When in Rome(78)
“Okay, that’s it. Sit down and explain, because we can all tell that something has happened.” Emily sounds frighteningly close to a mother right now. “You haven’t looked at each other all night, barely spoken, and now whatever that uncomfortable little encounter was is the icing on the cake. Y’all did something.”
“Fess up.” Madison crosses her arms, like a mob boss. She needs a leather jacket.
Annie is the only one who doesn’t look concerned.
Noah and I retake our seats, looking as guilty as kids with orange powder staining their fingers saying they never ate the Cheetos.
“We kissed,” he states plainly.
It’s a sea of pearly white molars as everyone’s mouth—including mine—hangs open. I thought he’d deny it. We’d go on happily as if nothing ever happened for the rest of the week and I’d implement our color-coded lanes and that would be that. But no. He just dropped a conversational grenade and stepped back to watch it explode.
“You kissed?” Emily does not look happy. “That’s worse!”
A line between Noah’s brows deepens. “How is that worse?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not better.”
“Why do you care so much?” Noah’s gaze zeros in on Emily with an intensity that for once reveals their sibling dynamic. Emily is loud and in charge most of the time, but Noah is the oldest and they all look to him for guidance at the end of the day. He carries so much on his shoulders.
“She’s leaving, Noah.” That’s the only explanation Emily offers and I feel her words like little jabs to my lungs. Emily looks at James, clearly hoping for backup. James shakes his head and looks down—not jumping in like she’d hoped. Madison lays her hand on Emily’s forearm, but Emily rips her arm away. The levity from our musical game has disappeared and the atmosphere turns thick.
I watch as Noah’s entire demeanor shifts. His large shoulders tip forward, his eyes are pillows, his smile is calming. He puts his hand on Emily’s knee. “Em, I’m not leaving again. And I promise that if I ever do, you’ll get plenty of warning. Not like I did last time.”
An entire conversation passes between these two in the quiet moments after his words. Emily relents, softening and nodding her head. I’m not sure what that was about, but the heaviness in the air tells me it was important. She looks like a woman slowly sobering. Embarrassment washes over her face.
She bows out of the argument gracefully by slipping from the living room and returning with a cold, rock-hard pancake on a plate. She sits down, balancing the plate on her lap, and shovels a bite onto her fork. I think this is her way of apologizing to me.
“You don’t have to do that. Really, we’re good,” I say meaningfully, because I wouldn’t force these pancakes on my worst enemy.
She raises the fork to her mouth anyway, and we all watch in silence as she takes a bite. She chews. And chews. And chews. And then finally shivers it down and nods before chugging her beer. She then nods firmly at me and I smile in return. That was more than an apology, that was a pledge of her life.
A chuckle runs through the room, and after a while the conversation hums back toward normalcy. The siblings talk through their schedules for the next week—determining which days they will each visit their grandma. We all joke and cuss too much while Annie keeps adding tallies beside all our names so we know how much money to pay out at the end of the night. She didn’t ask me if she could add me to the list, she just did. I caught a glance at her little notebook earlier and there it was. Amelia. Right next to the rest of the group and my heart burst like confetti.
Now Emily stands, collects the empty beer bottles and plates around the room. The group begins to break up, murmuring about how tired they are and blah blah blah. I don’t care how tired they are, they can’t leave us.
“Wait!” I’m frantically grabbing hold of Annie’s shirt to keep her from getting away. “You guys can’t leave yet. It’s early!”
“It’s after ten.” Madison is suddenly the timekeeper apparently.
“Like I said, early. Stay. Let’s all play another game. Monopoly or something.”
James laughs. “The hell we will. Monopoly would take all night. Some of us have to be up with the cows in the morning. Y’all better get out of my house now.”
“Don’t worry,” Annie tells me in her sweet southern drawl. “We’ll have another group dinner before you leave town.” She’s completely misconstruing my reasons for wanting them to stay.
I’m losing. They’re all scattering across the room like marbles now, and just Noah and I are left seated. I make eye contact with him, which is a mistake. His grin twists—the same unease I’m feeling sweeping over his expression. We’re both terrified to go home and be alone together. Both unconvinced the other has enough willpower to stay away.
Chapter 31
Amelia
It’s well after midnight now but I’m still wide awake staring at the ceiling. Noah and I didn’t say a word to each other when we got home. He unlocked the door, flipped on the lights, and I scurried off to my room like a mouse escaping with cheese. Noah made no attempts to stop me, so I feel like it was the right decision.
To keep my mind from racing down the path of What if we just, I hold the image of Gregory Peck in my mind. But after a while, I begin to resent that face and so I use an imaginary marker and draw a little mustache across his lip. Gregory’s face then transforms into Noah’s and he’s smiling because Noah would most definitely find that fake mustache funny. He might only show it in that usual, quiet, inconspicuous way of his, but he would smile for sure. And then he’d roll his eyes and make me pancakes.