by Megan Hart
“Any big plans for the year? It’s your last year of middle school. Are you going to tear it up or what?” I asked over the platter of junk food.
William shrugged. “I don’t think so. I’ll just be hanging with my friends.”
I dipped a fry in ketchup. “Where do you hang out?”
“The park mostly.” He shrugged.
“What are you, a pack of hooligans?” I teased and earned a roll of his eyes. We ate in silence for a minute or so before I added, casually, “So, how are things at home?”
I hadn’t seen or heard from my sister-in-law since the confrontation after the brunch. I’d called my brother a few times, but he’d been busy. Or at least said he was busy. And I was being a shitty sister and letting him avoid me because I didn’t want to get involved with his marital issues. It was cowardly, and I knew it, but I hadn’t yet been able to convince myself that telling him was the best choice.
There was William, see. William, whom I’d held mere hours after his birth, the fourth person to ever hold him. Mom, Dad, nurse and Auntie Elise. I’d rocked him to sleep and helped to potty train him and taught him to read before he went to kindergarten.
I loved this kid like my own, and I did not want to be the one to blow up his family.
“They’re okay,” William said, seemingly without any hidden fretting. He was too busy digging into his Hollywood burger.
“Are you glad to be all finished with the Bar Mitzvah?”
He gave me a look so much like the ones I’d been used to getting from his dad that I was torn between laughing out loud and nostalgically getting choked up. I settled for taking a long slurp of my milk shake. We ate in companionable silence after that, occasionally breaking it to point out something funny in the parking lot, like the teen boy and girl who were having some kind of dramatic fight in almost total silence, or the little kid in the backseat of a car who gave William the finger, making us both burst into laughter.
“You would never have done that,” I told him. “You were a perfect kid.”
He laughed at that, but looked pleased.
“I’m so proud of you, William,” I told him abruptly. “I don’t know if I told you that, but I am.”
He looked pleased, but also embarrassed. “For what?”
“For being a great all-around kid. For kicking ass at your Bar Mitzvah. For just generally being someone I’m glad to know.” I punched him lightly in the arm.
I dropped him off at home afterward. When he used the outdoor keypad to let himself into the garage, however, I saw that neither of his parents were home yet. Frowning, I waved at him from my car and then called out the window, “Hey!”
William turned. At thirteen he was definitely old enough to be left by himself, but the question was, did he really want to be? He turned to face me, looking surprised.
“Come here.”
Dutifully, he came back to the car and leaned in the driver’s side window. “Yeah?”
“What time do your mom and dad get home?”
His shrug and uncomfortable expression gave me more answers than I’d asked for. I sighed, tallying the chores I had waiting for me at home. Screw it, laundry could wait.
“Let’s go to the movies,” I said.
“Now?”
“Yes. Now. We can go see that new giant robot movie.” I grinned.
William looked uncertain. “But you already took me out to dinner. And it’s a school night.”
“Get in the car, kid,” I told him. “I want to see a movie, and you don’t really want to sit around at home by yourself, do you?”
“No. I guess not.” He came around the car again and slid into the passenger seat, good kid that he was, buckling his seat belt without being asked. “Can I see if some of my friends want to come along? They’re not old enough to get in without a parent.”
I waved a magnanimous hand. “Sure. If they can meet us there, I’ll be happy to chaperone.”
“You’re the best,” William enthused, and bent to his phone to start typing and making plans.
I didn’t know about being the best, but I adored that kid, and while I wasn’t about to track down Susan to find out where the hell she was, in case it was someplace I didn’t want to know about, I also didn’t want him to be at home by himself until who knew when. I typed in a quick text to my brother to let him know where his son was, and got back a vague thanks, working late. That wasn’t terribly unusual, since Evan had to do server maintenance at least a couple times a month, which meant odd, late hours. Still, just because their son was technically old enough not to need a babysitter, that didn’t mean that his parents should just fuck off doing whatever.
My phone buzzed with a message just as we pulled into the parking lot of the theater. Seeing it was from Niall, I waved William on ahead and told him to get in line. With a happy, giddy grin, I read Niall’s message.
What are you up to?
Getting ready to see the new giant robot movie, I typed. What are you doing?
Wishing I was seeing the new giant robot movie.
I didn’t think twice about it. Come see it with me. I’ll save you a seat, movie starts in half an hour.
As soon as I sent it, I wished I hadn’t. George had never been spontaneous that way. Oh, sure, he’d call or text and expect me to drop whatever I was doing to accommodate him, but anything I wanted him to do had to be planned in advance. Hell, he’d nearly needed forms filled out in triplicate with a full itinerary if I wanted him to meet me halfway between us for an impromptu midweek dinner; and even then he only said yes just often enough that the next time, when he said no, I was twice as disappointed.
I shouldn’t have asked Niall to come with me, I told myself, preparing for his answer to come back with a “no.” I got no answer at all, and I shook my head as I got out of the car, reminding myself not to let it bother me.
“Want popcorn?” I asked William, who grinned. I handed him a twenty-dollar bill and waved him ahead. “Get me some Junior Mints and a Coke.”
Junk food procured, we made our way to the theater, one of the bigger ones in the multiplex. Almost full, too. Well, that’s what you get for being late, I heard my mother say, and laughed to myself. Inside, William spotted a group of his friends who had an extra seat with them.
“Go ahead,” I told him. “I’ll sit up here. It’s cool.”
“You sure?”
“Definitely.” I took one of the few empty seats. The row on the floor between the stadium seating sections had seats in groups of two with spaces between for wheelchairs, and I found one two-seat section empty. I settled in, checking my phone and forcing myself not to be disappointed when I found Niall still hadn’t answered me.
It didn’t matter, I told myself. It was only a movie. We were only hesitantly dating, I thought, refusing to contemplate how deep I’d already fallen. I turned off the ringer and tucked my phone into my purse as the lights dimmed for the previews.
Just as the movie itself started, a shadow slipped into the seat beside me. Creeped out, annoyed, knowing there were probably no other empty seats in the whole theater, I turned my body slightly away as I gave the intruder a fake smile. Then a real one, along with a gasp of surprise that was fortunately covered up by the giant robot’s first appearance in a crash of cinematic thunder that rumbled the theater’s speaker system.
Niall leaned into my ear. “I made it.”
* * *
We took William and his friends to the food court after the movie for whatever kind of food they wanted, an offer from Niall that amused me so much I could only laugh and shake my head as the four boys took off to four separate places. Niall laughed with me. He pointed in the direction of the food court.
“You, too,” he said. “Whatever you want.”
“Oh, hey, fancy.”
“Hey, wh
en you go out with me, you get the full royal treatment.” We followed the path of the boys so that Niall could pick up the tab for each of them. When he turned to me, though, I shook my head again.
“I’m not hungry. I had dinner before the movie then candy.” I laughed at his expression. “But you eat, if you want to. I have to wait for William to finish anyway.”
Niall ordered from the Indian place, and we sat at a small table across from each other and next to the boys. I didn’t make a big deal out of watching them, but it was something of a relief to see my nephew laughing and joking around for what felt like the first time in a year. When I glanced back to Niall, he was giving me a curious look.
“What?” I asked, and stabbed a bite of his curried rice.
“He looks like you.” Niall gave a surreptitious nod toward William.
I laughed. “He’s my twin brother’s kid. Makes sense.”
“You’re a good aunt.” Niall dug through a pile of rice and took a bite, grains tumbling from his mouth to the plate as he tried not to let them.
I handed him a napkin. “Thanks. He’s a great kid. And since he’s the closest I’ll probably ever get to one of my own…”
“You think so? How come? You don’t want any kids?” Niall wiped his mouth clean, which drew my attention to his lips and made me want to kiss him.
I restrained myself. “I don’t really think I’d be the greatest mom. You have to be pretty unselfish to have a kid, I think. If you want to be a good parent.”
“You don’t think you’re unselfish?”
I shrugged. “No. I don’t think I’m unselfish.”
“Do you think you’re more selfish than normal?” Niall pushed his plate toward me with a raised brow, inviting me to sneak another bite.
I didn’t, though I liked that he’d offered. “Maybe.”
I looked up to see him looking thoughtful. Under his scrutiny, I felt warm and flushed, watched and somehow weighed. I’d looked at men that way, I realized, but I couldn’t ever remember anyone ever taking the time to study me with such intent.
“I don’t think you are,” Niall said. “You’ve been pretty generous, in my experience.”
Before I could answer that, William’s friends collectively got up to leave, and he crossed to our table.
“Their moms are here,” he explained.
“We should get you home. It’s getting late, and I have to work in the morning.”
It pleased me and made me proud that I didn’t have to remind William to thank Niall for the food. The three of us went out to the parking lot together, but Niall had parked in a different section of the lot. William asked for my keys so he could go on ahead and get in the car while we said our goodbyes.
“The kid’s smart,” Niall said, watching William head for my car. “Considerate enough to give us time to smooch.”
“He just doesn’t want to see it.”
Niall pulled me into his arms. “Has he had to watch you kissing lots of men?”
“No.” I let him tug me closer. “I haven’t had a boyfriend around him in…well, ever, I guess.”
“No?” Niall looked surprised.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“So how come you invited me along tonight?”
“I wanted to see you,” I told him. “And I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
Niall squinched an eye closed to look at me. “Huh. Not sure if I like that or not. I’m not a big deal or not a boyfriend.”
I’d been leaning to kiss him, but now stopped. I’d asked him this before, and come to think of it, he hadn’t exactly answered. “Do you want to be a boyfriend?”
“I am kind of a big deal,” he said.
I laughed a little uncertainly. “Niall.”
He kissed me hard enough to make me feel it, but briefly enough that we weren’t making a spectacle of ourselves. His hands settled naturally on my hips. I looked toward my car, but William must already have gotten in, because I didn’t see him. I looked back at Niall.
“Boyfriend is…a word.”
He smiled. “Yeah. It’s just a word.”
I tried to take a step back, but he didn’t let me go. I put my hands over his to get him to release his grip. He did, then, but linked his fingers with mine to trap me.
“Okay,” he said. “Just thought I’d toss it out there. See what you’d say. I mean, some girls, you take them out once, and they’re picking out china patterns and talking about the catering menu.”
“Girls like the ones who broke your heart?” I kissed him, and this time I was the one making it fierce but brief. I couldn’t stop myself from nipping his lower lip lightly as I pulled away. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to…what? I didn’t know. Show him who was boss? Make him forget there’d ever been a woman before me? This conversation had unexpectedly disgruntled me.
“Anyway,” he continued, rubbing his thumb along his lower lip while his eyes gleamed and didn’t leave mine. “You’re the girl who takes lovers instead of boyfriends, isn’t that right?”
He was poking at me, teasing, and unexpected heat rushed through me. My nipples tightened. The seam of my jeans rubbed me with a delicious pressure, and my breath caught.
“Yes. That’s what I told you.”
No music, no steps. We weren’t even moving, but this was a dance all the same. Or maybe it was more like a sword fight. Thrust and parry. Dodge and weave.
“Thanks for asking me to the movies,” Niall said and took a step back. Then another. He put his hands in his pockets and gave me a slow, sly smile that made me want to chase after him and push him up against the wall and have my way with him. “It was fun.”
“Thanks for coming. And for treating William and his friends.”
“I’ll call you,” Niall said then pivoted and stalked away without looking back.
I watched him, though, waiting to see if he’d turn at least once. He didn’t, which was the worst and best thing he could’ve done, whether he knew it or not. Because I wanted him to look back at me, of course. Wanted him to want me enough to look even if he didn’t want to. But I also wanted him to be the sort of man who didn’t have to.
What the fuck was happening to me?
“Is he your boyfriend?”
The first words out of William’s mouth when I got in the car stumped me. I put the key into the ignition and started the engine before I twisted in my seat to answer him. “No. Why?”
“He’s cool.” William shrugged. “He works with Dad.”
“I know.” I drove for a bit before saying, “What made you ask me if he was my boyfriend?”
William shrugged, looking totally uninterested. “I don’t know. I heard my mom saying she thought you needed to spend more time on your own boyfriend than worrying about what everyone else was doing.”
The way he said it, so carefully without looking at me, told me a lot. But Susan was his mother, and I could be the favorite aunt from here until the end of time without ever trumping that. Still, it was hard not to sneer about it.
“Who’d she say that to? Your dad?”
“No. Someone on the phone,” William said. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
I sighed, making the turn onto his street. “Probably not, kid. But it’s okay. Your mom has a right to her opinion.”
“I don’t think you butt in, Auntie,” William told me. “Grandma and Aunt Jill do, but you don’t. It made me mad that she’d say that.”
A rush of love for him pricked tears into my eyes. “Thanks, kid. But your mom still has a right to feel however she feels.”
And had her own shit to shovel, I did not add, though the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. When we got to William’s house, I told him I needed to come in and use the bathroom. I did, then greeted my brother, who
’d planted himself in his recliner in front of the TV, beer in hand. A pile of about ten pairs of dirty socks were next to him.
“You’re a pig,” I said flatly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Evan gave me a bleary, offended glare. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I kicked a foot in the direction of the socks. “You’re still doing that.”
He looked over the arm of his chair then at me without a blink. “What?”
“Your fucking socks, man. Gross.” I shook my head. “It was gross when we lived together, and it’s still gross now.”
Evan snorted. “Why should you care?”
I don’t, I wanted to say, but your wife clearly does, and you’re pissing her off enough that she’s cheating on you with some guy who looks like Ricardo Montalban in Escape From the Planet of the Apes. I clamped my mouth shut, thinking of William upstairs. Of my own parents screaming. Evan and I were fifteen when they split, though their problems had started long before that. I didn’t believe my brother would fuck off into the world without a second glance at his son, but that didn’t mean I was going to be the one to bring his world crashing down.
I found Susan on the front porch. She startled when I came through the door, turning, her face twisted in guilt of a different kind. She had a lit cigarette in her hand.
“You scared me,” she said.
“Sorry. I didn’t want to come out through the garage and not be able to close the door behind me.” I hesitated, looking her over. “You took it back up, huh?”
“Some things you quit because you want to,” my sister-in-law said kind of sourly. “Some things you give up because everyone tells you it’s bad for you, but eventually, you know you’ll go back to it. If it’s something you love.”
I wasn’t making a judgment about smoking. I’d been known to light up now and then, usually when I was drinking. For as long as I’d known Susan, though, she’d been the sort to look down at people with vices, no matter what they were. Smoking, drinking too much, overeating. Cheating would’ve been on that list, too, I supposed, though it was funny how easy it was to change your mind about something you discovered was easier to get into than you might’ve thought. We stared at each other for a few seconds while her cigarette burned, and she didn’t even take a puff.