2. Hutton

hutton

. . .

I used to think I was magic.

As a kid, I honestly believed I could control the world just by doing certain things.

Touching my nose as I entered a room.

Stepping out of bed with my right foot first, never my left.

Refusing to ride on the left side of the back seat in my dad’s car, only the right. This often meant I had to race out to the driveway early in order to beat my big sister Allie, who did not have magical powers no matter where she sat in the car, but did have an incredible knack for pushing my buttons.

If the trip involved the highway, I had to sit with my arms crossed without saying a word until ten cars passed. If I saw a tractor or motorcycle, I had to start over.

If the trip in the car did not involve the highway, I had to hold my feet off the floor the entire time, or at least until we passed two stop signs or one traffic light.

By doing these rituals but never speaking of them (or else the magic would cease to work), I was ensuring that all stayed right in my world, which was pretty fucking great back then.

In fifth grade, I was one of the most popular kids in school. I was good at math and baseball. I was on student council and in the band. I won the paper plate award for Most Likely to Go to Space and also an Astounding Attendance certificate, because I never missed a day of school. (Only I knew that was because being absent or even tardy would alter the balance of the universe and possibly weaken my powers, not because I was never sick.)

Then a bunch of really shitty things happened, including puberty, and my brain was completely rewired.

That’s when I started to hate the phone.

Or more specifically, the feeling of dread I experienced when faced with being the sole focus of someone’s attention on the other end of the line. You were granted no time to think before you had to answer questions—it was like a fastball coming straight for your head. You couldn’t see their reactions to anything you said. You had no idea how they might be judging you. You had no opportunity to weigh the risk of any possible response. In contrast to a text or email, a phone conversation exposed you completely.

I avoided them at all costs.

So when my cell vibrated in my back pocket as I was about to leave the house, I almost ignored it. If it mattered, the caller would leave a voicemail. Then I’d listen to the message and decide if it actually mattered and merited a text from me or—even better—a response from my assistant back in San Francisco. There wasn’t much that could make me answer or make a call in real time.

But when I saw who was calling, I took it. “You know I hate the phone.”

“I do,” said Felicity, “and I’m sorry. But I didn’t think I could convey the urgency of this matter in a text.”

I headed from the kitchen into the garage, pulling the door shut behind me. “Are you okay? Is your nose bleeding?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Good. The memory of that last one still haunts me.” I slid behind the wheel of my SUV, recalling the way her nose had suddenly and violently started to bleed while we were out for dinner one night back when she lived in Chicago six years ago.

I’d been in town on business, and I’d been looking forward to catching up with her, since we really hadn’t seen each other much since going away to college—I’d spent my summers on campus at M.I.T. and Felicity had spent hers working for her family at Cloverleigh Farms. I knew she’d abandoned her pre-med studies at Brown to follow her heart and attend culinary school, but I wondered if she’d changed in other ways too.

Did she still love sci-fi? Did she still hate thunderstorms? Was she still close to her family? Did she still cut her hair when she was stressed? Would things still feel easy between us, or was she so different that I wouldn’t feel okay around her anymore? What if she felt like a stranger?

Thankfully, the moment I saw her enter the room and smile at me, I knew everything would be fine. She raced over to give me one of those hugs I’d never quite known how to return, and even the way she smelled was familiar—like summer at home. She still wore glasses. Her brown hair still looked like she might recently have trimmed it herself. I could still make her laugh.

And my heart still did that strange quickening thing when she got close to me, the thing that tied my tongue and heated my insides and put troubling questions in my head, like, What would it be like to kiss her? What would she do if I took her hand? Should I tell her I want to be more than friends? But my nerves had always been stronger than my attraction. I was positive she’d think I was crazy and look at me differently if I acted on those urges or spoke those words aloud.

See, I might not be magical anymore, but I have a horrible superpower that, when combined with my mathematical talent, allows me to enumerate any number of catastrophic outcomes for a given situation. And my brain loved listing all the possible ways things could veer off track if I made the wrong move with Felicity.

But I was hoping that night in Chicago would be different.

After all, I was older. I was more mature. I’d had some dating experience. I’d had sex with three different women in college, and one of them even said I was “surprisingly great” in bed for someone so quiet. (It wasn’t all that surprising to me, since I’d done extensive online research on how to please a woman. I was excellent at research.) I’d also been seeing a therapist for my anxiety, and he’d noticed how often I mentioned Felicity...was there something there? He’d challenged me to find out.

But I hadn’t gotten the chance. Felicity had some kind of blood vessel disorder that had always given her these fuck-awful bloody noses, and it was clear about thirty minutes into our dinner that she hadn’t outgrown them. We’d spent the rest of the evening in the Emergency Room.

I took it as a sign that reaching across the table would have been a disaster. That the universe had saved me from catastrophe while also protecting my friendship with Felicity. That was something I did not want to mess with.

And when I got home, I ghosted the therapist. Fuck that guy.

“Yeah, that was a bad one, sorry,” she said. “Hope they got the stains out of the tablecloth. But this doesn’t involve blood, I promise. It doesn’t even involve talking on the phone!”

I switched the call to Bluetooth and backed out of the garage. “What does it involve?”

“Doing me a favor.”

“I’m listening.”

“Okay, but before I tell you what it is, you have to promise to at least consider what I have to say.”

“You’re not really nailing this sales pitch, MacAllister.” I headed down the driveway, which wound its way through birch and evergreens and sloped down the hillside toward the highway.

“Sorry, let me try again.” She cleared her throat. “Hey, Hutton! How are you?”

I smiled. “Okay, considering I’m on the phone.”

“Did you run in the park this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Were the Prancin’ Grannies out and about?”

“In full force. They just got matching T-shirts, which they were very excited to show me.”

Felicity laughed. “Oh yeah? What color?”

“I’d call it Pepto Bismol Pink. And they’re bedazzled—which is a new word I learned today.”

“I’m sure that addition to your vocabulary will come in handy in your line of work. So what are you up to?”

“I’m going over to my sister’s house to watch the kids so she can get a haircut. Neil is working today.” Allie’s husband was a cop who worked twelve-hour shifts. I’d offered him a job working security for HFX, but neither he nor my sister had wanted to move—their oldest was in elementary school, my sister was a child therapist with a growing practice, and my parents lived right around the block.

“That sounds like fun.” Felicity paused. “What about tonight? Do you have plans?”

“Why?” I asked, even though I had a hunch about what was coming.

“Because I’m going somewhere really fun, and I was thinking maybe you’d like to go with me!” she said with exaggerated excitement.

“You’re not talking about the reunion, are you?”

“There will be food and drinks and music,” she went on, like I hadn’t spoken, “lots of people we haven’t seen in ten years?—”

“I’d gladly go another ten without seeing ninety-nine-point-nine percent of them.”

“—and I’m making zucchini fritters!”

“Felicity, you already asked me if I’d go to this thing, and I said sorry, but no.”

“Don’t you like zucchini?”

“I like zucchini just fine. But I didn’t like high school that much, I don’t like social events at all, and the thought of having to make small talk with any of those people makes me want to eat rat poison.”

She sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

“Also, I have other plans tonight.”

“What are you doing?”

“I promised my dad I’d come to his barbershop quartet poker night.”

“That’s social ,” she objected.

“It’s slightly social, and I don’t really want to do it,” I said, easing onto the highway toward town. “But there will only be four old guys there, and we’ll be occupied with the card game. There will be snacks and beer, but no small talk. Minimal eye contact. No one asking for selfies. No prancing grannies. Possibly I’ll have to endure some old-timey four-part harmonies, and I’ll definitely be subjected to a lot of dad jokes, but I’ll live.”

“I love that your dad is actually a barber in a barbershop quartet.”

“The Clipper Cuts are available for wakes, weddings, and everything in between. They will meet all your entertainment needs.”

Felicity laughed. “Well, while you’re enjoying the snacks and harmonies, spare a thought for me trying to survive high school again, this time alone .”

“Just skip it, Felicity.” Avoidance was my specialty.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m catering some appetizers and it will be a good business opportunity. Plus, I might have to do some damage control.” She got all worked up telling me about a bad review she’d gotten this morning on some app. “And it’s all lies! That bride raved about everything all night.”

“Want me to buy the app and shut it down?”

She gasped. “Oh my God, can you? No, wait. Don’t do that—it’s a really helpful thing for a lot of people and businesses. Just not for me at the moment.”

“Your business is going to be fine,” I told her. “But I know how it feels to have people talking shit about you, and I’m sorry.” There were endless rumors about me out there—I was a cold-hearted robot (not really), I was an arrogant prick (occasionally), I was an undercover Robinhood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor (half-true), I was a commitment-phobic player (I guess also half-true...I avoided commitment, but I wasn’t a dick), I was shy and reserved in public but dominant and controlling in the bedroom.

Actually, that one I liked.

“Does that mean you’ll come with me tonight?” she asked hopefully.

“No. But if there are any leftover zucchini fritters, bring them over tomorrow. You can tell me how it went.”

She sighed. “Fine. But if I change my mind about the app, would you really buy it and shut it down for me?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Thank you. Have fun with your family.”

We hung up, and I felt guilty that I’d refused her request for a favor. I believed in doing good things for good people, and Felicity was as good as anyone I’d ever known.

Still, a high school reunion? A room full of people staring at me? Judging my every word, or worse, my awkward silence?

Fuck that.

A few minutes later, I pulled up in front of my sister’s house and parked on the street. Before getting out of the car, I glanced at my phone and noticed a text from my business partner, Wade Hasbrouck.

His home address was San Francisco, but since it wasn’t even eight a.m. there, I knew he wasn’t in California. Wade was a night owl, which used to cause some friction between us when we were roommates at M.I.T., since he was not a particularly quiet night owl, and I was an early riser. His family had a lot of money and owned several luxury homes around the globe, and he hopped from one place to another as easily as he hopped from bed to bed, which was why his marriage of two years was already on the rocks.

Yo , his text said. (I truly hated the media stereotype of the dudebro tech billionaires, but the image fit Wade to a T.) Date with Sam final. July 28. Can’t push it back. Gird your loins, bruh.

Sam referred to Uncle Sam, and the date I was hoping to push back—again—was the date I had to appear in front of the House Financial Services Committee in D.C. They wanted testimony regarding regulation of the digital-asset industry in general and our crypto exchange in particular.

My gut clenched. Today was the 9th.

I had just under three weeks.

While I’d known for months this was coming, the idea of having to give a public, live, televised statement and field questions on the fly was almost enough to make me want to cash out of HFX and go underground.

But what kind of person is so fucked up he can’t even handle the thought of defending the business he’d helped build, especially if it meant losing half his net worth? Not that money was everything. I’d never set out to get rich, and I knew better than to think money could solve all your problems. In fact, I liked giving it away just as much as I liked earning it—what was the point of being a billionaire if all you did was horde your riches? Collect yachts and cars? For fuck’s sake, how many Porsches does one person’s ego need? I wanted to do things that mattered.

But most of all, I wanted what money couldn’t buy.

I wanted to be the kind of guy who could testify without breaking a sweat—at least not visibly. The kind of guy who could conquer his fear of being put on display and subjected to pressure. The kind of guy whose nervous system didn’t react like he was walking into a den of angry lions every time he thought about all the eyes in the room on him.

The uncontrollable thoughts. The racing heart. The sweating, the nausea, the inability of my head to find words and my mouth to form them. The blurry vision. The dizziness. The refusal of my lungs to take a full breath. The sheer terror of knowing that I could publicly humiliate myself in a hundred different ways, expose myself as deficient. A failure. A fool. A fraud.

Actually, give me the fucking lions.

I’d take my chances with them.

I walked up the driveway to my sister’s side door and paused before knocking, my fist in the air—were those my parents’ voices I heard through the open kitchen window? My dad’s loud belly laugh confirmed it a second later.

Allie pulled the door open, a gleam in her eye. “What’cha doin’?”

“Deciding whether I want to come in. Are Mom and Dad here?”

She nodded. “They stopped by after their Saturday morning power walk. Matching track suits and all.”

“Any way I can avoid them?”

“Why do you need to avoid them?”

“They’re just a lot . Mom’s all over me about what she calls my emotional avoidance issues, trying to set me up on dates with her kooky clients right and left, and I’m already hanging out with Dad later tonight.”

She grinned. “Poker night?”

“Yeah.”

“Lucky you. But you can’t leave. I need to be at the salon in twenty minutes, and Mom and Dad both have to work today. They just popped in to see the kids real quick.” She sighed heavily. “They love popping in.”

“I told you not to buy a house right around the block from them.”

“I know, I know.” She threw a hand up. “But it’s a good location and the price was right. We’re not all billionaires.”

“Fuck off, I told you I’d help you with a house. You refused.”

She smiled triumphantly. “I did, and it gave me great pleasure. So thanks for that. Anyway, you covered my student loans, and that was a lot.” She patted my chest. “You get free therapy from me for life.”

“Just what a guy wants, his big sister bossing him around and calling it good for him.”

“Speaking of which, did you call the woman I told you about, Natalia Lopez? The one who does the acceptance and commitment therapy? She’s always booked super far in advance but as a favor to me, she said she’d get you in.”

“No. I don’t call people.”

“Hutton! You didn’t like cognitive behavioral therapy, and this is another option. A different approach. Why not try it?”

“Because I don’t need it.”

“So testifying in front of Congress won’t be a problem then? How many times are they going to let you get away with pushing it back?”

Rather than tell her about the text from Wade, I pretended to throttle her by the neck as we walked into the kitchen, which smelled like bacon and waffles.

My parents sat at the table in their matching track suits, his royal blue, hers bright purple. They were well into their sixties but didn’t look it. My father still had a full head of thick dark hair, which was only slightly gray above his ears, and a bushy brown mustache that was his pride and joy. My mother’s long blond hair, chatty exuberance, and brightly colored clothing made her look more like a Hollywood sitcom psychic than a grandmother.

If anyone asked what their secret was, they had different answers. My father swore it was his hobbies that kept him young—the man had more hobbies than anyone I’d ever known, from gardening to tai chi to his barbershop quartet—and my mother claimed it was their enduring love that kept them so energetic. I think it was a combination of both, since my father’s hobbies often took him out of the house, which he’d once confided was quite conducive to a good marriage.

My niece, Keely, was on my mom’s lap, tearing apart a waffle and shoving it into her mouth like only a two-year-old can. My nephew Jonas, who was four, was squeezing a steady stream of syrup over everything on his plate—waffles, bacon, sliced strawberries. The oldest, Zosia, was six, and she was concentrating hard on cutting her own waffle under my dad’s watchful eye.

“Hutton!” he boomed, glancing at me. “Still coming tonight?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Nope, I already told the guys you’ll be there.” He grinned. “They’re excited to have a celebrity at the game, but a little worried about your deep pockets.”

“I’m not a celebrity, Dad,” I muttered, taking a coffee cup down from the cupboard.

“They should be worried about him counting cards, not placing high bets,” said my sister, filling up my cup from the pot.

“Hutton has never cheated a day in his life!” My mom was outraged at this attack on my honor. “And he knows that nothing good ever comes from taking a penny you didn’t earn. It brings bad luck.”

My sister and I exchanged a look. Our mother was famously superstitious—which one of my therapists thought explained my belief in magic powers as a kid. He might have been right, but it wasn’t really the breakthrough he thought it was and definitely didn’t merit the price tag of those sessions. Thousands of dollars just to be told our parents can fuck us up? People called cryptocurrency a racket, but therapy was a hundred times worse.

I gave Allie a lot of shit about that.

“But what if you find a penny on the street, Grandma?” asked Zosia. “Isn’t that good luck?”

“Depends if you find it tails or heads side up,” she answered seriously. “The ancient Romans believed if you saw a coin heads up, it was lucky, but if it was tails up, you should turn it over and leave it for the next person.”

My sister laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind in case I come across any ancient Roman coins. In the meantime, I’m gonna predict that being a math genius gives Hutton the edge at the poker table tonight.”

“The only edge being a math genius might give someone at the poker table is knowing they should quit early and go home with all their money,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. “The reason casinos are so huge is because most people have no idea how probability works.”

“Hutton.” My mother was studying me intently, like she was trying to read my mind. This was a habit of hers. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

“Look at him, Stan. Does he look fine to you?”

My dad shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“You don’t think he looks sort of pale and sad around the eyes?”

“Sad around the eyes?” My father squinted at me. “Maybe a little.”

“I’m getting a sense of loneliness and discontent within your aura.”

Allie snickered as she washed her hands at the sink.

“Stop it,” I said. “My aura is fine.”

“You don’t have to pretend with us, sweetheart.” My mom’s voice softened. “We’re your family.”

“I’m not pre?—”

“Money can’t buy happiness, you know,” she went on. “True happiness comes from our connection to others and to our higher selves. It doesn’t come from things like yachts or private jets or fancy cars.”

“I don’t own any of those things, Mom.”

But she was on a roll. “It comes from allowing yourself to be loved and offering love in return. Isn’t that right, Stan?”

“That’s right, Barb.” My dad took my mother’s hand across the table.

“And you don’t need to be rich or famous or brilliant to find love.” Her eyes misted over. “You just have to accept yourself as you are, and open your heart.”

“Actually, I think being rich, famous, and brilliant makes it harder,” said Allie. “You’d get a lot of people wanting to be close to you, but maybe for the wrong reasons.”

“I’m not saying it’s easy to find,” my mom clarified. “I’m just saying that we’re all worthy. Don’t you agree, Hutton?”

“Yes,” I said, mostly just to get her to stop talking.

My mother didn’t understand. No one did.

I’d tried to have relationships. I’d attempted to let people in. But dating was a fucking nightmare. Even maintaining friendships was hard because I rarely accepted invitations. And when I did, the amount of energy it took to appear confident enough to just hang out and make conversation was exhausting. But I was good at it, so nobody ever understood why I hated clubs and parties.

I was overreacting, Wade always said. I was being too antisocial. Too introverted. Too picky. Too dramatic. Everyone gets anxious sometimes. Couldn’t I just take some drugs or something? Go to a shrink? Didn’t I like getting laid?

My response was usually something along the lines of, That’s not how it works, asshole.

I’d tried the meds, but they gave me headaches. Therapists just wanted to explain the fight or flight response to me again, as if I didn’t understand it.

And of course I liked getting laid.

I was good at sex. It was a relief to let my body take over, to let it hijack my brain and call the shots. Also, I was an excellent student of female pleasure, and as a high achiever, I was deeply gratified by a woman’s orgasm—the louder the better.

But sex wasn’t a miracle fix for everything that was wrong with me.

I might have been worthy of love, but I wasn’t wired for it.

Simple as that.

After my parents left for their walk, I took the kids to the park. There were no Prancin’ Grannies in sight, but there were a few stroller moms who gave me the usual looks that made me feel like they were all talking shit about me.

I did my best to keep my head down and enjoy the time with the kids—I pushed Keely on the swings, watched Jonas jump off the slide instead of slide down it, and scored Zosia’s cherry drop off the bar a perfect ten. We stayed for over an hour before the kids’ faces started to get pink and I realized I’d forgotten to put sunscreen on them like Allie had asked.

“Come on, guys,” I said. “Your faces are getting red, and your mom is going to get mad at me about it.”

Back at my sister’s house, I heated up a couple cans of SpaghettiO’s for lunch, which was the extent of my cooking skills. When they were done eating, I smeared sunscreen on their faces, and we went out to the backyard.

My sister pulled into the garage as I was filling a small plastic pool on the lawn with water from the hose. The kids stood with their feet in it and sucked on bright green popsicles that were melting fast in the July heat, dripping down their chins and hands onto their shirts, which already had orange spots from the SpaghettiO’s.

Allie smiled at the kids as she approached. “Wow. Look at you guys.”

“I said I’d watch them. I didn’t say I’d keep them clean.”

She shook her hair like she was in a shampoo commercial. “Do you like the new cut?”

I squinted at her. “Looks the same to me.”

She stuck out her tongue. “Hey, someone in the chair next to me at the salon mentioned she was going to her ten-year reunion tonight. Is it yours?”

“Probably.”

“You’re not going?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I focused on the water pouring from the hose. “I already have plans.”

“ Poker night ? Those are your big plans?”

“I didn’t say they were big. I just said they were plans.”

She tilted her head, the way I imagined she did in therapy sessions before she pushed on an emotional bruise. “Is Felicity going?”

“I think so.” And in a dumbass move that I can only blame on sun poisoning, I said, “She asked me to go with her, but I said no.”

My sister’s glare was fierce, and she thumped me on the shoulder. “Hutton! How could you say no? She was your best friend in high school. She was your prom date.”

“I remember.”

She stuck a hand on one hip. “And do you remember what you went through before asking her?”

Of course I did.

“Because I do. You agonized over it for weeks. It got so bad, you came to me for advice. I had to talk you into it.”

“Because it was scary. I didn’t know what she was going to say.”

“But she said yes, and you had a good time.”

For a moment, I was back in that hotel ballroom, working up the nerve to ask her to dance to a slow song, forcing myself to do it, even though I was positive she’d only said yes to going with me because she hadn’t wanted to hurt my feelings.

But her face lit up, she took my hand, and I held her in my arms as we swayed awkwardly on the floor. It was heaven and hell at the same time. I was torn between wanting that song to go on forever, and wanting it to stop so I could quit freaking out over how I smelled and whether I’d worn the right shirt with my suit or whether she really liked the red wrist corsage I’d given her or would have preferred white. When the song ended, I said something stupid, which I spent days agonizing over, although now I couldn’t even recall what it was. At the end of the night, instead of kissing her like I wanted to, I shook her hand.

Then I agonized over that too.

But I did have a good time. There was no one else I’d ever wanted to hold that close. I often thought about doing it again, usually late at night with a hand in my pants.

“Look, it’s nothing to do with Felicity,” I told Allie. “I always have fun with her.”

“Of course you do.” She rolled her eyes. “We all know how you feel about Felicity, Hutton. It’s been obvious for years. And despite your messy hair and your ugly mug and your terrible personality, she genuinely likes you too. I don’t get why you two aren’t a thing.”

I glanced at her. She looked like our mom, the way she was standing there with her weight on one leg, hip jutting out, hand parked on top of it, blond hair gleaming in the sun as she gleefully pushed my buttons.

So I did what any self-respecting little brother would do—I turned the hose on her and sprayed her down.