Page 52 of Lost and Found

Before Merritt died, I loved winning people over. I loved figuring them out, charming them. I loved when they’d tell me things and how it’d feel to earn a smile or a laugh or a blush. I’d been a paralyzingly shy kid until I met her, and making a true friend brought me out of my shell in so many big, important ways. I felt braver in every aspect of my life, I think, until it was inconceivable not to love meeting new people, not to love trying new things.“Why would I care about being great at just one thing, when there are so many interesting things in the world to try that I could probably still be decent at?”Merritt had once said. And that sort of curiosity was both contagious and liberating. I wanted to embody that. I became an extrovert extraordinaire, type A edition to Merritt’s type B. In another life, I would have instantly shrugged this off. I’d have gone on to compete with Silas on who this cat loved more and laughed off the oversight with the litter. And I get it, this is a cat, not a person, and I can still go on to do all of that. But I think part of me had felt restored today after starting up a fledgling friendship with Wren, and I’d felt brave enough to leap head-and heart first into this. I’d felt like that old version of me again, forging onward. Now I just feel foolish.

But . . . self-correct, I will. I straighten abruptly and wipe my palms on my shorts. I’ll deal with this and manage theconsequences, just like I would manage any other bump in the road, especially one of my own making. “I’m not upset. I’m just—I’m mad at myself. Embarrassed I didn’t think about it beforehand, that’s all.”

“Why would that have been something you’d reflexively think of? Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s not common knowledge. Not really,” Silas says.

I sniff. “Are you able to cite your sources on that?” I ask, somehow both pleading and sarcastic. “Where is this book of common knowledge for us to refer to?”

“I memorized it before I burned it, sorry,” he says with a wince. “Only way to ensure I’m not made redundant. But I can tell you it is common knowledge that, when you bravely go for something and it doesn’t quite work out like you hoped, the best remedy is pizza.”

“Is it now?” I snort a reluctant laugh at the floor between us.

“Also common knowledge that these make excellent pizza crusts.” He holds up the bag of naan I purchased.

“That seems like something you’d find in a recipe book and not a book of common knowledge, Silas.”

“Stay with me, Ruby.” He’s matched every backward step I’ve taken away from him and reduced the space between us, again. Thick arms wide open, mouth tilted, plain black shirt and dark jeans. My rear end hits the counter by his sink.

“All right,” I say. “I’m with you.”

His eyes flash, and he circles me into a rough hug. My hands get indulgent, pressing themselves into the slabs of his back. “You’re so damn handsy,” I sigh into his chest. One of his pecs flexes against my cheek. My fingers wander over a particularly firm muscle below his shoulder blade.

“Sorry,” he says into my hair. “Too much?”

I pull myself incrementally tighter for one tick of a metronome before I force myself to let go. “No. All good,” I say. Too good.

We throw a salad and a medley of pizzas together and leave Calcifur to explore. Silas shows her the litter box in the laundry room that I had, in fact, already put together. For him, she uses it without issue. She’s quick to retreat to the safety of her carrier after each venture out.

“I’ll go get her some toys and a cat tree and a bed and stuff tomorrow,” I say, nonsensically loud like I’m hoping the cat will hear and understand me. And give a shit.

“Quickest way to warm her up to you is with treats,” Silas says around a mouthful of pizza.

He’s seated beside me on his couch, spread-eagle with a cloth napkin slung over his thigh. His napkin drawer was one of the earliest things he explained to me when I moved in—when I’d been looking for a saucepan and came upon probably fifty neatly rolled, sienna-orange napkins instead.

“It’s only me, and especially after twenty-fours, the last thing I want to do is dishes, but I feel bad overusing paper plates, so I just use these most of the time instead,”he’d told me.“Figure since I have to do laundry, anyway, throwing in a napkin or two was the most environmentally conscious thing I could do.”

I find this inordinately sexy.

I watch him eat each whole pizza like it’s a single slice, folding them in half like tacos. He sighs contentedly through his nose and runs his tongue over his teeth behind his lips, and I have to look away, a bolt shooting up my midsection. My body’s unpredictable reactions to things like this are the times I feel truly wary about our living arrangement. Not because of the way he’s generally (very) attractive or when he hugs me or paws me absentmindedly . . . Not even the flirting that slipsout. These are all things I know to expect. It’s that damn napkin I find irresistible in both its quirkiness and conscientiousness, and him enthusiastically enjoying his food with his entire being. Otherwise, this friendship is the boon I needed it to be. I appreciate him the way I need to, in the respectable way he deserves.

“Treats?” he says again when I get hung up staring.

“Hey, weren’t you off today?” I ask, thinking of my cotton candy and the treats that probably warmed me up earlier this afternoon, too. The farmers market seemed like precisely his scene, all those people to charm and vittles to savor.

He stops chewing, and something inscrutable streaks his face before he dips his head, gaze in his lap.

“I went to a group meeting,” he tells me. “Grouptherapy, I mean. For burn survivors.”

“Oh, that’s—Silas, that’s great.” He nods tightly, picking at a spot on the couch with his thumb. “Did you like it?”

“It’s not what I expected, but . . . yeah, I did like it.”

He tells me that he met a few other guys there who recommended a fishing charter and pulls out his laptop when we finish our last bites. The boat’s page has dates listed with the number of openings, so we cross-reference them with when we’re both available.

“There are plenty of open slots on my birthday,” he says excitedly. “You off?”

I’m not. June 19 is on a Friday—traditionally one of my busiest weekdays. But the sweet, hopeful way he’s said this makes me consider lying. “You’d want to do that on your birthday? You don’t have bigger plans?”

“I’m turning thirty-two. I don’t need to make birthdayplans; I already know what happens. Wren makes a cake and Ellis writes a sappy message in a card that makes me cry privately. Micah sends me a text message with a middle-finger emoji. Sagewill call and sing to me.” And he sounds proud and grateful about all of it.