Page 298 of On His Team

“Why does it matter where I stand?”

“Because Percy is short,” I joke, and Percy says something in French that makes Penelope laugh.

I get them lined up in front of the living room. Benson. Stanley. Percy. Blue. Rowan.

Stanley does something with his face on the first one, and I make them do it again. Blue refuses to smile on the second one, and I make them do it again. On the third one, Percy puts two fingers up behind Blue’s head, and Blue doesn’t notice, and it’s perfect. It’s the one.

“Alright now, everybody,” I say.

“You just did––”

“Everybody,” I say. “All of you. Lucy. Aspen. Penelope. Melly. Mara. Mila. Everybody in this house right now, get in the picture.”

Mara says, “Finally,” and is in the frame before anybody else has moved.

I hand my phone to my mom, and I start directing an hour-long photoshoot. We do the classic prom pictures together, laughing our heads off. Then Stanley jumps into the girls’ arms. We do a few of those. The guys end up taking turns holding each other. They jump on each other’s backs. I lift Lucy onto mine. Melly jumps on Lucy, and Aspen takes Penelope. Stanley is being insufferable with the guys.

The parents are all here, so I have to tilt my head to get Rowan to make up an excuse and meet me upstairs. I walk up before him and catch a glimpse of Benson’s bedroom. His door is open, so I step inside. There are a couple of boxes and a stripped bed. The walls are bare, the desk is empty, the curtains are down, and there’s something so fucking sad about it. I walk out and peek in Stanley’s bedroom. The same. I’ve never been in here, but now it looks like nobody lives here. I swallow the lump in my throat and head to Rowan’s bedroom, glad that nothing about his has changed even though he just graduated.

His bed’s made badly. A hoodie sits at the foot of the bed, a water bottle lies on the floor, and a stack of course packets sits beside it. The snow globe’s sitting on his nightstand.

“This is weird,” he says, walking in.

I turn quickly. “What?”

“You’re staring at the gift you bought all of us.”

I chuckle. “It’s weird that your room’s normal, and everybody’s rooms are disappearing,” I tell him. “I walked past two dead rooms to get in here, and yours has a sock on the floor.”

Rowan looks at the sock. “Yeah,” he says.

I sit down on his bed.

He stays standing with his hands in his pockets, in his shirt with the buttons, with a graduation gown over his arm that he’s already taken off.

“I’m really happy you’re staying,” I mutter.

“Yeah.”

“That’s not an answer, that’s a noise.”

“Me too,” Rowan says.

I hold my hand out, and he takes it. I pull him down onto the bed next to me, and for about a minute, neither of us says anything and the house is loud underneath us.

“I’m going to be here constantly next year,” I tell him.

“You already are.”

“No, I mean it. Constantly. I’m going to be here so much that Theo is going to think I live here.”

“Marsh already thinks you live here.”

“I have a key situation I want to discuss with you––”

“G.”

“In August,” I say. “We’ll table it.”