Page 60 of He Hate Me

“Us?” he says, “Yeah, we’re fine. Me?” He sighs, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at the floor. “I could be better.”

“What’s going on?”

He pats the bed next to him, and I sit, letting him pull be closer to his side. His hand cups my hip possessively.

“Are you doing anything tomorrow afternoon?”

“Not really.”

“Can you go somewhere with me?”

“Where?”

“I want you to meet my mom.”

Contradictory emotions arise in me. I’m thrilled that he likes me enough to want me to know her, but also surprised. He barely ever talks about her, and she’s never come to see him or pick him up from school or the house like I would have done in her shoes. As angry as Brandon is at Devin for what he sees as his betrayal of her, I’m not certain Brandon is close to his mother.

“Are you sure,” I ask, trying to read his expression. It’s dark, his eyes still on the floor.

“I’m sure,” he says. “You’ll understand me better, after.”

I nod. I’m worried about him. I’m only just starting to understand this boy even though he’s already dug his hooks into my heart. Man, I should say, though he seems to flip-flop from one to the other daily. So do I, for that matter. Being eighteen is interesting. I feel simultaneously like an adult and a child, chaffing under my parent’s authority, but terrified when I have to navigate things on my own.

“Are you going to tell her I’m your…”

“Girlfriend? Yeah.” Excitement surges through me. His girlfriend! Have I ever been thrilled to have someone call me that? The word seems to glow when he says it. Then a less happy thought occurs to me.

“Won’t she tell Devin?”

“No,” he says with a sadness that confuses me. “We don’t have to worry about that. Do you want to go upstairs for a bit. Unless you feel comfortable enough already…?”

“This place is gorgeous and amazing,” I say, “but I think I should get to know Rourke better. If this works out, we can always come back another time.”

I don’t miss the way his jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue. He pulls me to my feet and takes my hand.

“Let’s go,” he says.

We find Rourke in the bar on the third floor, which is well, a bar. It looks like someone took a whole ass pub with a huge oak bar, hundreds of mugs and glasses, upholstered bar stools, high top tables, a vintage jukebox, a dartboard and leather club chairs and slotted it into the house. There are more varieties of liquor than I think I’ve seen in my life. All the ones I recognize are expensive.

“You guys want a drink?” Rourke asks when we walk in. He’s pouring a can of seltzer water into a glass. He slices a lemon while we watch and squeezes some of the juice into the glass. He cuts a thin slice as a garnish.

“I’ll have a light beer,” Brandon says. I ask for a diet soda and the juice for the rest of the lemon. I’ve already decided I want to come back here, but the last football game of the season is tonight, so I don’t want to consume any alcohol.

Instead of taking one of the many empty seats, Rourke tells us about the history of the house as he walks around the corner into a large game room. There are vintage arcade games, though I can’t tell if they work or are just for decoration. The centerpiece is a huge sectional sofa and the biggest flat screen I’ve ever seen. It’s on mute playing the pause screen from a video game.

“Do you live here by yourself?” I ask Rourke.

“Pretty much. My dad’s here a few days a month and the housekeeper lives in the carriage house. She has a kid. That’s pretty much it.”

“That sounds kinda lonely.”

“Nah. I’m used to it, and I have people over on the weekends.”

“So if we come over during the week…?”

“Yeah, you probably won’t run into anybody. You don’t even have to talk to me if you don’t want to. I don’t get why you don’t want people to know you’re together, though.”

“It’s because we live in the same house. My parents would freak out. They might ask Brandon to move out and…”