I slip into the bedroom to change out of my trunks, not bothering to hang them since they’re dry from sitting around in them all morning, and I pull on my cargo shorts and the gray, long-sleeved thermal that I’ve worn so thin, it’s actually cooler than any of my T-shirts.
Yesterday with Maddy was the closest thing I’ve had to normal in a long time, and we were at a male strip club. There was a small window on our drive home when I thought about asking her on a legit date. Every bit of me wanted to kiss her, but more than that, I wanted to feel the entire thing—the chase, the small little favors like holding her door open. Then Tanya called, and shit just quit feeling like I deserved more than I had already gotten out of life. I still have more I need to give to get myself back to even.
Maddy needs to understand why I’m going to be gone Thursday and Friday, though, so I roll my shoulders and pinch the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes closed and cracking my neck to one side. You’d think I was heading out to the dumpsters behind the schoolyard for a good old-fashioned ass kicking.
Maybe I am.
I leave our makeshift apartment, and pause for only a second before pressing my palm flat against the office door, pushing it open enough to slip inside. She had left it open the tiniest bit, and I wonder if she was hoping I’d notice when I walked upstairs the first time. I wish I had.
She’s sitting in the window seat, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms holding them in place. Her hair is messy waves, the way it looks when she just lets it dry after swimming, which means she probably got here early. She’s been waiting here for a while.
“Hey,” I say, my voice light, not wanting to scare her.
She turns slightly, her chin falling to her shoulder, but not far enough for her eyes to meet mine.
“Hey,” she says, leaving her head in its place for a few long seconds before turning back to stare out the window.
I walk closer to her, rounding the desk behind her and sliding to sit on top of it, pushing a few of the tools my uncle has left here to the side.
“You working on your dad’s books or something?” I ask.
She laughs lightly.
“I never want to see those books,” she says. “I bet they’re a nightmare. Receipts stapled to margins, arrows pointing to expenses, moving them from month-to-month. This place is an IRS treasure trove.”
I look around, layers of dust on binders stacked haphazardly in a nearby bookcase, each marked with a year in black Sharpie on the spine.
“Your dad used to swear up a storm when he worked on that crap up here,” I say.
Maddy turns her head again, her eyes moving to the same bookcase I looked toward. Her shoulders rise with a short laugh, and I see her mouth curve on the right with a smile.
“He sure did,” she says. Her chest rises slowly, her body moving as she breathes in deep, then exhales. “My mom does it all now. Mostly on the computer. They just like to store things up here.”
“You still come here to hide, I see,” I say, holding my bottom lip between my teeth, worried that I overstepped with that statement, about hiding.
Her head waggles from side-to-side, and she adjusts her posture, leaning forward and pressing her head against the glass.
“I guess. I just always liked to watch the world from up here,” she says.
I study her. I look at her so long that minutes pass, neither of us saying a word, and when Maddy finally speaks, it hits me dead center.
“I used to watch you. You and Evan, but mostly…if I’m being honest…I looked at you when I came up here,” she says.
My throat tightens, and I let my head fall forward, looking at my dangling feet above the wooden planks of the floor.
“You can’t see the pool from here,” I say.
“I know,” she says. The silence that follows makes me think she’s done, but after several seconds, she says something I’ve ached to hear since I was sixteen. “I’d wait to see if you were coming to practice, too. It was the only place I could look at you like a part of me really wanted to.”
My jaw works side to side and I hold the back of my tongue between my teeth, trying not to be a chicken shit. My eyes close, and I keep my head down.
“And how’s that?” I ask, every breath I take after the question hurting my chest.
The short silence that follows is filled with her breathing, my heart pounding, my fingers gripping the edge of the desk hard, my soul hoping.
“Like maybe I should have fallen in love with you instead,” she says, the last word escaping with only a breath, barely audible, but enough that I heard it perfectly clear.
“What are you saying, Maddy?” I ask, lifting my head to find her looking at me over her shoulder.
She shakes her head, her forehead dimpled with worry and confusion. I’m sure I look the same. All it takes is for her tongue to pass lightly over her bottom lip for me to slide from the desk and walk over to her, coming as close as I can without touching her.
“I don’t know what anything means anymore, Will,” she says.