Chapter 20
20
Dexter
“How are you feeling?”
A shallow sigh filters through the phone, followed by a pause. “You know, body ache this, nausea that,” Janet answers, the glum tone of her voice doing nothing to hide her sarcasm. “But I haven’t thrown up since the day before yesterday.”
“Progress.”
She gives a defeated chuckle, one that sounds more like a scoff. “I’m actually out with Charles tonight.”
I turn away from the short pick-up counter at Pepper Thai, where I’m waiting for my order to be called. “You up for that? Like, being around people? I thought you weren’t supposed to be out in crowds and stuff. Weakened immune system and all.” She told me this the last time we spoke, brushing it off as a needless precaution from her doctor.
She makes a loud pshh sound through the phone. “I was getting stir crazy. All I do is go to chemo, stay at home and watch Real Housewives , and go to more chemo. I haven’t even been back to the gallery since last week after my doctor told me to take a few extra days off. I was craving some strawberry milkshakes and onion rings, so Charles is treating me.”
“At The Lunch Car? You’re in Brooklyn?”
“Mm-hmm,” she answers.
“Just be careful.”
“I will!” she whines. “Do you have plans tonight? You want to join us?”
“I’m getting dinner right now and heading home.”
“Then meet us here.”
“I, uh…”
“Do you have a hot date? Is it Starbucks girl?”
I chuckle.
“You do, don’t you!”
“Janet, I’ll talk to you later. Tell Charles I said hi.”
“You need to tell me who she is. You can’t keep her a secret. I’ll eventually find out!”
“Bye.”
“Wait! Does she know you had an unhealthy obsession with Baby Spice when you were in third grade? Or that you wore diapers until you were five?!”
I hang up right as my order is ready. With my dinner held neatly in a brown paper bag, I walk the two blocks back to my apartment. It’s become my evening routine. After a regular, uneventful workday, I take my usual commute home. I make a pit stop at Pepper Thai to pick up Lucy’s latest favorite pad thai and mango sticky rice before being greeted by her back at my apartment.
This situation between us feels a little unresolved. Like the spinning wheel in the middle of the computer screen making you irrationally impatient. It’s subtle, lingering in the moments she nudges a little closer to me on the couch or when our hands brush as we reach for the remote at the same time. I would say it’s probably me being overly paranoid and unnecessarily wary, considering how not awkward we are with each other most of the time, but it’s there. It’s been there since Lucy uttered those four little words, and they’ve been playing in my head on repeat.
All the damn time.
It’s like a record track playing some voodoo chant over and over and over again. One that I honestly don’t even mind playing on a constant loop.
I shove those words into a small file cabinet in my head as I approach the steps leading up to my building, hoping they’ll eventually fade away, knowing they most likely won’t. While it might be fun and, quite honestly, a little daring to venture down the path to discover what she meant when she said it, I don’t think she wants to have that conversation. So, as I choose to remain a gentleman and keep my mouth shut about those words I was definitely not meant to hear, I open my apartment door and beeline to the kitchen to set down the food. It’s quiet aside from the muffled music playing in Lucy’s room, something that sounds like Justin Bieber or the Jonas Brothers.
“Lucy! Dinner!” I call from the other side of Lucy’s door, followed by a quick knock. I turn my feet toward the bathroom to quickly wash my hands before Lucy steps out of her room. But when I open the door, I find her there. Not in her room, where I imagined her singing along to pop music sung by outgrown teeny boppers. She’s stepping out of the tub with the curtain drawn all the way back. She’s naked. And wet. With flushed skin and steam floating around her. Oh, and did I mention naked ?
“ Ahh! ”
My feet feel like they’re set in cement. I just stand there, dumbfounded. I should look away instead of staring at those slippery curves lining down her hips or the perfect valley between her breasts. I should definitely look away. Pretend I didn’t see anything. Or close the door and take the next train to Nova Scotia. Or… something .
She reaches for a towel and fumbles with it in her hands. “Dexter! Do you mind?!”
When Lucy’s glare meets my deer in headlights, it’s like all common sense returns to my body. I shut the door and turn my back against it. “Lucy. I’m sorry.”
There’s no answer. All I hear is some shuffling of feet and what sounds like clothes and towels being thrown around.
“I thought you were in your room so?—”
“Dexter, it’s fine.”
“I didn’t mean to stare.”
“Ohmigod! Dexter!” she shrieks with the door muffling her voice. “I said it’s fine. Please, just…Let me get dressed.”
Great , now I’m the asshole who first, got his fill of her naked body and second, am not doing the one gentlemanly thing by letting her get dressed. “Yeah, sorry. I’m sorry.”
Shit! As if things between us weren’t ambiguous enough. That spinning wheel is back, and I have no idea how to get rid of it. It’s not like I can press ctrl+alt+del and make things restart between us.
I’m pacing the kitchen, unsure of what to do with myself. What do I say when she comes out of the bathroom? If she comes out. I mean, she can’t stay in there forever, right? Maybe I’ll just pretend like nothing happened. Or offer to show her mine? Like a tit for tat kind of bargain?
I hear the bathroom door open as I’m sifting through the takeout containers, hoping I look busy and unbothered. I try to keep my eyes on the food in front of me, but when I see Lucy’s polished toes peek from the hard floor, I falter.
“Lucy, I’m sorry. Really. I thought you were in your room. And I-I didn’t mean to, you know, stare.” I grimace, knowing I sound ridiculous with my excuses and half-assed explanations .
“It’s fine,” she assures, looking equally embarrassed and annoyed. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”
Now that’s unexpected. I stop what I’m doing to look up at her, a flicker of amusement lining my features. I bite back the smile on my face with my teeth pressed in my lower lip.
“What?” she asks a little tersely when I continue to stare at her. “It’s true.”
“Okay.”
“Dexter,” she calls when my smile widens, and I look away to avoid the stern look she’s giving me. “I’m not saying let’s make this a regular occurrence, but we can be adults about it, right?”
I smirk. “Better than my plan.”
She gives me a wary look. “What was your plan?”
“Showing you mine. You know, to even the playing field.”
She looks at me, her face twisting in an attempt to hide her laughter. A loud snort rattles through her throat when she ducks her head while covering her mouth. Little droplets of water land on her shirt from her wet hair, darkening the material with small spots, and I get a small whiff of her shampoo and body wash. “You are such a weenie.”
I lean back when she pushes her hand to my shoulder, her body shaking with laughter. “I’m a weenie?”
“Total weenie,” she confirms, her hand still pressed into me.
“ Wooow ,” I answer, feigning shock while trying to ignore the warm, fuzzy feeling spreading across my chest. What is it about when she playfully shoves me that makes me feel all giddy and confident? Like I can move a boulder or do The New York Times crossword puzzle in one sitting. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone over the age of nine use that word before.”
“Well, you know, if the shoe fits.” She ignores the twist in my lips hiding my smirk, the practically menacing bounce in my brow, and even the shift in my body, angling my hips toward her as if offering an invitation.
“‘If the shoe—’” My buzzer rings just then, interrupting this amorous back and forth.
I wasn’t expecting company, so Lucy’s face matches mine in confusion when we look at each other as I walk to the door. “Who is it?” I call, pressing the intercom buzzer as the staticky feedback distorts the outside noise filtering through the speaker.
“It’s Janet!” I hear. Followed by “and Charles” in a deeper voice.
Aww, crap. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Bringing you dessert. Now let us up!”
I do as she asks, or rather, demands, and quickly turn to face Lucy. “Uh, it’s my sister and her boyfriend.”
“Oh.”
“Uh…” I laugh nervously and cup the back of my neck, figuring out how awkwardly this is going to go, just as a sharp knock on my door interrupts us. “I’m. Sorry.”
When I open it, Janet stands there, a Styrofoam to-go cup in her hand and the widest smile on her face.
“I couldn’t head back home without bringing you a mint chip milkshake,” she says coolly while breezing past me. She stops when she sees Lucy at the counter. “Ah-ha! So you do have a hot date!”
Charles stands by my sister’s side and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Babe, you’re killing his game.”
“Oh, no. We’re not—I mean, I’m not…” Lucy stutters.
“Janet, this is Lucy. She’s…visiting from Seattle for, uh, work. And staying in the spare room.”
“Hi,” Lucy says with a small wave of her hand.
“Lucy, this is my sister Janet, who likes to come around unannounced like she pays rent.”
“Don’t be a dick. You should be thanking me for bringing you this liquid heaven.” She extends the milkshake in my direction—a peace offering or a bribe, I don’t even know—with an innocent smile. I look at her, examining her gaunt features. Her hair is beginning to thin, and she’s wearing a lavender-colored scarf wrapped around her head. The skin around her eyes is a shade darker than the rest of her face, making her features look sallow and pale at the same time. And even though it’s summer, she’s wearing a thick cardigan wrapped around her small body because of the incessant chill rolling through her.
I take a step toward her while reaching for my drink. “Are you okay?” I ask, keeping my voice low and discreet.
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know…I just want to make sure. You’re really okay?”
“Yeah.”
When I don’t say anything else, Janet rolls her eyes. “I’m going to go home and rest after this. I just wanted…”
“To be normal for a night?”
“Yes.” She exhales a sigh that sounds like she’s slightly annoyed. “Plus, you were on the way home. So please just, drink your damn milkshake and let me be.”
Instead of prodding further or telling her to go home right away, I take a long, drawn out sip of my milkshake, savoring the dessert I would ride a tornado to get to. And even though my ability to share dwindles down to toddler-level selfishness when I have a mint chip milkshake from The Lunch Car in my hand, I can’t resist offering Lucy some.
“You want some?” I say, low and carefully.
She hesitates.
“I don’t have cooties.”
She rolls her eyes and takes the drink from me. As she takes a sip, Janet makes a choked sound.
“Did you just let her have some of your milkshake?” she asks, her mouth slacked open in shock. “The milkshake I had to pry off your hands to sneak a sip? The same one you wanted hooked to an IV when you were ten?” She turns to Lucy. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring you one. I really didn’t believe that he had a date here. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen him with a girl.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” Lucy says quietly with a shy smile.
“But since this greedy little jerk seems to be in a giving mood,” she teases, “I guess it worked out. He must really like you.”
Lucy smirks, and I roll my eyes. “Sorry,” I whisper, leaning into Lucy a little closer.
“For what?” she whispers back. “I think your sister’s better company than you. At least she doesn’t ogle my naked body like a total pervert.” Her brow shoots up, and her lips purse together, suppressing a cheeky smile.
I respond with a cocky smirk of my own. “I thought we were going to be adults about that.”
“Oh—”
A sharp cough, more like an act of faux throat clearing—like a literal “ahem” sound—interrupts us. It’s then I realize how my body’s inched closer to Lucy, her own body angled to face me with her hips aligned with mine. We aren’t even touching, and I can feel that we don’t look like two platonic roommates discussing milkshake flavors or the week’s weather forecast.
When I look over at Janet and Charles watching us, they both smirk and eye each other, passing along a silent tell. Something that silently whispers, Did you see that?
“Okay, Janet,” I announce loudly. “I think it’s time for you to head home.”
Janet sighs, which transitions into a yawn, and Charles naturally wraps his arm around her waist in a way that shows he’s holding her up instead of a small display of public affection .
“Fine,” she answers. “I’m tired anyway. I guess I’ll have to embarrass you another day.”
“Thank you for stopping by,” I urge, crowding both Janet and Charles toward my door. “Please use that device in your purse with the number pad and fancy screen to announce your visit next time so I don’t have to set up security outside my building for future intrusions.”
They’re halfway out the door when Janet looks at me over the shoulder. “Or you can hang a sock on your doorknob. Or is it a tie?”
“Bye!”
I turn my back to the closed door at the same time a loud, staccato-like noise erupts from the Styrofoam cup in Lucy’s hand. She pulls her lips away from the straw and smiles sheepishly. “I hope you weren’t hoping for leftovers.”
I smile. “It’s fine.”
I gesture toward the kitchen, where our takeout containers are still sitting there, untouched and growing cold. “Let’s eat.”
Lucy agrees, setting down the now empty disposable cup. “Your sister’s funny.”
“Yeah,” I scoff. “She’s got a great sense of humor.”
She laughs. “She’s your older sister?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“As the perpetual baby of the family? Yes.”
“She’s, uh…She’s not doing too well.”
Her brow furrows, and she reaches her hand to rest on my forearm. “I’m sorry.”
I nod in answer, and she doesn’t pry, which feels so much more comforting than her asking why my sister isn’t doing well. And even though we continue in silence, letting the click of plastic utensils take up most of the noise, it feels less heavy than saying the words out loud.