Fifteen #2
“You can’t know that,” she tells me. “Not until you make a move.”
“I did—”
“Bringing up something he did while drunk doesn’t count as making a move. You gotta grow a pair and tell him how you feel. Or show him.”
“Show him?”
“You know, initiate casual physical touch. Be emotionally vulnerable. Make some suggestive eye contact.” She puckers her lips. “You got that one down already.”
Later, at Christmas Eve dinner, Garrett sits next to me in our dining room glowing with the warmth of candles, as my family passes around steaming platters of spaghetti with clams, lasagna, Lake Superior trout, homemade ice cream, and struffoli.
I allow my foot to rest against his, and he doesn’t pull away.
Casual physical touch: check.
Halfway through dessert, I feel something brush up against my leg. Then Remy is climbing into Garrett’s lap, having abandoned his own seat and crawled under the table to his new favorite person.
“What’s up, little man?” Garrett asks, balancing him on his knee with one hand and cupping his ice cream bowl in the other.
“You and Enzo are holding feet.” Remy giggles.
The table gets quiet enough for everyone to overhear this astute observation. I feel curious glances flash toward us, and across the table Gloria makes a graphic gesture with her hands. I try to think of something to say, then decide it might be easiest to knock over Aunt Julia’s wineglass instead.
But I don’t need to because Garrett eyes Remy seriously. “I think I’m actually holding your feet.”
And then he sets the ice cream down and tickles the bottoms of Remy’s feet. Remy’s squealing laughter drowns out the embarrassing moment, and everyone returns to their dessert except Gloria, who gives me an exaggerated wink.
Garrett doesn’t move his foot.
After dinner, just as everyone begins clearing dishes, Garrett gets our attention. “I was thinking,” he says, pulling out his camera, “that maybe I could take a family photo for y’all. If you want.”
We never take photos of all of us, and the ones we do take never turn out well. Somebody is always out of the frame or blinking or hidden behind someone else.
“Yes,” Aunt Liz says, setting down a stack of plates and looking at him like he just gave her the gift she’d been waiting for all year. “We’d love that.”
It takes us several minutes of jostling to get everyone settled in front of the fireplace in the living room. And then, just as Garrett moves into place to take the photo, Aunt Liz asks, “Don’t you need a tripod or something?”
“No,” he says, “I usually just—”
“Then how will you be in the picture?” Emma interrupts.
He looks at us and we look at him, and I can tell he’s struck by how obvious it was to the rest of us that he would be included in our family photo, that he’s considered family.
“Right,” he says. “I’ll just—” He breaks off and carefully begins stacking books on the coffee table to form a makeshift platform for his camera. “It won’t be as good,” he tells us, bending to look through the viewfinder. “The angle isn’t great…”
“Shut up and get over here,” Dad says.
Garrett does. He sets the delay on the camera and rushes around, jamming himself into place next to me. He throws his arm over my shoulders, the fabric of his sleeve sending static electricity down my spine.
Afterward, we take turns crowding around the camera to look at the photo.
“It’s perfect,” Emma says when it’s her turn. “Except Gloria isn’t looking at the camera.”
I peer over Emma’s shoulder. Gloria—standing on my other side—is looking sideways at me and Garrett, a knowing grin pulling at the corner of her lips.
“You’re the worst,” I whisper to her, as we return to cleaning up the dining room.
She blinks. “Because I love gay love?”
At the end of the evening, Garrett and I stand inside the doorway of my bedroom.
It’s the only room in the house lit by colored lights, because I’ve always loved the kaleidoscopic coziness they emit.
Garrett’s room has been turned into a bunkhouse for three of my younger cousins, so Garrett and I will share mine.
And since all our air mattresses and sleeping bags are being used elsewhere, that leaves him, me, and my double-sized bed.
There’s no way this could possibly be uncomfortable.
“I’m happy to sleep on the floor,” he offers, closing the door behind him. The room suddenly feels very small and quiet.
I try to sound casual. “Nah. My bed’s big enough.” I move to my dresser and pull out a pair of flannel bottoms and a T-shirt. I’ve shared a bed with Trevor on band trips. I can do this.
Except Garrett is an entirely different species from Trevor.
I face away from him to change into my pajamas, and hear him shuffling around on the other side of the room. When I turn around, he’s still fully clothed and hovering near the bed.
“Shit,” he says, rubbing the back of his head. “I usually sleep in my boxers, so I didn’t think…” He trails off, then nods at the doorway. “You think the kids in my room are still up? I could grab something…”
My cousins went to bed two hours ago. “If you wake up Remy,” I say, “he’ll never go back to sleep, and Aunt Julia won’t forgive you, and all that work you did bonding with her over charades will have been a waste.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “Maybe I could borrow something?”
“You would destroy any of the clothes you’d try to fit into.”
“Right.”
“It’s not a big deal.” I attempt a nonchalant shrug. “Your boxers are fine.”
“You sure?”
I nod, and I sit down on the edge of the bed and pretend to fiddle with my phone as he takes off his socks.
And his sweater.
And his pants.
I wait until he’s settled under the covers before I stand to place my phone on the bedside table and turn around.
He’s on his back, the quilt pulled across his chest and tucked underneath each of his arms. His shoulders are bare, though, and I think of how wide they are, how, if he held me, he could surround me with the solidness of himself.
His collarbones round out from his chest muscles, pointing downward like an arrow.
These thoughts are not helpful right now.
I’ve watched him for a second too long. I need to get this over with, to just dive in, like jumping into the freezing water of Lake Superior in early May.
I slide in beside him.
My bed is not big enough. As we lie on our backs, it’s impossible for our arms not to touch.
I feel the heat from his bicep radiating into my arm, the back of his hand against mine, the curve of his calf against my leg.
His smell is like sun-warmed earth and dewy golden leaves, and I could float away on it.
My heart rate quickens, and heat rushes through my body.
I take deep breaths, forcing myself to think of Titanic victims plunging into frigid waters and puppies romping and the sound of SpongeBob SquarePants laughing and anything other than the sheer closeness and almost-nakedness of Garrett.
“Your other two aunts are pretty quirky,” he murmurs sleepily, unaware of the physiologic response occurring next to him. “Not as cool as Aunt Liz, obviously, but still…”
“Yep,” I manage while doing calculus in my head.
I recite the alphabet backward.