“Nathan, what are you doing here?” I ask. “I thought you were going to ride out the storm in your studio.”
“I—well, I changed my mind,” he says, shrugging out of his jacket. “I tried to call, but nothing’s working. Thought I shouldcheck on you.” His gaze skips from Sara to me, then lingers, and the current between us is enough that I have to look away.
Sara clucks her tongue. “Sit down, you fool, before you ruin the floors.” But she’s smiling, and I catch the fleeting glimmer of satisfaction in her eyes as she steers Nathan to the couch. Cassie hangs back, half-hiding behind the door, but her expression is pure delight.
Nathan sits, dripping, and I hesitate, unsure whether to offer a towel or a change of clothes or just let him dry out by proximity. The quiet stretches, punctuated by the ticking of rain on the roof and the distant groan of thunder.
Finally, he asks, “You okay?” The question is so direct, so without preamble, that I feel myself flush.
“Yeah. We’re fine. Just”—I wave a hand at the darkness—“riding out the storm.”
“They’re saying the worst will pass by midnight. We’ll probably get a lull in a couple hours.” He speaks with the authority of someone who’s been reading the radar like a script.
Sara hovers for a minute, then gestures to Cassie. “Let’s get some towels, sweetheart.” They leave the room together, and then it’s just Nathan and me, the low flame of a single candle between us.
His eyes don’t leave mine. “I should’ve stayed at the gallery,” he says. “Didn’t mean to worry you.”
“You didn’t,” I lie, and we both know it.
He runs a hand through his hair, scattering droplets onto the arm of the sofa. “It’s wild out there,” he says, almost to himself. “Like being inside a painting before it’s finished.”
I laugh, but it comes out shaky. “That’s one way to look at it.”
He gives a crooked smile, and I’m struck by how young he seems in this light. “Sara says you’re the only one who ever beats her at Scrabble,” he says, changing the subject with a finesse that’s almost surgical.
“I think she lets me win,” I reply, grateful for the escape route.
The conversation could spiral, but before it does, Cassie and Sara return, arms loaded with towels. Cassie hands one to Nathan, who mumbles thanks and buries his face in it, emerging with his hair standing on end. Sara just watches us, her eyes narrowed and her mouth curved in that sly, Mona Lisa way she has.
“That’s better,” she says. “Now, where were we?”
We gather around the coffee table, which is a slab of driftwood sanded to near-translucence. Sara claims her throne, an ancient recliner with a quilt draped over the arms. Before she sits, I gently tuck a pillow behind her back. She scowls at me but lets it happen. I catch the flicker of a smile, quickly stifled, and make a mental note of how little resistance she actually puts up.
Cassie selects the next game, an old-school version of Parcheesi, half the pieces missing and the board soft at the creases. “House rules,” she says, setting it up, “are that you have to tell a secret every time you get bumped back to start.”
Sara laughs. “You little shark.”
We play, the pieces sliding around the board, the dice rattling hollowly in the upturned lid of a tea tin. The candlelight is uneven, tall and guttering on the table, low and golden at the periphery. It makes the whole scene feel like something painted from memory, an image that will grow more beautiful and less precise with every telling.
It takes two turns for Sara to land on Nathan and bump him back to the start. “You first, Nathan,” she says, pointing an imperious finger.
Nathan considers. “When I was eight, I buried a time capsule in my backyard. It was supposed to be for the future, but I dug it up every week to check on it and add more stuff.” He shrugs. “I think it’s still there, full of dead bugs and baseball cards.”
Cassie raises an eyebrow. “That’s not a real secret.”
“Sure it is,” Nathan says. “You’re just not old enough to realize how embarrassing nostalgia can be.”
On the next round, Cassie is forced back to start by a ruthless move on my part. “Truth time,” I say, expecting a minor confession about failing a math test or stealing a cookie.
Instead, she leans in, the candlelight catching the shine in her hair. “Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I pretend I’m someone else. Not because I don’t like being me. I just want to know what it would feel like.” She glances sideways at Sara, then Nathan. “Just for one night.”
My heart lurches in my chest, but I keep my face neutral. Sara’s expression softens into something approaching reverence. “We all imagine other lives, Cassie. That’s how we survive our own.”
The game goes on. At every setback, another secret. Sara admits to cheating at crossword puzzles by looking up the answers; Nathan confesses that he once lied about his age to get a summer job; Cassie reveals she’s never actually finished a single book assigned in English class, but always reads the ending first and then works backward. My own confession, when it’s finally my turn, is that I used to write poetry but stopped when I realized I’d never be as good as my college roommate. The admission makes Sara cackle.
“Who cares about good?” she says. “Everything worth doing is better for being a little bad.”
As the storm ratchets down, the games shift to Checkers, then a round of Uno played by dubious rules. Cassie nestles closer to Sara, their heads almost touching. Nathan and I sit opposite, our knees brushing under the table every time we reach for snacks or cards. With each accidental contact, a current passes up my leg, warm and a little illicit.