Real Life(39)

“Is that where you’re from?” Wallace asks.

“No, originally, I’m from Billings. But my family moved a lot. I grew up all over, really, but Billings is home. I did my undergrad in Boston though.”

“Harvard?”

Zoe’s cheeks redden. She carves another section of ice. Wallace watches the gray blade of the pick descend into the heart of the ice.

“Oh. Yeah,” she says, offhand.

Wallace nods.

“You?” Zoe asks.

“Auburn,” he says.

“Where is that?” she asks, laughing.

“Alabama,” he says.

“Oh—Crimson Tide.”

“No,” Wallace says. “The other one. Tigers.”

“Ah,” she says, nodding. Her hands are swift as she cracks the ice open into halves, then quarters. She breaks it down into cubes and ovals and crescents. It could be a party trick. Perhaps it is a party trick.

“Can I help with anything?” Wallace asks, turning to Cole and Vincent.

“No, no. Everything is all set,” they all say in various ways at various times, a chorus of voices falling on him like drops of rain. The kitchen is warm and foggy, filled with the gurgle and sizzle of food cooking. “Go have a seat or something.”

“Okay,” he says. “All right. Where’s Miller?” Zoe’s shoulders open just slightly.

“Uh. That’s a good question, actually,” Yngve says, frowning. “He was supposed to be setting up the music, but then he sort of vanished.”

“I’ll check out back,” Wallace says, and he steps over Roman’s long legs to reach the sliding door. Roman is still cuddling the fat brown rabbit, Lila the bunny, a mascot of sorts. He would stop to pet her, but Roman has her in a protective grasp, and Wallace knows that there are limits to his frosty friendliness.

In the backyard there is grass, so it is much cooler than the front, which faces the street and the asphalt of the city. Wallace has always loved this part of the house, where Lukas keeps a tiny garden bounded by red bricks. There is also one of those upright storage units that look like the entrance to a small home. And a large oak tree near the back fence, and a fire pit, where on autumn nights they burn dry wood and drink beer and laugh as their clothes fill with the smell of smoke.

He finds Miller sitting in a chair near the edge of the yard, one of those aluminum folding chairs with tacky plastic for the seat. Overhead, the sky is lavender. Miller’s drinking from a long dark bottle, staring into his phone. Texting, probably. He does not see Wallace as he approaches. Wallace stands at the edge of Miller’s toes, waiting for him to notice, for the weight of his presence to shift something in the air. He holds his breath. Miller is wearing a crisp blue oxford with the sleeves rolled back, and dark blue shorts. He has always been self-conscious about his knees and the skinniness of his legs. But sailing has changed that, made him hardier, fuller, like a drawing taking shape over thin streaked lines. His hair is glossy and light.

“I can see you there,” he says.

“Hello.”

“I didn’t know if you would come,” Miller says shyly. He’s nervous, probably about the girl; at first this makes Wallace want to smile at him, and then it just annoys him.

“Cole asked me to,” he says.

“Is this weird? It’s probably weird.”

“No, I don’t think it’s weird at all.”

“You don’t? I do,” Miller says, shaking his head. “I think it’s terrible. I didn’t ask Yngve to—”

“Oh, who cares, how boring.”

“Hey, come on, don’t be that way, please. I’m trying to be good.”

“You aren’t doing anything wrong. No one is. It’s all good.”

“I really hate this. I didn’t even know there would be a dinner thing until I got home earlier. They sprung it on me.”

“Cole told me,” Wallace says. “After tennis. Or during. He said they decided after we left the table last night.”

“Oh yeah?” Miller slides his leg against the inside of Wallace’s legs, their bare skin skimming, touching. The warmth of it excites Wallace, brings him back to the surface of last night, when they left the table together, or separately, but wound up together. It’s on Miller’s mind, too, the way he’s looking up with dusk filling his eyes, remembering. The tip of Miller’s tongue emerges from the pink of his mouth and presses against the edge of his lips.

“Not like that,” Wallace says, short of breath. “I meant— You know what I meant.”

“I know,” Miller says. He sits forward in the chair, brings his hand to the outside of Wallace’s thigh, just over his knee. His fingers, the roughness of them, are familiar, from this morning, from last night. He jolts, almost falls down. Miller traces a thumb up the front of his knee, and he’s smiling. The wind makes a soft sound in the trees, like a hushed cry. “How are you feeling?” Miller asks. “That girl in your lab, I mean. How are you?”

“Better,” Wallace says. He puts his fingers in Miller’s hair, which is greasy with product, but he persists, passing them back and back through its curls. “I came here thinking I’d be sulky and mad all night.”

“Mad? Why mad? At me?”