Page 6 of People Like Us

Ididn’t expect August’s house to be so large. Not that I had ever really pictured it. But I’d been to parties at some of his neighbors’ houses, though I didn’t recall ever seeing him at any of them.

“Do you know Paul?” I asked, pointing across the street as I got out of my car.

“Not at all,” he answered flatly as he pulled his bookbag from his passenger seat. The inside of his car, from what I could see, was spotless.

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic,” I said.

“I get that a lot,” he replied in the same flat tone as he moved past me to the garage door. He punched a code into a box, which sent the large metal door into a slow cascade upward.

I waited awkwardly beside August. When it was high enough, he ducked under it and made his way across the empty cement room to a set of stairs.

“You’re not leading me to a dungeon to kill me, are you?” I asked as I followed him up the narrow steps.

“I only take girls to the dungeon on the third date,” was the only answer he afforded me before stopping to turn a key into the door. He pushed through it, and I followed.

His room was as large as the two-car garage we had entered through, with a door off the side that sat open, revealing a bathroom that was too clean to belong to a teenage boy.

A perfectly made bed sat in the corner at the far end under the only window. In the center was a worn blue couch, a coffee table in front of it, and a large flat-screen mounted to the navy wall. Behind the couch was a dresser that matched the bedframe and coffee table, and a mini fridge sitting on the floor next to it. All of it boxed in by A-framed walls painted a deep navy color.

It was all so neat.

“This is nice,” I said brightly. “Like your own mini apartment.” I stepped further into the room but August stepped in front of me, frowning down at my Mary Jane’s.

“You want me to take my shoes off?” I guessed.

He nodded, silently. I noted how he didn’t answer with one of his usual smartass comebacks as I bent to undo the buckle at my ankle.

“Are your parents military?” I asked.

His head titled to the side, brows pinched.

“My dad’s a neat freak too. Most people assume it’s ’cause he was in the military.” I pulled my shoes off and placed them next to the door, beside August’s. I didn’t mention that my father hadn’t been trained by a drill sergeant, but a woman who cleaned compulsively.

I reached into my bag’s side pocket and pulled out a travel-size case of hand sanitizer. August watched me carefully as I rubbed the gel between my fingers. I held the tube out to him in offering, but he shook his head in answer.

I pulled my laptop out, a few loose papers coming out with it as I moved across the room. I sat on the floor, my back resting against the front of the couch, as I tucked my legs to the side.

I didn’t wait for August to join me before setting the computer on the coffee table and opening the digital notebook I had for Mrs. Deal’s class. It was empty.

August sat beside me on the floor, opening his own laptop in his lap. His long legs were stretched out under the table. “What parts are you struggling with the most?” he asked.

“All of it,” I said cheerfully.

August’s eyes searched my face for a hint that I was kidding, before moving to my computer, the blank page waiting there patiently.

“You haven’t taken a single note all semester?” he said, eyes wide.

I shook my head. “Look at it this way, you’re getting a clean slate to work with.”

He looked at me, horrified. “Lola…” he began.

I cut him off. “I’ve had the great fortune of being able to carefully craft my schedule to avoid having anything important in the morning. But it just so happens all that good luck has caught up with me, then promptly bent me over and fucked me my senior year, when it matters most.”

He stared at me blankly.

“I’m not a morning person,” I clarified.

“Noted,” his voice tight as if the fact bothered him for a reason I couldn’t pinpoint.