I looked down at the phone for a moment longer, waiting to see if he was going to respond. It made sense that Peter was concerned about my dad—it was his job to be concerned. But if he wanted to know anything about my dad’s mental or emotional state, I was the last person he should be talking to.
“Hey there.” I looked up and saw that Topher was across from me, leaning against the kitchen island. I wondered how long he’d been there—Toby had once helpfully informed me that I had a “super-weird reading face.”
“Hey,” I said, locking my screen and setting my phone down, matching the blasé-ness of his tone. We’d established our boundaries three years ago, when this had started, and we’d never had a problem sticking to them. We kept it casual, which let us be in each other’s lives without things getting tense or strained. Which I appreciated, since he was the only person who truly understood what my life was like. His mom was in the Senate, and over the last three years she and my dad had given the media one of their favorite narratives—the senator and the congressman, on opposite sides of the aisle but living in neighboring towns, against all odds and Washington politics, forging a friendship. They often rode together on the train back and forth to D.C., and despite the media’s tendency to spin, I knew my dad genuinely liked Claire Fitzpatrick. When both she and my dad were home at the same time—which wasn’t often—she and her husband would come to dinner or we’d go to their house, and Topher and I almost always found a moment to escape, usually around the time when the subsidies talk started.
“What’s up?” I asked as I took a sip of my drink, not letting myself break eye contact with him. Topher—short for Christopher—was handsome in a way I had never gotten used to, not even after three years. It was the kind of handsome—tall, tan, blond, gray-eyed—that you saw in ads for expensive watches and luxury sweaters. There was a kind of polish and control to him that I had recognized immediately.
“Not much,” he said, taking a drink from his Sprite bottle, then setting it down and looking at me, his voice getting a little softer. “How are you holding up?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I’m fine,” I said. His expression didn’t change much, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. “Really,” I said firmly. “I’m leaving town for the summer at the end of the week anyway, so it’s not like I’ll be here dealing with it.”
“Oh, yeah,” Topher said, nodding. “That pre-med thing, right?”
I nodded, knowing better than to attach any meaning to the fact that Topher had remembered this. After all, it was what we’d both been taught to do. Hang on to dates and details, remember that colleague’s daughter’s name and where she’s going to college. Make sure you know that important donor loves orchids, and if you bring them up, she’ll be beyond pleased, and talk to you about them all night. Collect these facts about these people you don’t really know, and let them think you do. “You got it.”
“So this will probably be the last time we see each other for a while,” he said, his voice dropping slightly lower.
“Maybe so,” I said, not letting myself look away, starting to smile.
Topher arched an eyebrow at me, and I saw a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He pushed himself off the island and crossed to me. He leaned over, casually, every move just so, like he was in no hurry. His lips were right near my ear, but he didn’t speak at first, just let out a breath against my skin that made me shiver. “In that case,” he finally said, speaking low, even though we were the only ones in the kitchen. He took a lock of my hair and curled it around his finger before he let it drop. “Want to get out of here?”
Topher went first; he seemed to have a sixth sense for when empty rooms were available at parties, and I had an amazing ability to walk into just the wrong room at just the wrong time. He’d told me to meet him in the basement, and now I needed to wait long enough that nobody would see us disappearing together. Topher had established his ground rules early on—we couldn’t tell anyone (I’d decided my friends were an exception to this, since I trusted them completely)—and we’d do whatever we could to make sure nobody would find out. I’d established some of my own—nothing but kissing, and everything we did or talked about stayed between us. I also found that I could be honest with him in a way I never was with my other boyfriends. I knew that whatever I told him, he would keep to himself. Our situation was what I’d once heard Peter describe as “mutually assured destruction.” We knew too much about each other, and we both had too much to lose for either one of us to say anything.
When we both started dating people, these ground rules grew to include that we never did anything when either of us was with someone. Which meant we could go months without seeing each other. But it had become something that I’d gotten pretty reliant on.