Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
Miles is silent on the drive. We drive down a long country road with fields on either side. We round a curve in the road and there’s a picturesque barn in the distance. I can see the twinkle lights and a line of cars from here. Miles’s knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.
“Nervous?” I ask.
“Hm?” His fingers quickly drum the steering wheel. “Yeah.”
I frown. “Is it just seeing Kira again? Or is there something else to be nervous about?”
He clears his throat and sort of shrugs.
I hazard a guess. “You’re worried that…you’ll see her and feel…regret? For breaking up with her?”
His eyebrows rise and he glances at me. “No. Not worried about that.”
I purse my lips. “What is this? Twenty Questions? Spill, Miles! You engineered an entire camping trip just to get me to be your backup at this shindig but you won’t let me help you, for shit’s sake!”
He scowls at me. “The camping trip was for the list!”
“Uh-huh.”
He parks at the very end of the line of cars. And just sits there.
“Miles—”
“Okay, okay. Look. In a town this small…if you’re the guy whose entire family dies in a car crash…you’re sort of famous? In a terrible way? Right after they died I had some…outbursts.” He gives me a wry look.
“I’m familiar with the concept.” Worst inside joke ever.
“Well, it felt like everyone was sort of afraid of what I might do or say after that.” I wince at how painful that must have been, and he lets out a long sigh. “Kira’s the town sweetheart. When we started dating, everyone seemed to sort of…accept me again.”
“But then you broke up.”
“And she was very mad and very hurt and she stayed here and I left. So…yeah. I have no idea what we’re about to walk into. With Kira or with everyone else.”
I consider this. “Okay, yes. That sounds scary.”
And now I see why he brought me here.
“You love Cody, right?” I ask him. “You definitely want to show up for his big day?”
Miles nods.
“Great! Let’s go eat barbecue and do the Cupid Shuffle. If anyone judges you or treats you weird they can take it up with me. Today, I’m your enforcer.”
I slam out of the car and he follows suit. “That simple, huh?”
The ceremony is taking place along the side of the barn, and luckily we can sidle up and stand in the back behind the folding chairs. Miles gets a few nods, a few smiles, and I get a few wide eyes and up-and-downs. But then the music starts and a redheaded man with a cane starts down the aisle. The groom, I assume. He makes his way to the altar (a plume of willow branches), turns around, and breaks into an absolutely soul-melting smile.
I crane my neck to see the bride and I’m extremely beguiled by the woman in black leather pants, Louboutins, and a black button-down charging down the aisle. She only has eyes for Cody. When she makes it to his side, she rests one hand on top of the hand he’s resting on his cane. It stands between them and they lean in toward one another for a quick pre-ceremony kiss.
“Oh, my God.” I swoon and quickly grab the nearest man. Luckily it’s Miles. He looks down at me. “I want to be them,” I whisper.
He smiles, searching my eyes, and looks back up at his pal at the altar.
The ceremony is brief and sincere and they just can’t stop kissing each other.
Next up is barbecue and dancing. Miles and I stand at the outskirts. He hasn’t said hello to anyone yet. I bump his shoulder with mine. “Should we go say congrats to Cody and Tasha, was it?”
He clears his throat and scans the crowd.
“And by should we,” I continue, “I mean we should.”
“Right. Yeah. Okay, let’s go. Oh shit.” He’s taken one step and stalled. “It’s Kira. She’s coming over here. I can’t tell if she’s mad.” His eyes are boring into mine, his hands jammed into his pockets. “What should I do?”
“Say hello, be sweet. If you think she’s open to it, a light hug. Tell her she looks lovely, if you think she does.”
There’s no substance to my advice, but he’s wholly latched to it. “Okay.” He nods resolutely and then turns to face the woman inching her way toward us. She’s got strawberry blond hair and is absurdly pretty. She’s wearing a lilac dress and a nervous smile.
“Hi,” she says shyly, one hand behind her back and the other doing a little wave.
“Hello,” Miles says sweetly, quoting me verbatim. “How are you?” He goes in for a quick hug. “You look nice.”
“I’m good. Thanks.” After their hug, her eyes dart to me. “Hi, I’m Kira.”
“Lenny,” I say with a hand gesture that starts as a shake and ends as a wave. Kira’s a waver, not a shaker. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.” She pauses, stares at Miles’s shoes for a moment, and then perks up a little. “I’m so glad you came, Miles. Cody will be so happy.”
“Yeah.” Miles clears his throat. “I’m really happy for him.”
“Well…” She clears her throat too.
“Is that your dad manning the grill?” I ask her, throwing all three of us a topic.
“Yes!” She jumps onto the lifeboat. “Barbecue was his idea. My mom wanted something fancier.”
“Like manicotti?” Miles asks, and it’s clearly an inside joke between the two of them because they’re suddenly grinning at each other.
“I think it’s still too soon to tease her about that.”
They continue grinning and then they realize they’re grinning at each other. The moment swells and deflates. She’s nervous again. “Well, I just wanted to say hi.”
She starts backing away but then stops cold, both hands grabbing her skirt. “Miles…I came with Sean.”
There’s a distinct pause.
“I mean…I mean that I’m with Sean. I came with him and I’m with him.” She looks very much like she’d like the earth to open wide and end things mercifully.
Miles clears his throat again. “That’s great, Kira. That’s really great.”
“Oh! Okay. Right.” She does one more little wave and then scampers back to the party.
I turn to him and cock my head, studying him. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Who is Sean?”
“Sean Vogel.” Like that answers my question.
“And he is…?”
He’s still watching her walk away. “She cheated on me with Sean a few years ago. I took her back. Nobody ever knew but the three of us.”
Ice spears through my chest. Kira’s the town sweetheart. When we started dating, everyone seemed to sort of…accept me again. I’m aching for the younger version of Miles who didn’t want to be the outcast anymore. Who couldn’t pack up Anders’s room but stayed with Kira to prove he was all better. Who wanted happiness at any cost.
“Are you really okay?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath and drops his head back, letting all the air out in a thin stream toward the sky.
“You know? Yeah. I’m glad she found someone. And I’m really glad she’s not mad anymore. Mostly it’s a relief that the saying hi part is over with. Should we eat?”
He’s already walking toward the buffet line, but I’m stuck ten feet back.
Instinctually I know that he doesn’t need soft sympathy right now. I scramble to catch up to him. “We should have given me a major makeover. I’m talking, like, lip fillers and a boob job. I should be wearing a Jessica Rabbit dress.”
He stops walking and frowns at me. “You’re not my revenge date. You’re my…copilot.”
His words fill me with helium. I explode into a grin.
“Miles!” We turn and there’s a high school buddy: toothy grin, receding hairline, two arms thrown around Miles. “My guy! So happy to see you!”
We’ve attracted some attention, and a small crowd gathers around Miles. There’s some backslapping and some high fives and some kisses on the cheek.
Finally we get food and we sit down and watch white people dance. Always a treat.
“So. There’s ‘Purple Rain.’?”
He looks up from his beer.
“Any interest in dancing cheek to cheek?” I ask him.
That gets a laugh. He turns to watch all the couples holding one another. Some loosely, friendly, chatting with other couples as they twirl past. Some have hands in each other’s hair, their eyes locked. Some look like this is the one time of year they put their arms around each other, at someone else’s wedding. Some look shy, elated, tentative. Like finally there’s an excuse to feel body heat through a dress shirt.
He hasn’t said no yet.
“I’m a good dance partner, Miles,” I prod. He doesn’t turn back to me, so I knock my knuckles against his. He looks at our hands lying next to each other on the tablecloth. Then he knocks my knuckles back, only this time it’s more of a brush.
“I know you are, Lenny.”
I cock my head. “How would you know that?”
And now I’ve got his whole attention. His gaze starts at my eyes and then it draws a slow, sinuous line down my nose, my earring against my cheek, the gloss on my lips.
By the time his eyes make it back to mine, my heart has started beating very fast. He hasn’t answered my question and I don’t think he’s going to.
—
We still haven’t made it across the barn to where Tasha and Cody are eating ribs with giant rubber bibs on. There have been too many people to either greet or avoid. Right now, Miles is patiently enduring a headlock from a man who’s braying like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. I’m five feet away and enjoying the spectacle but decide to take the moment to use the bathroom.
As I’m washing up I notice that this bathroom is accessible through a door to the outside as well. And that door is flapping open in the wind. I go to secure it when I glance through the crack and see a person crouching out there.
Kira is gloomily scrolling sports highlights and sighing. It strikes me that being the town sweetheart might be a real drag. Like a performance you’re never allowed to retire from. She springs to a stand when she sees me.
“Oh, hi,” I say. “Sorry to interrupt.”
I’m about to head back inside when she takes a quick step toward me.
“Wait?” she requests. She’s got her hands behind her back again and her eyes on the ground. Either she’s mastered demure or she could really use a confidence boost.
“What’s up?” I step out into the night. The wind has started to pick up a little, and she and I both reflexively grab the bottom hems of our skirts.
“It’s not my business,” she says.
And whatever she’s referring to, no, it isn’t, but I’m curious, so I give her a nod.
“But Miles is a really great guy and he’s been through so much…I swore to myself that no matter who he ended up with…I’d make sure she knew…”
Her eyes are glossy with tears.
“He doesn’t know he’s doing it—he doesn’t mean to—but he hides.” She taps her chest. “In here.”
I blink at her. This doesn’t quite compute.
“And it might be hard to deal with at times. But…he needs a really gentle touch. He seems like a tough guy, but he needs someone really gentle.”
Gentle? Miles?
They dated for five years, so I’ve been assuming that Kira knew Miles inside and out but—
Somebody comes around the corner behind Kira.
“Baby?” he calls.
“Hi.” She turns to smile at the man who, I assume, is the infamous Sean Vogel. All her artifice drops. Her hands come out from behind her back, her lip suddenly unbitten. She’s reaching out for him, grabbing on to what clearly lives in her heart.
He’s happy to see her, one arm around her neck and his nose against her temple. Then he spots me and stiffens. “Oh. Hey.”
“Hello. Sean? I’m guessing?” I smile at them and it’s genuine. There’s love here and I’m glad they’ve found it with each other. “Good to talk with you, Kira. I’ll get going.” I give them a wave and slide back through the door and the bathroom and back to where Miles is waiting for me in the hallway.
The event rolls on and I laugh at the right places during the toasts, snag Miles a slice of cake so he doesn’t have to run into anyone else on the way, and, in perhaps my most brilliant moment, drag him outside the barn when Kira, laughing and bashful, lines up to try to catch the bouquet. “Hey,” I tell him as he turns to look back over his shoulder. “I have a great idea.”
He’s still looking back, so I take a leaf from his book and put one finger on his chin. He obediently turns to look down at me.
“Let’s leave,” I tell him.
He squints and runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I haven’t talked to Cody yet.” Then he looks back into the party and we are treated to a high-definition clip of Kira jumping into the air and clamping her hands around the hot-pink bouquet. The crowd cheers.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think Cody will understand.”
Miles turns back to me and laughs, dragging a hand down his face and over his stubble. “Let’s get out of here.”
We start at a normal pace, catch one another’s eye, and start speedwalking. By the time we’re halfway to the car, we’re laughing and all-out running.
I plant my palms against the hood of his car and fight to stay alive.
“I can’t believe,” he pants, “that all it took to get you to run was to make you come to this god-awful wedding.”
We slam into the car. “The ceremony itself was lovely,” I say with an assertive finger pointed in his direction. “Tasha and Cody seem awesome.”
He nods, then basically does a donut on the dirt road to get us the hell out of Dodge. “Everything else, though…”
“Was kind of a mixed bag.”
“Thanks for coming with me. Jesus. What would I have possibly done without you?”
I ruminate on that. “Yeah, what would you have done without me?”
“Probably knocked over the barbecue pit by accident and set the barn on fire.”
The lighting goes screwy and there’s a crack of lightning to our left. It’s the kind that shows you how tall the sky actually is, ten skyscrapers high, and followed quickly by a BOOM that cracks the world in two.
I scream with panicked laughter, flinging myself across the center console and squeezing the blood out of Miles’s bicep. “ WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM? ”
Miles is shockingly stoic. He leans over the steering wheel to peer out at the sky. “I didn’t know there was supposed to be weather tonight.”
“That wasn’t weather. That was God asserting her masculinity!”
“We’ll be fine. Let’s just get home before—”
Raindrops the size of grapes start splatting on our windshield.
“Lenny, I need this arm to drive.” He peels my fingers off his bicep and attaches them to the console. Luckily, it isn’t until we’re in his driveway that the heavens truly open up.
He parks. “Ready?” The rain is so loud I have to lip-read that.
“Let’s do this.”
Turns out I wasn’t ready. It’s like walking through a waterfall.
Just running from the driveway into the house has us completely drenched. He’s cursing at the door while he jiggles the lock. We fall across the threshold and slam the door behind us. Miles’s suit is toast. We stand in the front entryway making puddles and shivering. We’re two inches from one another in the cold dark. Miles’s hand brushes my shoulder on the way to the light switch. I shiver.
Click. Click. Clickety clickety clickety clickety. Nothing.
He groans and plants his forehead into the wood-paneled wall. “Perfect ending to the perfect night. I’ll go flip the breakers.”
“Don’t leave me here! Are you joking?”
“Are you going to come with me into the basement, then?”
“Yeah, right! Obviously where the murderer is.”
“Oh, great. Just a little something for me to meditate on while I fix the power.”
Thunder earthquakes the house and we both jolt. Miles sighs. “Come on. Let’s get you settled.”
I don’t know the house well, so I stumble and grope into the dark for Miles’s back. I get a face full of sopping wet suit.
“Sorry,” I mumble, and feel for the wall.
I jump when his hand lands on the top of my head. “There you are. Here, take my hand.”
I reach up and peel his hand off my hair and wrap all ten of my fingers around his warm palm.
He leads us down the hall and swings a door open. A fluffy towel lands on my head. “Where’s your bag?”
“In the bathroom where I showered earlier. But all my clothes are muddy.”
“Right. Okay.” He closes the closet door and leads me out of the hallway and across the living room. We go into what must be his bedroom.
Lightning—scream—thunder and I get one vivid flash of a giant comfy bed and another fireplace.
He opens some drawers. “I don’t know what clothes these are, but here. They’re not muddy.”
It’s a pile of soft cotton and I’m overjoyed. I carefully turn toward the bed and set the warm clothes down for safekeeping.
I strip the wet dress up over my head and it thwacks onto the ground. I hear him rustling around next to me. Lightning, thunder, a flash of Miles standing next to me, next to a bed, in nothing but tight boxer briefs.
Lightning, thunder, tattoo.
Lightning, thunder, his head turned halfway toward me.
My wet bra is off, the clean shirt in my hands, my back is to him, lightning, thunder. I feel the flash of light over my entire body, touching me everywhere. I’ve got goosebumps.
I turn back toward him, the lightning flashes, and his bare chest is suddenly within kissing distance and the thunder shakes me down to my bones. Then it’s ferociously dark again and there’s a wash of warm exhale over my upturned face.
I hear him move and the towel is pressed into my hands again. “Your hair is wet.” His voice is low and calm. “I’m gonna get a fire going in the living room to keep you company while I’m in the basement.”
I barely get hold of the back of his shirt and then we’re carefully picking our way through the dark out to the living room. I sit on the floor, knees tented underneath the giant shirt, and listen while he muscle-memories a crackling fire. The light is sudden, friendly and welcome and warm. We’re awash in gold.
Just then, an alert on our phones, the power is out countywide. So much for trying the breakers. I make a nest of pillows and blankets in front of the fire, and Miles joins me with a groan.
“Longest day ever,” he says, yawning. He’s on his belly, head toward the fire, chin resting on the backs of his stacked hands.
“You did great.”
He laughs. “I did decidedly okay.”
“Okay is great in this scenario. You were brave and kind. What more could you ask for?”
He tips his head and studies me. I study him back.
He hides. In here. He needs a really gentle touch.
“Miles?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you still devastated over Anders?” I ask bluntly.
He blinks. His eyes narrow. “You saw the bedroom, didn’t you?”
I shrug and nod.
He lets out a long sigh. “I should have warned you. I know what that looks like.”
“It looks like a shrine.”
He considers this and then nods reluctantly. “I had to face the rest of the house because I lived in it, you know? And I moved into the large bedroom. So I eventually went through all my mom’s stuff. But that room? I don’t know.”
I consider this for a while. “You don’t really talk about Anders.”
Miles closes his eyes and when he opens them, he’s looking straight through the fire, seeing a different life. “Anders was…”
“Your Lou?”
His smile is quick and gone. “No. Sort of. We weren’t best friends. I was five years older than him. When he came to live with us I became…the big brother.”
His voice goes hoarse on the last two words and Miles drops his forehead to his arm and silently cries. Just like that. Open wide.
He hides.
No, he doesn’t.
He needs a gentle touch.
No, he doesn’t.
I crawl over to him and plop my head onto his back, right over our wolf, ear to his ribs. I listen to his crying through the drum of his chest. It doesn’t last for too long. He scrubs a hand over his face and takes deep breaths that balloon my head toward heaven and then back to earth.
“He was so young. Just eighteen. It’s so fucking fucked up that he died,” Miles says simply.
“It tore your heart out.”
“It was hard to know what the point of living was without them. But…I wanted to. Keep living. So I did.”
I give his back some pats and then sit up and do a very comprehensive two-hand back scratch. He grumbles low in his chest and drops his head to one side. His eyes are closed and his eyelashes are wet.
“I like hearing about them, Miles. When you’re thinking about them, you can tell me.”
His eyes flutter open and land on my bare feet next to his shoulder. He unfolds one hand and flicks my big toe. “Okay.”
It’s a one-word promise that he’s just made.
We sit like that for a long time.
Miles gets up and fiddles with the fire. “You must be exhausted after all that too.”
I yawn and stretch and then curl up tight. “It’s definitely been a social few days.”
He smirks over his shoulder at me. “You love a social day. You’re a butterfly.”
I scowl. “Am not.”
“Oh, please. You’re incredibly socially gifted.”
“Oh, fine. Maybe you’re right. But it’s all so much more exhausting than it used to be. Plus, these days I get nervous. I didn’t use to get nervous all the time.”
He considers that and then wordlessly stands up and goes to his room. He comes back with his two hands cupped around something, like he’s caught a butterfly in there.
He sits next to me and holds his hands out. “You did a good job making friends, Lenny. And thank you for coming with me to the wedding.” He clears his throat. “If you’re feeling nervous about social stuff, I got you something that might help.”
I look at him and then at his hands and he waggles them when I don’t hop to.
I drag myself up to a sit. Instead of holding my hands out for the gift, I pry open a crack between his fingers and peer inside. The firelight flickers and I get a flash of silver. I reach into the cave between his palms and come up with a slightly tarnished silver locket. The initials WG are engraved in stylized cursive. I look at Miles quizzically.
“I got it secondhand, so the initials are from some random person,” he says with a shrug. “But I actually thought you’d like that more than new.” He nudges me with his foot. “Open it.”
I slot a fingernail in between the two halves and it comes apart with a satisfying click. I gape for half a second before my eyes fill with tears. I recognize the photo immediately. It’s one of me and Lou when we’re about eighteen. It was her first attempt at giving us full faces of makeup and we were laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe, falling all over one another. Crooked falsies and lipstick on our teeth. Queen Fuglies.
I laugh and swipe at my trembly tears.
“It’s not an eight-by-ten, like you wanted…” He clears his throat. “But I figured this would be a good way to carry a photo of her with you wherever you went. If she’s with you…then maybe you won’t feel so nervous.”
Studying it, I realize that he’s gone to the trouble to print the photo quarter size. It’s asymmetrically cut, slightly choppy on one side from where his scissors slipped. I’d bet my life there’s a careful dot of Elmer’s glue on the back of this photo.
The opposite side of the locket is grubby and empty. “What photo should I put in this side?” I ask him in a scratchy voice I barely recognize.
He cocks his head to one side and shrugs, a satisfied look on his face at my reaction to his gift. “You get to decide.”
There’s a distant roll of thunder from the storm that’s passed us. One last stab of lightning changes the room momentarily from a flickering gold to bright platinum. It’s like a camera flash.
I get one still of Miles’s face—dark eyes, dark hair—familiar and…beloved.
This lightning-photo of him embeds itself sharply in my heart.
I grip the locket so hard it creates heat.
I know exactly what goes in the other half.