I wrapped my legs around his waist and he was kissing me as he walked. Jesse stopped for just a moment, both his arms around me tight, and we kissed as the rain poured down on us. It was like I could practically feel his heart beating against mine through his T-shirt. Then Jesse swung my legs over his arm—when had he gotten so strong? He was carrying me like I weighed nothing—and started to half run, half walk across the grass to the guesthouse.
It was a miniature version of the Fosters’ house—a peaked wooden roof and glass panes that ran the length of the house, a balcony on the second story. I thought Jesse was going to go in the main door, but he continued to carry me over to the staircase that led up the side of the house to the second floor. He set me down on the bottom step, but he did it slowly, not dropping me, his hands sliding up my legs to my waist. “After you,” he said, and I could hear that his teeth were chattering. Now that we were no longer kissing, I was starting to feel just how cold it was, that my feet especially were getting numb. I hurried up the stairs, Jesse behind me, and then he led the way across the balcony and opened the unlocked second-story door.
Jesse didn’t turn on any of the lights, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted. It was an open loft space—maybe the kitchen and living room were downstairs—just a king-size bed in the center of the room with nightstands flanking it and a bathroom off to the side, the door slightly ajar. Before I could even get my head around the implications of this—because a bed, like an actual bed, seemed somehow really different from a couch—Jesse had shut the door behind us and was in front of me again. He kissed me—this was never, I decided, not going to feel miraculous—but I could feel how cold his lips were and that his teeth were full-on chattering now.
“Maybe,” he said, pulling his T-shirt away from his skin—it was practically transparent with the rain—“we should get out of these wet clothes?” He raised an eyebrow at me as he said it, and even though I laughed, I couldn’t help thinking that it might not be the worst idea, just from a practical standpoint, all too aware of how my clothes were soaked, heavy and dripping on the beige carpeting.
Jesse looked down at me and, not breaking eye contact, reached back and pulled his T-shirt over his head. I just blinked at him for a second—it was all I could do not to reach out and touch his bare chest, trace my fingers down the ridges of his abs. There was a question in his expression, not quite a challenge, but almost. I stood there, my hair dripping, shivering in Jesse’s sweater, aware all at once of the implications of what was happening here. I was in a room that was mostly bed with the boy I’d loved practically all my life—a college sophomore, who had experience, who would never have taken weeks to try to hold somebody’s hand. He’d kissed me. He’d carried me through the rain. I knew I could leave now—everything that had already happened was so far beyond what I’d ever dreamed might happen tonight—and go home happy, with enough to think about and hold on to for months.
Or I could stay.
I stood there, wishing I didn’t have to decide this right now, that I could take a time-out to think about it and get back to him sometime next week. Suddenly, I thought about the guy I’d been talking to earlier and his parallel universe theory. Maybe there had been another version of tonight, where Jesse had waved good-bye to me from the couch and I’d put my coat on and had just gone home, thinking about him like always, not even daring to imagine the situation I was in could even be possible. What would that Charlie have said to me right now, somehow in the throes of indecision because the thing I’d always dreamed would happen to me was actually happening to me?
I took a breath, telling myself that I could change my mind at any time, that this didn’t mean anything, while knowing full well that I wasn’t going to, and that it did. I pulled Jesse’s sweater over my head, and he looked at me, his eyes searching mine, and I nodded.
Jesse found the guesthouse thermostat and cranked it up and we dove under the covers together, him helping me out of my jeans and then kicking his own off, both of us cracking up at how frozen all our extremities were. I’d touch my foot to his calf and he’d yelp, and then he’d place his hand just over my collarbone and I’d shriek. But soon, as we started kissing again, our legs and feet tangling together, my hands exploring his neck, his chest, his leg, suddenly we weren’t so cold any longer. And it didn’t seem that funny anymore.
While this was happening, while everything was just his lips and his hands and the spot I’d found on his left side that made him straight-up giggle like the Pillsbury Doughboy, a thought flashed into my mind before I could stop it—Mike wouldn’t like this.
But a second later, I pushed this away. I didn’t at all care what Mike thought. As far as I was concerned, he had given up having his opinions matter. He’d made it clear that he didn’t want to be part of our family, when he hadn’t come home in a year. And even though Jesse was Mike’s best friend, and on some level I knew this was crossing a line, it wasn’t like my other siblings hadn’t done it.
Mike and I had grown up seeing Danny and Linnie and J.J. basically star in their own soap opera called Hey, Is Your Friend Dating Anyone? in which they all dated each other’s friends, with disastrous results. So I’d kept my Jesse crush secret from Mike and had never told any of my other siblings either, not even Linnie, because I knew that at some point it would become too valuable to keep. The five of us traded secrets like baseball cards—it was the highest form of currency we had. And I knew that this—me, nearly naked with Mike’s best friend—would have been a big one.
“You okay?” Jesse asked, breaking away and looking down at me.
“Yes,” I said quickly, trying to focus on him—the last thing I wanted to think about right now was my brother. “I’m good.”
And he smiled and kissed me again and then, not very much later, he was stroking my hair back from my forehead as he looked into my eyes and asked, “Ready?” and I nodded as he reached down to the floor where he’d tossed his jeans and found his wallet in the back pocket.
There was a pause, and then Jesse muttered, “Shit.” I looked over, not sure what was happening, but not sure if I should ask, or if it would just highlight the depth of my inexperience.
“Are you, um . . . ?” A second too late, I realized I had no idea how to finish this sentence and just let my voice trail off.
“So here’s the thing,” Jesse said, swinging his legs back under the covers and looking at me, propping himself up on one elbow. “I thought I had one in my wallet—I was almost sure that I did. But . . .”
“Not there?” I asked, and Jesse shook his head. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed—I seemed to be feeling both equally and at the same time. Outside the guesthouse, I heard thunder rumble somewhere off in the distance and then the sound of the rain picking up again.
“I could get dressed, go out and buy some,” Jesse said. “And—oh shit, my car would need a jump first. My battery died last night. We could take your car. . . .” But even as he was saying this, the conviction was ebbing from his voice, and it seemed like he was feeling the same thing I was—that the moment was passing right now, slipping away from us.
“Or maybe,” I said, “another time would be better? Like tomorrow or something?” I was warming to this idea even as I was saying it. Tomorrow would give me enough time to talk to Siobhan, get her take on this, let me think about it in the light of day, away from Jesse and the way my brain seemed to turn to mush around him.
Jesse groaned and shook his head. “We’re leaving to go skiing tomorrow,” he said. “And then I’m heading straight back to school from there.”
“Rutgers, right?” I asked, hoping this sounded casual and not like I’d committed this fact to memory since the day Mike had told me where Jesse was going, not like I occasionally visited the school’s website, looking at the “candid” pictures of the students wearing a suspicious amount of branded school gear, laughing together in the library or the quad, searching for Jesse in the happy multicultural groups, imagining h
im walking past that building, those stacks of books.
“Yeah,” he said, giving me a quick smile, like I’d surprised him. “Good memory.” He dropped onto his back and then pulled me closer to him, so that I was lying next to him with my head on his chest. My left arm was getting totally squished against him, but I didn’t know where I could put it if I moved it, and besides, it wasn’t like I needed it for all that much anyway. “What about you?” he asked after a moment. “Do you know where you’re going yet?”
I shook my head slightly, not wanting to move it too much from where it was resting. I hadn’t applied anywhere early decision, so some of my applications weren’t even in yet. “Not yet.”
He laughed—and I felt it more than heard it, like a rumble in his chest. “Well, where do you want to go?”
I looked up at him as the names of the schools I was thinking about flashed through my head. But the true answer to Jesse’s question was that I wanted to stay right here, right where we were. And that if I had my choice, I wouldn’t be going anywhere. “I’m still figuring it out,” I said, moving closer to him still.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Jesse said, running his hand over the top of my head and playing with my hair.
I closed my eyes for a second, just trying to commit it all to memory, since I had a feeling, when I was back in my room, in my house, this would all seem like a faraway dream—that I’d been lying naked in bed with Jesse Foster, his arm around my shoulders, my head on his bare chest, hearing his heartbeat. I didn’t want to think about when I might or might not see him again, or what would be happening next year, where I would be. I just wanted this moment, right now, to last forever.
I opened my eyes and stretched up to kiss him again, and as he kissed me back, he pulled me close and the rain started up again, harder than before.
FRIDAY
* * *
CHAPTER 1
Or, Never Trust Anyone Named After a Fruit
* * *
THE DAY BEFORE MY SISTER’S wedding, I woke up with a start, like an alarm had just gone off. I looked around my room, heart hammering, trying to figure out what had woken me. I was still half in the dream I’d just had—Jesse Foster was there, my brother Danny, and there was something about Schoolhouse Rock!, that old cartoon my sister had shown me when I was in elementary school . . .
But the harder I tried to hold on to it, the faster the dream seemed to slip away, and I shrugged and lay back down in bed, yawning and pulling my covers over my shoulders, closing my eyes and halfway to falling asleep again before I realized that an alarm was going off.
There was a persistent beeping coming from downstairs, and it sounded like the alarm that monitored the front and kitchen doors of the house, the one we only ever turned on when we were going on vacation and sometimes not even then. It was loud up on the third floor, so I had a feeling it was probably deafening down on the first.
I reached for my glasses from my bedside table and then stretched over to get my phone from the floor, where I’d plugged it in to charge last night. I pulled up my group texts, all of which were for different combinations of my family members. There was even one that had all of us and my brother Mike, though I could see that hadn’t been used in a year and a half now. I pulled up the one I’d been using the last few days, which was all the people that were currently in the house—my mom, dad, my sister, Linnie, and her fiancé, Rodney.
Me
Why is there an alarm going off?
I waited a moment, then got a series of responses, one right after the other.
Mom
There’s something wrong with the panel, we think—should be off in a minute.
Dad
Why did you text? Why not come down and investigate? What if there had been a burglar?
Linnie
IS there a burglar?
Dad
No
Dad
But there COULD have been
Dad
And if the house were being ransacked, I’m not sure the best course of action would be to text about it.
Rodney
Morning, Charlie!
I was about to text back when the alarm stopped suddenly, and my room seemed extra quiet now.
Mom
It’s off.
Me
I hear. I mean, I don’t hear.
Mom
Coming down? Your dad made coffee and Rodney’s picking up donuts
Linnie
Wait, Charlie why are you even still here? Did Stanwich High change their start time?
Mom
I called her out
Me
Mom called me out
Linnie
Why?
Me
So I can help with wedding stuff
Linnie
If that’s the case, why didn’t you get the donuts?
Rodney
I don’t mind!
Me
I’ll be right down.
I dropped my phone onto my comforter and stretched my arms overhead as I did the time math. My sister was right—on a normal Friday, I would be between classes right now, heading to AP History, but not in any real hurry. Once our college acceptances had started to roll in, all the second-semester seniors—myself included—were a lot less concerned about getting to class on time.
I’d given my mom the hard sell last night, telling her that I could be useful, helping with any last-minute things that might crop up before the rehearsal dinner tonight and assuring her that I didn’t have anything big going on at school today. This wasn’t entirely true—I was the editor of the student newspaper, the Pilgrim, and we had our weekly editorial meeting this afternoon. We were also supposed to discuss the final issue of the year. But I knew that my news editor, Ali Rosen, could handle things for me. Normally, I never would have missed a staff meeting—but all my siblings were going to be here this afternoon, and I didn’t want to waste time that I could be spending with them arguing with Zach Ellison about how long his movie reviews were.
I pushed myself off the bed and made it quickly, smoothing back the covers and fluffing up the pillows, then looked around my room, trying to see if it would be considered neat enough in case relatives or bridesmaids wandered by later.
We’d moved to this house before I was born, so though my two oldest siblings could remember living somewhere else (or so they claimed), this house, for me, had always been home, and this had always been my room. It was the smallest of the bedrooms up on the third floor, where all four of the kids’ rooms were. It was probably just what happens when you’re the youngest, but I’d never minded. There was a slope to the ceiling that perfectly formed a nook for my bed, and it wasn’t drafty like Danny and J.J.’s room always was. And best of all, my room was connected to Linnie’s room via a long shared closet, which had been perfect both for stealing my sister’s clothes and for hanging out with her, the two of us getting ready at the same time or sitting on the floor of the closet, our legs stretched out, talking and laughing, the clothes hanging above us.
Figuring that my room was probably as clean as it was going to be, I headed over to my dresser, bent slightly to see myself in the mirror, and ran a brush though my hair. Like all my siblings, I was tall—five nine, with long light-brown hair and a slightly crooked nose due to a trampoline mishap when I was six. I also had hazel eyes, the only one of my siblings to have them—like for the last kid, the genetic lottery had been split down the middle. I tugged the brush through the ends, wincing—my hair had reached the length where it would get tangled in a second. But I’d also gotten used to having it long, and even as I knew I should cut it, I also knew I probably wouldn’t.
I pulled a sweatshirt on over my pajamas and was halfway to the door when I heard my phone buzz, the sound muffled. I looked around and, after a moment, realized that I’d accidentally made the bed over it. I retrieved it from under the covers and smiled when I saw it was my favorite brother calling.
“Hi, Dann
y.” I pulled the phone away for just a second to check the time. “It’s early out there.”
“Well,” he said, a laugh somewhere in his voice, “some of us have to fly all the way from California.”
“You could have come in last night.” This was what I’d been pressing for for the last few months, since having just a weekend with my siblings didn’t seem like nearly enough. I’d been trying to get everyone to come on Tuesday or Wednesday, so that we’d get some Grant time before relatives and guests descended. But only Linnie and Rodney had come home early—both Danny and J.J. had to work and could only take Friday off.
“Not this again.” I could hear a smile somewhere in my brother’s voice.
“Wait,” I said, my eyes going wide. “Why aren’t you on the plane?”
“I’m calling you from the plane,” he said, and I could suddenly picture him, on the tarmac in San Francisco, kicked back in his first-class seat, a cup of to-go coffee by his side. “You’re allowed to make calls from planes, you know. We haven’t taken off yet and I wanted to check in. How’s it all going?”
“Great,” I said immediately. “It’s been awesome to have Linnie and Rodney here again.”
“I mean is everything going okay with the wedding? No last-minute disasters?”
“It’s all good. Clementine’s taking care of everything.”
“Glad I’m getting my money’s worth.”
“You should be sure to mention that in your speech.”
Danny laughed. “Maybe I just will.”
Clementine Lucas was Linnie and Rodney’s wedding coordinator—Danny had offered to pay for a planner for them, calling it his engagement present, when they’d moved up the wedding date. They had gotten engaged two years ago but seemed in no real hurry to set a date or plan their wedding, and we’d had a running joke that they’d get married sometime in the next decade. The only thing they knew was that they wanted to get married at our house—it had been Linnie’s dream since she was little.