by Emily Henry
“Yep.” He scrubs his hands down the fronts of his pants legs. “Yeah.” It’s right around then that he clocks the box of condoms tucked under my arm.
“This?” I say. “This is just five hundred condoms my mom gave me in case we start boning.”
Alex’s face flushes.
“Poppy!” Mom cries.
Dad looks over his shoulder, aghast. “Since when are you two romantically involved?”
“I don’t . . . We don’t . . . do that, sir,” Alex tries.
“Here, will you carry these out to the car, Dad?” I toss them over the island to him. “My arm’s getting tired from holding it. Hopefully our hotel has those big luggage carts.”
Alex is still not-quite-looking at Dad. “We really aren’t . . .”
Mom digs her hands into her hips. “That was supposed to be private. Look, you’re embarrassing him. Don’t embarrass him, Poppy. Don’t be embarrassed, Alex.”
“It was never going to be private for long,” I say. “If that box doesn’t fit in the trunk, we’re going to have to strap it to the top of the station wagon.”
Dad sets the box on the side table and starts reading the side of it with a furrow in his brow. “Are these really made out of lambskin? Are they reusable?”
Alex cannot hide his shudder.
Mom offers up, “I wasn’t sure if either of them is allergic to latex!”
“Okay, we’ve got to hit the road,” I say. “Come give us hugs goodbye. The next time you see us, you might just be grandpar—” I drop off, stop rubbing my tummy meaningfully when I see the look on Alex’s face. “Kidding! We’re just friends. Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad!”
“Oh, you’re going to have an amazing time. I can’t wait to hear all about it.” Mom comes out from behind the counter and pulls me into a hug. “Be good,” she says. “And don’t forget to call your brothers when you get down there! They’re desperate to hear from you!”
Over her shoulder I mouth at Alex, desperate, and he finally cracks a smile.
“Love you, kiddo.” Dad clambers off the stool to give me a squeeze. “You take care of my little baby, okay?” he says to Alex before pulling him into the backslap hug that startles him anew every time it happens. “Don’t let her get engaged to a country singer or break her neck on a mechanical bull.”
“Of course,” Alex says.
“We’ll see,” I say, and then they walk us outside—box of condoms left safely on the island—and wave to us as we back down the driveway, and Alex grins and waves back until we’re finally out of sight, at which point he looks at me and says flatly, “I am very mad at you.”
“How can I make it up to you?” I bat my eyelashes like a sexy cartoon cat.
He rolls his eyes, but a smirk twists up in the corner of his mouth as his eyes return to the road. “For one thing, you are definitely riding a mechanical bull.”
I kick my feet up onto the dashboard, proudly displaying the cowgirl boots I found at a thrift store a few weeks ago. “Way ahead of you.”
His eyes slide to me, move down my legs to the bright red leather. “And those are supposed to keep you on a mechanical bull how?”
I click my heels together. “They’re not. They’re just supposed to charm the handsome country singer at the bar into scraping me off the mat and into his farm-buff arms.”
“Farm buff,” Alex snorts, unimpressed by the idea.
“Says Gym-Buff,” I tease.
He frowns. “I exercise for my anxiety.”
“Yes, I’m sure you couldn’t care less about that gorgeous body. It’s incidental.”
His jaw pulses, and his eyes fix on the road again. “I like to look nice,” he says in a voice that implies an added, Is that a crime?
“I do too.” I slide one of my feet along the dash until my red boot is in his field of vision. “Obviously.”
His gaze darts over my leg down to the middle console where his aux cable sits in a neat loop. “Here.” He hands it to me. “Why don’t you get us started?”
These days we always take turns running sound in the station wagon, but Alex always gives me the first shot, because he is Alex, and he is the best.
I insist on an all-country playlist for the length of the drive. Mine is populated by Shania Twain, Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, and Dolly Parton. His is all Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash, and a helping of Tammy Wynette and Hank Williams.
We found the hotel on Groupon months ago, and it’s one of those kitschy, one-off places with a neon-pink sign (cartoon cowboy hat balanced atop the word VACANCY) that makes the nickname “Nashvegas” finally make sense to me.
We check in and take our stuff inside. Each room is vaguely themed after a famous Nashville musician. Meaning there are framed pictures of them all over the room, and then the same hideous floral comforters and dense tan fleeces on all the beds. I tried to request the Kitty Wells room, but apparently when you book through Groupon, you don’t get to pick.
We are in the Billy Ray Cyrus room.
“Do you think he gets paid for this?” I ask Alex, who’s pulling up the bedding to check for bedbugs along the bottom of the mattresses.
“Doubtful,” he says. “Maybe they throw him the occasional frozen yogurt Groupon or something.” He pushes back the drapes and gazes out at the flashing neon sign. “Do they do rooms by the hour here?” he says skeptically.
“Doesn’t really matter,” I say, “since I left the condom crate at home.”
He shudders and drops onto one of the beds, satisfied that it’s bug free. “If I hadn’t had to witness that, it would actually be pretty sweet.”
“I would have still had to witness it, Alex. Don’t I matter?”
“Yeah, but you’re her daughter. The closest my dad ever came to giving us a sex talk was leaving a book about purity on each of our beds around the time we turned thirteen. I thought masturbating caused cancer until I was, like, sixteen.”
My chest squeezes tight. Sometimes I forget how hard Alex has had it. His mom died from complications during David’s birth, and Mr. Nilsen and the four Nilsen boys have been wife- and motherless since. His dad finally dated a woman from their church last year, but they broke up after three months, and even though Mr. Nilsen was the one to end it, he was still so torn up that Alex had to drive home from school in the middle of the week to get him through it.
Alex is the one his brothers call too, when something goes wrong. The emotional rock.
Sometimes I think that’s why we’re so drawn to each other. Because he’s used to being the steadfast big brother and I’m used to being the annoying little sister. It’s a dynamic we understand: I lovingly tease him; he makes the entire world feel safer for me.
This week, though, I’m not going to need anything from him. It’s my mission to help Alex let loose, to bring Silly Alex back out of Overworked, Hyperfocused Alex.
“You know,” I say, sitting on the bed, “if you ever want to borrow some overbearing parents, mine are obsessed with you. I mean, clearly. My mom wants you to take my virginity.”
He leans back on his hands, his head tipping. “Your mom thinks you haven’t had sex?”
I balk. “I haven’t had sex. I thought you knew that.” It seems like we talk about everything, but I guess there are still a few places we haven’t gone.
“No.” Alex coughs. “I mean, I don’t know. You left a few parties with people.”
“Yeah, but nothing serious ever happens. It’s not like I dated any of them.”
“I thought that was just because you didn’t, like, want to date.”
“I guess I don’t,” I say. Or at least so far I haven’t. “I don’t know. I guess I just want it to be special. Not like it has to be a full moon and we’re in a rose garden or anything.”
Alex winces. “Outside sex isn’t what it’s c
racked up to be.”
“You little minx!” I cry. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
He shrugs, ears reddening. “I just don’t really talk about this. With anyone. Like even just saying that made me feel guilty, like I’m wronging her somehow.”
“It’s not like you said her name.” I lean forward and drop my voice. “Sarah Torval?”
He bumps his knee into mine, smiling faintly. “You’re obsessed with Sarah Torval.”
“No, dude,” I say. “You are.”
“It wasn’t her,” he says. “It was another girl from the library. Lydia.”
“Oh . . . my . . . god,” I say, giddy. “The one with the big doll eyes and the same exact haircut as Sarah Torval?”
“Stoooop,” Alex groans, pink spreading over his cheeks. He grabs a pillow and hurls it at me. “Stop embarrassing me.”
“But it’s so fun!”
He forces his face to relax into the On-the-Verge-of-Crying Puppy Face and I scream and fling myself backward on the bed, my whole body going limp with laughter as I drag the pillow over my eyes. The bed dips under his weight as he sits beside me and tugs the pillow off my face, leaning over me, hands braced on either side of my head, insinuating his Sad Puppy Face into my line of sight.
“Oh my god,” I gasp through a mix of tears and laughter. “Why does this have such a confusing effect on me?”
“I don’t know, Poppy,” he says, the expression deepening sorrowfully.
“It speaks to me!” I cry out through laughter, and his mouth pulls into a grin.
And right then. That.
That is the first moment I want to kiss Alex Nilsen.
I feel it all the way to my toes for two breathless seconds. Then I pack those seconds into a tight knot, tucking them deep in my chest where I promise myself they will live in secret forever.
“Come on,” he says softly. “Let’s go get you on a mechanical bull.”
13
This Summer
WE GET THE thermostat down to seventy-nine and set it for seventy-eight before we leave for a Mexican restaurant called Casa de Sam, which has a great score on Tripadvisor and only one dollar sign signifying its cost.
The food is great, but the air-conditioning is the real MVP of the night. Alex keeps leaning back in the booth, closing his eyes, and making contented sighs.
“Do you think Sam will let us sleep here?” I ask.
“We could try just hiding in the bathroom until closing,” Alex suggests.
“I’m afraid to drink too much and get heat exhaustion,” I say, taking another sip of the jalapeño margarita we ordered a pitcher of.
“I’m afraid to drink too little and not be able to knock myself out for an entire night.”
Even thinking about it has my neck crawling with sweat. “I’m sorry about the Airbnb,” I say. “None of the reviews mentioned faulty air-conditioning.” Though now I’m wondering how many people stayed there in the dead of summer.
“It’s not your fault,” Alex says. “I hold Nikolai fully responsible.”
I nod, and the silence unfurls awkwardly until I ask, “How’s your dad?”
“Yeah,” Alex says. “Good. He’s doing good. I told you about the bumper sticker?”
I smile. “You did.”
He gives a self-conscious laugh and thrusts his hand through his hair. “God, getting old is boring. My best party story is that my dad got a new bumper sticker.”
“Pretty great story,” I insist.
“You’re right.” His head tilts. “Next do you want to hear about my dishwasher?”
I gasp and clutch my heart. “You own your own dishwasher? Like, it’s in your name?”
“Um. They don’t typically register dishwashers to your name, but yes, I bought it. Right after I got the house.”
A nameless emotion stabs at my chest. “You . . . bought a house?”
“I didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head. Of course he didn’t tell me. When would he have told me? But still it hurts. Every single thing I’ve missed in the last two years hurts.
“My grandparents’ house,” he says. “After my grandma passed away. She left it to my dad, and he wanted to sell it, but it needs work he didn’t have the time or money for, so I’ve been living in it, fixing it up.”
“Betty?” I swallow the tangle of emotions rising in my throat. I only met Alex’s grandmother a few times, but I loved her. She was tinier than me and fierce, a lover of murder mysteries and crocheting, spicy food and modern art. She’d fallen in love with her priest and he’d left the priesthood to marry her (“And that’s how we became Protestants!”) and then (“eight months later,” she told me with a wink), Alex’s mother had been born with a head of thick dark hair just like hers and a “strong” nose like Alex’s grandfather, God rest his soul.
Her house was a funky quad-level from the early sixties. It had the original orange and yellow floral wallpaper in the living room, and she’d had to put ugly brown carpet over the hardwood and tile—even in the bathroom—after she slipped and broke her hip several years ago.
“Betty’s gone?” I whisper.
“It was peaceful,” Alex says, without looking at me. “You know, she was really, really old.” He’s started to fold our straw wrappers, precisely, into small squares. He shows no sign of emotion, but I know Betty was pretty much his favorite family member, maybe tied with David.
“God, I’m sorry.” I fight to keep my voice from shaking, but my emotion is rising, tidal-wave style. “Flannery O’Connor and Betty. I wish you’d told me.”
His hazel eyes drag up to mine. “I wasn’t sure you wanted to hear from me.”
I blink back tears, glance away, and pretend I’m sweeping my hair out of my face rather than wiping at my eyes. When I look back at him, his gaze is still fixed on me.
“I did,” I say. Shit, the tremors have arrived.
Even the mariachi band playing in the back room seems to quiet to a hum, so that it’s just us in this red booth with its colorful hand-carved table.
“Well,” Alex says softly. “Now I know.”
I want to ask if he wanted to talk to me in all that time, if he ever typed out messages that went unsent or thought about calling for so long he actually started to dial.
If he too feels like he lost two good years of his life when we stopped talking, and why he let it happen. I want him to say things can be how they were before, when there was nothing we couldn’t say to each other, and being together was as easy and natural as being alone, without any of the loneliness.
But then our server comes by with the check. I instinctively reach for it before Alex can.
“That’s not R+R’s card?” he says, like it’s a question.
Without actively deciding to, I lie. “They just reimburse us now.” My hands tingle, itch with discomfort over the deception, but it’s too late to take it back.
When we get outside, it’s dark and starry. The heat of the day has broken, and though it still must be in the upper seventies, it’s nothing compared to the one hundred and six we were dealing with earlier. There’s even a breeze. We’re silent as we cross the parking lot to the Aspire. There’s a heaviness between us now that we’ve brushed against what happened in Croatia.
I’d convinced myself we could leave it in the past, but now I realize that every time I learn something new from the last two years, it will press on that same raw spot in my heart.
It’s got to be having some kind of effect on him too, but he’s always been good at bottling up his feelings when he doesn’t want to share them.
The whole ride home I want to say, I’d take it back. If it would fix this, I’d take it back.
When we reach the apartment, it is officially hotter inside than outside. We both beeline for the thermostat. “Eighty-one?” he says. “It
went up again?”
I rub the bridge of my nose. A headache is starting behind my eyes, from heat or alcohol or stress, or all of it. “Okay. Okay. We’ve got to turn it back up to eighty, right? And let it drop to that before we lower it again?”
Alex stares at the thermostat like it just knocked an ice cream cone out of his hand. There are unintentional shades of Sad Puppy Face in his expression.
“One degree at a time. That’s what Nikolai said.”
He adjusts the temperature to eighty, and I slide open the door to the balcony.
But the wall of plastic sheeting is keeping out the fresh air. In the kitchenette, I rifle through drawers until I find a pair of scissors.
“What are you doing?” Alex asks, following me onto the balcony.
“Just the bare fucking minimum,” I say, slicing the scissors into the middle of the plastic.
“Oooh, Nikolai’s gonna be maaaaad at you,” Alex teases.
“I’m not too happy with him either,” I say, and cut a long flap in the plastic, pulling it aside and loosely knotting it, so there’s a gap for air to flow through.
“He’s going to sue us,” he deadpans.
“Come at me, Nicky.”
Alex chuckles, and after a few seconds of silence, I say, “Tomorrow I was thinking we could check out the art museum and go take the tramway. The view’s supposed to be amazing.”
Alex nods. “Sounds good.”
Again we lapse into quiet. It’s only ten thirty, but things are just awkward enough that I think calling it a day might be our best bet. “Do you need into the bathroom before . . .”
“No,” Alex says. “Go ahead. I’m gonna catch up on some emails.”
I haven’t checked my work email since I got here, and I’ve also let a few messages from Rachel sit, along with the always overflowing group text between my brothers and me. It’s largely just the two of them brainstorming ideas that won’t go anywhere. Last I checked in, they were concocting a board game called War on Christmas and demanding I contribute puns.