That asshole.
“Phones here.” Alex thumps the center of the table. “I don’t trust any of you not to cheat. Then I want Daniel, Allison, and Trevor to head onto the patio to work on yours, where I can monitor you.”
“Bossypants,” I mutter, refusing to surrender my phone. Alex has never wormed his way into a debate club or Model UN he didn’t eventually seize captainship of, so he’s in his natural habitat here.
“Stop thinking about my pants and do your homework.” He confiscates Trevor’s phone, which renders mine useless, now that we can’t compare notes.
How many kids do you want?
Do you have allergies?
When’s your birthday?
What did you wear on your first date with your significant other?
I would like to have at least three kids, but Trevor’s not going to know that. He’s going to make a dumb, overplayed joke about me having twenty cats someday instead. Twenty cats, I write with a sigh.
And Trevor better know the answer to the allergy question. He brought in curry to share with Luna, Morgan, and me, but neglected to mention it contained mushrooms. He then watched hives break out all over my face.
Trevor might remember the month of my birthday. He definitely isn’t going to remember what I wore for our first date, as we’ve never been on one, but I know what answer he’ll give for that, anyway: a blazer with gold chains draping from shoulder to shoulder. Trevor found one online, became obsessed with how powerful and commanding he looked in it, and purchased a dozen others for his friends. I removed the gold shoulder chains from mine to repurpose into an anklet, which he still complains about, many months later.
“Come along, come along.” Alex excitedly gestures the others back inside, harvesting all their cards, his smile obscene. “Sit, sit, and don’t talk to your teammate! First question is for Daniel. Daniel, if your partner was an animal, what kind of animal would she be?”
He contemplates. “An armadillo.”
“An armadillo?” Kristin repeats. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Armadillos are beautiful creatures, and they have a protective outer shell.”
“Aww.” Kristin smiles at him. “I want to change my answer.”
“Too late,” Alex replies briskly. “You said Clydesdale, so no points.” He’s ruthless. “Allison, if Teyonna had a superpower, what would it be?”
“Flying,” Allison answers at once.
Teyonna frowns.
Alex booms, “Wrong! Teyonna would be able to restore all the rainforests.”
“Everybody answers flying to that question,” Allison huffs. “Come on, Teyonna. We’re not going to win if you give obscure answers!”
“It’s not obscure! We discussed this when we watched one of the X-Men movies.”
“Trevor,” Alex forges on. “How many kids does Romina want?”
“At least three,” Trevor replies, and I throw up my hands.
“Why’re you looking at me like that? Isn’t that what you’ve said?” Trevor ticks them off on his fingers. “Girl, girl, boy. You’d call one of them Louise.”
“Louis,” I correct, a moment before thinking better of it. Louis is Alex’s middle name. It has nothing to do with him—he doesn’t have exclusive rights to that name.
“Exactly!” Trevor preens. “I should get an extra point for knowing that.”
Alex and Kristin are both staring at me. “Wrong,” Alex responds finally. He’s a live wire, radiating a strange, crackling energy that makes it difficult for me to focus. “Romina says she wants twenty cats.”
Allison laughs, then tries to sputter it out, making herself cough. “Gross, Romina,” Trevor utters. “That is too many cats.”
Mr. Yoon goes again, followed by Allison. “Trevor,” Alex continues. “What is Romina allergic to?”
Trevor purses his lips, studying me. I can tell by his blank stare that he has no idea. “Nail files?”
“For crying out loud!” I yell.
“Ro, there is no other explanation for those jagged edges.”
“Gardening causes breakage.” I examine my nails, which aren’t that bad.
“So does scrubbing your clothes on a washboard, Little House on the Prairie.”
“I don’t hear you complaining about my washboard when you come begging with your bags of clothes,” I reply hotly. “Ro, please do me this solid. I can’t trust a washing machine with my Merino wool.” For the record, the only reason I got into handwashing my clothes is that the carriage house doesn’t have a washer/dryer hookup, and Luna’s washer is at the top of her apartment, in a cramped, dark closet. Lugging my laundry baskets up there is a trial.
“Let’s continue,” Alex rolls on. Trevor gets the next question (my birthday) wrong, as well.
“December . . .” Trevor lets the word stretch. “First.”
“October ninth,” Alex swiftly corrects without consulting his notes.
“December first is my birthday,” Daniel inserts.
“Well, that’s gotta count for something.”
He’s gotten three out of four questions wrong so far. The last question of the first round doesn’t give me much hope. I wish Luna would come over here and pretend there’s a candle emergency. She can say they all caught on fire, heaps of melting wax with screaming energies all crying out for love—
“Trevor, you’re falling behind,” Alex reports to the room, barely containing his glee. I imagine him in a suit and tie, microphone in hand, like Bob Barker from The Price Is Right. “For five points: What did Romina wear on your first date?”
“A pistachio blazer with yellow gold shoulder chains and mulberry silk lining in mother-of-pearl,” Trevor replies without giving it any thought whatsoever.
“Uh.” Alex is quiet. “That’s correct.”
Trevor whoops. He requests a fist bump, then when he catches the murderous expression our game host is giving to an innocent box of Scrabble, slips his fingers between mine, drawing my wrist to his mouth. He plants a kiss there. I don’t miss the heat that flashes in Alex’s eyes as he follows the movement: from Trevor’s grinning mouth to an opalescent scar on my wrist imprinted with the ghosts of hundreds of kisses that all belong to Alex. Every particle of oxygen in the room sucks flat against the floor for a moment, a sharp sigh, before the atmosphere stabilizes.
The next question for my team is worse.
“Romina.” Alex wheels on me. All of my blood starts rushing in the wrong directions. Alex’s stare is hunting. “Where did you and Trevor first have intimate relations?”
“Gross!” Allison exclaims. Mr. Yoon throws his head back, face pained.
“Alex, that’s vulgar,” Kristin scolds gently. “Where did you find such a lewd game?”
“We’re all adults.”
“You gonna ask your mom where she and Dad have had relations?” Trevor retorts.
“Shh.” Alex’s eyes haven’t left mine. “Answer the question.”
I look at Trevor. Alex moves, blocking my view. I tip up my chin, defiant. “The back of his Nissan Cube,” I declare.
Everybody screams. Kristin shields her eyes, then her ears. “Ohhh noooooo. I wish I hadn’t heard that. Someone please find the wine and bring it to me.”
Alex pales. The glittering amusement in his eyes recedes, card lowering. He stares at me. “Correct.”
It’s the only response Trevor could have given. I’ve heard him mention it countless times as his dream sexual fantasy, which, incidentally, none of the women he’s been with has yet to indulge.
Trevor is making keening noises. “We’re at ten points! Who’d have thought?”
Alex rereads his card as if he forgot where he left off, where he is in general. We cycle through more questions: Kristin, Teyonna, then me. Alex blinks. “You . . . what’s Trevor’s favorite color?”
“I didn’t get that question on my card,” Trevor interrupts. “The next question should’ve been asking what Romina’s most irritating bedroom habit is.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Really, now?”
“Good lord, Alexander,” Kristin says faintly.
I twist my mouth, hazarding a guess. “Something about orchid bodywash.” He hates the smell of it, made from Lady of the Night orchids.
“You did Romina and Trevor so dirty with their questions,” Allison snickers.
“Correct, he hates sleeping next to your flowery soap,” Alex says quickly, moving on. He fires off the next few questions, and when he comes back to me, he’s talking faster but his tone is flat. He isn’t having fun anymore.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, I think. But I don’t get that checkmark of satisfaction that I thought I would, to see him rattled like this.
“What’s Trevor’s middle name?”
Ha! I asked Trevor this question after he woke up this morning. “Joseph.” Take that.
“That’s right. Congratulations, lovebirds.” Alex turns stiffly, marking up the scores. Trevor and I didn’t win, but we performed better than I thought we would, and obviously better than Alex had predicted. I can’t help but notice that Teyonna isn’t looking too happy about what this game revealed, either, and small victories dissolve tart on my tongue.
“I don’t think so,” I growl, following Alex outside. He’s rambling at a brisk clip through the downpour, red Buckeyes hat tugged low over his forehead, down the rocky path to the wide gravel lot. The driver’s door of his black truck slams shut.
I open it back up while he’s yanking the seatbelt across his body.
Alex starts, seatbelt rewinding. “Agh! What are you doing?”
“What the hell was that back there?”
He glowers. “You need to move.”
“You didn’t give anybody else bullshit questions like where they’ve had sex and what are their bedroom habits. Were you trying to embarrass me? Because it didn’t work. Or are there any other details you’d still like to know? You want to know what color bra I’ve got on right now?” I yank my collar aside so he can view the lavender satin.
He flushes, brows knitting together as he turns away to stare through the windshield.
“You better fucking open your mouth and tell me what you were thinking back there.”
“You know what I thought?” He rips his hat off, rubs a hand all over his head, then slams it back on again. Its color brings out the blood burning under his skin. “I thought you and Trevor weren’t actually together. I thought you were pretending to date Trevor because you wanted an excuse to come to the wedding, to see me. Be around me.”
“I didn’t even know there was going to be a wedding when we showed up! Trevor’s dad was in town, and we were going to have lunch with him, do our pitch. That’s what we thought.”
“Something about it felt off. Maybe the two of you saw me before I spotted you, and you cooked up a story about being together. To rub it in my face that you were with somebody else now, or to piss me off because you were with the guy who’s going to be my stepbrother. I don’t know.”
“Because everything I do must revolve around you?”
He flinches. Doesn’t meet my eyes. Then grips the steering wheel, hard, shaking it a little. Laughs without humor. “The back of his car. Goddamn.”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t,” he replies, razor-sharp. “Just surprised at you.”
“You’re not allowed to judge me.” He tries to close his door, but I wrest it open wider, rain pitting off the dashboard, the steering wheel, darkening his jeans. His knee bounces uncontrollably. “It was fine for me to take my clothes off in the bed of your truck at eighteen, when we almost went all the way but you changed your mind—but I can’t do the same with somebody else when I’m damn near thirty?”
“Not with him, you can’t. He’s going to be my stepbrother. How could you do this to me? How would you feel if I slept with one of your sisters?”
The words are a physical slap.
“For the last time, I didn’t know you and Trevor were going to be stepbrothers. Neither did he! Or you!”
“You and Trevor don’t act . . .”
“Like what?” I press.
“You don’t look at each other with any kind of deeper feeling.”
My hands clench. “You just think I’m incapable of wanting anyone other than you.”
His eyes are piercing. “Yes. And I don’t give a shit if it makes me sound conceited. Yes. As long as I’m alive, how could you be satisfied with anybody else?” He looks genuinely perplexed at the thought. “It doesn’t make sense that you’re over me, when every signal you send says otherwise. I thought you had to be lying about being happily in love with him; that you were sorry you dumped me and wanted to make sure I missed you back. I don’t understand how I got it so wrong. Will you please let me shut my door now? I cannot fucking breathe with you here.”
All I see is red. His pulse and mine, adrenaline, fury. The betrayal he exudes, the self-righteous indignation, the shock that he might be wrong about anything, ever, is an itch inside my skull that I can’t scratch, inflamed by my embarrassment that he’s right about some of it. I had hoped that enough time had passed, that I had changed enough, that I had become unreadable to him. It never occurred to me that he’d figure me out all over again exactly like he did the first time. He’s even more perceptive now. And three times more persistent. I can’t tell if Alex wants me to want him because he wants me, or if he simply craves the satisfaction of knowing I never got over him. He drives me up the goddamn wall. I don’t want to be affected by this man! I hate how wildly out of control he makes me feel, and how unfair it is that I’ll never be able to look at him without the floor giving out from beneath me.
I’ll never be over it. I don’t know why. I don’t know what it is about this person—who I half despise right now—that has me in such an iron grip. As I stand here, allowing this cold truth to slide over me, I want to scream at the unfairness.
“Get over yourself,” I reply instead, and slam his door shut.
Sure wish I could.
