In the van’skitchen, I slip into a pair of Ethan’s boxer shorts and a faded band tee using my long-retired teen-girl Houdini tricks. Not since gym class have I undressed and redressed myself without revealing so much as an inch of skin.
Ethan pulls out yet another bin from under the bed and leads me through the rest of his daily cleanup routine. We deconstruct the dinner setup and not once does he bring up our conversation from earlier, but that one sentence loops in my brain like a sticky song lyric.Rich doesn’t deserve to be the last person who’s touched you.
We wash dishes and collect garbage, and when Ethan pulls a plastic toilet out of a cabinet and into the middle of the floor, I pee on it without complaining once, as though it will earn me some much-needed karmic goodwill.
I feel sick every time I think about the possibility of Laurel getting married without me, so I avoid thinking about it at all costs and pray that Ethan’s right about Laurel’s and Petey’s willingness to delay this elopement. I feel even more sick when my phone stops connecting to Ethan’s Wi-Fi and my email app dissolves into a black screen. In hopes of summoning a singlebar, I lean my arm out the window and can practically hear my phone laugh at me.
When I eventually give up on technology, we cover the windows, brush our teeth, and prepare to spend the night lying side by side at an angle determined by the roll of a soup can he plops on the counter like a quick and dirty level.
I climb into bed first, squirming under the covers until I find the perfect position. He pulls a brand-new pillow out of a Target bag from behind his car seat. As much as I want to berate him for having the kind of single-guy home so hostile to partnered domesticity that there’s onlyonepillow, I’m too grateful for it to say anything.
When he climbs in, I discover firsthand just how compact van beds are and try to make myself tiny while lying face-up, like a corpse. He clicks off the lights and settles into the space beside me, the mattress groaning under our weight.
It’s been months since I shared a bed with anyone besides Laurel. Fourteen, to be exact.
“This reminds me of college,” he says. “Remember how I used to nap in your dorm in the middle of the afternoon and it felt totally normal?”
ButIwasn’t in the bed with you, I think.
“Are you saying this feels normal? Or that it doesn’t?”
“It probably shouldn’t feel so normal, should it?”
But it kind of does. I feel it too. No one knows me in the exact way he knows me. Why is that comforting and terrifying all at once?
I roll onto my side. Minutes pass with nothing but the sound of his breath. I anticipate each puff of air like drips from a leaky faucet.
“Don’t think I missed in the shower how you admitted to watchingAurora Falls.”
His voice is close. My silent chuckle puffs out from my nostrils.
“I watched your episode and got pulled in. It was strangely compelling—likeOne Tree Hillwith an extraterrestrial spin—and your song was even more perfect for it on the rewatch.”
“Who was your ’ship?” he asks.
I give the question more consideration than he probably expects. “Harper and Chase. But I had a soft spot for Reagan and Brooke.”
“No.” His head shakes my pillow. “They were so messy.”
“I loved their mess!”
“The Thanksgiving episode when Brooke thinks she’s carrying an alien baby?”
I snort-laugh. “Was she? I can’t remember now.”
“No, she was just training too hard for a gymnastics meet.”
I pull the blanket tighter. “That show went so off the rails in season three.”
“I love that it did. It was better for it. And Harper and Chase don’t get together until season three,” he reminds me.
“That’s when it got bad. They had this perfect banter-filled sexual tension, and when they finally got together Chase got so boring.”
“His brother wasjustprobed. The guy’s gonna be a little emo.” He nudges my shoulder. I elbow him back but don’t put any fight behind it. Our small touches aren’t so playful in the dark, and I’m not sure what to make of that. “The anticipation was getting boring.”
“The anticipation is the best part,” I tell him.
He sighs. “Benson hated that we became synonymous with that show. I think it’s why he wanted the second album to be all experimental and broke up the band when that direction didn’t work.”
