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“I thought we were being sneaky.”
“Nope. Not even in the slightest.”
I glance out toward the living room, where Miles is tidying discarded napkins and takeout containers, careful not to wake Jocelyn. “He’s…” Now it’s my turn to be speechless, because I’m not sure it’s possible to sum up Miles in a single word. “Incredibly sweet. Unexpected. Fascinating.”
“Good,” she says. “Those are wonderful things to be.” Then she pushes some of my hair away from my face. “Barrett. My darling of darlings. Treasure of treasures. You know I love you more than anything, right?”
“Yes. And it’s embarrassing.”
A hesitation before she speaks again, her brows creasing together. “I don’t want to get too heavy on a night like this, but things are probably going to change. Not just because of Jocelyn, and not dramatically—but a little.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
“We’ll still have weekends—any weekends you want. Holidays. And Judy Greer Is Doing the Most Night.”
“Unless Hollywood sees the error of their ways and finally casts Judy Greer in a leading role,” I say.
But there’s something solemn in my mom’s tone, and as perfect as this night is, I’m suddenly reminded of what I’m keeping from her. The things I haven’t told her, the things I’m still finding the courage to admit to myself.
The things I cannot possibly tell her tonight.
There’s a sound of shuffling from the living room, and then: “Let’s order more cake!” Jocelyn calls. “I swear I’m still awake. I’m not old. I can still party.”
My mom fails to hide a smile. “We’re being summoned.”
“Better not upset your fiancée.”
And the way she glows at that is worth a thousand tomorrows.
The sky is liquid black when Miles and I get back to campus, drowsy and loopy and unable to stop smiling.
“Good night,” he says in the elevator between slow, lazy kisses.
“Good morning,” I say back, before he gets out on the seventh floor and I go up to the ninth. It didn’t feel right to deprive my mom of this first night with her fiancée. Even if they won’t remember it, something that’s hitting me harder now that we’re back in Olmsted.
When I unlock the door, I’m shocked to find Lucie in the room, taking off her makeup in front of the closet mirror. It’s three a.m.—I guess I’ve never been here awake at this time. And that means I’ve never seen Lucie come home.
“Good party?” I ask as we do a complicated choreography for me to scoot by her. This morning with Lucie landed somewhere in the middle of the friend-enemy spectrum, so she shouldn’t be overly hostile.
“It was okay. Some guy spilled a PBR on me. Just threw a few things in the laundry.” She swipes a cotton ball over her eyes. “For some reason, I couldn’t get any of the machines on the ninth floor to work. It was the strangest thing, though…” With a tilt of her chin, she gestures toward something on my bed. “I found that in the laundry room. On the eighth floor. I could have sworn you had a pair just like them, and for some reason, I thought…” She shakes her head, eyebrows pinching together. “It’s probably silly, but I just had this memory of you and your mom in these matching socks at your house back at the beginning of high school. Although obviously more than one person can own this ridiculous pair of socks. And there’s only one, so…”
Lucie might keep rambling—I’m not sure. All I’m focused on is the bright blue single sock on my bed.
RINGMASTER OF THE SHITSHOW.
Holy shit. Show.
With trembling hands, I pick it up and run my thumb along the familiar worn patch on the heel. The frayed stitching on the tiny circus tent beneath the lettering. I open the closet, where its mate is waiting in the drawer I placed it in after doing laundry all those yesterdays ago.
“Oh,” Lucie says. “I guess it was yours after all. Weird.”
All this time it’s been missing, and it wound up in a dryer on a different floor.
Suddenly, everything starts to click, disparate puzzle pieces finally falling into place.
This missing sock. Ankit’s missing laundry.
The changing sign on Miles’s floor.
