Benny goes still, and then turns his suddenly-wide-awake hazel eyes on me. “You’re talking about Andrew, right? You and Andrew?”
And there it is. With that gentle question, Benny has hit the nail on the head. “No,” I say finally. “Not Andrew. Theo.” That’s me: harlot.
With the benefit of sobriety and the jarring clarity of the morning after, last night’s brief, frantic scramble feels like a blur. Did I initiate things, or did Theo? All I know is that it was surprisingly clumsy. Not at all seductive: teeth clashing, some feverish moans and kisses. His hand basically latched onto my chest in a move that felt more breast-exam than passionate-embrace. That’s when I pushed him away, and, with a flailing apology, ducked under his arm and ran down to the basement.
I want to smother myself with Benny’s pillow. This is what I get for finally saying yes to Ricky Hollis’s boozy eggnog.
“Hold on.” Bending, Benny pulls a backpack up from the floor near the side of the bed and retrieves a long, thin one-hitter.
“Seriously, Benedict? It’s not even light out.”
“Listen, Mayhem, you’re telling me you made out with Theo Hollis last night. You don’t get to give me shit for taking a hit before I hear the rest of this.”
Fair enough. I sigh, closing my eyes and tilting my face to the ceiling, sending a silent wish to the universe to obliterate last night from existence. Unfortunately, when I open them again, I’m still here in the attic with Benny— who’s taking a deep inhale of weed before sunrise—and a bucketful of regret settling in my gut.
Benny exhales a skunky plume and sets the pipe back in the bag. “Okay,” he says, squinting over at me. “You and Theo.”
I blow my bangs out of my face. “Please don’t say it like that.”
He raises his eyebrows like, Well? “You know your mom and Lisa have been joking all these years . . . right?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“I mean, you’re a people-pleaser,” he says, studying me, “but this goes above and beyond.”
“I didn’t do it to make anyone happy!” I pause, considering. “I don’t think.”
It’s a long-standing joke that, since we were kids, our parents hoped Theo and I would someday end up together. Then we’d officially be family. And I suppose, on paper, we make sense. We were born exactly two weeks apart. We were baptized on the same day. We slept together in the bottom bunk until Theo was big enough to be trusted not to jump off the top. He cut my hair with kitchen scissors when we were four. I covered his face and arms with Band-Aids each time we were left alone together until our parents got smart and started hiding the Band-Aids. So that we could be excused from the table, I used to eat his green beans and he’d eat my cooked carrots.
But all of that is kid stuff, and we aren’t kids anymore. Theo is a nice guy, and I love him because we’re practically family and I sort of have to, but we’ve grown into such different people that sometimes it seems like the only things we have in common happened more than a decade ago.
More importantly (read: pathetically), I’ve never been into Theo, primarily because I’ve had a crazy, silent, soul-crushing crush on his older brother for what feels like my whole life. Andrew is kind, warm, gorgeous, and hilarious. He is playful, flirty, creative, and affectionate. He is also deeply principled and private, and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing that would turn him off a woman faster than knowing she made out with his younger, womanizing brother while under the influence of eggnog.
Benny, the only other person in this house who knows about my feelings for Andrew, watches me expectantly. “So, what happened?”
“We were tipsy. We ended up in the mudroom, the three of us: me and Theo and his tongue.” I shove the tip of my thumb into my mouth, biting it. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m trying to understand how this happened—this isn’t like you at all, Noodle.”
Defensiveness flares briefly but is almost immediately extinguished by self-loathing. Benny’s my Jiminy Cricket, and he’s right: that isn’t like me. “Maybe it was a subconscious shove: I need to get over this stupid Andrew thing.”
“You sure about that?” Benny asks gently.
Nope. “. . . Yes?” I’m twenty-six. Andrew is twenty-nine. Even I have to admit that if anything was ever going to happen between us, it would have happened by now.
“So you figured, why not Theo?” Benny asks, reading my thoughts.
“It wasn’t that calculated, okay? I mean, he’s not exactly hard to look at.”
“Are you attracted to him, though?” Benny scratches his stubbly chin. “That feels like an important question.”
“I mean, lots of women seem to be?”
He laughs. “That isn’t what I asked.”
“I guess I must have been last night, right?”
“And?” he asks, grimacing like he isn’t sure he wants to know.
“And . . .” I wrinkle my nose.
“Your expression is telling me it was terrible.”
I exhale, deflating. “So bad.” I pause. “He licked my face. Like, my entire face.” Benny’s wince deepens, and I point a finger at him. “You are sworn to secrecy.”
He holds up a hand. “Who would I tell? His parents? Yours?”
“Have I ruined everything?”
Benny gives me an amused smile. “You are not the first two people in history to have drunkenly made out. But maybe this was a catalyst in a way. The universe is telling you to move on, one way or another, where Andrew is concerned.”
I laugh because this feels genuinely impossible. How does one move on from a man so kind of heart and fine of ass? It’s not like I haven’t tried to get over Andrew for, oh, the past thirteen years. “Any idea how?”
“I don’t know, Noodle.”
“Do I pretend like nothing happened? Do I talk about it with Theo?”
“Definitely don’t ignore it,” Benny says, and as much as I was hoping to get permission to put my head in the sand, I know he’s right. Avoiding confrontation is the Jones family’s biggest vice. My parents could probably count on one hand the number of times they’ve maturely discussed their feelings with each other—which is probably what their divorce lawyer would tell you. “Go wake him up before the day gets rolling. Clear the air.”
He glances out the window, at the sky that is reluctantly brightening, and then back to me. Panic must be bleeding into my expression, because he puts a calming hand on mine. “I know it’s your nature to smooth out problems by avoiding confrontation, but it’s our last day here. You don’t want to leave with that lingering between you. Imagine coming back to that next Christmas.”
“You’re the most emotionally intuitive locksmith alive, you know.”
He laughs. “You’re deflecting.”
I nod, tucking my hands between my knees and staring down at the worn wood floor. “One more question.”
“Mm-hm?” His hum tells me he knows exactly what’s coming.
“Do I tell Andrew?”
He rebounds a question right back: “Why would Andrew need to know?”