. Somewhere along the way he’s lost his shirt.
“It was good. Coach Lynol said I cut my time down by two seconds.” He stares at me for a moment, pausing for input as I squint against the sun to see him clearly. “Bear, that’s supposed to be super impressive. As in ohhhh and ahhhh,” he adds blandly.
“Ohhh! Ahhhh!” I yell, digging my hands into his sides, tickling him as he screams and weakly punches at my exposed chest.
Felix has been my best friend for so long now that I don’t even remember how we became friends.
One day, I didn’t know him; the next, I was at his house every moment I was allowed.
There is nowhere safer than where he is, and for as loud and annoying as he can be, only here, at this house, does the world feel quiet.
Only here do I stop falling. Only here does the itch seem to cease.
“Do you guys want peaches? Mom’s asking.” I stop tickling Felix as a shadow falls over us. Significantly larger, towering at six-foot-one and engulfing the space where we lie—Aaron. Felix’s older brother.
He looks between the two of us, unimpressed, but there’s a hint of a smile on his lips. For all his big-brother tactics, he and Felix get along very well. Which, in turn, means he and I get along very well. Another win for Team Benjamin.
“Personally, I would love a peach,” I say, looking up at him from where I rest as he looks down, catching my stare.
The Archer boys and their mother share one common trait: the impressive nature of their piercing green eyes. At first glance, they all look the same, yet they are strikingly different once you really look. Once you really pay attention.
Felix, for example—his eyes have always been warm and honest. They’ve never shown a hint of malice, always incredibly kind.
Mrs. Archer, or Tina informally, her eyes are sincere.
Almost like a blank sheet of paper; you want to spill everything to her the moment she pries. They’ll get you if you’re not careful.
Aaron’s eyes are intense, always calculating. When they lock onto you, you feel it like a caress. The weight is heavy, albeit a bit suffocating. They aren’t cold by any means—no—but paired with his black curls, intimidating height, athletic build, and confident posture, he’s just… intense.
“I would too, Bub.” Aaron turns that gaze to his brother and gives him a gentle, lazy smile.
“Roger that. What are you guys doing, anyway?” he asks, looking between the two of us where we sit at the edge of the pool—me in my swim trunks and Felix in his athletic shorts. Our skin clings together with sweat, flushed red with laughter and exertion.
“Oh, you know,” Felix begins, grinning up at his brother. How they can look so alike yet entirely different is beyond me. “Bear is just torturing me, as he always does.”
“Well, you interrupted my peaceful vibes with all your crazy, so I believe the torture was warranted,” I argue in my defense, leaning back on my palms and giving my most innocent smile as I look between the two of them. “I truly cannot be faulted.”
Aaron’s lazy smile widens into a full-blown smirk as he turns back to Felix.
“I think he’s right, Fe. You do bring crazy to most places you go.”
Felix gasps, pressing a hand to his chest. The Archer boys are both very beautiful, but Fe is the only one graced with true dramatic flair.
“Wow. Just wow. Why don’t you just take Bear as your brother, then? Since I’m so crazy.” He pouts, crossing his arms in mock anger.
“Well, how about it, Button?” Aaron asks, looking back down at me.
A twinge of warmth spreads through my chest as a genuine smile—a rare one—crosses my lips. I can quite literally feel the dimples pulling at my cheeks.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m afraid I’m too tame. I wouldn’t be able to entertain you as Fe can.”
He laughs, shaking his head at me.
“That’s it! Bear, you’re supposed to love me.” Felix glares from where he sits beside me, and I stare at him for a moment, pretending to contemplate it. “Really?!”
I laugh again. Damn, my stomach is starting to hurt.
“I do love you,” I say. Then I scoot a little closer, wrap my arms around his waist, and push us both backward—straight into the water.
◆◆◆
Dinner is spent with Tina and Greg, talking about Felix’s upcoming track meet and when swim practice will begin for me.
And just like we do a couple of times every week, when we’re done, we move to the den for family movie night.
Felix and I squeeze onto the same recliner we’ve shared since we were eight, while his parents cuddle up on the couch, bowls of chips and popcorn being passed around as a movie is selected.
There’s a comfort here in this room with us, one I wish would extend past these walls, past this house—and into my own home. I feel that familiar itch.
Aaron comes home from wherever he wandered off to before dinner when we’re about halfway through How to Train Your Dragon.
He has Amber Penskey with him, whom I’ve seen around a lot and find pretty nice.
It’s speculated that they’re dating, but I doubt it’s true.
No matter how beautiful she is—and she is—they just aren’t a good fit in that way.
“Are you going to bed, Bub?” Felix asks as they appear in the doorway. It looks like they just came back from a party, with Amber clearly being the sober one of the two.
“He is,” Amber says with a laugh. “Mr. and Mrs. Archer! Hello. I’m just going to deposit him into bed and head on out.
Sorry to bother.” She smiles gently, her long brown hair falling over her shoulder as she lets Aaron lean against her.
She is quite beautiful—long legs, small waist, gentle eyes.
“Hi, Fe. Hi, Bear!” she adds. We both smile and wave.
“If you’d like to stay for the rest of the movie and some popcorn after you get him upstairs, you are more than welcome, darling,” Tina says, tucking a long strand of thick black curls behind her ear. Amber smiles brightly.
“Yes, ma’am!”
I turn my attention to Aaron and am startled to see him staring rather intently at Felix.
More specifically, where Felix rests on top of me, sitting half on my lap, his hand subconsciously resting on my bare stomach.
Aaron’s eyes—fighting to stay fully open and ever intense—look confused and curious, if not a little unsettled.
Then he looks away as Amber guides him toward his room.
I wonder if Aaron ever wishes he had a best friend like this. If he craves the intimacy, the joy of sharing boyhood with another. If seeing Felix and me hurts him. Maybe having a girl best friend isn’t always as easy as I imagine it to be.
I turn back to the movie.
When it ends and everyone says good night, I follow Felix upstairs and into his room.
There are only two bedrooms on the second floor, connected by a bathroom.
Both rooms are spacious, and Aaron and Felix were allowed to decorate however they liked.
Where Felix went with a sports-and-anime theme, Aaron chose sports and motorsports.
I haven’t spent much time in Aaron’s room as of late, but having spent a good portion of my childhood in this house, I’ve lain on his bed or sat at his desk enough times to know that, unlike his brother, he is very organized.
In Felix’s room, the bed is a queen, its headboard pressed against the wall on the left side of the room. I fall onto it once we enter and Felix grabs some of my sleep clothes from his dresser and tosses them at me.
“Do you want to go to the river tomorrow? Amber and Aaron offered to take us with them,” he says as he looks for his own clothes.
“Sure, why not?”
With a conspiratorial grin, Felix turns to face me. “I think they’re fucking. I saw them kissing once.”
He jumps onto the bed beside me and I stare at him. I think I may have eaten too much at dinner—suddenly, I don’t feel so well.
“What’s wrong?” It must be showing on my face.
“Just a stomachache, I guess.” I say quietly, staring down at the clothes in my hands.
“Why don’t you shower first? I’ll go downstairs and have Mom make some tea. That normally helps when I’m not doing well.” He ruffles my hair and rushes out before I can decline.
Sighing, I gather my things and enter the bathroom. I brush my teeth with the toothbrush I keep in the cup by the sink, floss, and then step into the shower.
As the hot water runs over me, I start to feel a bit better.
I must have had some bad heartburn from the steak or something.
Anyway, they aren’t really having sex, are they?
I mean, sure, they’ve known each other a long time, and sure, they’ve kissed—but still.
Aaron turns eighteen soon, so I guess it wouldn’t be that unusual for him to be… sexually active.
Something about this train of thought makes me deeply uncomfortable, unbearably warm. I feel like my body is melting from the inside out, panic licking at my ribs. Deep breaths.
I’m rinsing the shampoo from my hair when I hear the door open and shut.
“Fe?” The toilet lid lifts, and he starts to pee. I laugh. “Caveman.”