Chapter 33
33
Over the next week, Ezra’s apartment turns into a work zone.
Since the day he moved in almost two months ago, Ezra’s never really felt alone there, even on those rare occasions when no one else was home. Unit 2 seems to hang on to bits and pieces of people, and Ezra could be the only person in the empty apartment and still be able to smell the strawberry tinge of Lily’s shampoo or the spicy hints of Noah’s cologne, to hear the echo of Max’s bubbling laugh or sense the warmth of Ollie’s grin. It’s not the haunting feeling he’s used to, of ghosts refusing to let go of a place they called home or a person they’re determined not to lose, but something saturated in affection, as if the walls themselves have absorbed all that personality and love like rug fibers soaking up spilled perfume.
Tonight, it hangs in the air like humidity. The living room is full and busy and loud in the best possible way—Becca and Ollie bickering over a photo set on Ollie’s laptop, trying to agree on favorites from the images Ollie took earlier in the week when Ezra snuck him into the Chapel in the golden light of early dawn, just in time to catch the sun coming in through the stained glass windows; Lily and Jonathan going through financial records and Rhode Island business statutes with a fine-tooth comb while they put together a draft proposal of articles of incorporation. Noah and Max and Nina have taken over every inch of the dining table not occupied by containers of takeout, tablets and laptops displaying different versions of their proposal. Noah’s the only one still working, Nina and Max having devolved into flirting over half an hour ago, barely even trying to disguise it as bickering. Of their motley task force, only Aaron is missing, called out to do a removal with Dad across town, but even he’s due to be back within the hour.
And Ben is there.
Not constantly. Not, Ezra thinks, even intentionally. But he flickers in and out of sight like he wants to be part of what they’re doing—looking curiously over Noah’s shoulder at the layout of the proposal, wrinkling his nose at one of the photos that Becca insists is perfect for a redesigned community website, watching Jonathan with a soft, affectionate expression that’s so full of love it almost hurts to see.
But only almost. It never gets all the way to hurting, even when Ben looks away from Jonathan and meets Ezra’s eyes instead, and smiles that rueful, What can you do? sort of smile before he vanishes once more. Sometimes Jonathan glances up before he disappears, like he can sense him after all, and he always looks right to Ezra, eyes questioning and uncertain. Ezra will nod, because he can’t not, and sometimes Jonathan will smile—his Ben smile, soft and sad and wistful—but sometimes he’ll bite his lip and duck his head, and Ezra will draw him gently away from the rest of the group to hug him in the hallway until his shoulders stop trembling.
“You can go home, if you want,” Ezra tells him once, on their third escape of the night, stroking his hand over Jonathan’s back while Jonathan makes a valiant attempt to pretend he isn’t biting back tears. “Seriously. I’m glad you’re here, but—”
Jonathan shakes his head and pulls away. “I’m okay,” he says. “I just…I keep thinking maybe I’ll see him, you know?”
Ezra runs the pad of his thumb over Jonathan’s pulse. “If anyone could manifest ESP out of pure will, it would be you.”
Jonathan huffs a watery laugh. “Sweet-talker.”
“Hey,” Becca says, poking her head around the corner. “Lovebirds. We’re ordering dinner. Are you coming?”
“Absolutely,” Jonathan says, pulling a smile out of somewhere so quickly and earnestly, Ezra’s impressed. “Ezra’s still in takeout debt.”
“You can’t milk that forever,” Ezra says.
“Oh?” Jonathan gives him a syrup-sweet grin. “Can’t I?”
“Ew,” Becca says. “Please get a room.”
It’s a lot. The part of Ezra that squirms after too much time around too many people is constantly overstimulated and exhausted, and if he didn’t feel so horrendously loved, he probably wouldn’t be able to handle it at all.
But it feels good, in a way he doesn’t know how to handle but is slowly starting to trust. It still doesn’t make sense that this many people would be willing to put their time and their skills and their energy into helping him, when he hasn’t done anything to earn it other than live here and exist, but as one day bleeds into another, and another after that, and no one crows “Ha, just kidding!” and leads everyone in an exodus out the front door to cackle at his expense, it finally starts to feel real.
“Oh my God.” Nina closes the fridge, staring at him. “Is that what you thought we’d actually do ?”
“Keep your voice down. God,” Ezra hisses, flushing as he chances a look over his shoulder. Fortunately, no one seems to have heard her. “And no . I mean, not really. Not, like, literally. And not you, obviously. You don’t have any better friends.”
“Okay,” she says, putting down the bottle of seltzer she’d grabbed and leaning back against the counter. She’d abandoned her heels when she showed up that night, but she still has several inches of height on him and doesn’t seem to have developed any new qualms about using it to her advantage. “I’m choosing not to be offended because I know you are just a tiny, crazy feral cat trapped in a human body—”
“Uh-huh.”
“But even if we’d be willing to do something like that to you—which again, I cannot emphasize this enough, we aren’t ”—she takes his face in her hands—“you know this is, like, a good thing that you’re doing, right? Like, even if you take your family out of it, this is an objectively good cause. So get over your inferiority complex, buttercup. You’re cramping my style.”
Determined to win this, he blurts out, “So if you and Max hook up, does that mean our engagement is off?”
“Oh, sweet pea, ” she says, and pats his cheek with one manicured hand. Her smile is sweet with an edge of poison-tipped brutality. “One of us is going to be engaged by this time next year, but of the two of us, I would not bet on me.”
She leaves him in the kitchen still sputtering for a response. When he finally makes it back into the living room, sure his face is still burning, he collapses into the couch and smushes his forehead into Sappho’s belly, banking on everyone being too distracted by their own myriad tasks to notice him.
No such luck. The sofa dips next to him, and a familiar hand runs through his hair. “Hey,” Jonathan says. “You okay?”
Ezra weighs the pros and cons and decides to pick his head up, turning just enough to squint at him. “Did Nina say something to you?”
“No, but she looks really pleased with herself, and you’ve told me enough about her that I’m not going to try my luck.” Jonathan strokes his hair off his forehead. “Should I ask?”
“I will literally pay you not to.”
“I’ll put it on your tab. I think we’re wrapping up for the night soon anyway. What time do you have work tomorrow?”
Ezra groans. “Bad. Bad o’clock.”
“All those sunrise yoga classes and you’re still not a morning person?”
“I have layers.”
“I bet you do.”
Ezra’s trying to decide whether that’s a compliment or not when the door to the apartment opens. Aaron steps in, still in his suit, and the look on his face is enough to make Ezra sit up, nudging Jonathan’s arm until he shifts back to give him room.
“Aaron?” Becca gets to her feet, frowning at him. “What’s going on?”
Aaron puts his bag down, shuts the door behind him, and leans back against it. “I just caught Dad on the phone with Forever Memorials,” he says. “And we have a problem.”