14. Tilly
FOURTEEN
Tilly
Reversibility: The standard holds that any intervention should be capable of being undone by whoever comes next. Everyone in the trade is taught it, and everyone in the trade knows how few things stay undoable once they have been done.
I'm awake before my alarm, which never happens. The second I open my eyes, the dread returns with a vengeance. I fucking kissed Rhodes Stone yesterday!
I roll over and bury my face in my pillow. I wish I could disappear into the goose down rather than face him. God, what was I thinking?
I flip over and lie there flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, looking for the strength to brush it off and act like that never happened.
Through the wall, I can hear him. Rhodes is up, which he always is, moving around the kitchen in that quiet way he has. The tap runs, then the coffee grinder kicks on, that ugly rattle it makes for exactly seven seconds, and cuts off.
It's all so normal. That's the problem. Every single sound out there is a sound I've heard for a month straight, and none of it knows that yesterday I kissed my brother's best friend in the middle of his family's cabin.
I pull the blanket up to my chin and kick my feet under the covers.
Okay. So I have to walk into that kitchen. That's the whole task. I've done it however many mornings in a row without a single thought in my head, so that's what I do.
What do I do with my face? That's the first thing. If I walk in there looking careful, he'll know I've been thinking about it, and then he'll get that flat, closed-off look he gets, and we'll both stand there being weird about being weird.
But if I go in too breezy, too loud, same thing.
The move is to act as if it's Monday. Because it is Monday.
I have a nine-thirty class and that god-forsaken lab report half finished I need to work on in the library afterwards.
I go in, get coffee, say something dry, he says something drier, and the world keeps turning.
If nobody says it, it didn't happen. That's just science.
I throw the blanket off and get up.
I pull open the dresser, and this is where I lose the plot a little.
I stand there holding a green shirt, put it back, take out a black hoodie.
I fold the first one and set it on the bed.
I find the jeans that don't have shell dust ground into the knee.
I'm reaching for a third shirt when I catch my own hand doing it.
I stop.
It's a Monday. I'm getting dressed for a class I could sleep through, not going to a fashion show. I put on the first green shirt, the jeans, my boots, and I don't let myself touch the pile again.
Last night I told myself the kiss changed nothing, and that's still true today. It was one strange thing at the end of a good day. So it's genuinely stupid that I'm in here strategizing how to walk into my own kitchen.
It's bad sleep and no coffee yet. That's all this is.
I roll my shoulders back, square up to the door like it's a boat I'm about to jump for, and go get my coffee.
The kitchen smells like coffee and toast, and Rhodes is barefoot at the counter in sweatpants and an old gray shirt, hair still wet from the shower.
He doesn't look up when I come in. He doesn't do a single thing I braced for.
"There she is." He pops the toast and drops it onto a plate. "You made grinding noises last night that would embarrass a chainsaw. You know you snore, right?"
"I do not."
"Okay, Tallulah."
That's it, that's the whole opening. There's no careful tone, no strange little pause where he decides whether he's allowed to joke with me. He's just already halfway through giving me a hard time, same as any other morning this month.
He fills a second mug, adds the splash of milk and the half spoon of sugar without asking, because he's watched me do it enough times to have it memorized, and slides it down the counter toward me.
For a moment that's a relief. The floor is solid, and nothing detonated overnight. Except my snoring, apparently.
Then it lands wrong. He's not managing this or carefully performing normal to keep the peace. He is normal. Yesterday happened to me and apparently just happened near him.
I wrap both hands around the mug.
"Guys are coming over tonight," he says, biting into his toast. "It's our poker night and my turn to host. You want in on the pizza order? I'm calling it in this afternoon."
"Don't order extra for me. I'm going to the library after class. I may meet up with some people later."
I watch him. I don't know exactly what I'm watching for, some flicker, some beat where he wonders who I'll be with, where I'll be, when I'll come home.
"Cool." He chews. "Might do three pies, anyway. Deuce eats like it's his last day on earth. If you're around and there's pizza, help yourself."
"Oh, I'm always stealing a slice. That's not up for negotiation."
"Noted."
He reaches past me for the milk still sitting by my elbow, and it's nothing. It’s a normal reach. His warm skin brushes my arm, and I get a lungful of clean soap. The air shifts around me like a door opened somewhere warm.
I notice it. I'm not going to lie to myself and say I didn't. Bodies do dumb things. I file it where it goes and pick up my coffee like nothing happened, because nothing did.
He gives me the rundown of the crew and what to expect if I get back while they're still here. I'm half listening, half running through what I have to do today.
"I'm heading out," I say. "Meeting Jo before class."
And I'm gone, out the door, before I can waste another second measuring how completely fine he is.
Jo already has a table by the window when I get there, two café au laits in front of her. The ceiling fan overhead pushes the thick morning air around without actually cooling it. It's always warm in here with the steamers and the crowds, regardless of the weather outside.
Through the glass, the live oaks throw green shade over the sidewalk, and a streetcar rattles past on St. Charles a block over.
I drop into the chair across from her and pull the chicory coffee toward me.
"So I kissed Rhodes yesterday."
Jo's cup stops halfway to her mouth.
"Wait, what did you just say? Clearly I haven't had enough caffeine."
"We went riding out at his cabin in Slidell. I told you he's into the whole dirt bike thing. I asked if I could join him."
"Uh, huh." She looks at me wide-eyed over the rim of her cup.
"It was a good day, genuinely, and then we're both inside, somehow my mom comes up, and he just kissed me. Or I kissed him. It happened all at once.” I take a sip.
She doesn't respond right away. I think she's trying to figure out what in the hell this means, just like I am.
"It was weird. We both said so, out loud, twice. And then we loaded the bikes and drove home like it never happened."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
She sets her cup down. "You're leaving out the part where you tell me how it was."
"There's no part. It was fine. Look, I'm not blind. The man is objectively good-looking. Tall, that jaw, the whole thing. I have eyes." I shrug. "But good-looking doesn't mean I want some complicated mess with a guy I've known basically my entire life. Those are two different sentences."
"Okay." Jo is watching me over her coffee, and I know that face. That's the face she made about Trey.
"It's really nothing."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true." I stir my coffee even though there's nothing to stir. "I mean, I don't know what else to say about it."
"You've mentioned the jaw."
"I mentioned it once."
She lifts her hands, all innocence, and lets it go.
"Speaking of," she says, "you're on Friday reef crew. Trey's driving the boat."
I put my forehead down on the table. "God."
"He's nice."
"He is nice. I like Trey. Just not like that. And I don't want to have to dance around that." I lift my head. "Maybe he got the message."
My phone lights up. Grandbank. I'm smiling before I even answer.
"Do you mind if I answer this call from my grandfather? We've been playing phone tag. He never stays on long."
"Of course. Please," she says, waving her free hand at me while she brings her cup to her mouth with the other.
"He is alive," I say as I bring the phone to my ear.
"There's my girl." His voice is warm and gravelly. "You sleeping? You eating something that isn't gas station?"
"I'm at a café right now being extremely civilized, thank you."
He laughs, then there's a little pause. "When are you coming home? I miss my Tilly Girl."
"You just miss my free labor."
"That I do." He moves right past it. "And your hugs."
"Italy is in three weeks, and then Easter's right after that. Did Daddy tell you my idea about Easter?"
"He mentioned it."
Something happens to his voice on those three words. Not a change exactly, more like a man setting a glass down carefully on a table he can't quite see the edge of.
"And?"
"And it's a real pretty idea, honey."
"That's not an answer, Grandbank. Why are y'all all being so weird about it? It's a simple change of venue."
"Let's talk about it." He clears his throat. "Do you think you can come home before Easter so we can talk logistics?"
"That's going to be pretty tight, Grandbank, with school and Italy, but I'll see if I can swing it.”
"Grandbank."
"Mm."
"That's the fourth time somebody in this family has changed the subject on me about Oak Moss." I keep my voice level, because getting hysterical isn’t going to work. "Is something happening out there?"
The line goes quiet long enough that I hear his chair creak through the phone. "Come home, and we'll talk about it, Tilly girl."
“I don’t like the sound of that."
“You need to get going before you make yourself late. Now go to class. I love you."
He's gone before I can tell him I love him back. I set the phone down. Jo raises an eyebrow.
“He’s a cranky old man," I say.
"Naturally."
I drain the coffee, check the time, and stand. "You ready to head to campus?"