“Molly? No. I mean, she was just a kid. She was like . . . fourteen.”
That makes me smile. “You don’t think fourteen-year-old girls get crushes on seventeen-year-old guys? Or vice versa?”
“Well, yeah. They do. But . . . Molly was Taylor’s alter ego. I never thought of her that way. Did you . . . or did she . . . think I was . . . I mean, did I do anything to make her think that I—”
“No. But it didn’t stop her from going on about how gorgeous you are.”
I instantly regret the way I phrased that. Now we’re both uncomfortable. I could at least have said were.
I’m tempted to comb through my memory banks for something suave to say, something that won’t make me sound like an idiot, something that maybe worked for somebody else as she tried to extract her foot from her mouth.
But I know better. It’s like saving up that perfect comeback you read in a book or heard on TV—it always sounds good in your head, but it never quite fits in real life.
Fortunately, Aaron seems to be too preoccupied to notice that I’m at a loss for words. “Molly was like a second sister to me. At least, that’s how I thought of her.”
He looks miserable, and I realize he’s probably thinking through the various things he said to Molly, especially near the end. Worried that he unintentionally led her on or said something that might have hurt her feelings. I feel bad for even mentioning it.
“Fourteen-year-olds are . . . really fickle, you know. If Molly had made it to fifteen, she’d probably have gone back to thinking of you as Taylor’s jerky older brother. No, I guess Daniel had that title locked down . . . so, Taylor’s not-so-jerky older brother. She’d have been crushing on someone from 5 Seconds of Summer or from her algebra class or whatever. You’d have been yesterday’s news. She’d have looked back and said, oh my God, what did I ever see in him?”
Aaron laughs, which is exactly what I was hoping for. “You really think that, or are you just saying it to make me feel better?”
“Maybe a little of both?”
“I’ll take that.” He comes over and sits next to me on the bed. “What I was trying to say before you distracted me with that bit of news is . . . just let me know what you need from me. You need someone to be here if that bastard visits your dreams, then you’ve got it. You need space, then . . . you’ve got that, too. Okay?”
I nod. “Thanks. Molly was definitely right about one thing, you know.”
A grin inches across his face. “That I’m gorgeous?”
Yes, I think.
“No,” I say. “I meant that you’re a really nice guy, but now it looks like you’re developing this huge ego problem . . .” I swat at him playfully and he catches my hand.
“One more thing. When Deo is back safe and sound . . .” He stops and his shoulders slump.
“What?”
“Well . . . I was about to ask if you’d want to go to a movie or get dinner. But we’d probably have to worry about you picking up a ghost or me realizing the guy at the next table is about to punch his waiter. Maybe we could just watch Netflix and . . .” He stops again and closes his eyes. “I truly suck at this. I was not going to say chill, I swear to God. I was going to say watch Netflix and order takeout.”
I lean forward and kiss him. It’s a quick kiss, just a featherlight brush of my lips against his.
He looks surprised. I probably do too, because that wasn’t at all planned. It just seemed right.
“I’d like that, Aaron. When all of this is over, I think I’d like that a lot.”
We spend the rest of the day waiting.
Taylor emerges to eat and drink pretty much everything left in the house (other than the coffee) and spends maybe twenty minutes on the deck to get some fresh air. Then back into her cave.
We play Scrabble and rummy. We search online for more info about the Creggs. We search for Beaux Arts buildings in the area and find far too many to wade through, but spend an hour doing just that anyway.
We even watch some Netflix.
And we wait.
Just before nine, Taylor comes down with her sketch pad. And she’s smiling.
“You’ve got something?”
“Yeah,” she tells me. “I’m not done, but it’s definitely something.” She tosses the pad on the coffee table in front of us and heads straight for the kitchen.
The drawing shows a tiny version of the Beaux-Arts ruin she showed us earlier, surrounded by green. Trees, grass . . . and sidewalks or paths of some sort running throughout the area. It’s near a river, which she’s shaded the way she did in the drawing last night. But there are other rectangular patches scattered about, shaded a lighter gray, and a vehicle of some sort.