Page 278 of Burn Bright

As I go to my girlfriend, I scoot a cardboard box out of the kitchen area with my foot. Charlie side-eyes me but says nothing. My shit is spilling out everywhere.Several boxes, a crammed duffel with all my hockey gear, some potted plants. Not to mention, the queen-sized mattress in the center of the living room. Where Harriet and I slept last night. The bedframe is in an unopened box, which I’ll unpack and put together once Tom and Eliot choose where I’m going.

All my stuff is here.

My stomach cramps knowing I’m cluttering the living room.I still don’t love being in the way. I’m not suddenly relaxedabout my presence possibly causing Beckett anxiety. There hasn’t been a flip of a switch within me just because I know my own issues stem from OCD. So I plan to move all of this to a roomtoday.

Tom and Eliot need to decide. We’re ten days out from Christmas, and we plan to leave for Philly soon to spend the week at the Cobalt Estate.

I pick up my fallen hockey stick on the way to Harriet, watching her adjust silver ornaments and some of the dangling crystal icicles.

“So frosty,” she says of the décor.

“Five sons born from an ice queen,” I smile down at her.

Her lips twitch a little. “You all are on brand, Cobalt boy.”

I rake my fingers through her blonde hair, almost regrettably smoothing it down. The wild strands billow out like she put her finger in a light socket, and it’s just really fucking cute. Her eyesping toward the kitchen where my brothers talk over each other about the roommate situation.

“You want to join that?” she asks.

“Nah, I’ll let them hash it out for a second.” I rest the hockey stick against the wall. Maybe I’ll play next season. Maybe I’ll be in the NHL someday. Or maybe my life will take a different turn. Thankfully, these are choices I don’t have to make anytime soon. I’m just ready to live here.

To be here.

I smile down at Harriet. She’s partially concentrated on my brothers as Beckett makes awhat the fuckface at Eliot, then says, “You think you can be celibate for a whole year?”

She has an expression like she ate a rotten date.

I laugh, but then I think about her spending the night at this apartment. This decision does affect Harriet to a degree. More hushed, I ask her, “Which brother would you rather be my roommate?”

“No way.” She raises her hands, speaking under her breath too. “I’m staying out of this. Eliot has already tried to bribe me, and I don’t need Tom pissed off after I already rejected his band.”

“Eliot tried to bribe you?” I glance toward the kitchen, about to go confront him, but she snatches my waistband, tugging me back beside the Christmas tree.

“With a year’s supply of candy,” she clarifies. “He wasn’t throwing cash at me, and I didn’t take it, obviously. You don’t see me trying to convince you to room with him.”

She has stayed very neutral.

I skim her normal grouchy disposition. “You don’t have strong feelings either way?”

“I lived in my car, dude. I’m not choosy.”

I hold the back of her head more tenderly. She breaks apart her crossed arms and weaves them around me. Rests her cheekon my chest, just as we hear Tom letting out a long, frustrated groan.

She grimaces, then says quietly, “Is claiming rooms during Cobalt vacays this dramatic? Or is there a seniority thing at play? Oldest gets first dibs on the best room.”

“Rarely by age,” I tell her. “If we can’t compromise amongst ourselves, then we’ll settle disputes with games. Even something simple like rock-paper-scissors. You’ll see.”

“I’ll see?”

“You think you’ll only be invited for the holidays?”

Her shoulders lift uncertainly. “I wasn’t assuming anything. There are fortified walls in your family that not even girlfriends can break through.”

She’s not wrong. “Outside of the lake house and Wednesday Night Dinners, you can assume you’ll be invited to pretty much every family event from here on out. Including trips to France. Around the world. The yacht comes out at least once a year?—”

“The yacht.” Her brows spring into her bangs. “As in…I’ll be surrounded by open water?”

I see her bugged eyes, and all I want is to quell her fear. “You know,” I say gently, my fingers threading through the back of her hair. “My apartment building has a private indoor pool. I can teach you to swim. Maybe tradeoff? You can help me drive again.” It’s what I’ve wanted to offer. “But I can’t promise I’ll be a good student.”