Briana slipped an arm around my waist and hugged me from the side, and I looked down at her and got lost for a moment the way I always did when I got hugs from her.
“You smell good,” she said, smiling up at me.
I wished I could lean down and kiss her. That’s what a real boyfriend would do here. Just a quick peck and a smile.
Instead I said, “You too.”
Instead. Everything I wanted to do with her, I did something else instead.
Grandpa came blazing down the hall at warp speed and snapped me out of it. He rolled so close to Briana she had to jump out of the way.
“You got my cigarettes?” He glared at her.
“No, I still do not have your cigarettes,” Briana said, crossing her arms.
“Were you supposed to bring them?” Rosa asked.
Briana shook her head. “He’s not allowed to have them, Mom.”
“The hell I’m not!” he bellowed. “This place is a prison!”
“Grandpa…” I said.
Then Mom and Dad came down the hall with Jane to save me. I introduced my parents. Benny introduced himself to my sister as Ben, for some reason. Then my parents swept Rosa and Benny off for a tour of the house with Grandpa and Jane, and Briana and I were alone for a moment.
She slumped the second they were around the corner.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “I locked up Jafar, but there’s nothing I can do about Grandpa.”
She snorted.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “You were late.”
“Yeah, check out what I did on the way over. I saw a dead possum, so I stopped to get it for your dad—and it wasn’t dead.”
I barked out a laugh.
“When I picked it up, it hissed at me and I fell backward. My mom thinks I’ve officially lost it. I landed in a bush and she had to pick leaves out of my hair. I bumped my elbow.” She lifted it up and frowned at it.
I grinned. “Want me to look at it?”
She rubbed it. “No, it’s fine.”
I gave her an amused look. “You don’t have to bring my dad dead things.”
“But I want to be his favorite,” she whined.
I chuckled. And then I just gazed at her. I’d missed her, even in just the hour since I’d seen her at work.
It didn’t feel normal for us to be apart now. And when we were together, I still wasn’t getting as much of her as I wanted.
I was always starved when it came to her. I lived off crumbs, never getting full. Even now, standing in this hallway in a place where we could touch, I couldn’t, because nobody was standing right here to see it. All of it, everything I got, was performative, and the deprivation was getting to me a little more every day. Even to just tell her that I loved her would be something. It seemed a waste to love her as much as I did without her ever knowing it. To be unaware that her very existence was my reason for smiling, for being happy to wake up in the morning.
Her phone chirped. She dug in her purse and looked at it. Then she turned off the sound and put it away.
“Alexis?” I asked.
“No.” She didn’t elaborate.
Benny and her mom were here. I was here. If it wasn’t Alexis, who was it? But then I knew.
I cleared my throat. “So, I was thinking, it’s probably best if we tell everyone we’re dating. Just in case.”
She tilted her head. “Huh?”
“You introduced me to Levi as your friend.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Did I?”
“Yeah. It was just something I noticed. I just think we should be consistent, you know?”
“Sorry. Freudian slip,” she said. “Hey, what do you think about me telling him the truth?” she said, her voice low.
My pulse quickened. “Why would you do that?”
“He doesn’t talk to literally anyone we know. I don’t like lying if I don’t have to.”
She wanted to tell him she was single. Why did she want to tell him she was single? I felt panic rising in me like acid. I didn’t even know what to say.
She changed the subject and nodded in the direction my family had gone. “We should go find them, before my mom thinks I’ve abandoned her.” She looked back up at me. “Also, I’m going to have to serve you your food tonight, or my mom is going to think I’m mistreating you.”
I gave her a look. “But it’s my parents’ house…”
“Just let it happen, Jacob. I’m to treat you like the prince you are. My mom already left flowers to the Virgin Mary to thank her for sending you. You’ve been elevated to saint status.”
Well, at least her mom was pulling for me. I’d take what I could get.
Chapter 37
Briana
I was driving Mom and Benny home from Jacob’s. Dinner had gone well. Benny got to talk to Joy about her transplant. I think it made him feel better. He’d never actually met anyone who’d been through the surgery.
“Why was the parrot screaming about Bieber?” Benny asked from the back seat.
“He wakes up every day choosing demonic possession,” I said.
“And what’s up with the weird room with all the dead things?”
“I did not like that room,” Mom said. “So many eyes.”
“His dad’s a taxidermist. I think they’re funny,” I said, turning onto the freeway. “You didn’t like the raccoon on the skateboard?” I asked my brother.
Benny shrugged in the rearview. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Briana, why don’t you give that old man a cigarette?” Mom asked.
“He’s on oxygen, Mamá. It could make him hypoxic.”
“So? Does he have dementia? He can’t decide if he wants to smoke himself to death?”
“No, he doesn’t have dementia.”
“Then why no cigarette? You tell him, ‘Look, I give you this, and maybe you can’t breathe. You still want it?’ And if he says yes, then it’s yes. I’d give him one. You should give him one.”
“Joy doesn’t want him to have them.”
She waved me off. “Uno no lo va a matar. He’s a grown man, you give him what he wants. He’s going to die, you let him die happy. And that goes for me too. Don’t you tell me I can’t have what I want because you’re trying to make me live forever. I want to die doing the things I love. I want to be happy until the very end.”
“Okay, Mamá.”
“You want to be happy?” she said, going on. “Marry an ugly rich man who loves you more than you love him.” She nodded at the windshield. “This one’s not ugly, but he’s got the rest of it. Enculado.”
I snorted. “Jacob is not whipped.”
She pulled her face back to stare at me. “Estás ciega! Are you blind? I like this one. I never liked Nick.”
“Ha,” I said, changing lanes. “Now you tell me.” I let a slow breath out through my nose. “Jacob definitely does not love me more than I love him, Mamá.”
She scoffed. “You are blind. You’re worrying in the wrong direction. Worry the other way.”
“Why doesn’t he ever kiss you?” Benny asked.
“He kisses me,” I said defensively.
“No, he doesn’t. He always looks like he wants to, but he never does.”
I shifted in my seat. “He doesn’t like PDA.”
“But he’s always holding your hand and touching you and stuff.”
“Kissing is different.”
“It’s not that different…” he mumbled.
“If he asks you to marry him, say yes,” Mom said. “You’re not getting any younger.”