Page 9

“Are you sure?” I ask, glancing at the whitewashed façade of his house. It’s a beautiful building, two stories tall, the boardsbleached white from the salt and sun, just far enough away from town to give him the sort of privacy and peace that I know he craves. Easy access to the ocean as well, which I also know he craves. He frowns at me.

“I’m sure. Unless you wanted to talk outside?”

I almost flinch away from the way he’s staring at me. Like I’m a puzzle he’s just realized he doesn’t have the key to. A stranger. He’s looking at me like the last seven years are only just now catching up to him, and he’s figured out I might not be the same person he remembers me being.

“Sure,” I agree, voice weak. “Let’s go inside.”

I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but I definitely hadn’t been expecting this. His house is beautiful—decorated in soft coastal blues and greens, filled with natural light from the uncovered windows. A wide glass accordion door shows an incredible view of the dunes and rocky yard, the ocean sparkling in the distance. Standing a few steps inside the front door, I turn a slow circle and try to take it all in. Never in a hundred years would I have expected Shiloh to decorate a house so charmingly.

“Wow,” I comment, looking at the decorative throw pillows sitting on the couch.Throw pillows. My stomach sinks. Someone would have warned me if he were married, right? Shiloh, misreading my staring for something else completely, clears his throat and gestures awkwardly.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” he says, as though explaining away a mess that isn’t there. My throat burns at another reminder of just how out of sync we are.

“No, I was saying ‘wow,’ like…wow, your decorating skills are impressive. A good wow. Not a bad wow,” I explain. He clears his throat again. It settles my nerves a bit to hear him make the noise—a leftover from childhood, when he’d clear his throat if he was feeling uncomfortable.

“Thanks. Mom did it, though. You know.” He shrugs sheepishly and turns away from me, hiding his face. “Hungry?”

I follow him into the kitchen, hovering with a hand on the island as he bends to peek into the refrigerator. This entire situation feels unreal all of a sudden, like I’m living an episode of television and not a moment in my own life. Did the last seven years even happen? Shiloh’s not acting like we’ve not spoken since we were eighteen. He’s acting like I took a vacation, and now I’m back. I wonder if maybe it would be better if hedidyell at me. That would be a more normal reaction than…whatever this is.

“Shi—Shiloh,” I correct immediately, stumbling over my old nickname for him. Whatever he thinks about the matter, I don’t feel as though I have a right to that level of familiarity any longer. “Do you mind if we…talk? For a minute? I won’t stay long; I don’t want to be a bother. I just…”

I manage to stop before I utter the damning wordsmiss you, but it’s a close thing. What fucking right do I have to miss him when I’m the one who left in the first place? Shiloh looks over his shoulder at me, pulling ingredients from his refrigerator and frowning.

“Sit down,” he instructs, pointing his eyes toward the barstools tucked under the lip of the island. “Sandwich okay? I need to grab fresh groceries this weekend. I’ll leave the tomatooff of yours,” he adds, as casually as though the words aren’t a knife to the chest.

I shouldn’t even be surprised he remembers I don’t like them. Of course he does. I doubt he’s forgotten a single thing about me. Obediently, I slide onto a stool and watch as he lines up his ingredients on the counter in an orderly row. His back remains firmly to me, and I wonder if that’s done purposely. Sandwiches could be prepped just as easily on the island as on the counter he’s using.

“So, uhm…how have you been?” I ask awkwardly, trying to figure out the best way to break the ice.

“Good. You?”

Flattening my hands onto the marble island, I stare hard at the granulations. I need to just suck it up and do it. Rip the Band-Aid off, as my mother used to say—going slowly will only prolong the hurt and make it worse in the end.

“Fine. Listen, Shiloh, I’m sorry I haven’t reached out. The truth is—” I cut off when he glances over his shoulder at me, lips once more tugged downward in a frown and eyes squinted.

“You don’t have to apologize for being busy,” he tells me before turning back around.

I stare at his back. He’s right—Iwasbusy. Breaking into the art world and trying to make a name for myself wasn’t easy. Not to mention the absolute culture shock that was moving to California. But not reaching out wasn’t a product of being strapped for time. It was a product of running away, of losing my mom, and feeling the boundaries of our small, coastal town closing me in. I needed to run, and the road was right there. Itwas so much easier not to look back over my shoulder, and so I didn’t. I’d buried my only blood relative, said goodbye to Shiloh, and hit the road. By the time I’d realized I’d made a mistake and let go of the single thing I should have held on to, I was too far away to turn back.

“No,” I agree slowly. “I’m sorry I didn’t reach out, though. I just…I kept meaning to, and then time got away from me. It was just hard to…”

I trail off again. Shiloh remains silent, carefully putting together his sandwiches and allowing me space to find my words. He always was the better listener of the two of us. One would think I, as the better talker, would be best equipped to have this conversation, but I’m floundering. I don’t think words are enough to explain the gaping hole my life became after Mom’s death or the unending hunger she left me with. It felt like I was starving. Starving for anything but what I already had here. The need to leave had tickled across my skin for months, an un-scratchable itch to go. To find a place where my mother’s ghost wasn’t hovering in the periphery everywhere I looked.

But along with that was the fear of Shiloh. The fear of that growing awareness I had of my best friend—the way he smelled and moved and spoke. The ballooning desire to touch in a way I hadn’t wanted to touch him before and not knowing what he’d do if I tried. I would look at the ocean beaded on his skin and wonder what it would feel like to lick it off, then go home and frantically jerk off in the shower, biting my lip hard enough to make myself bleed. The love I had for Shiloh had grown into something I didn’t understand and was frightened to look at lestit take something from me I could never get back. It was either stay and tell him how I felt, or leave and take my secrets with me.

I left. I’d needed space, and I’d gotten it. But the crawl of time had rolled over me like an ocean wave, and by the time I came up for air, it had been a year. A year of no contact with Shiloh had felt like a chasm so incredibly wide, I couldn’t think how to bridge it.Later, I’d tell myself when I reached for my phone to call him.You’ll do it later.

He brings the sandwiches over to the island, still not quite meeting my eye, even as he slides the plate toward me. He’s cut the bread diagonally and even gone so far as to stick a pair of toothpicks in to keep the halves together. Something that feels suspiciously like tears gathers in the back of my throat.

“Water?” he asks.

I nod and finally unstick my throat enough to mutter, “Thank you.”

“How are things going?” Shiloh asks, widening his legs and leaning his elbows down on the island opposite where I’m sitting.

I’m a little disappointed in the obvious redirect, but who the hell am I to try and manipulate him into hearing what I have to say? He’s not required to hear my apology, and frankly, I probably don’t deserve the forgiveness that would surely follow. He’s not one to hold a grudge, and I was shamelessly going to try and take advantage of that.

“Fine,” I reply awkwardly, shoulder twitching in a half-assed sort of shrug.