Summer Sons(59)

The last time he’d spoken to his roommate, before this, had been about the fact that he’d been getting social with his boyfriend. The phrase still stuck in his head. The whole group knew, or understood, the dynamic between Riley and his—people. Andrew was starting to come around to the idea that the three of them weren’t as much like the mess he and Eddie and Del had made of each other as he originally imagined, but he wasn’t sure how else to understand it.

“I wanna ask about you and Ethan and Luca,” he said.

“Been waiting for that, yep,” Riley said, popping the last letter. “Questions, comments, concerns?”

“All three together, or just—” he trailed off and sketched a descriptive V-shape in the air.

Riley said, “Option two, for the most part. Ethan’s not into women much, excepting special occasions where he’s got a dude to engage with too. Me, for example.”

“Okay. Okay,” Andrew said, not sure where he intended to go with his questions. Special occasions, that was—something to review. He filed it away for the time being.

“So are you coming home, or was that, like, relevant somehow,” Riley said.

Andrew stuffed another piece of bacon in his mouth. His face felt tight. He’d wiped his nose on the inside of his shirt enough to gross himself out, and he desperately needed a shower.

“Coming home,” he said.

“Good,” Riley replied with ease that belied the gravity of the night.

Andrew followed on his heels through the house, offering his casual goodbyes to Sam, who saw them off at the front door. Leaving Sam standing on the porch alone, the immensity of the spectral revelation weighing on his shoulders too, unsettled Andrew, but the urge to flee was stronger than his burgeoning desire to stay.

In the car, Riley asked lightly, “How’d you like Ethan’s law school buddies, anyway?”

Andrew said, “Seemed like a lot of felonies for anyone who wants to be a lawyer.”

“Right? Kids these days.”

Andrew attempted a smile. Woods coasted along outside, lending their green smell to the humid breeze.

“Would’ve paid to see you rolling. Ethan said you were a real treat, all big eyes and flopping around like a sexy rag doll,” Riley noted.

The tips of Andrew’s ears went hot; he ignored the comment. The Mazda purred on the hill road, coasting fast toward the city. Andrew rubbed his eyes with his thumbs to grind the salt crust away. Better to pull the Band-Aid off before the ball of silence in his chest swelled to an expansive, choking burst. It was made easier, somehow, by Riley’s rare lack of prying.

“While I was outside, did he tell you about what happened at the tree?”

Riley’s throat worked in a sudden swallow. His grip on the steering wheel clenched; he said in an almost-whisper, “Yeah, but maybe you should too.”

“He didn’t die there.” The tree branded with Eddie’s initials would survive for more generations than Andrew had a sense of, roots stained with his death, even if only the afterimages of it. “I, uh, I…”

“You sensed it, whatever, that’s fine.” The dismissal rang false, but Andrew was grateful. “I can’t fucking imagine what you’re going through. This doesn’t feel real.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Andrew admitted.

“How’d Sam take it?”

“Told me to stop messing around with spooky bullshit.”

“Sounds like him.”

Andrew worked the stress-tensed muscles of his jaw with his thumbs. Should he apologize for suspecting the cousins, for continuing to harbor a smoldering coal of blame while accepting their help?

Before he solved that conundrum, Riley asked, “Trying to be delicate here, but—are you going to listen to, uh, the ghost, now that you know he’s trying to communicate?”

Communicate, right. Andrew chewed his lip. He said, “No, there’s a difference between … me using the shit I used, and giving a haunt free rein. It isn’t him, don’t mistake that. It doesn’t care about us.”

“But if it knows something about what happened to him, why not listen?” Riley insisted.

“It’s not that simple.” The end came out strangled; he cleared his throat of the blockage. “I’m more interested in the fact that Sam said he was taking Eddie on his errands, introducing him to people, and that he thinks he wasn’t being smart about his mouth. You know about that?”

Riley nodded. Andrew felt as if he’d fallen out of his body, as if his roommate could see straight through him. After a night spent driving, crawling, fighting, and spilling confessions, he was a different version of himself than he had been that morning. It was rare to feel a shift so clearly. He wasn’t sure he welcomed the defamiliarization.

“I mean, off the top of my head, I’m not sure who all he spoke to, but he took lots of notes in field interviews. He used Sam as the easy in for gathering his participants, so those chats and his research were one and the same,” Riley said.

Andrew straightened in his seat and said, “I’ve gone through his notes some, but I hadn’t seen a field journal, nothing that particular.”

“No offense, but how thorough a search was that? Last time I checked, you weren’t super into his whole business,” Riley said with a gentle grin to ease the sting.