Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Ellie

"Hiya, cowriter," Kieran greeted me on his latest voice note. "Is it sunny in Berkeley? It's freezing here, because summer in San Francisco is a lie. I actually went out and bought a teakettle and breakfast tea so I could make it like my mom does, super strong with lots of milk. The last time I bought milk, I learned that it splits into white gunk and yellow horror-water if you leave it in the fridge for too long. Anyway, enough of my irrelevant rambling."

I smiled at my phone. The rambling had become my favorite part of his memos. It was when he got distracted that he actually said the most interesting stuff.

"You made a good point about the onions in the soup for ‘Comfort.' They should be sliced thinly like in the second picture you sent, not thick like in the first, otherwise they won't go totally soft. They'll just be floating rubber bands. Is there such a thing as slicing so thin you could read newspaper through them? Translucent, duh, Kieran—that's the word for it."

Floyd hopped up and sniffed the phone, then meowed.

"Love the Floyd cameo in the last video, by the way," Kieran said, and my cat perked up. "It really is all about him, isn't it?" The warmth of his voice wrapped around me like a cashmere blanket.

"Anyway, I have to go. Those weights aren't going to lift themselves. Hope things go all right today. Bye."

Now I was left with the image of him strong and sweaty.

I shook my head hard. I had to ignore it. The same way I had to break the long looks he'd been giving me for weeks, the same way I had to shift my hand away if it came too close to his during prep for recipe testing. If I acted normal, businesslike and on task, it would be like I'd never thought about sleeping with my coworker. Never thought of throwing away all my plans.

In weak moments, his plea still echoed in my head and in lower-down places, a promise of cool water and sweet breezes. But I'd turned away and kept trudging through the stupid desert, the temperature rising and rising.

Well, there was always more work. There was slicing onions paper thin, then sautéing them in butter until they cooked down into a caramel-sweet tangle. But as I stirred, I wasn't humming Mozart or Puccini. It was a dark, desiring song by the National he'd played for me on the drive home from Ojai. We'd traded albums over the six hours of driving, my classical and jazz for his sad-boy indie rock.

When I'd looked at his hands tapping restlessly on his thighs, I'd thought about what it would be like to have them touch my breasts, stroke between my legs. When his mouth had moved, I'd remembered what it felt like over mine.

Open.

Warm.

Strawberry sweet.

My unconscious wasn't cooperating, either. My dreams undulated with images to make an erotic novelist blush. Extra yoga, daily walks, more sessions with my vibrator—none of them helped.

But could I sleep with him just to scratch an itch, with no guarantee he'd stay? That was without considering the whole my-job-and-future-were-tied-to-his-success thing. And the lying-to-Tad thing.

I could think myself in circles. Or I could do what I always did, when there was something I didn't know.

"Hey, friend." Nicole's voice on the phone sounded like it was coming from a distance, wind rushing around it.

"May I please pick your brain?" I asked, leaning on the counter.

"Sure. I'm on my way to family dinner, but you've got me for the next twenty minutes."

"What's Mama Salazar making?"

"Kare kare. And before you ask, yes, she's making some for you."

"I love her oxtails so much. Please thank her profusely for me, but please also tell her for the hundredth time that what I really want is the recipe written down ."

She snorted. "Dude, she doesn't even tell her only daughter her cooking secrets. I don't know what you'd have to do to persuade her."

Persuade . I had it bad if even words out of context sounded like double entendres.

"Stop stalling," Nicole said. "What's up?"

I put my phone on speaker and rested my head next to it. "Entirely hypothetically, how does one have a one-night stand?"

I thought the call had dropped, but then I heard her strained voice say, "One? How does one? Hang on a sec." Then a sound like a coyote howling exploded out of the speaker.

"Let me know when you're done laughing at me," I said. "I'm nothing if not patient."

"Uh-huh," she gasped. "God, I needed that, thank you." A few wheezes, then, "So, one-night stands, huh? Why are you calling on my expertise now?"

"I'm curious," I hedged.

"Well, Professor, to commence sexual relations, one would approach the subject and perform the traditional mating rituals of the species."

I pressed my nose into the hard surface. "I hate you."

"I know, I'm being a dick," she said, a smile still in her voice. "But I'm imagining you standing at the back of a bar doing a David Attenborough impression."

I raised my head. "That sounds fun, actually. So, tell me, Doctor, what are the traditional mating rituals of our species?" I asked, half-dry and half-serious.

"Mostly smiling and eye contact, followed by coming close, touching a little."

Like my thumb smoothing Kieran's eyebrow. His mouth brushing my temple.

She continued matter-of-factly: "Hypothetical sex not in a relationship is not that different from hypothetical sex in a relationship, lady."

"They haven't invented new moves in the last three years? Good to know," I joked dryly.

After a moment of quiet, she said, "What are you really asking me, Ellie?"

Note to self: get less perceptive friends.

"Do you think it's possible for me to have no-strings sex?" I whispered, even though I was alone.

"Hypothetically?"

"Uh-huh."

"Do you think you could have sex without love?"

Stupid Socratic method, making me think. "I don't think I could have sex without feeling safe."

"That's not just you. Consent's important."

What I craved the most pushed its way out of my chest. "I mean, I need to feel like I don't have to do all the thinking. That I can put myself in someone else's hands for a while."

She paused. "Then you're not going to get off in the bathroom of a bar anytime soon. Because what you're talking about requires either trusting someone or genuinely not giving a shit. I don't think you're going to get the first one after thirty minutes, and you can't do the second one. It's one of the things I like the most about you, that you care so much."

I groaned in frustration. "That's what I was afraid of." I'd never thought of my conscience as a burden, but now it felt like a backpack full of boulders.

"But if you met someone you liked, and you felt like you could trust them, I don't see a reason why you couldn't try friends with benefits. You have pretty good taste in people. I mean, I am your best friend."

The possibility of dropping the weight on my back made me sit up. "I'll keep that in mind." A stab of worry. "But Nicole, what if the sex is terrible?" I had been awkward with Max as we'd learned each other's bodies, but he'd laughed and kissed my embarrassment away. Would someone else be as patient?

Nicole snorted. "Jesus, you definitely need to get laid if you're in this many knots." She continued slowly: "I promise you have not forgotten how to have sex. And even if you had bad sex, you wouldn't have to see this hypothetical person again. Right?" A beat. "Unless he has hypothetical red hair and green eyes and hypothetical sexy forearms from all his hypothetical knife work?"

My entire body cringed. "Oh, is that the time?"

"No, don't hang up," she said. "Talk to me."

"How did you know?" I whispered.

"Well, you're both hot, you're both single, and you've been working together in a tiny kitchen for months; therefore, you want to bang each other. QED."

If only it were as simple as a mathematical proof. "I shouldn't sleep with him, though."

She sighed. "How many times have I told you in our friendship what you should or shouldn't do?"

I rubbed my face. "Zero."

"This is your life. It's up to you to decide if this is a good idea or not. I mean, what do you want ?"

I closed my eyes hard, but my mind was blank.

"Yeah." Her sigh sounded a little disappointed. "Maybe don't fuck Kieran unless you know," she said. "I have to go. I love you."

"I love you too, and thanks."

"Don't thank me yet," she said dryly. "Thank me once I don't have to listen to you bitching about the sex desert anymore."

After we hung up, I pressed my fingers into my temples, trying to find some way to release my body's need for touch. I'd been so used to compressing my desires into a manageable ball, easily satisfied with a piece of chocolate, a yoga session, a quick orgasm. But now I felt the tension in my jaw, my locked-up muscles.

I knew it was dangerous to want big, intense things like passion, like connection. What would happen if I asked and didn't get them?

Even worse, what would happen if I did? If I gorged myself on pleasure and closeness like a starving woman at a rich banquet and then they were snatched away? I'd be worse off than I was before. Heartsick and craving.

I exhaled. Responsibility was bland and heavy, but it was filling. Like oatmeal. Speaking of responsibility, my break was over. I got back to work, and if my pan banged on the stove a little harder than usual and my knife bit into an onion with more force, well, it wasn't because I resented eating oatmeal three times a day.

Kieran

"What the fuck are we doing?" Jay panted.

As always, she had a point. It'd been a month since my parents' party, and I saw Ellie naked and smiling every time I closed my eyes. But she hadn't just shut the door that had opened when she'd kissed me. She'd boarded it up and painted DO NOT DISTURB across it.

All I could do was try to outrun wanting her, with wet sand and cold July fog for extra punishment. I ran down Ocean Beach to where the water had packed down the sand and picked up my pace, inhaling salt air in big gulps.

"Jesus, what's the matter with you, slow down!" Jay yelped behind me after a minute.

"Sorry!" I called back so she could hear me over the waves. I dropped to a slow jog, then stopped.

She dragged up beside me. "I hate you so much right now," she gasped.

I said, straight-faced, "I'm your best friend. It's actually illegal for you to hate me."

Her breathless laugh came out bitter. I finally saw the bags under her eyes that looked like she'd gone five rounds with a heavyweight who had a grudge. "You OK?" I asked.

"No. No, I am not OK."

It hit me all at once that I was both freezing and guilty. "I shouldn't have dragged you out. We can forget this and get coffee at Lee's."

"Not just coffee. I want eggs and double bacon and hash browns and a mug of hot chocolate the size of my head." She sighed. "It's not the run." She plunked down on a patch of dry sand, and I joined her. The cold made me think of that night with Ellie, but I had to stop with my bullshit. Jay needed me.

"I'm all messed up," she told her legs.

"What happened?"

"Nicole did."

Her sadness sunk into my skin like the fog. "I thought you were having a good time?" I asked gently.

She grabbed a small piece of driftwood and drew little crosses in the sand. "I want more than a good time. But she's not into that. She won't go out with me. She won't even stay over after we…" She hesitated. "I can't even call it making love. After we fuck."

"Wait a second," I said carefully. "Is she not into that stuff ever, or not into it with you?"

"She says it's the first one," she said, her voice dull. "She even gave me the numbers for two of her old fuckbuddies so they could confirm. And my head knows she's right. But my heart," she pressed her hand hard to her chest, "I'm so lonely. I just want to belong to someone, you know?"

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. "I know." Her mom and stepdad had stopped speaking to her when she came out after college. Her dad had embraced her, but he was retired in Costa Rica with his partner and she saw him once a year, if she could save up the money for a plane ticket. She lived in the Outer Richmond with roommates who were decent people, but not friends. The person she was closest to was me.

"No, you don't," she said. "And that's how you like it. I should have consulted you before I started anything with her, Lord O'Neill of No Strings."

I couldn't hold back a snort.

"What was that for?" She pulled back. "Wait, there was Anjali for a while, but you haven't said her name in months. Greta moved to LA. Taylor met her girlfriend."

"Fiancée now." Was she going to recite the names of all my friends with benefits?

"And you haven't talked about Keisha or Lindsay, either." She dropped the driftwood. "Oh my God, did you sleep with Ellie ?"

My face burned bright red for no reason. Ellie and I hadn't actually done anything. Wanting a woman so desperately you had to lock yourself in the bathroom at work every damn day wasn't a crime. "No," I forced out.

She stared me down. "Did you think about it?"

"Yes," I told the waves.

At least she was smiling now. "Did you ask her and she turned you down?"

I put my head on my knees. "Ding ding ding."

Jay's beam was like sunlight in the fog. " Kieran has a crush on a girl. "

"I do not have a crush. I just want to hang out with her all the time, and also make her come."

"You have a crush and you are adorable ."

"I fucking hate that word."

"So much denial crammed into one cute little carrot-topped package." She rubbed my head, I slapped her hand away, and we flailed at each other until she yelped, "Truce?"

I brushed most of the sand off, but I was sure I'd find it in my underwear later. "Why am I friends with you, again?"

"Because you need someone to be the voice of reason. Though it sounds like she's doing a good job with that."

I rubbed my tattoo. "It would be so much easier not to want her." Both because we worked together, and because she wouldn't want just a few laughs and orgasms. She'd had commitment with Max. She'd had true love. I didn't know how to do either of those. No one had ever told me they loved me, and I hadn't ever said it to anyone.

"Our hearts don't know what's easy," Jay said. She looked out at the water, brow furrowed. "When I met Ellie, she made me think of a swan."

"She doesn't have a long neck."

"Shut up. I mean, she's all neat and tidy on the surface, but you can tell there's a lot of hard work going on underneath. Do you know how you could make her life easier? Because from what Nicole has said, it sounds like she needs someone to lean on."

"That's definitely not me. I'm like this." I grabbed a handful of sand. "I slip through people's fingers and wash out."

"That is poetry, and also total bullshit," she said firmly.

"What?"

"You've been doing your best to be a good friend to me since the first day we met. The same way I try to look out for you as best I can. I know your asshole parents demanded perfection, but the rest of us give points for trying."

Ellie gave me points for trying. She always had.

Jay stood up from the sand with a big grunt. "Nicole told me Ellie's all her in-laws have. She does everything for them. Maybe she needs someone to do for her." She offered her hand, and I let her pull me up. "Come on, you're buying me breakfast."

Ellie

Nine P.M. was early for Diane to knock, but the shadow behind the curtain was taller than my mother-in-law's.

"Let me in, Shrimp," a deep voice said.

I ran to the door and opened it. "Oh my God. Hi, Hank!"

My little brother bent over to put his cheek on my head, and my fingers found the knobs of his spine. I almost didn't notice the furball sneaking past my ankles. "No, Floyd!"

"Why can't he go out again?" my brother asked while I grabbed the cat and closed the door.

"He's sick with cat HIV, remember?" I cuddled Floyd and he headbutted my chin. "He may look big and strong, but if he gets into a fight he might die. He needs more love than most cats."

Hank looked up from his phone. "Oh, yeah," he said vaguely. "I knew that."

I put Floyd down and he fled to the comfort of my bed. "Why didn't you call from the airport?" I said. "I would have picked you up."

Hank slung his duffel bag onto my kitchen table. "I didn't fly. I drove."

I picked up the bag and put it against the wall. "From Pasadena? That's a long day."

He shrugged, shucking his hooded sweatshirt onto a chair. I grabbed it and hung it up on the hooks by the door.

"It wasn't a big deal," he said. "Just got up this morning and hightailed it. You know airplanes suck for me, anyway."

I smiled. "Of course." All of his height was in his legs.

He sprawled on my sofa, and I grabbed a kitchen chair.

"It feels so good to lie flat after sitting for so long," he said with a sigh of relief.

"I'll bet."

He grinned at me. "You're looking really good. Kind of glowy."

At least all the quality time with my vibrator was good for something. "Thanks. What brings you here, Stretch?"

His grin got a little too big. "Can't I hang out with you whenever? I missed you."

"I missed you, too." I hadn't seen him since I went down to Pasadena for Christmas, where Mom had made herself the center of attention by bickering constantly with Don, the boyfriend before Rocky. Hank and I hadn't gotten much one-on-one time.

"And August twenty-sixth is pretty soon, right? This can be an early birthday present. I'll take you out for dinner or something."

I had the same sinking sensation I'd had every time little Hank had come to me with papers from school behind his back. Something he'd forgotten to show me, that he needed a lot of help with in not much time. "Almost two months from now isn't that soon," I said now. "Come on, what's wrong?"

He didn't answer. Sometimes he didn't make eye contact because he was untangling some coding problem in his head. But I had a bad feeling he was doing it for a different reason. "Does Malia know you're here?" I tried.

His shoulders slumped. "Malia doesn't care where I am."

"She broke up with you?"

Hank curled into himself a little. "Kicked me out yesterday when she got home from work. She said she felt more like my housekeeper than my girlfriend. But anytime I tried to help out, she just stepped in after thirty seconds and told me I was doing everything wrong. And she'd been mad a lot recently." He swallowed hard and rubbed his eyes. "I guess she was tired of having me around."

My heart twisted. "I'm so sorry. Where'd you sleep last night?"

"Josh's couch."

No wonder he looked wrinkled and defeated. But something else nagged at me. "What about your research?"

"My professor said I could work remotely for a while. I just needed to get away."

But how long was a while? It was one thing to have Kieran here cooking, but my brother took up a lot of room. "Hank," I started.

"That's OK, right?" he said in a little voice. "I can stay with you?"

"Of course," I said quickly, even as a small part of my brain protested at the invasion of my space. "You always have a home with me."

He perked up and looked around. "It's nice here. You always know how to make things cozy."

"Thanks. I only have one bed, though."

He patted the loveseat. "I'll sleep on this."

I snorted. "Absolutely, I'll just get my handy leg-removal machine out of the closet. I'll sleep on it while you're here."

He smiled warmly. "Thanks, sis. You're good to me."

I reached out and squeezed his hand. "Of course I am. I only have one sibling, I've got to do what it takes to keep you."

"So, got anything to eat?"

My brow furrowed. "Wait, didn't you have dinner?"

He absentmindedly rubbed his nonexistent belly. "Yeah, but you know me. I ate a Double-Double with fries four hours ago and it's like it never happened."

"Hollow leg, hollow arm, hollow pretty much everything." I sighed. "Let me see what I can rustle up."

"Spaghetti?" he asked. "You used to do that tomato-butter-onion thing that was so good."

So good, and so slow to cook. At the rate things were going, who knew when I'd get to sleep.

His hands clasped together as he begged, "Pretty please, Ellie?"

But this was Hank, whom I'd fed brownies and hugs and encouragement every time Mom checked out on us. "Sure."

"You're the best sister ever, and I love you. Can I have a snack, too?"

Kieran

No one answered when I knocked on Ellie's door, which was weird for ten o'clock on a workday. Our first draft was due at the beginning of next month. She'd circled the date on her calendar with red Sharpie and set multiple alerts on her phone.

I turned the knob and the door popped open. "Ellie?" I called.

She was slouched down so low on the couch that all I could see were a few short blond strands.

I checked for jailbreaking cats as I closed the door behind me. "Hey, are you sick? You said we had a lot to get through today."

"Huh?" a definitely-not-Ellie voice said, and that's when I noticed the long legs and huge feet on the coffee table. The guy swiveled and pulled out a pair of earbuds. What looked like lines of computer code scrolled down the laptop screen in front of him.

"You're not Ellie." But he looked like her starving twin.

Big blue eyes blinked. "I'm Hank. Her brother. Who are you?"

"Kieran. I'm working with Ellie right now."

He smiled. "Oh, you're one of her cookbook people. Nice to meet you."

I hung up my backpack on its hook. "Ellie didn't say you were visiting."

He shrugged. "I got here on Saturday." He turned back to his screen.

Why did it suddenly feel so much smaller in here? It wasn't just that he was a big guy. It was because it was messy . Dirty dishes were scattered over the coffee table around his feet, and the clean dishes by the sink hadn't been put away. How was Ellie handling it?

And where was Floyd?

Her bed was a mess of quilts and sheets, and when I stretched out on the floor to look underneath, I saw a ball of fur pressed against the wall. "You OK, boy?"

Floyd yowled, but didn't move.

Hank said, "That cat doesn't like me. I don't know why. He won't come out even if I offer him treats."

"How long are you staying?" I asked as I pushed myself off the floor.

"Not sure. As long as Ellie'll let me, I guess." He grinned. "My sister's chill."

If I had to pick a word for Ellie, "chill" would not be it. "Where is she?"

"Out buying groceries." He finished something in a mug. "I'm going to go get breakfast somewhere." He dumped it on top of a stack of plates. "Catch you later, Kieran."

"Wait, Hank."

"What's up?"

"Are those your dirty dishes?"

He looked down like they'd appeared by magic. "Oh, yeah. I'll wash them when I get back. See you."

Once he'd left, I grabbed them. Twenty minutes later, when Ellie unlocked the door and knocked it open with her hip, I'd washed everything except the silverware.

"Hi. You didn't have to do those. I was going to take care of it," she said as she juggled two packed bags.

"Let me help you," I said, drying my hands.

"I've got it." Her keys clattered to the floor. "Not."

I took a bag from her and put it on the counter. "You didn't say your brother was coming to stay."

"Thanks. I didn't say because I didn't know until he rocked up. Where'd he go?"

I pulled out bags of potatoes and onions. "To get breakfast."

She opened the fridge and started playing Tetris to make room for two cartons of eggs. "Oh, thank God. I feel like I'm in an arms race, trying to keep ingredients around before he devours them."

I was drying the last fork when I heard her groan. Her elbows were dug into the counter, her head in her hands in front of the empty bags. "I forgot butter. I can't believe I forgot butter."

"I thought it was called I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."

She slumped down more.

"I agree, that was a bad joke."

"I am an idiot. So stupid."

"Hey! Don't talk like that." I'd thought in the beginning that she was cold, but now I knew that the only person she was really cold to was herself. Before I could think about it, I put my hand between her shoulder blades.

She tensed, and I jerked back. "Sorry."

"No, please," she said. "I'm just not used to being touched."

I rubbed soft circles over the cotton, and her head dropped forward, her shoulders relaxing just a little.

But then she sighed, and the sweet noise woke up my body when I needed it to stay asleep. I stepped back fast and said, "Better?"

She turned around, looking a little less haggard. "Yeah. It's been a while since someone rubbed my back."

It took everything I had not to offer to do it anytime. "What's going on?"

She pulled her fingers through her hair. "I didn't sleep super well."

"Did Hank make a lot of noise on the couch? I don't know how he fits on it."

"He doesn't. He's sleeping in my bed. I'm sleeping on the couch."

"But you don't fit on the couch, either."

She shrugged. "I put my feet on a chair for extra room."

Everything in me revolted at the thought of her treating herself so badly. "Ellie, that's awful."

She tried to smile. "I slept on Tad's terrible futon. I can cope. Time to work."

"So what's Hank's deal?" I asked as she started to peel potatoes for the spicy salad we'd sketched together late last week to go with the Korean-inspired grilled short ribs for "Treat."

"He's a good kid who's been both broken up with and kicked out of his apartment in the past week," she said.

I trimmed the bottom of a bunch of scallions. "Ouch. But he's, what, twenty-four? He isn't really a kid anymore." Not that I was any kind of maturity expert.

She cleared potato peels into her compost bin. "Not everyone's like us."

"Like us?" I wouldn't have compared myself to her in a million years.

"We're driven. Ambitious. But Hank kind of floats through life, and sometimes he gets pushed around by it."

A growl climbed up my throat, but I shoved it down. What did I know about other people's families? And I needed to show her I could be helpful. "I'll go buy the butter."

"You don't have to," she said, surprised.

"No, Ellie, I want to."

A few seconds went by, and the expression on her face changed into relief. "OK." She grabbed her keys and handed them to me. "But damage my car and I'll damage you."

There was my ferocious woman. "Sure, I won't go faster than ninety on the freeway," I said, and she gave me the perfect amount of blue eye roll back.