27. Lines We Cross
H alf-expecting to see Patrick at the Phillips pool, I find the chair by the shallow end empty.
He probably spent the long weekend up at Lake Lanier with other college brats.
Just as well—his swagger, slow-burn confidence, and flirtation aren’t something I’m in the mood for.
There’s no time anyway, not with the appointments I’m still making up from last Friday.
The next job is off Scott Boulevard: an old bungalow with a cracked stone patio and a kidney-shaped pool that hasn’t seen swimmers all summer.
The house is empty; the clients have already moved out of town.
It’s going on the market soon, which honestly suits me.
No nosey clients. No entitled teens. Just time to think.
Josh’s voice still lingers—cool, polite, surgical—like he was confirming a diagnosis he already knew. And Kevin still hasn’t returned a page. Three sent on Monday. Another three today. I’ve heard nothing. I may send a few in the evenings if he doesn’t start responding.
I’m not mad. Not yet. But the silence is creeping in, heavy and thick like the air before a storm. I know the signs. I’ve lived in this kind of waiting before—where silence is just another way of saying no.
My skin’s already tingling from too much sun.
I pull the hose and brush out of the water to rinse them off.
Sitting at the edge, feet in the water and arms draped over my knees, I watch the shimmer of light ripple across the surface like a memory.
For a second, I’m fifteen again—standing stiffly in a cheap suit and sweating through my dad’s cologne.
~
Amy Carlton was the first girl I asked out.
I was fifteen, and that was what I was supposed to do at fifteen.
She was sweet, always smiling at my jokes.
We went to the homecoming dance together.
She wore a green dress with sequins and smelled like hairspray.
I remember our slow dance most—how awkward my hands felt on her hips, how I avoided looking at her lips too long.
After the dance, I walked her to her door. She kissed me on the cheek and said, “I thought you were gonna kiss me for real.” I smiled, said something dumb like, “Next time,” and walked home alone, palms sweating and heart racing for reasons I didn’t understand.
There wasn’t a next time. Amy avoided me for a week and then told her friends I was weird. She said I wasn’t interested in girls like that. Looking back, I guess she was right. Maybe I already knew and just wasn’t ready to face it.
~
Now I’m here again. Watching something I don’t quite understand slip away before I have a chance to call it mine. I didn’t know what I wanted back then, but I do now, and it’s not Amy. It’s Kevin. And I can feel him pulling away before I’ve had the chance to hold onto him .
Leaning back on my elbows, I let the sun hit my face and close my eyes. If he stays silent today, I’ll page him again tomorrow. He may think he can pull away quietly, but I’m not disappearing, not this time, not without being seen.
~
It’s Wednesday, the third day I’ve been paging Kevin since Josh’s call. I paged again this morning, just after arriving at the shop. No response. Not a single call returned—just silence, thick as ever, stretching wider by the hour.
I remind myself he’s busy. That Josh is watching him closely now. That Kevin’s guilt has him frozen, or Josh’s threats have him handcuffed. But none of it makes the waiting feel any less ignored or, worse, erased.
At the warehouse, deliveries arrive steadily, and the shelves need restocking. Every time the phone rings, I pause—only to find the call isn’t for me. Until one is.
“Daniel, line one!” Janice calls out. “When are you gonna get a fucking phone at home?”
“When this place pays me more money,” I shout back.
I don’t move at first. I wipe my hands on a towel and reach for the extension hanging above the shop’s workbench.
“This is Daniel.”
There’s a pause. “Hey, it’s me.”
My throat tightens. It’s anger that swells within me first. Still, I remember anger won’t get me what I want, so I take a deep breath to keep the irritation, relief, and desire interwoven within me measured .
“Took you long enough,” I say flatly. I want to yell, to punish Kevin for the silence—but I bite it back. Losing control now means losing him forever.
“I know,” he says. His voice is low, and he sounds rushed or stressed. “I’m sorry. I—I didn’t know what to say.”
“Try starting with why Josh called me.”
Kevin doesn’t answer right away. “Josh called you? Jesus Christ. When?”
“Monday morning.” I pause. “Don’t tell me you had nothing to do with that.”
“I swear I didn’t,” Kevin says quickly. “What did he say?”
“He said I’ve been echoing through his house or some shit like that. He asked me how long ‘this’ has been going on.”
I could hear Kevin exhaling hard, like punched in the gut. I can almost picture him slumped over whatever desk he’s calling from, his hand pressed to his forehead.
“I didn’t think he’d actually—”
“You didn’t think at all,” I snap. “You lit the match and vanished.”
“I’m sorry, Daniel.”
“No, you’re scared. Do you know Josh told me he just wanted me to know that he sees me ? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Another silence. This one feels like a retreat.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says.
“Then meet me. Tomorrow at lunch. Talk to me like a person, not a mistake.”
“I can’t. Not now. I need to fix things with Josh. ”
“You invited me back in, Kevin. You had lunch with me. You asked to see me again, invited me to swim, and took me to the movies. You kissed me, Kevin. You said you remembered.”
“I do remember.” His voice cracks on the word.
“Then don’t act like we imagined this. One lunch. One hour. Or I swear I’ll knock on your front door, and all three of us can have this conversation.”
I can hear Kevin swallow.
“Ansley. Friday at Noon. I have an all-day workshop tomorrow and won’t be able to meet. Does that work?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there.”
He hangs up first without a goodbye—just the dead click of something unresolved.
I replace the receiver slowly, my hand still trembling.
Kevin agreed to meet, but the hesitation clung to every pause, every sigh.
The call drained me. Being sharp—pushing—was necessary, but it’s not what I want.
Not really. I don’t want to corner him. I want him to want me.
To choose me. Not because he’s scared of what Josh or I will do, but because he still feels what I know is there.
I didn’t fight for lunch. I fought for a chance. And now I’m back where I started—waiting in silence, hoping it means he’s thinking. Dreading it means he’s gone.