by Sara Cate
Sunny
Alex is already out of bed the next morning when I peel myself up and walk to the bathroom. My cheek has a subtle bruise around the cheekbone, and my eyes are heavy with bags under the lids. My mother has hit me before—but not like that. For a moment, I feel a little humiliated that I sobbed the way I did. People have endured far worse than a closed fist across the face, but it was more than her hitting me. It was the weight of a long divorce, my family splitting in two, losing the love of my parents as they lost the love for each other, and desperately seeking that love in someone I shouldn’t.
Alexander’s words echo through my head as I touch the tender skin on my face. He told me I wasn’t going home. Did he mean I could stay with him?
Would I?
Suddenly the idea of being in the same house as Alex, sharing this space and all of our time but maintaining our boundaries sounds like slow torture. Would it finally be enough to wear him down? Could I get him to cave and finally give in to what we both know we want?
The guilt of that scenario feels worse than the stinging on my face.
The nutty aroma of coffee sweeps in from the kitchen, and after a quick fix of my hair and a little toothpaste in my mouth to wash off the morning breath, I quietly walk out to the kitchen where Alexander Caldwell, my neighbor, major crush, and in-a-way best friend is making coffee in nothing but his gray sweatpants.
“Morning,” I say, stepping up to the high countertop.
“Morning,” he replies, glancing toward me. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
Staring up at him in the early morning light of the kitchen, I can’t help but admire the strong angle of his jaw, the scruff from not shaving in at least a week, and the golden tint to his skin that almost shines in the light. Alexander doesn’t look forty. He has the gray flecks in his beard and the soft crinkles around his eyes, but his expression is still youthful, and I don’t feel like I have to look up to him when he talks to me. He treats me like an equal. Even when he takes care of me, protects me, like he sees my worth even when I don’t.
“Coffee?” he asks, pouring himself a cup. I nod, taking a seat at the bar.
When he passes me my mug, I try to block out all of the thoughts in my head that I shouldn’t have come here. Even before I take my first sip, he dives right into the heavy talk.
“I meant what I said, Sunny. You’re staying here. I’ll give you the pool house, or I’ll sleep in the pool house, but I can’t let you go back there.” With his strong shoulders and narrowed expression, he seems almost fatherly, and I want to tell him that it suits him. That he should stop being such a bachelor and be serious once in a while. But I don’t.
“Maybe for just a little bit,” I mumble, warming my hands on the coffee cup. “Let things cool off.”
His eyes linger on my face for a moment, and I can tell he wants to say something, but he doesn’t.
“You hungry?” he asks, his eyes lingering on my face.
“No, coffee’s fine for now,” I answer, feeling antsy under his stare.
“Shower?”
His voice goes down an octave as he asks, and I can see the struggle in his eyes to remain nonchalant as he asks. My cheeks blush as I bite my lip. I know he means a shower by myself, but it doesn’t stop the images in my head of his naked body under the water with me.
“That would be perfect.”
He leads me down the hallway to the bathroom. Next to the door I assume is a linen closet is a box stuffed with folded towels and washcloths.
“Alex…” I say in a scolding tone.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he defends himself. “I haven’t gotten around to that one yet.”
“Or any of them,” I tease as I wave my arms around to the boxes stacked in every corner.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He jabs me playfully in the ribs as I scurry into the bathroom with a towel under my arm.
Under the water of the shower, I can’t stop the reeling in my mind. The events of the night are replaying in my head play-by-play. Alexander telling me that he wanted me, the reassurance I so desperately craved. He’s so convinced that he would be terrible for me, but I only want to convince him that I’m not afraid of him. I don’t worry about what he’s done in the past.
The intensity in his eyes brings my excitement back down. Alex has done nothing but beat himself up since he moved in and my pushing him won’t do him any favors. And now I’ve basically moved in…
This is a mistake. Isn't it?
By the time I come back out, holding a towel wrapped around my body, there’s a folded pile of clothes waiting for me on the floor. Picking them up, I find a pair of basketball shorts and a T-shirt. The shorts hang off my hips, but I can roll them about four times to keep them up. It’s enough to get me to my house to pack my things.
The thought of going back sends a cold chill down my spine. It’s not that I don’t want to face my mother. It’s that I don’t know if I can. If I had my phone, I’d text Cadence, but I literally came here with nothing last night. And I have to tell my sister where I’ll be for a few days.
When I come out in Alex’s clothes, he’s waiting by the back door.
“I have to get some things…” I say quietly.
“I know. I’ll go with you.”
A smile fights against my lips as I try to bite it down. The proud look in his shoulders as he stands there, arms crossed, willing to protect me has me feeling all warm inside.
My hands won’t stop shaking as I cross the lawn and spot movement inside. It’s not a confrontation I'm worried about. I’m worried Alex will see that nothing will happen at all. That no one will apologize or ask about me or care at all.
When we walk through the back patio, my mom is sitting at the dining room table, her face in her hands, hovering over her cup of coffee. I feel myself hovering close to Alex’s side. When my mom looks up, I see the swelling under her eyes, proof that she’s been crying.
“Jesus, Sunny,” she croaks as she stands up. “We were worried sick about you.”
I keep my mouth shut as I walk past her and rush up the stairs to my room. There’s no possible way they were worried about me. She knew exactly where I went and even if I did hitchhike across the country instead of running to Alex’s house, why would she be worried after she clocked me in the middle of the hallway?
In a scurry, I collect up my phone, charger, and shove clothes into a bag. I can come back for more, plus I don’t know how long I’ll be staying anyway. My sister’s door stays shut while I hurry, and just when I reach the bottom landing, I catch sight of Alex’s body crowding my mother’s in the corner of the kitchen. When he pulls away, she’s crying even harder, rubbing her throat, and I freeze. My eyes trail to his face, but he avoids my stare as he approaches me and walks with me out the door. I don’t spare my mother one glance as I leave.
When we get back to the house, I keep Alexander’s clothes on as he makes lunch. Sitting on the bar stool, I look around at the boxes.
“You could have moved into a smaller house,” I tease him.
He sends me a twisted smirk as he drops a grilled cheese on the counter in front of me. “I thought I wanted space. I had an apartment in the city, and I just envisioned something to grow into.”
“Like a goldfish,” I say through a bite of my sandwich.
“Excuse me?” he laughs.
“You haven’t heard of the goldfish theory?”
He shakes his head slowly with a crooked brow. “Explain, rain cloud.”
I stand and walk to the fridge for a bottle of water I know he stocks there. “There’s a theory that a goldfish will grow as big as his fishbowl. So, a fish in a big bowl will be huge, but a fish in a small tank doesn’t grow and dies.”
Taking a long gulp of my water, I watch Alexander’s expression fall. “Are you saying I’m going to get fat?”
A laugh bursts from my lips. “No. I just think...you have more room in your life now. For...people.”
With a smile that lights up his eyes, he takes a bite of his sandwich, and I reach across the counter to swipe at him, but he dodges easily.
I tell myself this could work, and his smile makes me believe it.
Alexander
Having her in my house feels right. She breathes life into these empty walls. After lunch, we take a dip in the pool and then a trip to Whole Foods for the essentials. She pushes the cart around the store, hopping on for short rides while I fill it with more than I normally do—which feels better than I expect it to.
I feel eyes on us while we shop, and I know what they are thinking.
Is she my daughter or new girlfriend?
And for the first time, I don’t care. When we come around to the bakery, I buy a whole cake because I’m just in the mood to indulge. I catch her eyes on me more than once on the drive home, and I decide that I can do this. I can keep Sunny, take care of her, be the person she needs without crossing the boundary.
After dinner, the sinking feeling of bedtime looms closer. I hate to put her on the couch, but the guest bedroom is still in boxes. And if I’m being honest with myself, the idea of waking up to her again is tempting, but I don’t trust myself to do that. So, I take a pillow and blanket out to the living room and toss it down as she comes out of the bathroom in her pajamas.
I watch her stand in the middle of the room, swallowing down her nerves.
“I’ll sleep out here,” I say before she can get anything out.
“I can’t take your bed, Alex.”
“It’s fine, Sunny. I sleep like shit wherever I am, so it hardly matters.”
A moment of silence passes before she speaks again, looking nervous as she picks at her fingernails. “It’s a big bed,” she breathes.
It feels like swallowing a baseball as I force down the thought. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“It was fine last night.”
I don’t admit it, but I actually slept great last night. I didn’t wake up ten times like I normally do, and our bodies never actually touched.
My shoulders sag as I think about it.
“I’ll keep my hands to myself,” she says with a smile, lightening the mood.
Something about her smile makes me give in. “Fine, but you stick to your side,” I answer in a scolding tone. I watch the smile spread across her face.
As she crawls under the covers that night, I keep my eyes down on my phone. She curls her body into a ball around her pillow. It feels strange to go to bed with someone I didn’t just fuck and feels a little like we’re playing house or having a sleepover.
“Whatcha reading?” she asks quietly from her pillow.
“A boring email.”
“Email,” she giggles. “That’s cute.”
Dropping my phone to my lap, I turn my head toward her. “Are you calling me old, rain cloud?”
She muffles her laugh in her pillow, and it takes everything in me not to tickle the exposed flesh of her waist between her tank top and pajama pants.
Shutting my phone off, I don’t reply to the email from my old work contact about a new investment opportunity that actually sounds pretty solid. The idea of getting back into business scares me. I should be glad he’s even emailing me after the way I fucked things up last year. But I miss the days of having purpose. Having somewhere to go and something to work for.
The next day, Sunny spends the day in the pool house working while I unpack the box waiting by the linen closet.
As I work, I keep thinking about how it felt to have her in my bed. Our bodies never touched in the night, but I woke up a couple times just to admire her calm breathing next to me in the darkness.
Then, I start to think about how long she’ll stay. How long do I want her to stay? How long until it becomes impossible to deny myself? Somewhere deep down I hope the desire goes away, and I just become used to her being around, but I’m not holding out hope for that.
The old Alexander Caldwell lived for weekends and late nights. Now, with her here, I want nothing more than pizza and movies on the couch like it’s the equivalent to a new club opening and having VIP access.
Lost in thought, I stop when I hear her calling my name, sounding panicked.
Rushing outside, I find her standing near the back patio. “What’s wrong?”
Behind her, I notice her mother crossing the yard and approaching the house.
“Do you want me to handle it?” I ask, touching her softly on the back of the arm.
She only shrugs. I understand that it’s her mother and feelings are complicated. She doesn’t want me to solve her problems for her; she just wants me there when she does.
Her mother walks straight up to the patio door and knocks. Her eyes have that same swollen shape like she’d been crying.
When I open the door, Sunny is standing next to me, holding her shoulders back and leaning toward me.
“What can I do for you?” I ask without inviting her in.
The woman bites her lip, glancing back and forth from me to her daughter.
“Thursday is Sunny’s twentieth birthday. We want to have a party at the house. I just want—”
I turn my head and look at the girl standing next to me. I’ll let her lead in the response.
“I’ll think about it,” she mumbles.
My harsh glare focuses back on her mother after Sunny answers, but she doesn’t look at me.
“Are you okay?” she asks her.
Without any emotion on her face, Sunny answers. “I’m fine. Better.”
“I’m so sorry, Sun. I just…”
“I don’t care.”
She grows quiet a moment. “Since your dad left, you know—”
“I said I don’t care. The party sounds fun. I’ll be here until then.”
With that she turns and disappears inside the house, leaving her mother without another word. As I close the patio door, I watch Sunny shield herself with a hard exterior, and I’m proud of her for it.
Sunny
I wake up to the smell of pancakes on my birthday. Instead of getting up right away, I lay in bed for a moment and try to feel the difference. Being twenty doesn’t feel any different than being nineteen, except for the fact that I’m one step farther into adulthood but feel no less like a clueless teenager.
When I do finally walk out, he’s standing there with a smile, flipping pancakes in those practically illegal looking gray sweatpants.
“Birthday girl!” he chimes when I sit down at the counter. I love Alexander’s warm moods.
I’ve narrowed down his behavior to warm, cool, and neutral, like the tones on a color wheel. Warm tones are when he’s most alive. Passionate like amber. Lust-filled gold. Anger in crimson. I’ve only seen him truly hot once, and it was exhilarating, scary, and attractive. When he looks into my eyes, I find the warmth, the life, the real Alexander in an array of tones.
Warm is when he lets his guard down.
Alexander’s cool moods are the ones that I notice when he doesn’t know I’m watching. When I see him relaxing by the pool, still and quiet for the smallest moment, and I see the ocean blue shade of his contentment. When we curl up next to each other on the couch, and he doesn’t pick a fight, test the boundaries or relentlessly punish himself, he fades into something between blue and green.
The ones that frighten me the most, not because I’m scared of him but because I’m scared of how much I lose him are his neutral moods. That’s when I’m afraid he’s fading into the background of his life, hoping he won’t mess anything up. The expression melts off his face and he’s convinced that by doing nothing, he’s doing the world a favor. I want to shake him when I catch these moods on his
facade. I want my warm and cool Alexander back, the one with life in his eyes.
“I made you birthday pancakes,” he says as he licks the batter off his fingers. Then, he piles four cakes on a plate and tops them with a mountain of whipped cream and syrup.
The attention warms my heart. This new Alexander, the one who wants to be domesticated and settled down makes pancakes, and he’s doing it for me.
“Thank you,” I whisper as I take a big bite. They’re perfect.
“You are very welcome.” He turns to wash the dishes in the sink, but I feel the silence in the room like a heavy weight. I know there are words on his lips. When he turns back around, he heaves a heavy sigh and speaks. “How are you feeling about the party tonight?”
“I feel fine,” I answer, avoiding his eye contact as I keep my stare trained on my plate.
“Sunny,” he says, and it sounds like a warning. Butterflies dance in my stomach when he says my name, and as much as I love his pet name for me, I do love hearing that one on his lips.
“I was thinking…” I confess after a bite when he passes me a cup of coffee.
“What?”
“You don’t have to come.”
He doesn’t waste a second. “Do you want me to come?”
Yes.
No.
I want him with me, to walk in with him, sit by him, touch him and talk to him, claiming him as mine, but I don’t want him there when Fischer makes an inappropriate comment about my virginity which no one will scold him for or when my mom drinks so much she makes an even more inappropriate comment about my virginity or my dad or how I was a mistake but chose to love me anyway.
I don’t want Alexander around for that part.
I shrug. His face tightens as he clenches his jaw, and I know he wants me to say yes so that he can play this part of my protector, my guardian, but he doesn’t want to overstep his bounds.
“Think about it, and I’ll do whatever you want, rain cloud.”
While I finish my breakfast and scroll through my phone, he comes out of his bedroom freshly showered and dressed, smelling like a million bucks and doing things to my insides that I don’t exactly give him permission to.