“All is well with Jordyn,” he says. Ben stops short when he sees Kyle. His eyes widen a little, as if he’s shocked to see Kyle, and I notice a shift in his demeanor. He tries to cover it up with a smile. “You said you wouldn’t be home until tonight.”
Kyle drops his keys onto a nearby table and then points at Ben. “We need to talk.”
I can’t place the tone in Kyle’s voice. He doesn’t sound outright angry, but he also doesn’t seem to be pleased with Ben.
Ben shoots me a reassuring smile before following Kyle out of the room. “Be right back,” he says.
I’m left alone with Ian again. I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans, unsure of what to do with myself while I wait for Ben.
Ian bends down and scoops up the little white dog at his feet. He nods his head toward the stairs. “I haven’t showered in three days. That’s where I’ll be if either of them asks.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It was nice meeting you, Ian.”
He smiles. “You too, Fallon.”
And now I’m alone. These last few minutes have been all kinds of strange. Ben’s family is . . . interesting.
I look around the living room, trying to get a clue as to who Ben is. There are pictures on the mantel of him and his brothers. I pick one up to get a closer look. It’s hard to tell now, but in the earlier pictures it’s clear that Ben is the baby and Ian is the oldest. I just have no idea how many years separate the brothers. Maybe two or three?
I don’t see any pictures of their mother anywhere. It makes me wonder how long ago she died and where their father is. Ben hasn’t mentioned anything about him yet.
I hear a loud thud come from the hallway. Worried it might be Jordyn, I walk in that direction. I immediately pause when I see Ben pressed up against the wall with Kyle’s arm against his throat.
“Are you an idiot?” Kyle says through clenched teeth. Ben is looking at Kyle like he wants to kill him, but he isn’t making an effort to fight back. Just as I’m about to rush down the hallway to pull Kyle off of him, Ben catches sight of me out of the corner of his eye. Kyle then turns to see what caught Ben’s attention and as soon as he sees me, he takes a step back, releasing Ben.
I’m so confused by what just happened. Kyle is standing between Ben and me, looking back and forth between us. Just when it looks as if he’s about to turn and walk away, he spins around and decks Ben right in the eye, slamming him into the wall behind him.
“What the hell!” I yell at Kyle. I rush to Ben and he holds up a hand, keeping me at a distance.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Go upstairs. I’ll be up in a minute.” He’s covering his eye with his hand, and Kyle is still standing there, looking like he wants to hit him again. But he immediately backs down when Jordyn comes rushing around the corner to take in the scene. She looks back and forth from Kyle to Ben in shock, like this is completely out of character for both of them.
Which makes this entire scene even more confusing. I don’t have brothers, so as far as I know, brothers punch each other all the time. But going by Jordyn’s reaction, that’s not the case in this household. She’ll probably break down in tears again any second.
“Did you just hit him?” she says to Kyle.
For a split second, Kyle looks ashamed, as if he wants to apologize. But then he blows out a quick breath and turns his attention to Ben. “You deserved that,” he says, backing out of the hallway. “You fucking deserved that.”
Ben
We’re in my bathroom and I’m leaning against the counter as she dabs the wet washcloth against my eye, wiping away the blood.
I can’t believe Kyle hit me in front of her. I’m so pissed and I’m trying to relax, but it’s hard. Especially when she’s pressed against me in the bathroom like this, touching my face with her fingertips.
“Do you want to talk about it?” She reaches down for a Band-Aid and begins tearing it open.
“No.”
She presses the Band-Aid to my face and smooths it out. “Should I be worried?” She tosses the paper in the trash can and puts the washcloth in the sink.
I face the mirror and finger the swelling around my eye. “No, Fallon. You should never be worried when it comes to me. Or Kyle, for that matter.”
I still can’t believe he hit me. In all my life, he’s never hit me. He’s come very close a time or two. Either he’s really stressed about his wedding or I’ve really pissed him off this time.
“Can we get out of here?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I guess. Where do you want to go?”
“Wherever you are.”
Just seeing her smile releases so much of my tension. “I have an idea,” she says.
• • •
“Are you cold?”
It’s the third time I’ve asked her and she keeps saying no, but she’s shivering. I pull her against me and wrap the blanket more securely around us.
She wanted to come to the beach, despite the fact that it’s almost dark and November. We got takeout from Chipotle, of course, and she set up a makeshift picnic with blankets we took from my house. We finished eating about half an hour ago and we’ve just been making small talk, getting to know more about each other. But with the heaviness of what happened back at the house, all of the questions so far have been safe. But neither of us has asked the other a question in at least two minutes, so we may be all out of small talk. Or maybe the silence is a question in itself.
I’m holding her hand under the blanket and we’re both just staring at the waves as they crash against the rocks. After a while, she lays her head on my shoulder.
“I haven’t been to the beach since I was sixteen,” she says.
“Are you scared of the ocean?”
She lifts her head off my shoulder and pulls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “I used to come all the time. Whenever I had a day off, this is where I’d be. But then the fire happened and it took a long time to recover. I was in and out of the hospital and physical therapy. The sun isn’t good for skin when it’s trying to heal, so I just . . . never came back. Even after it was okay to be in direct sunlight again, I no longer had the confidence to show up to a place where everyone revealed the most amount of skin they could get away with.”
Once again, I’m at a loss for what to say to her. I hate knowing the fire took away so much of her confidence, but I think I’m still clueless when it comes to how much it actually took away from her life.
“It feels good to be back,” she whispers.
I squeeze her hand, because I’m sure that’s all she really wants.
We sit in silence again, and my mind keeps going back to what happened with Kyle in the hallway. I don’t know how much she heard, but she’s still here, so it couldn’t have been much. However, to say she saw a different side to Kyle than I would have wanted her to see is an understatement. She probably thinks he’s an asshole, and based on the few minutes she witnessed of him, I wouldn’t blame her.
“When I was in fourth grade, there was this older kid who used to pick on me,” I tell her. “Every day on the bus he would either hit me or say mean things to me. It went on for months, and there were a couple of times I would actually get off the bus with a bloody nose.”