A Matter of Heart (22 page)

I pick at the embroidery at
the hem of my skirt. “What about you? Is your place big?”

“I’m taking it yours is
about the same size as J’s?” I nod, and he continues, “Then yes. Mine is
bigger.”

It bothers me, this lack of
knowledge about him. “Is it nice?”

He finally sits down, in the
chair opposite the couch. “I guess.” And then, like he’s in a confessional,
“Callie did all the decorating. I really didn’t care what it looked like,
because it’s really just a place to sleep. And it made her happy, so I let
her.”

Huh. “Did she pick out the
place?”

He stares at his hands in
his lap. “Yeah, I let her do that, too.”

Inappropriately disturbed
that Callie’s given so much freedom with Kellan’s life when I have to fight for
every scrap I can get, I snipe, “How do all your dates like the fact that there
is some girl who pretty much controls how your apartment looks and how you
dress?”

Slapping my hand over my
mouth does not make the words disappear. They’re out there for him to hear, and
I want to die in shame. Because I’m learning to like Callie. And I don’t want
to go down this road with him, where I’m a bitch about things I have no right
to be bitchy about.

His head tilts to the side
and he studies me for what feels like a century but in reality is three seconds
before chuckling. “I don’t tell them about Cal, so they have no opinion on the
matter.”

I cannot look at him
straight on. I mean, he can feel everything in me for the most part, but it’s
worse when I know he can see the emotions on my face, too. I feel fully
exposed, helpless to do anything. I focus on the embroidery like it’s the most
important thing in the worlds. And then I find myself asking another question I
probably shouldn’t. “Did he make you come here?”

There’s that quiet laugh
again. “He asked, but he didn’t make me. You should know me better than that.”

Why does that make me so
happy to hear? But I clearly have little control over my mouth, because I
continue on, “You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be. I mean, if
it’s babysitting. I’m sure you have better things to do than babysit me. If,
uh, that’s what it is.” His forehead crinkles so I add, “Uh. Babysitting, I
mean.”

His fingers drum against the
arm of the chair. “I’m not here to babysit you, C.”

It
makes no sense, but all of the weight saturating the room dissipates. “I’m
glad,” I tell him, and smiles overtake both our faces.

We sit and talk.

And talk.

And talk.

At least half an hour of
pure words and questions dart between us. Things we haven’t been able to ask
each other in eight months are now said freely.

It’s exhilarating.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I
say.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought about leaving,
you know. Once.”

“What?” I ask. “When was
this?”

“When Jonah left, when he
got to the lobby downstairs.”

“Why?”

“He was freaking out,
leaving me here. With you. Alone.”

“
No
,” I gasp.

“Yeah.”

“No!”

Kellan tries not to laugh.
“Yes?”

“He said he was okay with
this.”

“He is, for the most part.”

“What part isn’t?”

“I know he’s easy going and
all,” Kellan says, shaking his head like he can’t believe I don’t get it, “but
even Jonah has his limits.”

“Let me guess. He thinks
we’re having sex.”

Kellan chokes on the water
he’s sipping. “Urgh?”

“He’s predictable, you
know.”

He sets his glass down.
“Well, in his mind, I mean, it’s a valid question.”

“What, because of last year?
In the hotel?”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t it be for
you?”

I ignore that. “So, how’d
Callie feel about you coming here?”

Blank look. “Callie?”

I nod.

“Ambivalent, I guess?”

“She likes me,” I tell him.

“I know. She bought you
crap. That’s like her stamp of approval.”

I finger the edge of my
dress again. “But even Callie has her limits.”

One of his eyebrows quirks
up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do you think, even though
she likes me, she hates me too?”

He gives me a blank look.

“You know, I’ve got my
grubby mitts on her two favorite boys.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know.
No?”

I wag my finger at him. He’s
an Emotional. He knows better. “
Yes
.”

“Okay then. Yes?”

I
laugh.

“I’m told you will take me
to lunch.”

I am inordinately pleased
that he’s visibly more relaxed. And amused. “We can do that, if you like.”

“I don’t cook,” I admit,
like this will somehow shock him, despite our history. “I try, but I fail
miserably every time. Just last month, I wanted to cook some pasta, thinking
I’d be all Betty Crocker for your brother, and I put a pot of water on, right?
And then I went and took a shower and got dressed and when I came back into the
kitchen, there was no more water. I ruined water, Kellan. It was all gone.”

He tries not to laugh, but
it’s obvious he’s struggling. “How long was that shower anyway?”

I try to arch an eyebrow up,
but I probably look like I’m having a muscle spasm. “The point being,
everything I have here is prepackaged food, which isn’t good for me, or so I’m
told. I have to smuggle in tasty food.”

He’s clearly perplexed. “Why
smuggle?”

“My mother hates junk food.”

He glances around the
apartment. “Your mother doesn’t live here.”

I will myself to ignore the
twinge that comes with this. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”

He catches my sadness,
though, and diverts me quickly. “So, tell me what kind of food is
smuggle-worthy.”

I tick off the items on my
fingers: “Candy, sugary cereals, white bread . . . hot dogs! I love hot dogs.
There’s a little stand, run by Gnomes down by the campus. Do you know it?” He
nods, so I confess, “I hit that up probably three times a week.”

“And you smuggle these hot
dogs home?”

I roll my eyes. He’s clearly
egging me on with the overuse of
smuggle
. “No. I stuff those in my mouth
on the way home. They never actually make it through my door.” He laughs now,
and it’s so beautiful to hear that I get goosebumps. Which I really shouldn’t
be getting. “Jonah doesn’t like hot dogs,” I continue, like he doesn’t know his
twin’s tastes.

“If you were attacked by hot
dogs when you were ten, you wouldn’t like them either.” And then I giggle so
much when he tells me how there was a hot dog eating contest they entered at a
local fair, and Jonah made himself sick from eating too many. He threw up for
hours and has sworn off them ever since.

A big grin stretches across
my face as I lean back into the couch. “I didn’t know that.”

“Why would he tell you this?
I mean, it’s a story about him puking after overeating. That’s not the sort of
impressive thing to share, especially with a girl.”

“You told me!”

“I told you,” he says slyly,
“that
Jonah
was the one throwing up. I haven’t shared any of my own
embarrassments.”

I try my best puppy dog
face, the one that cracks Jonah in less than five seconds flat. “Tell me one.”

But he’s no dummy. “Nope. I
like my pride, thank you very much.”

Fine. “I have to hide the
hot dogs from Cora, too. Because she gives me crap for eating them.”

Kellan sighs, all amusement
gone. “I wish she’d take that stick out of her ass already.”

Whoa. “What’s this?” I ask,
sitting up.

“What’s what?”

“You sound, I dunno,
anti-Cora.”

He’s thoughtful for a
moment. “Do I?”

“Yes?”

“Well,” he says, looking
down at the cuff on his wrist, “you can’t really blame me, can you?”

Caleb cautions me to tread
carefully. “Why no love for Cora?”

He’s staring at me like I’ve
somehow missed the boat. “Honestly?”

“Obviously.”

And it comes at me so
quietly that I’m not even sure the words are real. “If you recall, she’s the
reason we broke up.”

“Oh.” Pause.
“Oh.”
Caleb no longer has to flash his warning signals. I already know that I need to
back off, and do it fast, even if the real reason we broke up had to do more
with my feelings toward Jonah and less with Cora’s big mouth.

But Kellan is already
backing off himself. He picks up a picture off of the coffee table, one of
Jonah and me at the beach on a day in which Jonah’s efforts to teach me to surf
once again failed miserably.

Kellan taps at the image of
the surfboard I’m holding. “Still having trouble?” I nod, and he continues,
“You should’ve let me try teaching you when you had the chance. Jonah’s great
at a lot of things, but he’s not exactly the best instructor. Joey always said
he was too much of an introvert for it. Poor Cal finally gave up on his attempts
to help after a really miserable month that barely had her standing up in baby
waves.” He grins, like we’d never talked about Cora and her machinations at
all. “I got her comfortable in five footers in less than a week.”

“Do you and Callie go surfing
a lot?”

“Sometimes.” He thinks about
it. “We went to Hawaii a few months back.”

“Hawaii?”

“Yes, C.” He’s amused.
“Hawaii
is
famous for surfing.”

“The bar was decorated like
Maui,” I tell him. “You know, when Callie and I were drinking toxic Mai Tai’s.
It was nice.”

“The toxic part or the Maui
part?”

I give him a look. “Maui.
Duh.”

“Speaking of . . . have you
guys island hopped over there yet?”

“Kellan. Callie and I hung
out for the first time ever last night.”

He puts the picture back on
the table. “You know I meant you and J. Or do you two stick to Kauai?”

I stare at him for a long
moment. And then—“Huh?”

It’s his turn to look
confused. “You guys have gone to Hawaii, haven’t you?”

I’m suddenly so lost in this
conversation. “No?”

His forehead creases. “Why
not? Don’t you like the islands?”

“I’m sure I would adore the
islands if I could go there. Or anywhere, really. Remember? I fantasize about
traveling.”

“Are you telling me,” he
asks slowly, “that Jonah hasn’t taken you to our house in Hawaii yet?”

It takes a moment for his
words to make sense to me. By then, imaginary hands have wrapped around my
throat. “You . . . he . . .
house in Hawaii?!”

It’s his turn to lean
forward. “Okay. This is definitely not something for you to get worked up—”

I slice my hand through the
air. “Since
when
? How long have you two . . .?” My mind just can’t wrap
around this. Because, wouldn’t I have heard about this by now? Me? Jonah’s
FRICKING FIANCÉE? My words are auditory bullets. “Owned! A house! IN HAWAII!”

He’s the one to tread
carefully now. “Um, three years now?”

Why wouldn’t Jonah tell me
about such a thing? Is it a secret? “How do you have a house?” I demand,
irrationally irritated at Kellan, too. Because, obviously, he could’ve
mentioned this at some point as well.

“Joey left it to us. Was
his, now ours.” He says this almost exactly like the time he told me he’d—no,
they’d
—inherited
surfboards from their honorary uncle. How easy would it have been to further
the sentence: “We inherited a bunch of surfboards from Uncle Joey, plus a house
in Hawaii.” So easy, right?

WHY DIDN’T I KNOW THIS?

More importantly
,
Caleb muses,
why are you so upset about it
?

Irrelevant, I throw back at
my Conscience. But no—
way
relevant. This is stuff people share with one
another. What more has Jonah not told me? I force myself to sound calm, even
though there’s a loud rush in my ears. “Has Jonah been there?”

As the cuff is back in
rotation, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Kellan is pretty
uncomfortable with all of this. “Of course, C. We spent a lot of time there as
kids. And, you know—Maine isn’t great for surfing, so we tended to go there to
get our fix. It’s basically our home break.”

I pinch the bridge of my
nose. “Has he—you guys? Gone there recently?”

There is a defined moment of
guilty silence before he admits, “Maybe two months ago. Just for a couple
hours, though. Just to surf.”