Every Second with You

Chapter Two





Trey

Paper?

She has a paper due?

She’s taking a writing class, and I’m pretty sure the assignments are of the creative story variety, not “papers.” Strange answer, but as I brush my teeth, I realize something seemed off about Harley all morning. I stop brushing, rewind the last twelve hours—her headache, her rush to leave, and most of all, her not wanting to have sex. Come to think of it, she’s seemed out of sorts ever since we were watching that movie last night, after we ate the birthday cake.

I tense for a moment, shoulders tightening, as a one-syllable name flashes through my head like a blaring neon sign.

Cam.

Is she talking to him again? Is that why she’s being so weird? Is she toying with going back? She better not be. Because that’s a line she can’t cross.

I grip the sink with my free hand, take a deep breath, and try to settle my jump-to-conclusions nature. I listen for the sound of my shrink’s voice in my head, telling me to slow down.

I won’t assume the reason she’s weird is that she’s talking to him again. Maybe it’s because this is the first time she’s ever celebrated a birthday without her mom being a part of it. Even though the woman is a witch, I bet Harley misses her. And I suspect she doesn’t want to admit that, either, tough girl that she is. I finish brushing my teeth, ready to pat myself on the back. My shrink would be proud that I didn’t act on my fears. I spit out the toothpaste, and leave my toothbrush in the cup holder, next to Harley’s.

Seeing my green toothbrush next to her red one, carbon copies of the ones at my apartment, reminds me of how ridiculous having two places is. The back and forth is pointless, since she’s at my apartment or I’m at hers every night. That’s what I should have done for her birthday. Asked her to move in with me.

I file away Harley’s skittishness for the rest of the day, instead plotting the best way to ask her to live with me as I work the afternoon shift at No Regrets, inking a trio of frat brothers by imprinting Greek letters onto their biceps. It’s usually the kind of tat you see three dudes decide to get on a dare when they’re wasted, but they’re stone-cold sober, so I guess this is what they want.

“Dude, this is awesome,” one of the guys says and high-fives me.

“Looks good, man. See you later.”

Then I head to my parents for the weekly dinner visit. School starts in less than a month, and I have one semester left before I earn my degree. Translation: only one more semester of these visits, and then the parental handcuffs come off.

The maroon uniformed doorman nods at me. “Good evening, sir.”

“Hey there,” I say. It’s strange, so strange that he has to act all deferential to everyone who comes and goes through the lobby of this Upper East Side building. I want to say Dude, I’m just like you. But once I’m inside the building, I lose all thoughts of the doorman because I see a pair of legs I’d recognize anywhere. Even from the back—maybe especially from behind, because that was her favorite position. Me, nestled up against her as she bent over the white marble bathroom counter of a $5 million apartment, all long, lean, shapely legs, her underwear at her ankles because she couldn’t wait to be f*cked. Her long brown hair flows down her sexy back and she’s wearing workout shorts, sneakers and a tank top. I rub my eyes as the elevator doors close, sealing her inside. I don’t even see her face, but I know those legs belong to Sloan McKay in 15D.


She moved out three years ago, only a few weeks into our affair. The only woman I wasn’t the first to leave. My heart pounds furiously at seeing her and I want to slap it, tell it to have zero reaction, because my heart belongs to Harley and it’s f*cking embarrassing that anyone else would cause this sort of uncontrollable chaos in my chest.

I duck into the nook with the mailboxes, close my eyes briefly, and slump against the wall, reminding myself that even if I run into an ex, it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’m about to have another meal with my parents, and that’s nearly as pleasurable as having my teeth pulled, so seeing Sloan is nothing.

Sloan, and her long legs.

Sloan, who used to show me the paintings she was working on for the gallery show she hoped to land someday, who liked to talk about art and passion, who always told me I made her feel things no one else did.

Sloan, who dropped hints she was thinking of leaving her husband before she just took off one day from the building. I hadn’t seen her since.

But Sloan isn’t Harley. Sloan isn’t the one I’m in love with. She’s not the girl I’m asking to move in with me.

I turn around, and head upstairs to my parents’ floor.

“Good to see you, son,” my dad says, offering a hand to shake, then clapping me on the back. Like I’m just another good old pal here to visit. “We ordered Chinese food tonight. Your mom didn’t have time to cook.”

Like this is news? My mother never cooks.

“Chinese is cool,” I say.

“Great,” he says. “Let’s go get her. Let her know you’re here.”

Inside her office, she’s tapping away on her desktop. She holds up a finger, the sign to wait. “Just sending in this prescription for Vicodin for a tummy-tuck patient. Be one more second,” she says, and then hits the button on her online prescription software that will send the recipe for numbness to the nearest pharmacy

I wouldn’t mind a Vicodin right now—anything to take the edge off eating scallion pancakes, cold noodles, and pepper steak while making fake conversation with my parents. Nothing has changed since the night a few months ago when I showed her the tats all over my body to remember my dead baby brothers, the ones she pretends never existed. Nope. It’s business as usual. Come to dinner. Talk about school. Be a good boy. See you later.

“So, Trey,” my father says when he’s done, folding his napkin and pushing away his plate. “Final semester. Have you given some thought to what happens come December when you graduate?”

I clear my throat and take a drink of water, wishing it were beer. “I thought I might go to nursing school,” I say, and I manage it with a straight face, flashing back to my joke last night with Harley.

My mother’s eyes brim with curiosity, and it’s the greatest evidence of an emotional reaction I’ve elicited from her in years. “Nursing school. That would be fantastic,” she says, and I want to roll my eyes and say, “You can’t think I was serious?” But they’d be thrilled if I became a nurse, because I’d at least be in the right field. And as far as they’re concerned, the field I’m in is the wrong one. I don’t tell them that when I graduate in December, I want to do what I’m doing right now: designing art on bodies.

We talk more about school and nursing, and it’s kind of amazing in a sad, pathetic way that my mom can chat endlessly about medicine and never about the losses that sliced our family into a before and an after. When she’s done, she surprises me by saying, “Your father and I would like very much for you to bring Harley over sometime.”

I nearly spit out my water. “What?”

“Yes, we’d like to meet her. Can she join us?”

“Um, okay,” I say, and soon after that I head out, texting Harley in the elevator, but when I reach the lobby I stop the message because there she is again.

Sloan.

On the street. Sliding into a cab. She’s not alone. I can’t see whom she’s with. But I feel dirty for even noticing her, and I hope to hell she’s not around when I bring Harley with me. I don’t want my present running into my past.