“That’s good, right?”
“Maybe you want to be my friend?” The hopeful tone in her voice made my heart ache, just like it ached when I thought of my old home in Saskatchewan.
I thought about my answer. “Well, we can be friendly, but I think we have different interests.”
“What do you mean?”
“We like to do different things.”
“What do you like to do?”
“Play hockey.”
“Road hockey?”
“Mostly ice hockey, but I like road hockey too. I like shooting a puck.”
Her sad smile made me want to take my words back. “So, you like boy things.”
“I’m a boy, remember?”
We turned the corner and her face brightened. “This is my street.”
“You want me to take you to your house?”
“Yes, but not because I don’t know the way. I just like you.”
Curiosity drove me to ask, “Why?”
“You talk to me like I’m a grown up. Not like I’m a little kid.”
“Is that good?”
Her sunny smile was infectious. “I like it.”
We pulled up to her driveway. I looked up at the house. “You have someone looking after you? Like a babysitter or something?”
“Mrs. Mills takes care of me, but she’s either on the phone or napping.”
Why didn’t this kid have an adult supervising her? She could have been lost or taken by someone. “Stay on your street, okay?”
“Where were you going anyway?”
“Someone named Drake invited me to go biking.”
“Drake is Jesse’s friend!”
“Yeah.”
“So, I guess you have to go pretty soon then.”
I felt bad leaving her here by herself. “Pretty soon.”
She dropped her bike and pulled Brown Bear to her chest. “You could come in and play with White Lamb if you want.”
God, this kid was cute. “Maybe another time.”
She gave me a shy smile. “You could have some ice cream cake.”
I wanted to. Not because I wanted ice cream cake, but because I just didn’t want this kid to be alone, but that’d be too weird. I reached over and ruffled her hair. “Maybe if Jesse invites me over, we can have some of that cake.”
“I’m going to ask Jesse to play with you.”
I started to bike away. “You do that.”
“Hey, Zach,” her small voice called after me.
I circled my bike back. “What?”
“I’m going to call you my friend, even if you don’t want to be mine.”
“Bye, Kat.”
* * *
Present day
I paid the cab and lugged my bags up to my high-rise apartment dumping them without a care in the hallway. I opened the fridge, but there was nothing in there that was fit to be eaten. I debated getting takeout, but that seemed like too much effort. I found an expired power bar in the bottom of my gym bag.
Did Jesse wonder why Kaitlin didn’t want me to move in? Did he ever question why we had suddenly stopped talking immediately after his dad’s funeral? I had already been living in LA. Life was hectic and usually, when we got together, I was either coming through Vancouver for one night, or he came down to LA to hang out with me. Had he even noticed that Kaitlin and I had stopped talking?
I looked around my apartment. I had rented it furnished. I was making six million dollars a year and everything I owned could fit in the back of my truck. So much for living the grand life.
My phone rang. Jesse.
“Hey.”
“You home?”
“Just walked in the door.”
“Did you get my text?”
“I did. What did she say?”
He sighed. “I think she doesn’t want to impose on you.”
My heart kicked in my chest. I knew better. I knew that if I moved in there, things would get complicated. “You know it’s not an imposition. I told you I’d look out for her.”
“You don’t mind?”
I’ll be strong. I’ll be a better man than I was the last day I saw her.
“You are family. Let me help.”
He let out a puff of air in my ear. “Thanks, Zach.”
She would talk him out of this. I knew her. “Don’t tell her.”
“What?”
“I’ll talk to her when I get there,” I cleared my throat, trying to clear away my ulterior motive from my voice. “Just enjoy your last week there. I’ll handle the logistics.”
“I don’t know,” he sounded confused. I didn’t blame him. I couldn’t quite understand what I was doing myself.
“Trust me, man.”
Isn’t that what a liar always told his victims? Trust me.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he agreed. “She never could resist you.”
I was counting on that fact.
* * *
I woke up to the sound of flapping. Disoriented, I opened my eyes to see my curtains wildly flapping in the wind. I stood up to close the window. The world had been a happy, sunny place when I had laid down for a mid-afternoon nap. Now, dark clouds moved across the sky, obscuring the sun, and the wind whipped the tops of the tall trees.
I missed Jesse. He’d only left this morning, but the place already felt lonely without him.
A big storm was coming in. I loved the rain, but I hated storms. Vancouver typically didn’t have big storms. It rained here, but usually, it was a gentle rain that soothed. I startled when lightning flashed across the sky.
One Mississippi
Two Mississippi
Thunder rolled above me, so loud, the windows rattled. I worked my way through the house to shut all the windows before standing at the back patio to watch the storm. The angry skies unleashed their fury. Rain pelted down so hard it seemed to bounce back up. I shivered, rubbing the hairs that stood up on my arms, remembering the last time I had been alone during a storm.
* * *
Nine years ago
“Hello?”
“Hey, Kittles.”
“Dad, where are you?” I looked around the kitchen. Dark clouds threatened.
“Jesse broke his arm at the ballgame.”
Fear clutched me. “He did? Is he okay?”
“He’s okay, but he needs to get a cast. We’re at emergency right now.”
I licked my lips and looked around. “Okay.”
“I just wanted to call you and let you know that we’ll be home in a couple hours. Are you okay?”
No. Come home.
“Dad, I’m thirteen, not two.”
He laughed. “That you are, kiddo. Growing up right before my eyes.”
“Tell Jesse I want to be the first one to sign his cast.”
“Okay. We’ll bring dinner home, okay?”
“Okay.”
I took up residence in front of the living room window. The sky went black and then the rain was a torrential downpour. Every time it thundered, my knees knocked together.
I watched as a lone biker, with his hoodie over his head, biked madly up the street. He veered towards my driveway, did an impressive jump over the curb and then wheeled up to the door.
Zach.
I raced to the door and swung it open.
His long hair clung to his skull, and his face dripped water. His eyelashes clung together.
“Hey.”
“Zach,” I held open the door, and he stepped in beside me. He smelled like fresh rain. At 17, he was already taller than Jesse, taller than Dad.
He was out of breath, “You have a towel?”
I raced upstairs to the linen closet and grabbed a towel.
“Here.”
He toweled off his hair.
“Jesse broke his arm.” I trumpeted that news like it was my job.
“He called me from the hospital.”
“He did?” I stood clutching the kitchen island. Zach was Zach, but sometimes when I talked to h
im alone, my stomach hurt. In a good way. But other times, when he was with Jesse, teasing me about something, it felt like it always did.
I didn’t understand the difference. Right now, my stomach was doing backflips. He took off his hoodie and grimaced as he looked down at his wet t-shirt. “It’s really wet out there.”
I watched with a dry mouth as he pulled his t-shirt off his head. I’d spent half my life swimming and hanging out with Jesse and Zach, but lately, seeing him without his shirt on made me feel like I didn’t know where to look. Part of me wanted to stare at his chest, the other half made me want to look away. His shoulders and chest were far more developed that Jesse’s chest. I couldn’t remember when that had happened.
“So why are you here? Dad said they won’t be home for a few hours.”
“Jesse said you didn’t like storms.”
“So, you came here to babysit me?” I scoffed, secretly happy that I wasn’t alone.
“No, I figured you had Brown Bear to take care of you.”
“I stopped playing with stuffed animals a long time ago,” I informed him with a huff. He didn’t need to know that I still slept with Brown Bear.
“You want me to leave?” Sapphire eyes challenged me.
I ducked when thunder rolled around us. “You can do what you want.”
He laughed. Half the time I didn’t know what I did that made him laugh, but it felt good when he did.
My heart smiled when he said, “Well, I don’t feel like biking home in the rain.”
He found a pair of Jesse’s shorts and a t-shirt. I put his wet clothes in the dryer before we met in the living room.
“Want to watch TV?”
“Okay, but no sports.”
I gave a half scream when the lights flickered before plunging us into dusky light.
“Hey,” he said, “It’s okay. The power just went out.”
“I know,” my voice trembled.
He sat down on one end of the couch and tossed me a pillow. I climbed on the other end and we faced each other, both of our knees up. Our feet almost touched.
“How’s school going?” He studied me.
I shrugged and picked at a scab on my knee. “It’s fine.”
“You like junior high?”
I didn’t answer. Jesse was the popular one. He always had been. Junior high for me meant the school got bigger, and I got smaller. “Jenny went to Paul Kane.”
“She’s not in your school?”
“No.”
“That sucks.”
“She’s pretty busy these days. She made the track team.”
“You’ll make new friends. Just give it time.”
That was what Dad told me. Jenny had been the one friend I had hung out with through elementary. Now, she was in her school, making new friends and I was in my school, hanging out by myself. It’s not like I didn’t want to have friends, I just didn’t really understand girls my age. They wanted to talk about make-up and boys. Two things I knew nothing about.
“What’s grade 11 like?”
“Boring.”
“Jesse said you have a girlfriend.” My voice accused.
“Had. No longer.”
I stared at his face. “What’s it like?”
“What’s what like?”
“To date someone?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Do you hang out?”
Do you kiss?
“We hung out.”
“How’s that different from having a friend who’s a girl?”
His eyes narrowed. “Why all these questions?”
“Sometimes girls call and want to talk to Jesse.”
He grinned. “Good for him.”
“He takes the phone to his room and shuts the door.”
“I bet he does.”
“I don’t know what the big deal is.” Jesse refused to talk to me about this stuff. So did Dad. I knew that no matter how uncomfortable it’d be, Zach would set me straight.
I tried again. “How do you know if you want to date someone?”
“Doesn’t your dad talk to you about this stuff?”
“He said I’m not allowed to date until I turn 25.”
He smirked. “Typical dad.”
“So how do you know if someone likes you?”
“It’s kind of weird.”
“How?”
“Well, with my last girlfriend, I knew her since grade 6, but when she came back to school, after summer break, she just looked different.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Better.”
“And you wanted to kiss her?”
He threw another pillow at me. “Yeah, I wanted to kiss her.”
I scrunched my nose up. “And now you don’t want to kiss her anymore?”
He cracked his knuckles. “I still like to kiss her, but she got weird.”
This conversation fascinated me. “How?”
“She started talking about what we’d be doing after we graduated and how we needed to go to the same University together.”
Jealousy licked my heart. “That sounds like a good plan.”
He chewed on his thumbnail. “I like her, but not that much.”
“You don’t want to marry her.”
He snorted. “I’m 17.”
“Well, maybe when you’re older.”
“I don’t want to get married.”
I stared at him in shock. “Not ever?”
“Nope.”
“What about kids? Don’t you want kids?” Didn’t everybody want kids? Isn’t that what we did when we got old?
“Don’t want them either.”
“Well, what do you want?”
“I want to play hockey.”
“That’s it?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“I don’t know.” It never dawned on me that I had a choice. I had always just assumed that when I got older, I’d date and eventually get married. If I didn’t do that, what would I do? Words I didn’t even know I owned blurted out of me.
“I want to cook.”
“Right now?”
“No, for a living.”
He nodded. “Then you should do that.”
“But I want kids too. I think I can do both.”
His smile warmed me down to my toes. “You’d be a great mom.”
* * *
I turned my truck up the familiar street, my eyes taking in the subtle differences four years made. This wasn’t the street I had grown up on, but it was the only street in the world that felt like home.
In the driveway, I killed the engine. The house looked dark. Was she inside? Jesse told me she didn’t have classes on Saturday, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t gone out. The rain soaked me the second I got out. I grabbed my two bags and ran across the grass to the kitchen door. The front door was closer, but years of habit had me moving to the door we’d always been instructed to use as kids.
I hit my fist on the door.
A light inside went on.
Then that voice. Soft and feminine. “Who is it?”
I decided to play offensive here. “Zach, who do you think it is?”
Five long seconds passed while she deliberated on whether she wanted to open the door, but the wait was worth it when she swung open the door.
The years apart had been kind to her. Her hair had darkened to a rich auburn and hung in a shiny curtain past her shoulders. My eyes drank in her brown eyes, the delicate nose sprinkled with the cutest freckles in the world, and cheekbones that were carved out, indicating that she probably needed to gain some weight.
She crossed her arms across her chest and stared up at me, her expression a mixture of dismay and disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
I muscled my way into the entrance, forcing her to step back. I gave her my best smile. A smile that usually knocked women sideways. “I’m your new roommate.”
Her reaction to my smile was complete indifference. “I told Jesse that was
unnecessary. He said he’d talk to you.”
“He talked.” I kicked off my shoes. “So, where’s my room?”
She stood her ground. “What did he say?”
“He told me that you didn’t want to impose,” I hoisted my bags up. “Can I take the guest room?”
Usually, I use a lot more charm and wit when dealing with the opposite sex, so I had no idea why I was charging in here like a bull with a hearing problem, intent on doing things my way.
I moved towards her, forcing her to step out of the way.
Her voice held a tinge of panic, “Why do you want to move in here?”
I paused and offered her part of the truth. “Because it’s the only place in the world that feels like home.”
Her lips pressed together, with her eyes cast downward. She internally struggled with my answer as the conflict and turmoil passed across her face.
She nodded, conceding defeat. “The linen on the bed is fresh. I’ll just get you some clean bath towels.”
* * *
The guest room consisted of mismatched furniture, an empty closet and a patchwork quilt that looked to be a hundred years old. A far cry from the $600/night hotel rooms I was used to staying in, but nothing came closer to feeling like home than this room.
I unpacked my bags and debated my next move with Kaitlin. I was walking blind here. I used to be the guy with the five and ten-year plan. I always knew my next twenty moves, but since I had decided to come back to Vancouver, I seemed to be operating on emotion and gut.
I needed a strategy or a plan, but in order to work towards a goal, you needed to know what you want and right now, I had no idea what that was.
“Are you hungry?”
She leaned against the door jamb, giving me a better look at her as a whole. Slender legs, narrow hips, a long thin waist. Despite her oversized sweater, I could see that her breasts were perfectly proportioned to the rest of her body. I had told myself that I was coming back here to repair the damage to our friendship, but my thoughts were dangerous. I needed to think of her as my kid sister, not some conquest I was sizing up.
“I could eat.”
“Come downstairs when you are ready.” And like a ghost, she disappeared from my view.