Page 55 of On His Mind

He shrugs. “Then no is no.”

I nod. “You’re right.” I reach for the banana bread and close the container. “Do you want a ride home?”

He shakes his head.

“I’m going to sleep.”

He stands and grabs his boots. We step into the hallway quietly and walk to the living room. He walks behind me, setting the mug in the sink.

“I’ll wash them,” I whisper.

“Good night,” he says, walking to the door.

I wash the mugs and listen for the elevator. I dry the mugs and place them in the cabinet. Then I walk to the window and peek out of the curtain. I see his shadow walking in the distance through the light snow.

Then I lay in my bed and try to fall asleep.

Chapter 13

Percy

Iwakeupatsix-thirty and something’s wrong with me. I lie there a while trying to work out what it is. My room’s dark and cold the way I keep it. My alarm hasn’t gone off. And my eyes don’t hurt. I got in at two. I know I got in at two, because I looked at the time. And then it was six-thirty. I sit up and put my feet on the cold floor. It must’ve been the tea. It tasted like dirt and hot water, but I drank all of it because she made it.

When I walk downstairs, Rowan’s at the stove. He cooks every Monday morning. Stanley calls him a housewife, but thanks him by buying all the groceries. There’s a frittata the size of a car tire coming out of the oven. I get the plates down.

“Four,” Rowan says.

“Five.”

“Blue’s asleep.”

“He’ll be up soon.”

He grunts. I set out five.

Stanley comes down before he’s conscious, talking already, wearing one sock. “I had a dream I fought a horse.”

Rowan glances at his feet. “Who won?”

“Me. Of course.”

Benson is at the end of the counter, taping a stick. “You lost to a horse.”

Blue comes in silent, hair everywhere, and sits across from me and takes the plate I put out without a word.

I take my chair. The one at the end with my back to the wall, that they gave me hell about for two straight weeks in September — the goalie’s throne, don’t sit in the goalie’s chair, he’ll kill you — and then it was mine, and nobody sits in it now. That’s how everything works in this house. They mock everything but eventually respect it.

I get my book out. The French one from Mary. I’m about four hundred pages in.

The guys argue about whether it was a horse or a pony, and whether Stanley, at six-three, could take a pony. Benson lands one flat line that puts Rowan’s forehead down on the counter. Stanley leaves the room, offended, and comes back thirty seconds later to defend himself about something that happened last year.

I read the same paragraph six times because concentrating while they argue is impossible.

“––and a pony’s just a small horse, so if anything––” Stanley reaches across the table without looking and takes my book out from under my hands.

I glare at him.

He’s already got it open, still talking. “––the point is I’d have leverage. Low center of gravity.” He looks at the page. His whole face changes. “Ill ah vay day lay yooks ––”