You, With a View(47)
There’s a long hallway that goes back to the bedrooms and, I assume, the bathroom. Theo heads that way, my and Paul’s suitcases trailing behind him.
Paul putters around in the kitchen, pointing to a French press. “Oh, this’ll be handy for our early mornings.”
“Yeah, I brought a bag of Blue Bottle coffee, we can use it—”
“Hey, Shepard?” Theo yells from the back of the house. His footsteps rattle the floor like an earthquake, and I brace myself for the problem. There’s a raccoon family living in one of the bedrooms. The air conditioning is broken. A—
He strides around the corner, his eyebrows arched in surprise. “Want to tell me why there’s only one bed?”
* * *
Paul, Theo, and I stand at the foot of the bed, hands on our hips.
“The listing said it was two bedrooms,” I say for the fourth time.
Theo follows the script to a tee. “Are you sure? Because there’s definitely only one bedroom. And only one bed.”
With a sigh, I pull my phone from its haphazard tuck in the waistband of my leggings. I go to the app, clicking on the reservation. “Right here. It says: sleeps four, one bedro . . .”
I trail off, my blood turning cold.
“What was that?” Theo takes my hand in his, pulling the phone up so he can read the listing details. The disorienting heat of his body and the reality of my mistake make me jerk against his grasp, but he won’t let me go. “One bedroom, Shep. It says it right here. The other bed is a pullout in the living room.”
His tone is mild, but all I hear is you fucked up. It’s in my voice, not his, an unfair projection, but it curdles my stomach all the same.
I twist out of his hold, my cheeks heating. “I sent you this link before I booked it. You didn’t say anything.”
“I assumed it was fine,” he says. “All I cared about was enough—”
“Rooms and beds for all, yeah, I got that. Would’ve been nice if you’d double-checked my work, is all.” I press my hand to my hot forehead. I get flushed when I fail.
Enzo’s voice blasts into my mind, screaming at me for missing the shot. Telling me I’m useless. Then I’m sitting in the cold acrylic chair in the HR director’s office at work, my boss seated next to me while they told me they appreciated my contributions, but unfortunately—
It sounded so hollow. We all knew my contributions were few, especially the previous month when I was living in a fugue state. The flush on my face and the cold rush of adrenaline when they told me I was being laid off was the first emotion I’d felt other than numb grief since Gram died. What a way to break the ice.
This isn’t the same. It’s silly and small. But I wish I could rub the feeling off my cheeks so I don’t have to think about the real mistakes I’ve made.
Paul wraps an arm around my shoulders. “It’s all right, Noelle. It’s just for a few days. Why don’t you take this room, and Theo and I can sleep on the pullout?”
“No,” Theo and I say in unison.
“That’s going to destroy your back,” Theo continues. His gaze winds over to where Paul’s arm is still encircling me, before settling on my face. He sighs, scratching at his jaw as he looks back at the bed. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“You can’t sleep on the floor. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
He turns his stern eyebrows on me. “You’re not sleeping on the floor.”
I cross my arms over my chest, trying not to sound combative and mostly failing. Very thematic. “This is my mess.”
“I could’ve checked the link when you sent it to me, and I didn’t. We’ll share this one.”
“You don’t need to make me feel bett—”
“I’m not doing anything.” His tone is businesslike, very get your head out of your ass. I bet he’s a badass in the boardroom. I bet no one pushes him around.
My throat goes tight. He’s always been ultra competent, and in high school it was annoying but motivating. We spent years going head-to-head on everything—tennis, grades, endless verbal sparring matches—and I always kept up, even if he edged me out on occasion.
But this time I can’t keep up. I have nothing to volley back, and that detonates whatever is left of my dignity. I’m raw from this fresh mess, small though it is. There have been six months of loss and stumbling, years of failure before that, and now I’m staring down the barrel of thirty and I still haven’t found my place. Theo’s willingness to own part of the mix-up is his own subtle brand of pity. It feels like a premonition.
What if I told him everything? That I’m jobless, directionless, so afraid to fail that I’ll never have a chance at succeeding? Not the way he has, anyway. Would he react the same way he is now, with a conciliatory pat on the head? The thought makes me want to cry; it would be him giving up on me, and I don’t know why it would matter so much if he did.
The room we’re standing in is too small, too hot, too much, an unwelcome feeling that I thought I shook off when we started this trip, at least temporarily.
The thick silence is broken by a trilling phone. Theo pulls his out of the pocket of his joggers, checking the screen. From here I can see the name: Dad.
His expression pinches.