Page 28 of These Secret Years

“Lack of intention tends to lead to lack of action, so that makes sense, I guess. There’s no hard feelings on the off chance you’re worried about that.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Oh. Well. Don’t sweat it.” I close the oboe case and start pulling the papers I’ve got strewn everywhere into a messy pile. Dust floats up from the floor, the motes catching the light. The dance of them snags my attention. It’s almost like they’re forming notes. Jesus. I blink and try to remember what I’m doing. Welcome to my brain. Ninety-nine percent music and one percent everything else. I get caught trespassing, and my mind wants to write a fucking étude about it.

“What was that?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“That horn or whatever you were playing.”

“Oh. An oboe.”

“What’s an oboe?”

“The instrument.” I’m flustered. I don’t understand the question. It’s a fucking oboe. I don’t know what else to say about it. “It’s a reed instrument. A woodwind. It tunes an orchestra.”

“It sounded cool. A little creepy.”

“I’m still learning it.”

With all the papers gathered and my backpack open, I move to shove them inside.

“Can we talk?” he asks.

“I should really get back. I don’t even know what time it is. It’s gonna get dark soon, and I don’t wanna be thrashing through the woods with all my shit.”

“Sullivan. Please?”

I don’t know why that gets me. In the last nine months I’ve developed a sort of story about Knight Winters in my head, I guess. I figure he’s gay and needed to somehow pop his gay cherry. I was in the right place at the right time, but I figure once he did it, he’s been doing it all the time. He can’t be the only gay dude on the football team. I imagine all it would take would be noticing another guy on the team checking him out in the locker room, and they’d be jerking each other off whatever chance they got.

One thing Knight never looked like on campus was repressed. He carried himself like he’s already captain of the team with the swagger of a confident leader, and, frankly, someone who was getting his dick wet on the regular.

I don’t see any of that right now, though. His voice sounds exactly like it did at The Front. Quiet and uncertain, like we could get caught at any moment but there’s something he still needs to say.

“I have my car if you need help getting any of your stuff out of here,” he adds.

I sigh. I don’t want to talk to him. Nothing to do with him, but it’s embarrassing being caught like this—lost in my own world while also breaking the law. “Wait—what are you doing here?”

“My mom’s company owns the⁠—”

“You said that already. And it’s a great explanation for why your mom would be here, but…”

“Right. Well, she lets me check on the properties and keep them looking nice for sellers.”

I know all that. He told me. “But she sent you here?”

“Sort of. When she told me about it, I was interested.”

“Is there some reason they haven’t condemned it?” I ask.

“Maybe it’s got good bones.”

I look around at the peeling paint and the beat up floor, the boarded up window, and the thick layer of dust. “Seems like it’d be easier to tear down and start over than restore.”

“I thought you liked it,” he says.

“It’s falling apart.”