He was being an asshole about Stuart, but he was right. If I really want Stuart to like me for who I am, he had to know what who I am actually looked like. He needed to know about NPC. So that’s why, a couple of days later when I found out that Davy and Bette would start a crafting camp, and that Coop’s mom would be the one checking in on me that day, I texted Coop for a favor.
Me: Can you tell your mom that she doesn’t need to come today and give me a ride into Hanover for a few hours?
Coop: yeah why
Me: To meet with someone really quick
Coop: cool, i’m actually going into town at 1, i’ll swing by, what do you want to do?
Me: Oh, I’m just going to chill w/ Stuart
Coop: Oh word.
Me: Can you also drive me home at 4? Or will you be gone by then?
Coop: so demanding
Me: I’m sick :(
Me: I’ll make you treats!
Coop: ya well ur lucky thats when i was going to come back to strafford anyway
We didn’t talk much on the ride over, just about what kind of brownies would be his preference (no, I told him, I would not put weed in the butter), and where we’d meet later.
Coop dropped me off at the bottom of Stuart’s driveway, and there he was, echoing warm waves back and forth: my boyfriend. He lifted me up to face level and we kissed like it had been two years since we’d seen each other, not two weeks. I had forgotten that he had a scent, a mix of that outdoor sweat and a clean detergent smell.
“You’re better,” he muttered into my neck. “I’m so glad you’re better.”
“Not all the way,” I said, and tensed a little, but that went away when he took my hand and we walked together toward his house.
As we walked, Stuart jerked his head back toward the street and asked, “Who gave you a ride?”
“Oh, just Cooper Lind,” I said.
Stuart opened his white-painted door. “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen him around. What’s his deal?”
The nerves in his voice were puzzling at first, and then as he faced me in his big open foyer, his long, thin arms across his chest, I realized: He was jealous.
“Oh! Oh, no, Stuart—Coop’s just my dumbshit neighbor.”
This seemed to relax him a bit, and the smile returned to his black eyes. I reached out and stroked his shoulders, touching the freckle on his collarbone. He put his hands around my waist, Stuart’s nose touching my nose.
“Yeah, just your friendly neighborhood pothead. He used to play baseball at Hanover until they kicked him off the team for being too high all the time. He told everyone he quit,” I said, and laughed to mask the guilt that instantly grabbed my stomach.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that. Actually, I’m positive I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Stuart laughed with me. He tilted his chin to kiss me, and by the time I was done kissing him back, we had both forgotten what we’d been talking about.
We walked through his house slowly, Stuart telling me stories behind all the objects: the handwoven rug his parents had waited a year to acquire while it was being knotted by artisans in India, the room full of instruments we could only be in for just a second to make sure the temperature stayed correct, the rack of spices his mother used to make her own chai. I giggled at school photos of Stuart through the years, one with braces, one without, one with long hair, the rest without. And the books, a whole room made of walls full of books.
A section for fiction.
A section for poetry.
A section for biographies, for philosophy, for essays.
After sandwiches, we walked toward the Dartmouth campus. I was nervous at every turn that I’d forget something, forget what I was talking about, forget where I was. I tried not to be distracted, but under everything I said, I was asking in my head, What if I fuck up?
“What do you want to do?” Stuart asked.
I shrugged. “How’s your writing going?” I asked.
“This is so pretentious of me, but I’d actually prefer not to talk about it. If I talk about it too much, it… loses its luster. Takes a different form. Or something.”
“I don’t mind,” I told him. At least one of us had work they were excited about. “I completely understand,” I said, trying to put on a smile.
We ducked into the lobby of the Dartmouth performance hall. The last time we were near here, we were making out on the field behind it. Our footsteps echoed on the shining, checkered tile. I’d never been inside.
“What time is it?” Stuart asked.
“It’s two thirty,” I said. I had been checking my phone every chance I got, in case Mom came home and found me gone, or in case Coop was heading back early.
Through the row of closed, arched wooden doors, the sounds of an orchestra floated out, muffled.
Stuart knocked on the box office door.
Suddenly, a balding man opened the door. When he saw Stuart, he smiled a little.