I did the quick math. My age, which I rounded up to forty, divided by two, plus seven. Twenty-seven. Dax was old enough for me. Barely.
Ugh, why had I even thought that? He carried a backpack.
I shifted my arm away from his awkwardly, pulling at my T-shirt to make it less clingy. “I think you just described why I decided years and years ago that I would never get a tattoo.”
“Really?” he said. “You’ve never wanted one?”
“Every time I even thought about getting inked, I’d force myself to imagine what it would look like when I was seventy-five. I couldn’t come up with anything I wouldn’t eventually regret.” My lips slammed shut. That wasn’t completely true.
There was this one time, when I was in my mid-twenties. Kelly, Yessi, and I had gone on a ski vacation out in Colorado. We spent part of the weekend hanging out with some bikers, and the three of us seriously discussed getting matching tattoos on the inside of our wrists—KAY, for Kelly, Annie, and Yessi. We’d all assumed that, at the very least, no matter what else happened in our lives, we’d remain friends forever. But something had made us chicken out at the last minute.
“You okay?” Dax asked.
“Yeah,” I said, not wanting to get into it—not actually wanting to open up about my personal drama when push came to shove. I’d been too hard on Dax about not being so immediately open and candid with me, a near-complete stranger. There were things I didn’t want to talk about, either. “What’s important to you when you’re twenty-seven may not be important when you’re forty.”
Chapter Twenty-One
1.21 Triviawatts
Dax and I walked the rest of the way in relative silence, the only sounds between us our breaths and our footsteps. My need to fill every gap in the conversation melted away as I focused on the drops of rain hitting the umbrella above us, and our walk devolved into a comfortable quiet.
When we entered the house, Dax dropped the umbrella in the hallway as Joanne padded over to greet him. I hopped on one foot as I yanked off my soaking shoes and socks.
Joanne took this as her cue and dashed over to greet me, knocking me backward onto the nearby bench. She jumped on top of me, licking my face and wagging her tail. I laughed while trying to block my mouth from her eager tongue.
“That’s too much, Joanne!” I said, giggling.
Dax pulled her off and helped me up. A jolt of electricity hit me when our hands touched, and I dropped his like a hot pot. “Thanks,” I said, shaking out my shirt, which had become skintight and see through in the rain.
“She likes you.” Dax finished taking off his shoes and socks.
“She has good taste.” Joanne padded back over to me, more calmly this time, and I kissed her soft muzzle. “And she’s a sweetheart.” I was growing fond of this big, lumbering mutt.
He laughed. “I know that, and you know that, but a lot of people are scared of her size. I think she senses their nerves and tries to overcompensate by being way too friendly.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “But that’s fine with me. I’ll take all the Joanne attention I can get. I don’t need to share with anyone else.”
I watched Dax wander into the living room and over to the piano. He ran his hand across the back, and I winced, knowing how much dust he’d just tracked his fingers through. “Sorry about that,” I said. “It’s dirty—”
“Do you play?” He pulled out the bench and sat down.
“No,” I said. “I bought the piano, promising myself I would learn, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
He lifted the fallboard, revealing a set of pristine, gleaming black and white keys. Yes, I knew all the lingo. The guy who’d sold me the piano had been sure to go over everything with me. I’d filed it all away in my memory because that was what I did. I remembered useless facts. I figured maybe it’d come up in trivia someday.
It hadn’t…yet. But I’d be ready.
Dax pressed softly on one of the white keys, eliciting a whisper of a note.
“My dad used to play,” I said. “When I was a kid, my mom said we never had room in the house for a real piano, at least not when my brother and I were living there, but he always swore that he’d get a baby grand for the front window someday.”
Dax grinned. “Did he ever get it?”
I shook my head, swallowing. “But I did.”
A surge of understanding passed between us.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but then lightning flashed in the window behind him, and thunder boomed a moment later. The lights in the living room flickered, and Joanne went scurrying.
“We lose power here all the time,” I said. “Just a warning. But it usually comes back on quickly.”
“Noted.” Dax’s foot pressed the pedals under the instrument. “Do you mind if I play?”
“Please do.” Grinning, I took a seat on one of the rock-hard couches facing the piano, tucking my cold, bare feet underneath me, ready for my private concert. I had no idea if Dax was any good, but he had to at least be better than I was—I could basically only plunk out “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” which was the same tune as the alphabet song, so, bonus—two for the price of one.
He cracked his knuckles, took a deep breath, and played a chord that made Joanne howl all the way down in the basement. Still, the guy could play, apparently. Dax lifted his hands as if he’d just been shocked, then tried playing a scale. “This is horribly out of tune,” he said with a crooked grin.
I winced. “Yeah, I’m not surprised.”
“You have to take care of an instrument like this.” He wiped a hand across the dusty music rack.
“I know.” It was another one of the things the piano salesman guy had lectured me about. But I figured, I never played the thing. How out of tune could it get?
“When was the last time you had it serviced?”
“Um…well, I bought it about three years ago.”
“Three years?” he said. “Annie.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” He gingerly covered the keys, stood, and tucked the bench back under the piano. “Do you mind if I get it tuned? I know a guy.”
“You know a guy?” I said, smiling. “Who knows a piano guy?”
“Pianists,” Dax said.
I let that hang there for a moment, Dax suddenly coming in to focus for me, just a bit. “You’re a pianist? Why are you a bartender?”
He laughed. “For money?” He paused. “You know the whole ‘starving artist’ trope?” He leaned toward me and whispered. “It’s real.”
“Is that why you were staying with your sister?”
“That’s part of it.” He stepped over to the mantel and peered at the pictures of my mom and dad and my brother’s family.
I hesitated to say anything more, to ruin this little moment by going too far and sending Dax back inside his shell. “My dad went to college for music.”
“Really?” Dax picked up one of the frames and turned it to show me. “This him?”
“Yeah.” I bit my lip. “He’d been in a band of some kind…I don’t know, but then my mom got pregnant with me…” I shrugged. “Long story short, he became a banker.”
“Well, that’s good, too.”
“You still play?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He shrugged, grinning. “I’m in a band of some kind.”
I smiled back at him, my insides warming. “Keep going with it,” I said. “Don’t give up.”
He turned away and set the frame back on the mantel.
I stood and stretched, an idea occurring to me—a way to help this guy, who I was starting to feel an odd affection for. “And, in the meantime, you and I are going to crush the trivia competition for pride, and also so you can have the prize money to keep—” I mimed playing a piano.
He laughed. “Very
good technique. But half that money will be yours. I can’t take it all.”
“Please,” I said. “It’d mean much more to me knowing that it was going to help a talented musician keep his dream alive.”
He wrinkled his nose. “You don’t know that I’m talented.”
“I can tell.”
We stood there for a moment in awkward silence. We’d reached the point in the evening where we, as roommates, would have to decide—hang out or go our separate ways? Even for Kelly and me, it was kind of a tough dance. We had incompatible tastes in TV, and, really, we each needed our space at different times and in our own way.
“I was going to watch The Crown…” I said.
“Good,” he said as a smile of relief spread across his lips. “That’s…yeah. I want to get changed, and…I’m pretty tired.”
“Okay.” I stood and fluffed the pillow I’d crushed on the couch as Dax made his way toward the basement stairs.
“But”—he turned around—“if you ever feel like watching a movie sometime, some other night—”
I waggled my eyebrows. “Like a Katherine Heigl rom-com…?”
His face lit up in a crooked smile. “I’m not not saying a Katherine Heigl rom-com.”
I chuckled, and he started to make his way down the steps.
“Hey, Dax!”
He ran back up to the first floor. “Yeah?”
“What’s your last name, anyway?”
“Logan.” Then he waved goodnight and finally headed down to bed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Brains, the Athletes,
the Basket Cases, the Princesses,
and the Criminals
Back when I was a kid, I knew my classmates’ domiciles by description (“Meg lives in the big, white house”) or placement (“Katie’s house is third from the corner”). The address where I was about to meet Rob was one of several nondescript Georgians on the north side of Touhy, utterly forgettable to anyone else but me, since this house had served as the setting for one of my biggest and most formative mortifications.
Even though I was probably the only one who remembered the incident, just thinking about it sent shivers up and down my spine.
I supposed these little jolts of nostalgia, if you could call them that, came with the territory of dating Rob. Though maybe, if we stayed together long enough, we’d start to make new memories, and the recurring nightmare of me getting my period and, instead of helping me, Ellen Miller making sure the entire sleepover knew I had bled through my white Gap shorts would fade away.
Nope. I could be on my death bed at ninety and that one would still hurt.
I grabbed the tray of Tony’s macaroni salad from the passenger’s seat, made sure I had nothing stuck in my teeth, and left the safety of my vehicle.
My black-and-white sundress flapped around my legs in the warm wind, which carried sounds from several different Fourth of July parties on the block. “Everybody Dance Now” pumped from one backyard, the sounds of kids splashing in a pool emanated from another, and then I caught gusts of laughter coming from behind the Millers’ house.
I pushed open the back gate and headed into the yard, eyes sweeping the place, looking for Rob. He’d asked me to meet him at the party because he’d been here all night helping his friend smoke brisket or something like that. Apparently it was a task that required constant vigilance and about fifteen hours.
“Oh my god, Annie Kyle!”
My head swung to the right, and a woman who looked like a slightly aged-up version of herself from twenty-five years ago—same long, thick dirty blond hair in a ponytail, tank top, and cutoffs—dashed over and wrapped me in a hug.
“Hi…Ellen,” I said.
Ellen and I never would’ve hugged back in grade school. Or no, that wasn’t completely true. Back then, she would’ve hugged me while pretending to be my best friend for two days before dumping me like a bad habit after the weekend, which was something that had actually happened.
But that was more than twenty-five years ago. We were grown-ups now. Ellen had no doubt matured, just like I had.
“It’s so good to see you.” She held me at arm’s length for a moment. “God, you look great.” And then walked me up the steps to the deck, where several unfamiliar women were sitting around the patio table, drinking and eating foods in chip-and-dip form.
I felt like I was moving underwater, a little off balance, a little stressed about my breathing. I was used to my friends, to Yessi and Kelly. As a workaholic almost-forty-year-old, I didn’t get out much to socialize. But, no, that wasn’t true. In the past few weeks, I’d gone out on two successful dates with guys I barely knew, and I’d broken through (at least momentarily) the gruff exterior of my new roommate. I could do this.
“Everybody,” Ellen said, “this is Rob’s next-door neighbor, Annie.”
“Hi,” I said brightly, waving to the crowd of women. “Nice to meet you all.” I glanced around. “Have you seen Rob?”
One of the women, a blonde who’d obviously been working on her tan, pointed toward the back fence. “Garage.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed a beer from a nearby cooler—when in Rome—and walked down the steps and through the yard to the garage. The side door was closed, but I could hear a bunch of male voices wafting through the aluminum. I took a deep breath and opened it. All eyes snapped to me. “Hi, I’m…” I gave a timid wave. Shit. Rob and these guys were super close. I wondered how much he’d told them about our…situation.
We probably should’ve had this conversation beforehand.
“Hey, Annie!” Rob set his beer down and rushed over. He kissed me quick on the cheek, took my elbow, and hurried me over to say hi to his friends. “You probably know all these guys already,” he said, smiling. “This is T.J. Collins. He’s married to Ellen now, and the two of them bought this house from her parents. These jerks are Jim and Pete and Jack—they were my year in grade school. And of course you know Eric Mendoza.” He ushered me over to a bearded hulk of a man with a thatch of thick, black hair on top of his head. Kind brown eyes smiled at me.
“Ann Kyle,” Eric said jokingly, offering a fist to bump. I obliged him.
Eric and I had been in school together from kindergarten through eighth grade. We were always in competition academically and used to make fun of each other all the time, teasingly, benignly. I even let him call me “Ann,” because I knew it came from a place of mutual respect.
“You grew,” I acknowledged, smiling. “And you kept your hair. Didn’t see that one coming.”
He ran his fingers through the thick locks. “Yes, I did.”
“I mean,” I said, “assuming all that’s real.”
The other guys laughed. One of them—Jack, I think—grabbed me another beer. I straightened up. This wasn’t so bad at all. They were being nice to me. I’d been accepted into this group.
Rob stood near me, our arms touching, just barely. “How are things out there?” He nodded toward the door, smiling nervously.
“Good,” I said, grinning. “Everyone was very welcoming.”
“Glad to hear it. They can be a tough crowd.” He picked up his own beer from a nearby table and started walking toward the main garage door, leading out to the alley. “Come on out here a second.”
I nodded in deference to the other guys and followed Rob out of the garage. He led me over to one side, where they had set up the smoker. Tufts of gray smog contrasted the bright blue midday sky. I left the beer Jack had given me on the ground nearby. I knew someone in this crowd would grab it eventually.
“I’m sorry you had to come alone,” Rob said. “That wasn’t my plan, but T.J. needed my help.”
“No problem at all. How’s the brisket coming?”
Rob laughed. “It’s taking a hell of a lot longer than we thought it would. Should be ready by next Fourth of July, at t
his rate.”
I smiled. There was something sexy about a guy in an apron, poking at meat on a grill. “Do Ellen and T.J. have a nice pantry for you to use, Mr. Cook Guy?”
He laughed. “No!” He ran a hand through his blond hair, squinting in the sun. “I keep begging them to let me work on their house, but no dice.” He motioned for me to follow him. “Oh, but check this out.”
I followed him a few doors down, taking the opportunity to peek through fences and into the backyards. When I lived with my parents, I liked to walk down the alleys sometimes to get an entirely different perspective on the neighborhood. There were so many hidden treasures to spy—old cars, aboveground pools, the odd shrine—whether to Mary or to the Bears.
Rob stopped near a tall wooden fence. “This will be tough to see, but—shoot, no. We’re going in.”
“What?” I glanced back toward the Millers’ house.
“Trust me.” Rob looked around as if trying to figure out what to do. A moment later, a lightbulb went on in his head. “Stay there.” Then he jumped the chain-link fence behind the house next door. A few seconds later, he was letting me in the back gate of the house with the very tall fence.
“What are we doing?” I ducked my head and entered the yard, like I was heading into the Secret Garden or something. “This is breaking and entering.”
“We didn’t break anything.”
“Well, we entered.”
I followed him into the yard, down a cement walk, and past the garage. This house had a massive addition along the back, with floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Did you do this?” I asked.
“I did.” He waggled his eyebrows, then continued to skulk all the way up and onto the deck.
“People have guns in this neighborhood, Rob.”
He waved away my concern. “They know me.”
“Okay…” I hung back, ready to call 911 and perform CPR—whatever was necessary.
“No one’s home,” he said. “Come here.”
I tiptoed up to the window where Rob had pressed his face to the glass.
“Look in here. This kitchen is one of my masterpieces.”
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