52. Nathan
fifty-two
We’re still technically sneaking around,but we’re doing it out in the open now. If that even makes sense.
Except none of this makes sense. And yet, when I’m with Claire, all of the nonsense tumbles away, if only for a moment. Nonsense this morning looked like almost getting caught with my hands up her skirt by Joe Petersen, and I can’t lie and say there was a moment where I didn’t care if my job was on the line. A job I don’t even like, for the woman I’m very quickly starting to tumble head over heels for? It seems like a fair trade-off.
But this job is the only thing keeping me mildly afloat, keeping my parents’ house within reach. When it all comes down to it, which am I going to reach out for the next time I’m drowning: the house, or her?
Claire is on her way over, using an excuse that a book she loaned me is due back at the library, and we’ll orchestrate my follow-along from there. If it means I get to see her outside the school building, I’m all ears.
I’m reading by the front door when I hear the scratch of her tires, the slam of her door, and the voices that follow.
“…loaned him a book. I’ll just grab it and we can head out. You can seriously stay in the car.”
“Not a chance. You said this was the assistant principal’s house and that asshole owes me a rematch.”
“Language, Zoey!”
The bell rings, and I have the door open before the chime is finished.
“Claire. I have that book you were asking about.”
“Thank you.” She steps inside, and my home instantly feels less empty. “You remember Zoey?”
“How could I forget?”
Zoey scowls, her tightly curled hair in frizzy disarray, much like it had been when I’d walloped her at chess.
“Have you been practicing what I taught you?”
Her arms remain crossed over her chest, but the haughty tilt of her head tells me she’s only slightly annoyed to be here.
“Of course. I haven’t lost a match since. Granted, I would have taught myself something like that eventually.”
“Of course,” I say on a huffed chuckle. “The book is in the study. I’ll go get it.”
“You have a study?”
Zoey pushes past Claire to follow, but Claire extends her arm, blocking her sister. Her cheeks turn a specific shade of pink—the last time I saw that shade, we’d been in the study.
“We aren’t here for a house tour. He’s getting the book and we’re leaving.”
It takes less than a minute for me to return with my own library book that Claire is returning for me—the one I picked up on the way home, so I’d have an excuse for her to stop by. When I find them again, Claire and Zoey have their heads pressed together, whispering like sisters do.
“Go ahead,” Claire says, shuffling her sister forward. “Ask him.”
“Do you want to come with us to the library so I can whoop your ass at chess?”
My eyes widen in surprise, and my smile curves upward.
“Zoey! Not like that!”
Zoey rolls her eyes, but simply tilts her head at me. “So?”
I glance to Claire who, while clearly glad that our plan worked, is also in mom-mode against her sister. She mouths Sorry, and I just smile and shake my head.
“I’ll get my coat.”
I have beaten Zoey four times, and she is not giving up. It seems like my romantic evening with Claire has completely backfired.
I have to admit though, I am having fun.
“You left your rook completely open when you executed that last move.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Rack ‘em up, AP. Let’s go again.”
From the leather chair beside our table, Claire glances up from the book she definitely isn’t reading and rolls her eyes at me, her expression screaming the Seriously? I can see her restraining. I shrug, and line my pieces back up.
“Hey, Zo? Weren’t we here for books?”
“Yeah, after this one,” Zoey says with a dismissive wave.
Claire lifts her watch, shoots me a mean-mugged glare, and taps on the watch face like she’s counting down the minutes. I wink at her, and proceed to wipe out her sister’s pieces in less than four minutes, giving absolutely no mercy.
“You’re joking, right?”
I lean back in my chair and fold my arms over my chest, donning a triumphant grin.
“Go get your books. Leave this poor man alone.”
Zoey’s scowl could set this building ablaze. But as she stomps off—down the stairs to the teen section—I’m suddenly lighter.
I take the matching chair to Claire’s and press my knee into hers.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” she sighs the word like she’s completely blissed out on finally being alone. “We have roughly seven minutes until she comes back with a stack of checked-out books and a demand for a rematch.”
I huff a laugh.
“She has guts, I’ll give her that.”
“Oh, she sure does. And attitude for days.”
“Are you two close?”
She blows out a breath, resting her chin in her hand. “It’s complicated. Zoey reminds me of who I could have been had I not been so tied down. It’s like walking a delicate tightrope of parent, sister, and friend, while also juggling all of the aspirations I once had for myself, while also reminding myself that she isn’t me. I’m like a one-woman circus over here.”
Her words break me—but my broken heart isn’t only for her. It’s for me.
For the way that I’ve projected all of my hopes for my dead life onto my brother. To ensure that, after sacrificing so many years to cancer, he gets everything he deserves. To give him everything I wanted once I decided I didn’t deserve it.
If Claire knew I was letting Freud slip in right now, she’d have a field day teasing me.
But maybe that’s the key—I should tell her.
About my part in my parents’ accident. About the pieces of me that died and were buried by my own hand after that accident.
Maybe I should crack open the last pieces of my chest and let her in, because she’s experienced this too—the burden that guilt layers on like mortar in all of the delicate cracks and hardens a person. Maybe not in exactly the same manner, but I’ll bet she would be understanding, patient, and empathetic. Claire would know exactly how to handle the rubble of my past and how it fits into my future.
Zoey returns before I can so much as scratch the surface, which is maybe for the better. This conversation is clearly better had alone and behind closed doors—and, once I’ve thoroughly organized my talking points and psyched myself up enough to admit the deepest parts of me that no one else has ever seen.
After two more matches—one of which, Zoey comes very close to besting me in—we decide to retire for the evening. Parting from Claire without holding her or kissing her is the worst form of torture, and I tell her so in a text as soon as I watch them pull out into the dark night. My heart is in my throat, only the promise of a text message when she arrives both at her parents’ to drop off Zoey, and another when she’s back at Penelope’s, keeping me mildly sane.
I’m pacing the study with my phone in my hand when my doorbell rings. Claire, standing on my doorstep, knocks the wind from me.
“I didn’t realize you were coming back.”
She shrugs, her cheeks windswept in this chilly winter air.
“I just wanted to kiss you goodnight. I hope that doesn’t make me sound too?—”
I swallow the word desperate, sealing my lips over hers. I know I had her in my office this morning, but it wasn’t the same, wasn’t enough. We have to be cautious at work, but not here in the doorway of my home. Not here, where her gasps and moans are now good acquaintances with the foundation.
Here, we don’t have to hide.
I pull away from her long enough to see the glimmer in her eyes, to feel the way she has relaxed beneath my touch.
“I texted you when I pulled up, but I may have made a run for the porch.”
She’s so cute with her nose scrunched into a button that I forget her promise to text me when she made it home, pushing aside the panic that, if she hadn’t made it here safely, I wouldn’t have known where she was going. The fact that matters right now is that I get to hold her for a few stolen moments. I don’t want to waste them on negativity.
I pull her inside the doorway.
“How long can you stay?”
“Just for a few minutes. Penelope will probably be home soon from dinner. I just wanted to say goodnight. It felt weird leaving you without…”
I run my hand down the side of her head and grasp her chin in my thumb and forefinger.
“I agree. It was torture.”
She giggles. “So you said. Can I make it better?”
She presses up onto her toes to kiss me first chastely, then deepens it as she slants her mouth over mine. I wish we could stay like this forever. I’m becoming greedy, and for the first time in my life, I don’t care, so long as she is what I’m gluttonous for.
“When can I see you next?” I ask, my words scratchy with desperation.
“I’ll have to see when Penelope will be out of the house again.”
“I understand.”
“The sneaking around is getting harder and harder, Nathan.”
Her whisper pierces my heart like a needlepoint.
“I’m open to suggestions.”
She chews on her bottom lip as a few quiet moments pass, then says, “What if we just… tell them?”
Themcould only mean the people we have in common.
My subordinates. Her friends. The people who know that we met at work, and can deduce the rest for themselves.
I tense.
“No, just, hear me out, okay?” I nod stiffly. “I’m done at River Valley soon. Once I’m no longer working there, what’s to keep hidden? I’m not underage, and you won’t be my boss. And besides, they like hanging out with you. It might be a bit of a shift when you start coming around more, and as my… With me, but I’m sure they’ll get used to it quickly.”
I don’t miss her pause, the one that can’t quite name what we are. I don’t miss all of the justifications she has to make about her age and our compromising position. I swallow around shards of glass as all of this comes to a head with the thought I’d had an hour ago about unearthing more of myself to her. I haven’t let this crossroads bother me for quite some time, but here it is once again.
“I’ll think about it,” I say, kissing her forehead. “Maybe we’ll have to suffer just a little longer until you’re officially off the River Valley staff.”
“I don’t know if I can take it.”
The sadness in her eyes grips my heart even tighter. I know exactly what she means. I miss her body, but I miss her mind so much more. Her heart. The way she holds me as equally as I do her. I miss having her in my kitchen and cuddled up on the couch in my study. But all good things must come with a price.
Just like the way that your selfishness all those years ago cost you the rest of your days.
My subconscious nags at me, and I hate it. I beat it on the head with a hammer and focus on the extra time I’ve gotten with Claire. When she leaves, I see the text she mentioned earlier, the one from my driveway. She knows me too well already—well enough to let me know where she’s going to be, without even understanding the why.
Maybe the why doesn’t matter to her. She does what I ask simply because I’ve asked it of her. I can barely swallow around the weight of that truth.