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.
I’m already backing out of the room. “We’ll figure it out later. I’ll be out front if you need me.”
But both men are in their own world already. Paul only nods, and Theo stares down at his phone as I ease the door closed behind me.
I can’t help pausing when Paul’s voice drifts out. “You don’t have to take that. You know what he’s going to say.”
“Maybe he—”
“Your father’s opinion isn’t going to change. He wants you to do something that you know isn’t possible.” Paul’s voice is as firm as Theo’s was a minute ago. “What’s most important is that you come to terms with what’s happening. Leave him out of it. He doesn’t have a say.”
“You know that’s not how it works with us,” Theo says, voice low.
“Teddy.” Paul sighs. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
I shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but now I’m invested.
That’s not true. I’ve been invested. I remember our game of Tell Me a Secret last night, when I confessed that his life seemed perfect. I know now, even if he won’t tell me, that it’s not. But regardless of the messiness on the inside, he’s built something amazing with Where To Next. Maybe there’s something to it, that even if I feel messy and tied up and lost, it doesn’t preclude me from eventually getting it right.
I just don’t know how to get there.
The phone’s ring cuts off. Theo lets out a sigh. “Okay, well, now I missed the call.”
“Good. He’s going to upset you for nothing. Let yourself be happy for a second, my god.”
The silence behind the door is deafening, and Theo says in a broken voice, “Don’t say it.”
“All right,” comes Paul’s quiet reply. “Just tell me what you need.”
“Alcohol. A metric ton of it.”
* * *
“Wow, this is . . . something.”
Paul steps across the threshold of the bar behind me, his eyebrows pulling up high. “Oh my.”
Theo’s the last to come inside. He looks around the Stardust Cocktail Lounge, glancing at Paul. “This was really our best option?”
“Noelle helped me search for bar on the internet, and this is what it told me.” Paul lifts a shoulder, which is cardigan-clad now that the sun’s gone down. “It ticked all your boxes, kid.”
“I had one box.”
“Then it ticked your box.”
The parquet floor that stretches between us and the wall of liquor bottles behind the bar is dull. I know without having to confirm that my shoes are going to stick to it all the way across.
Theo rubs at the back of his neck and sighs, eyeing the confused décor; there are several taxidermied animals mounted on the wall, including a tabby cat prowling on what looks like a foam core board toward a mallard duck, wings stretched mid-flight.
Peppered along the wood-panel walls are framed pictures of celebrities from the ‘80s interspersed with family portraits. A jukebox stands sentry in the corner, an old Dirty Dancing song playing. Overhead, a fan turns lazily.
But there’s a good crowd in here, and everyone seems happy, which is sorely needed.
Paul leans in conspiratorially, a smile on his face. “Good enough, right?”
“It’s awesome,” I admit as we make our way to an empty table.
Sure enough, the floor sucks at the soles of my sandals. I nearly lose my left one, but I eventually win the war and get to my seat. Theo sits next to me, and Paul settles across from us, picking up the handwritten menu lying on the table. Which, yes, is also sticky.