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“Did you need me to turn it down?” he asked.
“Oh,” I said, “no. It’s fine. We actually...”
To my surprise, Sam stepped onto the front porch, closing the door behind him. I had to back up to keep my personal space, which made me tread upon Conner’s foot, which made Conner yelp in a tableau of melodrama. Without saying another word, Sam stalked over to my driveway, where he stood for a minute, his head tilted, as if listening.
“Ow,” Conner said loudly, as if unsatisfied with my reaction to his plight.
“Oh, come on,” I hissed back, still watching Sam. “I barely got you.”
“You’re wearingcombat boots.”
I glanced down at his feet. “And you’re wearingflip-flops, which should teach you to cover your toes better. Nobody needs to see that.”
“At least I’m on theme,” he grumbled. “What is he doing?”
To be honest, I had no idea. Sam had moved closer to my house, standing just in front of the door while we continued to stand just in front of his. Finally he walked back over to us.
“You must have really good ears,” he said, but he wasfrowning down at the Kit Kats, as if there was something troubling about the idea. Then he glanced up, taking in Conner and Shani before turning his attention back to me. “Sorry. I did a lot of soundproofing to the garage, so I thought it would dampen the music enough. Did you guys want to come in, have a drink?”
He went inside, leaving the door open for us to follow, but Conner stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Phoebe,” he said. “Dude.Soundproofing?”
“Told you,” I said, and then we went inside the house.
?THE FIRST THINGI noticed was that Sam did have a piano in the little nook in the living room that seemed perfect for one. I bet he didn’t evenplaythe piano, just liked the impression it gave that he was the kind of guy who would. But then there was a big banner hanging on the wall above it—WE’LL MISS YOU, BARBARA!—and that was a little harder for me to parse.
“Where do you think Barbara’s going?” Shani asked.
“The crawlspace?” I suggested, and Conner and I both cracked up. We were still laughing when Sam appeared, juggling a few cans of LaCroix before handing them out.
“Sorry we don’t have any soda,” he said, “but—” He gestured vaguely at the tropical decorations, which upon closer inspection seemed to mostly be a corrugated cardboard border with little palm trees on it that had been hung up around the room. “The alcoholic stuff is in the kitchen. I figured you’d want to fix your own drink.”
His gaze slid to me briefly when he said that, and then away. From across the room, someone called his name, and I waiteduntil he was definitely out of earshot before I turned to Conner and winced.
“I think he may have heard us,” I said.
“So?” Conner traded cans with Shani, so she had strawberry and he had orange, and then he opened his with a loudpop.
I chewed on my bottom lip while I watched Sam move through the crowd of people, stopping to talk to a couple before disappearing into the kitchen. Despite what Conner said, I felt a fluttery, anxious guilt low in my stomach at the idea that I was being an asshole yet again. This time, crashing his party and then immediately talking shit. I handed Conner my unopened LaCroix, because he could down two in the time it took me to even wrap my head around willingly drinking flavored hair spray, and headed to the kitchen.
Sam was reaching for a bowl in the top cabinet, the action revealing a strip of skin between his jeans and the bottom of his shirt, a fine line of hair leading to his navel. By the time he’d set the bowl on the counter and flicked his hair out of his eyes, startling a little when he saw me there, my entire face felt warm and I worried my pale skin was turning a betraying pink. I glanced over, and saw through the kitchen window to a swimming pool in the backyard. A few people were gathered around it, some sitting at the edge with their feet dangling in the water.
“You have a pool,” I said stupidly. What I meant was,Can I submerge myself and only come up when everyone has left, including you?
He followed my gaze. “Yeah,” he said. He tore open the bag of Kit Kats with his teeth and dumped the individually wrapped candy bars into the bowl. He gave the bowl a little shake, as ifadjusting the presentation of the candy, and then set it on the counter next to some chips and dip.
“You really shouldn’t do that,” I said before I could stop myself, and his brows drew together, his hand remaining on the bowl as if waiting to commit to the placement. I shook my head, wondering for the eight millionth time what my specific problem was. “I mean opening stuff with your teeth—it’s not good for your dental health. I’d tell you a harrowing story about a girl in second grade involving a fruit roll-up, but it’s not really a good party anecdote.”
He just stared at me, which was somehow my cue to keep going.
“To be fair, her tooth was loose anyway. So.” I grabbed a Kit Kat from the bowl, just for something to do with my hands. After giving him such a hard time about the way he’d opened the bag, of course this one wrapper had to be made of Teflon. I twisted and pulled, but I couldn’t get the stupid thing open. Finally, I gave up. “Actually, I guess that’s the whole story. There’s not much else to it.”
His lips parted slightly, like he was going to say something. Instead, he grabbed a Kit Kat, opening it easily before popping one bite-size stick in his mouth. The bastard.
It turned out that it’s almost uncomfortably intimate to just watch someone chew. And yet for some reason, I couldn’t look away, and so we just stayed locked in that moment in the kitchen. His blue eyes swept my face from my too-high forehead to my pointed chin, lingering on my mouth for a beat so minuscule I wondered if I’d imagined it. In the background, “Don’t Worry Baby” by the Beach Boys was playing, and I realized I was holding my breath.
He swallowed. “How’s the desk?”
Now it was my turn to stare, his question rattling in my head but for some reason not able to land.
