AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“For what?”
“Being my anchor.” He gestures to the party. “It’s fun. But it’s a lot. I don’t remember the last time I had this many people in my house.”
I feel dizzy, in the best possible way. That Jesse—steady, stalwart Jesse—needs an anchor, needs me, makes my heart pound and my cheeks ache from smiling. “Happy to be here,” I manage. “Any chance I can convince you to dance with me?”
He looks over my head to the group that’s already started to settle down and makes a Grump Face. “Maybe next time.”
“Promise?” I ask and whoops. I think I’m flirting with Jesse Logan but when he meets my eyes again, he looks like he doesn’t mind and that just makes my heart beat faster.
“We’ll see.”
“What happened to your hand?” one of the firefighters asks.
I hold it up for their inspection. “Cut it gardening.” They all wince. “Jesse patched me up, though.”
“Tell them what you did to your other arm,” he says and if I could name this new face he makes it would be Mischief Face.
I shake my healed arm at them. “Fell out of a tree.”
They all nod, like that’s a completely reasonable answer for an adult woman to give, but I guess if anyone knows how dangerous trees can be it’s the guys who get called to rescue cats from them all the time.
Another yell goes up from the group playing the drinking game with the Ping-Pong ball. In the living room, Trey is leading the dancers in a rendition of “The Thong Song.”
“Hey.” Brooke bops up to us, a red cup in her hand, a distinct flush on her cheeks. Jesse introduces her and she immediately takes a shine to a man named Chris with a patchy beard. “Did you know Lulu has never been to summer camp?”
“Me neither.” Jesse tightens his arm around my shoulders and I really can’t help myself this time. I peek up at him.
“Really?”
“It was too expensive. My grandparents just offset their schedules.” He smiles at me like he expects me to chime in with my reasons but I’m too busy cataloging the pressure of each finger pad on my skin, calculating the duration of the squeeze and comparing it with the beats per minute of my heart. I can ask someone in the maths department to come up with an equation for what it all means.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding vigorously. “Right.”
Jesse scrunches up his nose and if I wasn’t locked into his frame I’d fall right over. That is a completely new Jesse Logan face.
The conversation devolves into a competition of sorts: Who can’t ride a bike? Brooke. Who never got suspended? Me and Marcus. Who’s never left the country? Jesse and Chip. Who was part of 4-H? Chip. Who’s never had a surprise party thrown for them? Me.
It’s silly to feel giddy over something like this, something as simple and meaningless as collecting random facts about people who aren’t strangers and probably aren’t yet friends, but the truth is I think I’ll remember this forever: laughing until my sides hurt, Sisqó, the counter sticky from spilled drinks, my skin sticky with humidity, and the look on his face as he bends over me, how his brow furrows as he presses his lips together to blow a gentle breeze across my forehead.
“Better?”
I don’t even bother to look when I say, “Thanks.”
As George predicted, the party winds down early, everyone’s energy burned fast and bright, like a dying star. I help organize ride-shares for anyone who can’t drive and when all that’s left is George, Trey, and me, Jesse opens his bedroom door and Betty comes trotting out, meowing like she’s finally able to air her grievances after being locked away for so long.
“Decided she’d be safer in there,” Jesse says.
“I’ve got to go, then,” Trey says. “Allergic.” He pouts.
George offers to give him a ride and hugs Jesse and me, and then Jesse shuts his front door behind them. He turns the lock and it sounds louder than I know it to be.
“Need help cleaning up?” I ask. We get to work; I sort the garbage from the recycling and he packs up the food. He’s switched the music from the synthy, loud pop to quiet folky-country. Jesse moves Betty’s litter, food and water dishes out of his bedroom and I load the dishwasher. He vacuums the living room and I sweep the kitchen. I wipe down all the flat surfaces with a homemade cleaner I find underneath the kitchen sink. He turns off the lights in the living room, pulls the curtains in the front window, and meets me in the kitchen, where the only light is the one over the stove.
I lean against the counter, and he stands at the sink. He rolls the sleeves up on his long-sleeved T-shirt and washes his hands, the water and suds sluicing over his blunt fingernails, the veins of his forearms. The night is pitch-black outside the kitchen window, none of the glow from the streetlights reaching between his house and the neighbor’s. He’s close enough to touch. I could grip the back of his shirt in my fist and pull him to me, which is probably why I shouldn’t. He faces me, his hands clenching the counter behind him, and I mirror him, tether myself to this side of the kitchen with the island and the pots hanging from the rack between us.
“Thanks for coming,” he says, his voice low and quiet enough that I lean forward on the pretense of needing to hear him better.
“Thanks for hosting.”
