The sun has barely risen and already there are two guys installing a storage bench in the entryway. I nod at them as I go by on my way to the kitchen, skirting a pile of boards and tools on the floor.
I find Mom and Cash perched on stools, sipping coffee. Cash stands when I walk in. “Sorry about the noise and the mess.”
“It’s cool,” I tell him. “The banisters look great.”
“Thanks.” He nods at Mom. “See you tonight?”
“Yes!” She says it a little too loudly and glances at me. “Omelet?”
Uh-huh.
I nod and watch her start to pull out ingredients. “How long until the house is done?” I ask.
“The entryway will be finished this week. Next is my studio. Cash is going to redo the drywall and put in new flooring. We’re also…Sorry it’s still crazy, honey. Sometimes things get messy before they get good.”
“You’re so deep,” I tell her, and she laughs. I realize that Mom doesn’t look messy at all. In fact, she’s wearing coral lip gloss and hoop earrings, so I ask the obvious question. “Mom, are you dating Cash?”
Mom flushes. “No!” I raise an eyebrow and she sets down her spatula. “We’re friends.”
“Friends,” I say.
“And in the spirit of friendship, he’s coming over tonight for dinner.”
This time, I say it out loud: “Uh-huh.”
“Settle down,” she tells me. But she flushes again, and this time her eyes sparkle, too.
School let out three hours ago, and I’m still in the main lobby. I’ve already organized my locker and done my English reading for the weekend. Now I’m sitting on the bottom step, braiding strands of my hair. And waiting.
When my phone vibrates—finally!—I check the text from Mom:
at least 45 more mins
sorry
mtg still going
dept chair droning on about budget
wish you were old enuf to buy wine
luv u
Damn.
If I’d known in advance, I could have asked Itch for a ride and lured him with the promise of an empty house. Or maybe Shaun would have driven me. Or Lily or Darbs. Or anyone. If it at least was Monday, it wouldn’t be so bad, but on a Friday? By the end of the week, I’m ready to get out of here.
I wonder if there’s a chance Shaun hasn’t left yet. He’s not answering his texts, but it’s a very Shaun-like thing to not check his texts. He keeps his phone on silent all the time, even when not in class.
I head out into the student parking lot. There are quite a few cars still here, but I don’t see Shaun’s. I trudge across to see if I’m missing any on the other side—maybe hidden behind a gas-guzzling behemoth like Oliver’s, over there in the center, where he always parks and…
Oliver! That’s a new idea. I didn’t even think about checking with him. It didn’t occur to me that I could ask him for a ride home. Oliver isn’t a guy who leaves when the bell rings. He’s always hanging around after school because of all the throwing and kicking and dribbling. I head toward the gas-guzzling behemoth, pulling out my phone to send him a text, and run straight into him.
Oliver catches me by the arms. “Hey, texting and walking. Not safe.”
“I was texting you,” I inform him.
“Really?” His eyes dance over me, and I suddenly remember I have these crazy little braids all over my head.
“Are you going home?” I ask.
“Yep. Need a ride?”
“Yes, please.”
He gestures toward the car, and a minute later, I’m in the passenger seat, trying unsuccessfully to smooth out my hair, which has flown into a frenzy of static electricity. “Why are you still here, anyway?”
“I had to talk to Coach Rand after practice.”
I assess him. Oliver isn’t carrying himself in his usual jaunty, confident way. He’s drooping a little and looks forlorn, sitting behind the wheel. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” But I keep watching him and he doesn’t look okay. In fact, now that I think about it, he seemed subdued this morning, too. He realizes I’m looking at him. “Coach is pissed because I’m missing two practices next week.”
“You’re not allowed to miss ever?” It seems extreme.
“Not really. And definitely not at the beginning of the season. We’re supposed to be focused.”
“But it’s just a game.” The minute it comes out of my mouth, I wish I hadn’t said it.
“You sound like my dad.”
We drive in silence for a few minutes before I ask the question. “Why do you have to skip practices?”
“Oh, you’ll love this,” he says. “I’m hanging out at a bank with my uncle Alex. He’s supposed to teach me the joy of finances.”
“That’s terrible.” Again, I immediately wish I hadn’t said it, but this time, Oliver laughs.
“Thank you. It is terrible.” His smile drops away. “My parents aren’t even coming to the game on Friday. Dad has a dinner with the partners.”
“What about your mom?”
“She doesn’t miss Dad’s work dinners. They’re a team.”
I try to come up with something reassuring to say. “Next year, you won’t ever have to miss a practice if you don’t want to.”
Oliver shoots me a look. “No offense, but you really don’t know anything about football.” We come to a four-way stop and he trains his eyes on mine. “I’m high school good, June. I’m not college good.”
I make a pfft sound. “Please. I’m sure you can handle a ball.” I flush at my own unfortunate choice of words and hurry to cover. “A football.”
Oliver smiles, but the smile is sad. “It’s cool. I’m not like you. Some people peak early.”
I stare at him, not sure how to respond. It’s the most openly painful thing I’ve heard him say, and it seems like I should say something open and honest in return.
But I’m not that brave.
A horn honks behind us and we both jump in our seats. “Oops,” says Oliver, and he steps on the gas.
The rest of our drive is silent. Oliver doesn’t start our playlist and I don’t ask him to. When we crunch over the gravel into my driveway, Cash’s truck is parked ahead of us and Cash himself is just trotting down the front steps. He waves an arm and I assume he’s saying hello, but then he does it again and I realize he wants us to come over. “Who’s that?” Oliver asks.
“My mom’s contractor and not-boyfriend.”
I introduce Cash and Oliver to each other, and Cash asks if Oliver can give him a hand with something. “I thought my guys would still be here, but they already took off for the weekend.” He jerks a thumb toward his truck. “It takes two people to unload a generator.”
“At least,” Oliver agrees, and follows him toward his truck, stripping off his jacket.
I recognize that in this scenario my role is to watch for loose gravel in their path and hold the front door open, but with that recognition comes realization: Oliver is going to get a firsthand sighting of my house’s messy, unfinished interior.
“Maybe you can just leave it on the porch,” I say.
“Nah, we’ll bring it in.” Cash climbs into the truck bed. He slides a big box to the edge before hopping out and bracing himself alongside Oliver. “Ready?”
“Ready,” says Oliver, and they lift.
I scamper to the porch and swing the door open, watching them move toward me. Even though I know it’s cliché, even though I know it’s superficial and ridiculous, my eyes are magnetically drawn to Oliver’s arms. It’s not that I’m one of those girls who’s swoony-la-la-la about muscles, but when the muscles are doing all kinds of bulgy, strainy things against a tight shirt, one can’t help but notice.
I’m cerebral. Not dead.
Cash and Oliver edge past me into the house, occasionally grunting and saying things like “watch it” and “almost there.” I’m hoping they’ll set it down in the entryway and get out, but Cash wants it in Mom’s studio, so of course they have to go all the way through, walking past a stack of wall sconces and avoiding various tools scattered around.
“I’ll tell my boys to clean up their mess better when they vacate the premises,” says Cash, and I am re-horrified by the fact that he is talking about the mess in my house, my premises, and Oliver is right here to witness all the grimy glory of my life. After all, this is a boy who lives in one of the pristine mansions at Flaggstone Lakes, who has two parents sleeping in the same bed every night.
My mom, on the other hand, trades paintings for vegetables and pottery for woodworking. Dad is an actor-slash-waiter in New York. I’m a senior who doesn’t know how to drive, and we live in a house that is currently one giant art project. It’s not exactly a bastion of normality and I’m not exactly thrilled to have Oliver in the middle of it.
Yet in the middle of it is exactly where Oliver is. Once he and Cash have the generator settled in the built-in unit where it’s going to live, he’s back in the entryway, looking around. All I can see is the mess, and all I can smell are wood shavings, so I give Oliver my brightest smile. “Thanks so much!” I chirp in my best imitation of Ainsley. “Have a great weekend!”
I sweep the front door open, but Oliver doesn’t walk through it. In fact, I’m not sure he even hears me. He’s running his hand over the storage bench, touching the heavy iron hooks installed above it to hold our bags and purses. “Did you make this?” he asks Cash.
“Yeah. It’s nice, right?”
“Gorgeous. Is that antique beadboard?”
“Antique” is a nicer thing to say than “old” or “crap someone else threw out.”
“Salvaged it from a place we were demoing down in Clinton.”
“Salvaged.” Try “trash-picked.”
“Awesome,” says Oliver.
“Thanks,” says Cash, clearly pleased. I, however, am the opposite of pleased, especially when Cash points toward the opening leading to the rest of the house. “Want to see what we did with the banisters?”
“I’m sure Oliver has to go home.” I say it hastily, but again I’m too late, because Oliver is already following Cash around the corner.
Crap.
By the time Mom gets home half an hour later, Cash and Oliver have embarked on a bromance that runs deep and hard and true and is based entirely on their shared appreciation of home renovation. They have argued the visual merits of stone penny tile versus ceramic. They’ve waxed poetic about cabinetry and crown molding. They’ve done everything except choose baby names together, and I’m no longer certain either one is even aware of my presence.
Which is maybe a good thing, because when I catch a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror, I appear to be wearing a fright wig. Neither Cash nor Oliver notices when I run upstairs to yank my hair into a ponytail and change into a clingy gray sweater with blue cuffs. Might as well look decent if we’re going to have visitors at the house.
Mom is delighted to see Oliver. She tells him he’s gotten so tall—which he seems to enjoy—and also reminds him that she used to change his diapers, which I definitely do not enjoy. The entire thing is super weird, and it only gets weirder when I’m trying to subtly urge Oliver toward the front door and he stops to browse a row of Mom’s books lined up in the family room. “Sandburg,” he says. “Neruda. Rilke. Your mom has good taste.”
I gawk at him. “You know poetry?”
He places a hand over his heart. “At their core, my power ballads are poetry.”
“At their core, your power ballads are schlock.”
“You have no soul,” he says lightly. “I happen to be an admirer of the well-placed word.”
“I happen to have several words I’m considering placing,” I tell him.
Oliver laughs, and I suddenly realize how much I like the sound of his laugh. “I’m going to say good-bye to your mom and her not-boyfriend.”
I trail him into the kitchen, where Cash is opening a bottle of wine and Mom is chopping arugula. They smile when we enter. I hope Oliver is going to do the polite nice-to-meet-you thing and make a fast getaway, but instead, he freezes, pointing to something on the counter. “Is that what I think it is?”
I peer around him to see that it is—fantastic—a dirty hunk of old mushroom. This day couldn’t be more humiliating.
Except that yes…yes it could, because Cash lifts the mushroom and holds it toward Oliver. “Want to smell?” To my vast horror, Oliver obligingly ambles right over to sniff the object held between the fingers of my mom’s not-boyfriend.
Oh.
God.
I open my mouth to protest or to apologize or maybe to start opera singing, because that might at least distract everyone from the fungal horror show before us, but then Oliver looks at me with a face of pure delight. “June, you have to smell this truffle.”
Truffle.
I know it’s something culinary and fancy, but that’s about all I know. I’m pretty sure I’ve never tasted (or smelled) one before. Since everyone is waiting for me to do something, I walk over and take a whiff. The scent is earthy and rich and not altogether unpleasant. “Nice,” I say, even though everything about this is decidedly the opposite of nice.
“Abruzzo’s gave it to me,” Cash tells us.
“The restaurant?” Oliver asks.
“Yep. I built them a new hostess stand and fixed their outer deck.”
Suddenly, it’s all making sense. Cash lives the same bartering lifestyle as my mom. Oliver must think we are absolute gypsies.
“That is the coolest thing ever,” he says, and I try not to imagine how he’s going to relay this whole experience later to Ainsley or Theo. “You guys are so…”
Bizarre.
Bohemian.
Weird.
“…authentic,” Oliver concludes. “I love it.”
He sounds like he means it.
Cash glances at my mom and they have some sort of unspoken conversation through their eyebrows, because then he’s inviting Oliver for dinner.
“It’s risotto,” my mother chimes in.
“With shaved truffle,” adds Cash.
“I’d love to,” Oliver says.
I look back and forth between them all. Apparently I’m the only one who’s freaking out.
Against all odds, dinner is a huge success. The truffle risotto is to die for, and so is the apple-rhubarb pie we have for dessert (baked, of course, by Mom’s friend Quinny after some complicated trade involving Mom, Quinny, and their friend Morgan). Oliver and I talk about our SATs and where we might go to college (me: maybe New York; him: no idea) and Mom explains to Cash that she and Oliver’s mother were roommates a long time ago. I tell them about my volunteer work with the nature center, and Mom shares funny stories about the lengths some of her students will go to try to get out of their assignments. It’s all very easy, and I can’t help contrasting how the evening would have gone if our guest had been Itch instead of Oliver.
If Itch had been here, we would have taken plates into the family room. We would have eaten dinner in silence while watching a movie. After, we would have made an excuse to go up to my room or for a drive so that we could be alone. Then, when we were alone, we still wouldn’t talk.
After dessert, Mom and Cash go upstairs to discuss the trim in the guest bedroom. The minute they’re gone, Oliver waggles his eyebrows at me. “Discuss the trim, my ass,” he says, and I whap him. “You know he wants to drop the ‘not’ from his ‘not-boyfriend’ status, right?”
“Yeah. That’s what it looks like.”
“Is that cool with you?” Oliver asks as I walk him to the entryway.
“What do you mean?”
“Your mom dating someone. Are you okay with that?”
I suppose it makes sense that he’s curious. Oliver’s parents have been together since forever, since college, since some wild party where both of our moms flirted with Oliver’s dad—Bryant—and he ended up asking for the future Mrs. Flagg’s phone number. The way Mom tells the story, there was no fighting it. Marley and Bryant belonged together. They made sense together.
“What about you and Dad?” I asked Mom once.
“He came later,” she said. “And the only thing that ever made sense between us was you.”
“I’m fine with it,” I tell Oliver, watching him push his long arms through the sleeves of his coat.
“Good,” he says, “because I think they’re a thing.”
Part of me is startled that he would check in with me. “You know you just asked about my feelings.”
“Friends do that,” he says. “See you Monday.”
Friends?
On Monday, I hop into my seat, slam the passenger door, and immediately turn to Oliver. “Are we friends?”
He stares at me. “Where is this coming from?”
It’s coming from him buddying up to my mom and her not-boyfriend. It’s coming from him acting like he gives a crap about me. It’s coming from me giving a crap back.
“Answer the question.”
“Ye-e-e-e-s.” His expression falls somewhere between amusement and confusion. “We’re friends.”
“Cool.” I fasten my seat belt.
Oliver shakes his head and pulls out of my driveway. “You’re weird.”
“Here’s the thing. I don’t have straight, popular”—I pause, editing the word “hot” from my litany—“jock dude friends. I don’t care about high school traditions and I don’t hang with cheerleaders, and now my senior year is really different from how I thought it would be, especially the part where you and I…”
“Are friends.”
“Right. That.” I tuck a leg underneath me to get comfortable on the big seat. “As it turns out, you’re reasonable to hang out with. You’re nice to my mom. Your girlfriend even seems okay.”
“Sounds like friendship.”
“You’re kind of like an extra gay boyfriend, except you’re straight.”
Oliver frowns. “Or I can be your straight guy friend…since that’s what I actually am.”
“It’s just that it so rarely works.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s almost never even. Someone always wants to make out with someone else. The only way it really happens is if one of the two people is shockingly unattractive, which means that the shockingly unattractive one is attracted to the attractive one, but the attractive one is so far beyond the shockingly unattractive one’s league that everyone knows it’ll never go there.” I suddenly realize the implication of what I’ve just said. Luckily, Oliver saves me.
“You, June Rafferty, are in zero danger of being shockingly unattractive.”
He says it in an offhanded way, but it stops me in my tracks. And then, because I don’t know what else to do, I return the compliment. “Back at you,” I tell him in what must be the world’s most obvious statement ever.
“So we’re outliers?”
“Yes, we’re outliers,” I say. “And here’s the thing—”
“I thought you already said the thing.”
I mock glare at him. “Here’s another thing. I can objectively ascertain that you’re an attractive dude and…” As if on autopilot, Oliver preens and flexes his muscles. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry.”
“Your hair and your eyes and the muscles and everything. I mean, I get it. I get the Oliver Flagg thing.”
Oliver looks surprised. “There’s an Oliver Flagg thing?”
“Hush. I’m on a roll here. So you’re attractive and we can both admit that, but since I am not personally attracted to you, it makes this friendship thing between us something that is manageable. More than manageable. It’s desirable, because you can fulfill a role that no one else in my life does. You can give me the straight male honest take on things.” Oliver waits until I flutter my fingers at him. “Okay, now it’s your turn.”
He makes a very solemn face. “You should know that there is one thing I will not do and one place I cannot go.”
“What?” I’m a little worried about what he might say.
“If you ever—and I mean ever—ask me if you look fat in a particular article of clothing, it’s a deal breaker.”
I laugh and he smiles along with me. “Agreed. I promise to never ask you that. We need to draw the line somewhere.”
“How about this,” says Oliver. “How about we draw the boundary at truth in general. If you have a stupid fight with Itch or if you spill pizza on your shirt or get spinach stuck in your teeth or have toilet paper stuck to your shoe, I will absolutely tell you.”
“How come I’m such a hot mess in this scenario?”
He holds up a finger. “Still my turn.”
“Sorry.”
“If I ever edge too far into douchey locker room territory, you will tell me.”
“You mean if you act like Theo?”
Oliver smiles. “Yeah. If I act like Theo.”
“All honesty, all the time. I like it.” I thrust a hand toward him. “Let’s shake on it. I mean, when we come to a safe stop at an intersection, of course.”
Oliver shakes his head. “Too corporate. Let’s fist-bump.”
“Hitting awfully close to locker room territory already,” I tell him, but I hold out a fist and he gives it a gentle tap with his own.
“Friends with honesty,” he says.
“Friends with honesty,” I answer, wondering how our social circles are going to react to this strange new arrangement.
He slides me a sideways glance. “Tell me more about this Oliver Flagg thing.”
“Shut up.”
But as we head into the parking lot, I realize there’s a thought jostling to move to the top of my brain—a thought that I keep trying to flick back into the subconscious shadows. When I pull my jacket tighter and exit the car, I have to acknowledge it, because it’s right there, trying to escape to the surface.
It’s a piece of the conversation we just had. A piece that keeps repeating over and over in the playlist of my mind.
It’s the part when Oliver told me in no uncertain terms that he does not, in fact, find me shockingly unattractive.
I know, I know.
High praise, indeed.
“Frankly, I’m shocked,” Shaun tells me as we push our way through the main lobby.
“Stop it. It’s not that shocking.”
“ ‘Inane,’ you’ve called them.” He holds open one of the doors for me to walk through. “ ‘Ludicrous.’ ‘Gratuitous.’ ”
“All right, all right. So I haven’t always been awash in compliments. Cut me some slack.”
“ ‘A parade of hormonal insecurity swathed in violence and unnecessary ceremony.’ ” Shaun says it with air quotes and all.
“A girl’s allowed to change her mind,” I tell him. “Especially about something as insubstantial as football. Will you be my date on Friday?”
Shaun makes a big show of considering it, but of course he says yes. “Only because Kirk’s not around.”
“How’s that going, anyway?” We round the corner of the school and head toward the parking lot. “Have you talked to him?”
“Only every day,” Shaun says. “I don’t screw around when I’m in love.”
After that, I go quiet.