Grounds. Water. The bloom rises. I stir, press the lid just to the surface. My hand shakes more than it should, and when I look up, Damien is close enough that if there weren’t two panes of glass and a street between us, I could see that dark ring of color circling his stormy gray eyes.
If he knows I’m watching, he isn’t showing it. Because he drops the compressor hose, straightens slowly, and stretches his arms overhead like he’s shaking off a long drive. The hem of his shirt rides up, exposing a strip of skin and the hard line of his stomach.
I doubt he’d purposely do such a thing, but who am I kidding? This is the guy who teased me for being his best friend’s pesky sister and then made guys squirm if they even looked in my direction.
“Stop it,” I whisper to the coffee like it’s responsible for my hormones. I grab one of the mugs and start pouring out Mom’s second cup, because routine is a life raft around here.
But even routine is a lost cause when the man across the street stands under that stupid, dented light fixture on the Lawson porch. The one that Aaron and Damien broke and swore up and down that they didn’t.
Damien tests the bulb. It flickers on, bleaches his face, then dies. And I’m left to witness something I’ve only seen a handful of times in my life.
He smiles.
It’s brief and just barely a whisper of one, but it lands in my chest like a memory.
Sixteen years old, sweaty July. Damien and Aaron are in our driveway, chain grease on their hands, both of them bare-chested and sun-kissed. Damien is bent over my bike, forearms corded, asking, “You want this done right or fast, Little Hart?” And me, pretending my tongue hadn’t turned into a traitor in my mouth because anything that came out of my brother’s best friend’s mouth always sounded like something more.
Across the street, a nail gun barks to life. The sound ricochets through the bones of the house, through me. It isn’t until my toes burn that I realize I’ve created the Niagara Falls of coffee.
I should go get the mail before Mom wakes up and asks if I checked it yet. I should not care that my pajama pants are ancient or that my sweater has one too many snags in it. I shouldnotchange. But I do anyway, swapping the sweater for a clean one, knotting my hair higher. It’s not for him. It’s for me because I need to feel my best when confronted with my worst nightmare.
I slip on my boots and grab my keys like I do every morning. The front door sticks, and I have to shove with my hip to get it open, just like every morning. Cold air rushes over my face. Thesky is that flat winter gray that makes me miss the Spring and colors. I walk down the steps, while my heart does something incredibly rude behind my ribs at the sight of him.
Damien’s back is to me as I cross the yard. He’s kneeling by the front stoop of his parents’ house, prying up a rotten board. The muscle in his forearm jumps as he does. He must feel the air shift because he glances over his shoulder, and—yeah. There it is. Eye contact that feels more like getting slammed by a professional rugby player.
Storm-gray eyes lock on me, and he goes still.
I don’t stop. I don’t smile. I tip my chin in the kind of nod you give someone you don’t owe anything to and head for the cluster mailboxes that sit on his side of the street. Gravel crunches under my boots, making the awkward silence between us feel even heavier. I pull out a fan of envelopes, junk and bills, and one that is hand-addressed to me.
“Hello, Lyla.” His voice scrapes low across the space between us, and I bristle like it found a shortcut to my spine.
I look over, slowly. “Damien.”
Something flickers over his mouth. “Didn’t think you remembered me.”
“I remember a lot of things I don’t like.” I flip the envelopes, glance back down the street like I’m busy, like my pulse isn’t thudding in my throat.
He leans an elbow on his knee, studies me in a way that feels too direct. “So you live here?”
I tuck the mail against my ribs. “Well,Inever left.”
His eyes narrow slightly at the jab.
“And what about you? Please tell me you’re not planning on staying long.”
There’s a slightamused tug at the corner of his mouth before his gaze drags over the sagging porch of the home behind him.“Renovating. And lucky for you, I’m not planning on staying long.”
“Yes, lucky me,” I mutter.
He rises, and I realize I’d forgotten how tall he is. He wipes his hands on a rag, slow, buying a beat. “You still… doing the show?”
“It’s a podcast,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “And yes.”
“Right.” He nods once, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. “Good.”
Good?! That’s all he has to say about the fact that I’ve turned to talking about living with grief as a way to survive?Good.
It dangles between us. The breeze lifts a strand of hair into my mouth, and I tuck it behind my ear with fingers that refuse to stop shaking. I think it’s time for me to go.
