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“Yeah. I don’t have a grill or bicycle. Room for two. And I have beer. Come on up. Front door’s open.”
I hesitate. I shouldn’t do it. But then again, Mad and Joe are inside, and they’re engaging in yet another Olympic sex marathon. I don’t know why it bothers me, but it does. It shouldn’t, and it never used to, but lately it makes me feel more alone.
“Fine,” I relent.
A moment later, I’m making my way through his front door then past his bedroom, trying to ignore the things we did on that mattress weeks ago.
He meets me at the sliding door and hands me a beer. There’s only one chair, but he stands and motions for me to sit. Then he leans against the wobbly railing. As I sit, I realize the balcony’s slanting precariously forward.
“Are you sure this thing can hold both of us?” I ask.
“No.” He shrugs.
I place the beer between my legs and dig my hands into the pockets of my parka. “It’s freezing. Why’d you even come out here?”
“Your roommate was going for round three and I wanted to give my ears a break.”
“Ah. I know what you mean.” I look out across the courtyard and, sure enough, I can see right into the bedroom there. A rather large, middle-aged woman is lying in bed, doing leg lifts while she watches TV. “Great view.”
He nods. “That? That’s nothing. You should see what happens next.”
We watch in silence. Eventually, the woman gets on her hands and knees and starts doing donkey kicks.
“Impressive,” I say. “What do you think she’s watching?”
“Looks like …” he squints. “A Denzel Washington movie? Equalizer maybe?”
“Good one,” I say. “Love Denzel.”
“You should ask if she wants company. That’d be the neighborly thing to do.”
I snort and take a drink of my beer. “You should know by now that I’m not that kind of neighbor.”
“Yeah, I know.” He takes a drink. “So what do you do for fun around here? When you’re not serving crappy pizza and reading old books?”
“Are you asking because you care or because you’re being nosy?” I ask.
“Both.”
“Appreciate the honesty.” I take another drink. Mom called me Sunday night to tell me they’d filled Alec in on the whole Mason situation, though while she was sharing that with me under the guise of giving me a heads’ up, I got the feeling her true intentions was to let me know that Alec knows I’m single.
If she knew the kind of things he put me through in high school, she wouldn’t have been so gung-ho about that.
“Nah. Actually,” he says, “I was thinking about what we used to do around here, during the winters, when we were too old to play in the snow. And I couldn’t think of anything.”
“That’s because you guys were never too old to play in the snow,” I mutter. “Or fling it at me.”
“Ah. Right.”
“You used to do donuts in the snow in the cul-de-sac, in that old Mustang Aidan had. Remember? One time, you ended up on our front lawn and nearly knocked that big tree in front of our house over. My dad was so pissed.”
“Yeah ... I remember that.” He’s grinning. “Good times.”
“Not that good. It was all my dad could do to stop you three from getting arrested. After that thing you did at Sweets? You knocked over that whole display. Ruined a few hundred dollars’ worth of local honey and jam.”
His parents paid for it, of course.
But my father was still livid that they put themselves in that predicament in the first place.
“Oh, right.” The moonlight cuts down on his spectacular features, making him look as if he’s carved of marble. That smug smile on his face is pure male pride. He looks like a cat with a canary. “That was good stuff.”
I snort. “Was the possibility of juvenile hall worth it?”
“I don’t know,” he says, contemplating. “Sometimes I think I did half that stuff to try and get my parents’ attention. Never worked though.”
“That seems to be a pattern with you.”
His emerald greens rest on mine. “Yeah. You’re right.”
I suppose it’s more complicated than that though. Everything always is.
With Alec’s father, he could only act one way—like a machine. With my brothers, he was able to let loose. Have some of that teenage fun. No wonder he still remembers it fondly, wearing a smile that transforms his whole face.
“Sorry about your dad,” I say. “That must have been awful for you.”
Alec shrugs, swirling his beer bottle. “Don’t feel bad for me. Feel bad for the thousands of innocent people who lost their life savings.”
Mr. Mansfield wasn’t just incredibly militant in order to ensure Alec stayed in line so he could succeed. There was no love in that house, at all. That was why Alec preferred to be with us on holidays, why I never heard his parents say they loved him, why they never came to any of the hockey games. Alec wasn’t their son, he was simply the heir to their legacy.
