Seven
The silence is thick enough to chew and lodge in my throat. I shift on the warm black leather seat and can’t wrap my brain around how I ended up here in Ash’s pathologically clean 4Runner. I sneak a peek at him, but he’s only got eyes for the road. His teeth worry the gold ring bisecting his lip.
He involved himself in this. You have every right to ask him why he stepped in.I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough to block out Josh’s face. That sad, disappointed slant of his eyebrows. Him asking me to leave.
I can’t take it anymore. Lady Jessica would ask.
“What was that about—”
“Marlowe, what the hell was that?”
We turn to each other at the same time, words and frustration tumbling over each other.
“I thought you didn’t want to help!”
“He’s such a massive dipshit.”
I put my hands up. “Ash, stop. Me first. What was that? Why did you step in?”
His hands grip the steering wheel until his knuckles blanch. “Why? Would you rather go back there? To where he was kicking you out?”
His words are sharp, but he stumbles over each one. I raise an eyebrow, almost positive that he’s as clueless about how we ended up in this car as I am.
“Of course not,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I just don’t get it, and I like to understand things. First, the project? And now this? All the while being very rude to me, and growling about how you don’t want to help me?”
“I don’t growl.”
I wait him out.
He groans, exasperation written into every feature. “Can’t I just be doing a nice thing?”
“Nope,” I say, mentally calculating that probability at a robust 7 percent. “Mainly because I’m pretty sure you dislike me.”
The silence continues to crush me. I will be at least an inch shorter when I get out of this car. He lets it hang in the air long enough that I briefly reflect on the YouTube videos I used to watch about how to tuck and roll out of a moving car without hurting yourself.
Finally he cracks the tension, just as my hand is reaching for the door handle. “I don’t dislike you, Marlowe.” I shiver at his almost constant use of my name. Josh would always call me “girl” or “Lo,” and it’s strange to hear every vowel and consonant drop into the darkness. “It’s just hard for me to reconcile a person who would love someone like Stallings with someone I would have anything in common with. Or want to have anything in common with.”
I flinch, the words stinging. I know Josh can be demanding of his friends, and even those he doesn’t consider friends. They don’t see the real him, though. The soft, gentle boy who would thread his fingers through my hair and let me tell him all about my latest hyperfixation. Truly, how amazing are mushrooms?
I shake my head. Focus.
“But… you’ve still stepped in to help me. Twice, now.”
“Because he’s a massive asshole, and you shouldn’t have needed saving in the first place.”
His irritation bleeds into something a little more satisfied. I see the tug of his lips curve into the smallest of smiles under the passing streetlights. He turns to look at me, not even bothering to pretend he isn’t enjoying it.
“Plus, he really, really hates it.”
“Why, Ashton Octavius Hayes. You’re trying to provoke him.”
He shrugs, the elegant slant of his shoulder brushing off my surprise. “He deserves it, and my middle name isn’t Octavius. Nobody’s is.”
“I imagine, statistically speaking, there is someone on this planet whose middle name is Octavius.”
“Nope, sounds fake.”
“What’s your middle name, then?”
“I’m afraid that’s a friend-level question, and you don’t have access to that kind of information.”
I lean back in the seat, off-kilter from the lilt in his voice that is almost teasing. “Do I get points for being a way for you to torture Josh?”
He hums, the low vibration filling the car and seeping into my skin. “I will give you two extra points, because that irritated ‘Marlowe’ he yelled out when we left was very satisfying.”
I cover my face with my hands. “Oh, God, I almost forgot about that.” I check my phone. All that attention and still not a single text message.
“Imagine thinking he had the right to say anything to you after throwing you away.”
I bristle. “I am not some old candy bar wrapper. He just doesn’t understand that I’m very invested in our relationship, and willing to work to save it.” I pull my lips into some semblance of a smile, refusing to let his words burrow under my skin. “Besides, you might not have been trying to purposefully help me, but you certainly helped me pull off Lady Jessica’s tactics better than I could have done on my own.” The look from Josh to me and then Ash’s outstretched hand was thunderous. Just like I imagine the Duke must have felt seeing Jessica waltz with his rival.
We pull up to a stop sign. He turns and looks at me. “Lady Jessica?”
I wave him off. “It’s a book, never mind.”
A very undignified snort slips past his lips, and he pinches the bridge of his nose—his almost constant expression in my presence.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “do you—do you mean from Lady Jessica Conquers a Duke?”
I gasp, sitting up. “You know it!”
He puts his forehead on the wheel, and the resounding silence throws me.
I bite my lip. Is he praying? I’m used to my meemaw breaking into prayer over the smallest detail, and I’ve been trained to be respectful in these moments. Dear Jesus, please bless the workers here at the Super Buy to find your hand to discount the sirloins by Friday. She would look to me for a loud “Amen” and we would carry on.
I put my hands together respectfully until his shoulders start to shake.
“Ash? Are you laughing at me?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “What was your plan, to tell him that it was your beloved guardian’s dying wish that you two find a way to make it work?”
I almost lunge across the gear shift. “Oh my God, you know it know it.”
His smile spreads, and I know it’s one I’ll remember.
“Yes, I know it. It’s a classic, and my grandmother’s favorite. Absolutely unhinged, but a classic.” He leans back, in no hurry to move beyond this stop sign. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. The all-red outfit. Him accusing you of flirting with his friend.”
I sigh. “Lot of good that did.”
“What else did you do?” The smile is back, sharp and glittering in the dark.
I hesitate, but getting a response out of quiet, sullen Ash Hayes feels like earning a Girl Scout badge. Plus, the joy of talking about this book, unhinged or not, with someone who has read it is too much to resist.
“Okay,” I say, leaning all the way in. “I dropped a favor near him to give him the opportunity to return it.”
“Stop,” he says, the deep, rich sound of his laughter filling the car and my lungs.
It’s infectious, and I wipe the tears pooling at the corners of my eyes.
“Well, did he?”
“No, it was a pencil, and it got lost in the mud.”
He puts his forehead back on the steering wheel, and it feels a little less like failure.
My phone goes off, shattering the moment.
He looks up, frowning. “Josh?”
I shake my head, still dazed in the aftermath of his delight. I answer the FaceTime and two worried faces pop up.
Odette speaks first. “Has Count Chocula drank your blood yet?”
“Really nice,” Ash says dryly.
“You’re clearly a spring palette, Ash, deal with it,” she shoots back, not deterred in the slightest.
I zoom in on my unpunctured neck. “Ash has very kindly offered to take me home. You want to follow us back, and we can recap?”
“Sorry, I need to get home. Nonnegotiable family brunch in the morning,” Odette says with a shrug.
“Ash, are you fine to drive?” Poppy asks primly.
Ash smiles as her disapproval crackles through the car. “Don’t worry, my cup had water.”
Poppy nods, mollified. “Call us tomorrow?”
I’m not sure I’ll have many more answers for her, but I nod before signing off.
He finally eases away from the stop sign, and I direct him toward my house as we reach the outskirts of town. It’s easier to see him as the glow of streetlights and flashes from the neon glare of the Piggly Wiggly slide over the sharp angle of his jaw.
“Your taste in friends seems pretty good, is it just your taste in guys that’s terrible?”
“According to who?”
“Absolutely me, and anyone else who has ever spent a single minute in Josh’s company.”
“What’s your evidence for this hypothesis?”
His mouth quirks again. “Well. For starters, he told you that you didn’t love him correctly.”
My gut twists. “You don’t understand.”
“I’m trying to.” He’s not teasing anymore. He’s listening, and in a way that gives me stage fright.
I let the silence hang between us, filling every crevice and cup holder, and I realize I want to keep talking. There’s no logical reason to share razor-sharp memories with someone who’ll be out of my life with the conclusion of a project, but I still want to know him. I want to know the story behind all the rings on his fingers, and what shampoo he uses because there isn’t a hint of frizz and the car smells like mint and sage.
You don’t have to know everything, Marlowe Meadows.I try to bring myself back to reality. He’s just a boy. A boy who is not my friend.
But he’s listening, and he’s driving me home, and I find myself answering anyway.
“Things were harder when I was a kid,” I say, slowly, gauging his reaction with every word. “My differences were more noticeable, and while I’ve never tried to hide them, certain survival techniques kick in whether you want them to or not.”
I clear my throat, realizing belatedly that maybe he just wanted me to say that Josh and I had the same taste in music, or that I was really into boys with blond hair. Too late.
“Anyway, needless to say, I wasn’t very popular. I was weird Marlowe. Marlowe who was too honest, too literal, too dumb to realize that talking to someone every day in class didn’t mean that you were friends and that you shouldn’t try to give them a Christmas present in front of all of their actual friends.” I want to use its name. I want to be clear with him. “Autism, amirite?”
We turn down my street, and Ash’s silence fills my lungs until I’m dizzy. I keep talking, breathing uncomfortable words into the velvet dark. “I’ve known everyone in my class since pre-K, and a boy had never looked my way. But then two years ago, Joshua Shepherd Stallings did.” I point to the pale blue Victorian house on the corner.
“No Octavius for him?”
“He couldn’t pull off Octavius.” I smile as he hugs the curb in front of my house. He turns off the engine and sits back, not a sliver of haste in his body language.
I shrug, trying to find my place in the story. “He looked my way and saw me. He saw what I was, who I was, and told me I was special. Then the rest of the student body believed it too, and it felt nice to be on the inside for once.” I clear my throat. “So yeah, I relied on him, probably too much, to help me navigate uncertain waters. I thought he could help me understand how to be in a relationship, but now I’m here trying to understand and navigate the aftermath of him alone.”
He makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat, and I find the courage to meet his eyes.
“Marlowe,” he starts, before closing his mouth, his lips disappearing into a thin line that strings me tight as a bow. He clears his throat and starts again. “Do you know where Three Little Words is?”
I blink. Of all the things I’m expecting after baring my soul to him in the darkness, it’s not this. “The bookstore?”
He nods, once. “Can you be there tomorrow at eleven?”
I pause, expecting more information or context to come, but it doesn’t. “I think so,” I say to fill the space.
“We’ll start tomorrow.”
My brain stutters over the sentence, and the way he turns and starts the engine again.
“Start tomorrow?” I unbuckle my seat belt and lean forward as the muscle in his jaw clenches. I’ve spilled all my secrets onto his floorboards, but he’s keeping his close to the chest. “Does this mean you’re going to help me?”
“Tomorrow, Marlowe,” he says, nodding toward my house.
I scramble out of the car before he changes his mind.