Yeah,she’s fine,he starts to type and then he stops. He hands me hisphone.
“Maybe you should handle this.I can’t talk to him right now without telling him to shove a brick up hisass.”
“Okay. Let me see. Maybe I should text him from my phone and ask him to call me,” I say, but then another text popsup.
Is she dead?Spit it the fuckout.
“Oh!”I say, my eyes blinking open. “Okay. Wasnt expectingthat?”
“Let me see.” I hand him the phone back. He looks at the screen and starts typing. “We don’t have to do this rightnow.”
She’s fine.Nevermind.
Scott answersimmediately.
Listen I’m kinda busy. I spent allweek
dealing with her shit and now I’m tryingto
catch up on work. Unless she’s dead oractually
dying whatever you have to say canwait.
“The fuck,”I say under mybreath.
“Now you see why I don’t talk to him.” Suddenly I hear my phone chime beside me. I reach half under Joe and grab it. There’s a text fromScott.
Hey beautiful. I’m meetingTillery
tomorrow when I step out for lunch. Hangtight.
Ishow Silas the text.I have no idea how to respond. I’ve never seen these two sides of someone I consider to be a good friend so plainly. “What do we do now?” I askSilas.
He shrugs and reaches for the last bit of the pancake stack. “It’s up toyou.”
“Gee,thanks.”
“Listen. Nothing Scott says is going to stop me from wanting you. Me and him already hate each other. There’s no relationship there to break. You on the otherhand?”
“Yeah, Iknow.”
“It’s yourcall.”
I think for a long time. I finish my French toast. I somehow get roped into a game of fetch from the porch the moment Honeycrisp realizes I’m done eating. Silas gets to see that I have quite an arm even though I throw at the weirdest angle. I think about taking a minute to run this scenario by the girls. I pick up my phone and open my chat app. There’s a hot conversation about Noa adding highlights to her hair and Rayna casually mentions that she’s thinking about killing her grandmother and burying her in thebackyard.
I can’t dive in and interrupt that with this kind of talk. They’ll call. They’ll demand more answers than I can give them. I put my phone back down. A hypothetical would be too confusing and the truth would be too rambling. Also they all know Scott, and the news of him having a sexy, built twin would be too much for them to handle. Especially Brooklyn. She’d activate the emergency Find My Phone feature and rent a car just to come up here and look athim.
I think about what I want. I think about what makes the most sense. I think about the way Scott talks to me and the way he talks to his brother. I think of everything Silas shared with me about their relationship, past and present. I think about what Scott’s side of the story must sound like. I think about him showing my picture to his mom and the way he treats me like one of his boys, like anyone but someone he’s had serious feelings for. I hate to do it, but I think about what I would have said if Scott had hit on me when we firstmet.
I can’t unsee the Scott I know now. Scott is a good friend to me, but he's Scott. It would never work. It's not something I want withhim.
I think about Silas. He doesn’t drive me so crazy anymore. I like being around him. He makes me feel safe and special in this way I haven’t experienced before. He makes me feel seen in a way that doesn’t make me feel like I’m taking up too much space. I care about Scott a lot, and I have to tell him, but I don’t want to ruin this place I find myself in with Silas. I feel like I’ve earned some peace and some quiet moments with someone I want to get to know better. Scott will find out soon and probably dive bomb the whole thing. I add that shitty truth to the list of other things that are giving me stress nightmares, but for now I just want to be here withSilas.
“I’ll call him tomorrow and tell him. Let’s just enjoy the rest of our day off,” I say. Then I pick up my phone again and flip to my camera. “Here.”
I lean into Silas and try to snap a selfie, but he jerks away like I lost mymind.
“Are you gonna send him a picture ofus?”