His smile was unexpectedly soft. “I always want to be real with you.”
***
“Ah, yes — my dears, I do believe I have rummy!”
Sharon fanned her cards out on the table — four queens and three sevens — and we all groaned.
“That’s — how do youalwayswin?” Cole spluttered, but he was grinning.
“Years of practice, I’m afraid.” Sharon laid her hand on top of Cole’s, and he turned his own palm upwards so that he could give her a squeeze.
Across the table, Dad shifted in his chair. “Do youthink we should all think about turning in? We need to make sure we’re well rested, because the next couple of days might be rough.”
It was a little after ten, and we were sitting around the table in Sharon’s kitchen, candlelight flickering across our faces. The storm had been buffeting the house since a little after what would have been sunset, rain lashing against the siding and the wind sending the wooden structure creaking and shuddering to its very foundations. We’d lost power a few hours before, and had done our best to fill the time since then. There had been several games of Scrabble, a few of Scattergories, and round after round of gin rummy (Cole was right — Sharon was scarily good at it). But none of it was making me feel any better, and I could tell I wasn’t the only one.
Sharon gathered the cards into a neat pile and then slid them back into the box. “I think that’s a fine idea. Should we each take a candle?”
We were a solemn party making our way upstairs. When we reached the landing, Sharon headed off to her room at the back of the house, and Dad crossed the hall to the small guestroom beside it. That left Cole and me.
“Well, come on — I’m not going to bite.” Cole led the way to his room, crossing quickly to the closet. “If you need to get changed or anything, I won’t look at you.”
I put the candle down on the windowsill and knelt on the floor to rummage through my bag. Outside, theworld was pitch black, nothing but wind and rain, the tiny yellow flame illuminating the droplets as they dashed against the glass, along with my own ghostly reflection staring back at me. I ducked down to pull out my pajamas, and when I did, I became aware of another reflection behind me. Cole had placed his candle on the dresser, and he was standing beside it, dragging his T-shirt up and over his head. He paused, the warm light flickering over the elegant curve of his spine, his narrow waist, the muscles and tendons in his shoulders — and that old hot flush spread through me once more, as queasy as the ocean outside. Hastily, I ducked my head, hurrying into my pajamas as quickly as possible as my face burned. What the fuck was wrong with me?
We took turns heading to the bathroom to brush our teeth, and soon we were tucked underneath the worn coverlet, our candles extinguished for the night. With the room plunged completely into darkness, there was nothing to distract us from the creaking of the house, the timbers of the roof straining against their joints, the windowpanes rattling in their frames, the rain an everpresent drumbeat. We lay side by side, and as I counted my breaths, I tried to stay calm, to swallow down the rising bile in my throat.
“Hey, Ezra?” Cole rolled onto his side to face me. “Will you promise not to laugh if I say something stupid?”
“Sure, I promise.”
Cole sighed. “I’m scared as fuck. Like, really scared out of my goddamn mind.”
“Yeah, me too.” I didn’t really know what to say, so I blurted out the next thing that crossed my mind. “It must be weird to be stuck in this while your parents are out of the country.”
“What?” Cole sounded genuinely confused. “Oh, I mean — yeah. It is.”
“They’re off in Paris somewhere, and you’re in the middle of this mess. Like, at least my dad is down the hall.”
“Yeah, it sucks,” Cole replied sadly. There was a long stretch of silence, and I wondered if he might have fallen asleep. But then — “Um, Ezra?”
I turned my head towards the sound of his voice.”Yeah?”
“Can I hug you?” When I didn’t reply immediately, stunned into silence, he went on. “I mean — I’m sorry, I’m being weird and making it awkward. It’s just — all this makes me feel like a little kid, you know? And I just thought —”
I cut in. “Yeah, it’s okay.”
“Really?” He sounded a little shocked.
“Yeah, c’mere.” Cole wriggled forward and threw an arm across my chest, and I did my best to drape mine around his shoulders. I thought I would hate it, because I don’t usually like to be touched, but there was something comforting about having the warm weightof him pressed against me, about feeling the rise and fall of his breath. “Any better?”
“Yeah, this is loads better.” He smelled like mint toothpaste and herbal shampoo, and I was never going to be the same.
“Good.”
I don’t know how long it took him to fall asleep, because we didn’t say anything after that, clinging to each other in the dark as the storm raged outside. But finally my aching mind decided to give me a break, and I knew no more.
***
The next morning, it took me a minute to remember where I was.
