7. SEVEN YEARS AGO
SEVEN
SEVEN YEARS AGO
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, SENIOR YEAR
LINC
Ellis popped through the double doors to the cafeteria, carrying Paige bridal-style over to the table I had already snagged us outside. I liked being at a table that was close to the designated area for my habit, as Ellis affectionately called it.
I currently stood, hauling in a drag from my cigarette as Ellis plopped Paige’s small body onto the bench, next to my backpack, and she giggled.
“Okay, that was fun,” she laughed some more as she untied her flannel from her waist, shrugging it on over her shoulders and covering her plain white tank top.
“Audition went well?” I asked, knowing the answer already.
Her blue eyes were bright and shining and they met her smile in a way that made my heart race. Then her mouth ticked at the corner, more playfully, splaying her arms out in front of herself. “Hence the queen entrance.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Ellis chuckled as he rounded the table to sit across from her. A laugh trickled through the exhale of my drag before I put out the cigarette, tossed it in the dispenser, and went over to the table.
I slid onto the bench, next to Paige, bumping her shoulder with mine. “What’d you sing?”
She bumped my shoulder back, and Ellis rolled his eyes while tapping away on his phone.
Paige dug through her backpack, pulling out a bag of dry cereal, muttering, “I went with ‘You and I.’ Lady Gaga felt like a good choice for a Rent audition.” She added the last part as an afterthought before she finally found the other thing she’d been looking for.
A banana.
“Caroline would be crazy not to give you Maureen,” Ellis said, putting his phone down.
While Ellis was a film student, he did some acting. Obviously, he had helped out on the moon movie, and he usually did the fall musicals with Paige, but he opted out this year because he was leaving in a couple weeks for a trip to Copenhagen with his dad.
Asshole got two weeks of virtual passes.
They’re something Providence Academy gives out so that we can work professionally and not fall behind. But Desmond Casper also donated enough money to the school that Ellis could probably get credit for coming in and taking a shit everyday.
Not that he would. He worked as hard as anyone —harder, I think, sometimes. He didn’t talk about it often but I’d known Ellis almost as long as I’d known Paige—and I knew he felt an extra sense of pressure to build a name for himself.
My eyes were still zoned out, my unfocused vision stared at Paige’s measly little lunch. Dry cereal and a banana. She had a shift at Queenie’s after school too.
Swear to God—this girl runs on iced coffee and Cheetos.
“I’ll be right back,” I told them, walking back toward the cafeteria door.
As I pushed through the doors, the loud clatter of sounds hit me like a wall. Twelve or so tables full of boisterous, dramatic conversation was . . . a lot.
At least it was the last first week of school, I reminded myself. That was, if I didn’t do the college thing.
I started toward the cart with the premade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grabbing one, and then quickly got in line.
I could see Paige and Ellis through the windows on the far wall. Paige was laughing as she bent down to her backpack, beside the bench, grabbing something.
A sharp inhale pulled through my nose when I saw the top of her black lace thong peeking through the small gap between her shirt and her jeans.
A whistle sounded from behind me, landing in my head like a fucking arrow before a familiar voice said, “That flannel’s not foolin’ anyone, huh?”
I snorted, my teeth clenched. “Is flannel confusing for you, Kline?”
Martin Kline. Douchebag enemy number one—also an acting student. The asshole was already on my shit list for slipping his tongue into Paige’s mouth last year when they had to kiss on stage.
Unprompted, unrehearsed, and un-fucking-acceptable.
Paige didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but I was one rageful tick away from manually shoving the guy’s lips down his throat and pulling them back through his asshole like a balloon animal.
Instead, I told Mr. Harris, and he helped me file a complaint. But Martin only got a slap on the wrist. Mommy and Daddy undoubtedly paid a bunch of money to make it go away.
And all it did was unleash another level of douchery.
I still hadn’t turned around but the moron kept talking. “If you haven’t hit that yet, I guess the rumors about you are true. Too busy blowin’ Ellis to give hot little Paige what she needs.”
My palm slammed into his chest before I twisted and pulled the material of his shirt.
Rose, the lunch lady, gasped, and I pulled Martin’s stupid face closer. I was taller than him by an inch or two, so it took just a flick of my eyes to see him smirking.
My fist tightened, my anger intensifying, before I realized . . . he knew I couldn’t afford to get in trouble.
I gave a small tug on his shirt before I shoved him—hard enough to knock him back a few steps, but not enough to be considered “violent behavior.”
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to call him out on the supposed rumor with strange, homophobic undertones but . . . it wasn’t worth it.
He wasn’t worth it. “Just keep that disease-ridden tongue to yourself, dickwipe.”
I turned back around, apologized to Rose, and then paid for the sandwich. After pocketing the change, I gave it an extra jingle inside my pocket to try and release some of the adrenaline —the urge to turn around and beat that fucker into the floor.
But I forced my steps back toward the door. I tried to reroute my thoughts, calm myself down, and I absently wondered if that really was a rumor. If people really thought I was with Ellis.
It seemed impossible since everyone except for Paige seemed to know I was obsessed with Paige. Plus, as far as social statuses were concerned, mine was basically nonexistent at this school.
Paige and I were scholarship kids. It’s the only reason we could afford to go to a place like Providence. Needless to say, I was sure there was far more scandalous gossip than an unknown film kid’s sexuality.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter —what the fuck did I care. In all likelihood, Martin was probably still pissed that someone held him accountable for being a fucking creep.
And yet, he was still a fucking creep.
“Hey, Pip,” I said as I got back to the table. “Rose was giving away the last of the PB&Js. You want it?”
“God,” Ellis whined dramatically. “Are you fucking Rose or something? How do you always get the free shit?”
My eyes narrowed at him. “Drink your juice. You’re getting grumpy.”
His eyebrows furrowed over his green eyes, but he did in fact take a sip of apple juice, making me chuckle.
“You don’t want it?” Paige asked, her eyes big and damn near twinkling at the sandwich.
I shook my head, my nose scrunching.
“Right,” she sighed, taking it from me. “Sometimes I feel like your aversion to jelly should have an exception for PB&Js. Peanut butter makes everything good,” she said. “There’s a rumor that it cures cancer.”
My mouth pulled back as I sat down next to her. “Not this peanut butter, unfortunately,” I chuckled.
She shrugged, unwrapping the sandwich. “Thank you.” She smiled up at me. A smile that just made me fucking melt.
Food was her love language. She was a poor planner and she hated spending money. After her first bite, she leaned her head into my shoulder while I tipped my cheek on her head, her temple pulsing against the bottom of my jaw as she chewed.
My lips tilted at the corner, breathing in the slight spice to her smell, mixing with the peanut butter on her sandwich, and any remaining tension from inside the cafeteria fell to the ground.
Lifting my gaze, my eyebrows hitched when I saw that Ellis was sitting across from us, flicking curious glances our way as he tapped on his phone.
I knew we confused people. Ellis made his opinion very clear on my inability to make a move with Paige—and he was saying it silently now, witnessing our little display.
But this was also the very thing that made wanting her —wanting her so fucking much— all the more confusing. Complicated.
Because this? Sitting like this was just . . . how we’d always been.
Before we even knew what attraction was, this was a comfort thing. We’d been affectionate our whole lives and then hormones made it all fucking weird.
Deciding I needed to break the tension, I cleared my throat. “Hey, did you guys hear I’m gay?”
Paige sat up, chewing her bite slowly as her eyes scrunched.
Ellis choked on his apple juice and then chuckled. “Buffy bless, are gay rumors still a thing? Here of all places? The fuck?” He shook his head, and I shrugged.
“No one’s ever said anything to me,” Paige said.
Ellis smirked. “Of course not, babe. They think we’re a freaky little threesome doing six-handed tricks.”
Paige snorted a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
Ellis tilted his chin.
Paige’s eyes widened. “Wait, that’s really something people are saying?”
Ellis shrugged again, taking another sip of his apple juice.
Paige stared at him, examining his features. Another second passed, and his smile crept up from the corner.
Paige balled up the cellophane from her sandwich and threw it at him—cracking me up.
“Asshole,” she giggled, cradling her cheeks.
“Your face—” Ellis lost himself to more laughs, spurring me back on.
A quick glance at Paige had me catching the smallest hint of that blush again—the same fleeting one I’d noticed the other day when we were shooting at the cove.
I need to make a fucking move.
PAIGE
The sun was just setting as the citrus and lavender smells wafted through the small breeze as I walked through the backyard.
Our front door was kind of broken. Or . . . nailed shut? We couldn’t figure it out, so we just used the back door.
As I walked up the steps to the small porch, a pretty melody softly played, pulling my lips up my cheeks—something deep and warm settling through me.
The piano.
I fucking loved listening to Gram play.
She didn’t do piano time as much anymore—said it hurt her joints.
I opened the door slowly, and closed it behind me —quuuiet— listening, as I took off my beaten up, yellow Chucks.
When I started to make my way through the kitchen, the chorus to the song she was playing became clear.
“Vienna,” by Billy Joel. A permanent member of Gram’s “Lemon Lady Mix.”
My smile lifted as I shrugged off my backpack, leaving it at the table before I walked the rest of the way to the living room. Her back was to me—sitting at the bench in front of the piano in the corner.
She was in her element in front of those keys—in a trance.
The lid of the piano had some of her house plants on it. Purple and blue smudges stained the walnut colored wood of the Spinet piano.
Luckily, we were able to clean most of the keys, but that one spot remained from the night Linc, Ellis, and I watched Aristocats for the first time.
My focus moved back to her. Her posture was poised, but you could see the flicks of excitement. The small jump of her shoulders, the languid sway of her chin in the transitions.
As I could hear the end of the song nearing, her movement slowed. Her light gray hair swayed down her back as she dipped her chin, plunking the last couple of notes. I stepped just behind the bench and hugged her over her shoulders.
Beautiful.
She clasped her hand over my arms that were crossed over her chest. “I still got it,” she squeaked, with a small laugh.
I chuckled through my nose, straightening up. “Ah, Lemon Lady, you never lost it.”
It was just . . . harder for her to play.
She sighed, but a fondness lifted in her dark blue eyes. “A rap album. That’s the dream,” she said.
“It is,” I agreed.
Lemon Lady was a self-appointed rap name. It was inspired by the actual name a few kids in the neighborhood had given Gram, on account of the fact that she handed out giant-ass lemons from her tree out back during trick-or-treat every year.
Truly witchy behavior.
“How was the first day as a big bad senior?” she asked.
My shoulders lifted with a sigh as I pushed back and leaned into the side of the piano. “It was like any other day,” I shrugged. “It was fine.”
“Just fiiine?” she whined. “Come on, no one’s sleeping with a teacher or doing cocaine in the green room?” Her head shook. “Art school ain’t what it used to be.”
I giggled through a yawn. “My audition for Rent went well. I had a shift at Queenie’s, but it was dead so she sent me home. Oh, she wanted me to tell you that the library is looking for some extra mystery readers or something?”
“Oh, great. I’ll call Leonard in the morning. Sweet man—but ya know, he and his husband had to move out to the deep valley. It’s getting crazy, Paigey May.”
I nodded. While I didn’t know the librarian well, I was very aware of the ever-rising cost of living in the LA area. I mean, I went to school with some of the richest kids in the country.
We were lucky I had my scholarship and Gram owned our little shanty beach cottage—gifted to her from her grandmother. Her gift to me one day, as she always said.
And I loved our house—broken floorboards and all—but it was impossible to imagine living here without her.
God. I wouldn’t let myself imagine that.
Either way, while the house might have been paid off, it was also in desperate need of some TLC.
I sighed. A problem for another day.
“Well, I’ve got some homework, so . . .”
“Ohh,” Gram shooed, standing up. “I made some chili. Let’s at least eat together.” I could tell by her face that wasn’t all she was asking, and I told her I knew that with my eyes, hitching my brows.
After another beat she said, “Can we watch Practical Magic while we eat?”
Luckily, Gram had a couple of weed gummies after dinner and passed out pretty early on into Practical Magic.
Not that I didn’t love a good kickoff into spooky season but . . . I had some shit to do.
Sitting at my desk, I fired up my laptop. My management class was requiring us to update our resumes and I had three roles to add since the last time I updated it.
Four if I included Linc’s movie . . .
Which was good. It was a never ending critique on my resume.
Not enough film credits.
Ironic, given that Linc almost always had a camera in his hand. But those were different. They were just for us.
My laptop screen lit up with a picture of me and the other two-thirds of my threesome on Venice boardwalk—the night Ellis bought weed from a guy in a chalk circle that just said:
Stand here.
The picture cracked me the fuck up. We all looked really happy, but also wildly confused —dumbwonderment was what we titled the moment. And it was now a tradition on Linc’s birthday.
We’d buy weed the old-fashioned way and get high at the cove.
Turning on some music, I lost myself to the bullshit for about an hour. I was in the middle of combing through some videos Linc had shot for me in a show I did at the beginning of the summer, just as my phone rang.
My mouth pulled up at the name and I hit accept.
“What’s up, punk? You called at the perfect time.”
I could hear him taking a drag of his cigarette as he said, “This already sounds like a favor.” I could hear his smile too.
My mouth twisted. “Well, it’s all about perspective. Does splicing together and updating my reel sound like a favor or f-f-fuun?” I sang the last word half-heartedly.
I was met with the sound of light wind whipping in the background through the phone. He must have been driving, windows down. “That sounds exactly like a favor,” he said. And I didn’t quite care for his tone. It was . . . dangly.
Standing up, I walked toward my bed. “Fine, don’t help me. When I’m shakin’ my goods on Sunset because I couldn’t get an agent, because my best friend—”
“Jesus,” he said a little deeper than usual—rougher—and it sent a wave of something un-fucking-expected to my lady regions.
After what sounded like another drag, his voice lightened a bit. “The dramatics.” He sighed through a light chuckle, “’Course I’ll do it.”
My mouth ticked up as I plopped down on the mattress and laid back. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” he exhaled. “Just did our second workout over at Ellis’s.”
I nodded, but the mention of their little workout routine had my mind . . . wandering.
It immediately wandered down to the deep end of my thought pool, playing back his reaction —to a joke.
I’d never heard him sound so . . . possessive.
Ugh. My toes curl.
And then, it’s like my little motherfucking, shithead of a brain, cannonballs into the pool—sending the water up and smacking the land hard with the splash of memories.
His cut biceps, smudged with dirt from the woods—the terrace of his abs glistening in the sun from the water in the cove. The downright-heartthrob smirk he flicked over his shoulder on the same day.
“What are you up to?”
“Nothing!” I yelped. A quick-reaction panic that definitely sounded like something.
I rubbed my forehead with the pads of my fingers. A poking feeling intensified in my brain, flinching my eyebrows. I could just fucking feel it, and I ground my teeth. “Stop smiling.”
He laughed. “How the hell do you know? You’re not even here!”
“Just stop. It’s giving me a headache.”
He laughed harder, but took a breath to say, “My smile makes your head hurt? But, like, not even my physical smile. The thought of my smile?”
I pinched between my brows. “I’m hanging up.”
“No, wait!” he said, his laughter conceding.
I sat on the other end of the line but laid the phone next to me on speaker. We just . . . sat silently.
This was so weird.
This hormone hiccup wasn’t fucking passing. It was festering.
It was just too hard to be . . . sure.
Sure that he was feeling this way too.
Sure that we weren’t confusing the connection we’d always had with something fleeting—like teenage goddamn hormones.
And I couldn’t really talk about it with anyone because everyone thought it was weird that we weren’t together. No one understood. For all intents and purposes, we already acted like a couple. Just without the . . . physical stuff.
And it seemed as though that had been on the spotlight of my thoughts—just a full-moon fucking light around this intense attraction to the boy I’d known my whole life.
The sound of the light wind disappeared and made way for just his breathing. He must have rolled up the window.
His quiet sigh felt like it swept through the phone and blew over my eyelids, closing them, and I felt my limbs sink further into the mattress beneath me.
“Thanks for defending me today,” I said, in a sedated adrenaline crash.
He huffed a small laugh. “What?”
“Jenna told me you almost lost your shit on Martin Kline for calling me a slut in the cafeteria.”
“No, that’s—” he stopped himself, and took a breath, but his tone was still tight when he added, “That’s not exactly—” he stuttered again, then blew out a heavy exhale. “He made a comment about your—uh . . .”
Oh God, the places this could go . . .
“Your thong,” he said, clearing his throat awkwardly.
My mouth gaped, but my nose scrunched. “Ew. What’d he say?”
He grunted. Another beat passed before he said, “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just steer clear of him.” That deeper, grittier resonance in his voice was back, but the stir it caused earlier was either tired or he sounded too . . . angry.
My eyes fluttered back open, saying, “No arguments here.” But I could feel him silently stewing through the phone like hot static in my temples. I sigh. “It’s fine, Linc. We’ve always known he was a douche kabob.”
He laughed humorlessly. Another beat passed before he muttered, “Yeah. It’s just fucked. More should have been done. It’s bullshit, and it all comes back to money.”
I nodded through a yawn.
We shared this lament often —some variation about the injustices of being the poor kids. It was just a hard pill to swallow. And given where we lived and where we went to school—we had to take the pill fairly regularly over the years.
I yawned again. “Well, luckily, you and Ellis have been hitting the gym if we need to challenge him to a duel.”
Linc snorted a laugh, followed by a sigh. Another few moments of silence lingered. After a deep breath pulled through my chest, I asked him, “Are you home?” My eyes closed again, practically falling asleep.
“Mhm,” he said, his voice softer again. “You falling asleep?”
“Mhm,” I said quietly.
I wasn’t sure why we weren’t hanging up. Hell, I wasn’t even really sure why he called but there was just something keeping us on the line.
Waiting . . .