Everett walks over to me, pausing on the other side of the banister. He puts his hand just above where mine is sitting, his index finger settling against my pinky. Innocuous enough, and yet it sends a spark zapping down my spine, straightening my posture, chest tilting toward his.
“Did you mean what you said?” I ask in the quiet, my own voice low. Everett’s brow furrows. “In the kitchen. You want me to be happy.”
He steps closer to me, mere inches between us now. “Of course I want that,” he says. His next inhale is a little shaky, deeper than the last. “I’ve always wanted that.”
“I want that too,” I say. “For you.”
I wish I could somehow record every unspoken thing zipping between us right now. All the conversations we should have had and never did, all the things we actually mean. Of course we want each other to be happy, in the same way we want Laurel and Davi and Gabe and most people, generally, to be happy. But it feels so much bigger when Everett says it. I want to ask where he wants that happiness to come from. I want him, I realize in that moment, as his fingers slide just over mine. This. Worst ofall, it feels so familiar I worry that it’s been with me this whole time. That I never fully stopped wanting it.
It’s enough of a shock that I startle back, sucking in a breath. Everett’s hand slides off of mine as I do, his gaze dropping for a second before he looks up at me again.
“After you,” he says, gesturing to the stairs.
“Thanks,” I say, nodding.
It takes me a moment longer than it should to turn away.
eighteen
Third Summer
Davi couldn’t come our third summer. He’d tried and failed to get work off, or at least, that’s what he’d told us. He’d gotten an entry-level job at his dream firm in New York, and we all knew Davi’s main goal in life was to be partner by thirty. This vacation didn’t quite seem to fit into that plan.
I didn’t blame him, understood things came up, but something about it unsettled me when he confirmed he wouldn’t be joining us. The countdown on my calendar was suddenly a reminder not only of the trip, but that we wouldn’t be whole this year. Still, there would be Laurel and Gabe and Everett, and those two promised days after the week ended. There were things to look forward to.
Our first morning there, while Laurel and Gabe played gin rummy in the living room, it was just Everett and me in the kitchen. Everett helping me cook had become enough of a routine at that point that it didn’t seem odd, but I was still more aware of the proximity of his forearms than ever.
“Excuse me,” I said, glancing down at Everett’s cutting board. “Where did you learn those knife skills?”
His smile was faint but full, like he was waiting for me to notice. “Someone had to be your actual sous-chef here,” hesaid. I waited until he looked at me, popped a few perfectly brunoised chunks of red pepper into his mouth, grinned with his full force. “I took a cooking class over the winter.”
It was kindling added to the always burning ember in my stomach, the one with Everett’s name on it. I fought to keep the smile off my face, but it was fruitless. For a moment, it didn’t matter that anyone else was around. I would have kissed him then and there, without thinking.
“I hope this means you’re subsisting on more than just toast and coffee now,” I said.
He nodded, a smile playing at his mouth. “Knowing you has improved my life immeasurably, Sutton.”
“Well,” I said, eyes still locked on to his. I had to shake my head a little to clear it. “Show me what you learned, then.” I nodded toward his cutting board, and we continued on. My burst of affection for him fled without causing any permanent damage.
After sliding the frittata into the oven, I grabbed my phone to see if Davi had time to talk. Something sharp and painful jumped in my chest when I saw the missed call on my screen.
“Everything okay?” Everett asked from where he was washing dishes.
“Hmm?” I glanced in his direction, but didn’t quite find his eyes, my gaze quickly drifting back to my phone. “Oh, yeah. I just have to make a call.”
I stepped out onto the deck and slid the door closed behind me, heart hammering in my throat.
My mom never called me outside of her scheduled times, and sometimes not even then. Only once before had I gotten something unprompted from her, and it was to tell me in a clipped, five-minute call that my father’s father had passed away. I hadn’t been close with him, but I was still shocked when shesaidanyway, we’ll be in touch, before she hung up with me, like I was one of her clients she was trying to schedule a meeting with, not her daughter trying to wrap her head around the death of a family member.
I called her back, crossing an arm around my middle as the phone rang. She answered at the last minute, her voice the same tight pitch I was so used to.
“This is Heather,” she said. It was Monday, already ten o’clock in the morning on the West Coast, so I knew I was catching her during her workday.
“Mom?” I said. “Is everything okay?”
“Sutton?” I swore I could hear her take her phone away from her face, as if to check it was actually me. “Why are you calling me?”
With Hank, it was alwayskidorbug, occasionallysweetheart. My parents didn’t even use pet names with each other.
