“Don’t get excited,” she cautioned me. “Teresa and I just have the top story apartment. Some old couple lives in the downstairs unit.”
“Oh. I see.”
“And, we pay, like, three grand a month.”
“Jeez.”
“No shit.”
“How can you afford that?”
“Actually, I’ve been kind of killing it at work. Both Teresa and I have been making bank.”
‘Riley Banks making bank.”
She snorted at that.
We went in through the front door of the toothpaste house, ascended a carpeted staircase, and turned a corner to find the door to Riley’s unit. She fumbled around with her keys, glancing up at me with an odd smile while doing so. I smiled back, wondering what lay beyond the door, eager to see where she’d been living these past three years.
She pushed the door open, the keys still sticking out of the lock, and said, “After you, Drew dear.”
Laughing, I stepped past the threshold and onto hardwood floors. The room was cluttered with furniture, potted plants, colorful posters, a lamp that resembled a birdcage. At the same time, the second-story windows let natural light stream in, brightening the messy medley. It was all very Bohemian-thrift-store-esque, just like I would expect from Riley. Still grinning like a child, I pivoted ninety degrees to lay eyes on the rest of the front room. As soon as I finished turning, the smile fell from my face.
Standing there, next to a violet couch, maybe five feet in front of me, was River.
River Mahlon. He looked so much older, and yet somehow just the same. His sandy brown hair appeared freshly cut. His earthy eyes still held the same white gleams, like slivers of the moon. I could detect the slightest bit of stubble around his sharp jaw. Those thick, expressive brows of his. His sturdy arms. He was tall, just like always, with a steady presence.
I stood there, shocked into paralysis, staring at him. He stared back at me, one corner of his mouth curving up, the pupils of his eyes unmoving. I heard footsteps behind me and a door closing. Riley. The sounds snapped me back into some form of reality. Was this reality?
“River.”
My shoes clacked on the floor as I walked toward him, and next thing I knew, I was in his arms. He was really here. Right here, against me.
I clung to him, the side of my face pressed into his chest, his arms clasping me at my back, his chin resting against my hairline. It might have just been the Seattle air trickling into the building, but I thought I smelled rain on his clothes. I breathed in and let the scent invade me. Fresh, clean, real.
We pulled back from each other, our hands finding each other’s arms.
“River,” I said it again in disbelief. My eyes were watering, and I blinked rapidly to clear the tears away.
“Hi, Drew.”
His voice brought back a slew of memories. Days together in elementary school. Summers together at my parents’ house. Standing with him on my parents’ porch the night before he left for New York.
“River. You’re here. What are you doing here?”
A breathy laugh issued from his smile. I heard myself echo a similar noise, my eyes locked on him.
“Wait—” I said, feeling the expression on my face change and the spell break. I craned my neck to look back at Riley, who was leaning against a table, arms crossed, a lipstick-stained smirk aimed at me. I turned back to River.
I stammered: “You’re not—you guys aren’t . . . You two are—are you?”
“He’s not my boyfriend, Drew.” Riley spoke loudly, bluntly. “Zach will be here later.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.”
I took a step back from River so that we wouldn’t just be standing there, gripping each other’s arms for all eternity.
“I was passing through the area,” he stated, still smiling at me, his stare intent. “Riley’s been letting me crash here for a bit.”
“How much longer will you be here?”
“I’m not sure. You know me, never really having a plan. But I knew I had to stay a little longer when Riley said you were coming this way.”
There were so many things I wanted to say, to ask, to express, but none of it was finding its way through my vocal tract. I stood there, truly speechless, turning again to shoot a glance at Riley, then back to River.
“Come here, Drew Caldwell.”
River put his arms around me again, pulling me into him so that I barely had to support my own weight, and I felt a kind of comfort I hadn’t experienced in years.
◈ ◈ ◈
“You really thought River and I were together? Like, dating? Really?”
Riley, River, and I had taken up spots in the front room. River and I sat next to each other on the violet couch, and Riley had positioned herself on a red sofa, her legs crossed underneath her.
“I don’t know,” I started to defend myself. “You guys did go to Prom together.”
“As friends,” River said.
“Okay, I will admit . . .” Riley scrunched up her face in a grimace. “River, I kind of, maybe had a tiny crush on you in high school.”
“Riley Banks had a crush on me?”
“Just a little one. It was barely anything.”
“You did?” I asked. I was just as surprised as River.
“It was no big deal, you guys. Honestly, I was pretty stoked about being your prom date, but . . . Well, then I got the hint that we were strictly friends.”
River bit his lower lip for a brief moment and said, “It wasn’t like that. I had fun going with you, Riley.”
“You abandoned me at Summer Trent’s house.”
“That was only because Drew—”
“Had been busy receiving about a million hickeys from Aaron Ingram.”
“Oh, no. Not this again.” Even after three years, my cheeks still became flushed when thinking about that long-ago incident. “Can we please not relive this? I was so embarrassed when you guys barged into the room.”
Riley laughed—a loud, carefree sound that caused me and River to laugh, too. We were all beaming at each other, and we chattered on and on. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so happy, so perfectly content. I kept finding myself practically gawking at River. Just seeing him there, sitting right next to me, felt surreal. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I restrained myself.
Thirty minutes later, a knock issued at the door. Riley hopped up and allowed entrance to a guy who had dark hair and colorful tattoos twisting up his arms. He looked to be Japanese, and around our age.
“River, you’ve already met Zach. Drew, this is Zach. Zach, this is my one and only Mermaid Dragon from high school.”
I got off the couch to shake his hand.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Drew.” Zach had a gentleness about him that caught me off guard. His voice was soft and soothing, the kind that could put a child to sleep.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” I said.
“So . . .” Riley grabbed my arm and started raising up to the balls of her feet and back down. “Is it time? Should we get going?”
River joined the three of us by the front door and nodded at Zach.
“It is Go Time.” Zach consulted his phone. “The concert starts in over an hour, but we’ll want to get there early to get decent spots.”