Page 50 of Try Me

But what was worse was the way my dad’s eyes softened with guilt as he reached for my hand.

16

Mark

Iwas getting off track. Not in a small way, like I was trying to study and somehow ended up on YouTube watching someone eat fifty hotdogs in under a minute. But like something essential had tilted inside me, and I was beginning to slide ever faster toward the unknown.

I’d known since middle school exactly where I was heading. That I’d go to the U. That I’d rush Sigma Psi. That I’d be accepted to Sigma Psi. I’d declare myself a Finance major in my second year. I’d minor in American History. I would have girlfriends. Most of them wouldn’t last. I’d go to a lot of parties. I’d get hammered, get laid, have hangovers. I’d have all the fucking fun I could cram into four years. Then I’d graduate and start my career. I’d get married at some point. Who I ended up with would be mostly about timing.

All of this was temporary. I needed to enjoy it for what it was. I didn’t need to get bogged down by the inconsequential. My life was laid out in front of me like points on a map, and the directions couldn’t have been clearer.

But I was sliding.

And it was fucking exhilarating.

Marta called me on a Saturday morning and asked me to come see Mom, saying she wasn’t feeling well. I knew what that meant. We’d called them dark days when I was a kid. My dad called them spells. I had them, too, on occasion. Not as bad as my mom and different in presentation. She got sucked under, wanted to just lie in bed beneath the covers, waiting it out in her cocoon. I fought tooth and nail against it, kept the same routine, made myself keep working out, keep going to classes, keep up appearances.

Her bedroom curtains were open, sunshine pouring in the south-facing windows. The TV was on a national news station, the volume low. She liked to hear the chatter because it reminded her that life was still happening around her. That the world hadn’t stopped and wouldn’t. She’d picked up these tools along the way.

I toed off my shoes in the doorway, then propped myself up in bed next to her. One of the things that used to drive her crazy was when people would ask why?Why are you so sad? What happened? Did something happen?It made her feel like shit to try to explain. She said the one time she’d wished she could give someone a reason, she miscarried my baby sister. She never wished for anything else again. She just accepted it. So I tried to, too.

But now there was that tilted axis inside me throwing me off-balance.

Mom reached out and took my hand, her fingers sliding coolly through mine. Alice Farrow. She’d been my dad’s office manager. Twenty-five at the time, and from the sticks just like my dad. Their combined desire to climb beyond the walls they’d been born inside of was the bonfire that set it aflame. My dad used every connection he’d made at the U, and then they scrimped and pinched until I was three. My dad told me the story over and over like a fairy tale. And then it seemed like, overnight, everything changed when Alan Pynchon joined as a partner, flushing my dad’s fledgling investment firm with a portion of his inheritance. I’d been born into nothing and ended up with everything. Chet had been born into everything and ended up with nothing.

I squeezed my mom’s hand, then tugged gently. “C’mon. We’re getting out of here.”

“Running away to Bora Bora?”

“My course load says somewhere closer.” She let me pull her upright. “I’m taking you to brunch. There will be pancakes.”

“Well, that’s way better than Bora Bora, anyway.” The watery smile wavering at the corners of her mouth sent relief washing through me. She’d weather this one fine. “Let me get dressed.”

* * *

For the record,I didn’t know that Chet worked at Fuego. He’d mentioned work shifts in passing a time or two. Never to me, but I’d overheard at the office. So when he came to a stop in front of the cozy corner booth where we sat, distracting ourselves by watching the foot traffic on the sidewalks outside, I went mute, my brain unable to connect the reality of the moment with the memory of me kneeling between his legs the week before. It’d made sitting across from him at work all week interesting, too. I’d fought off boners that popped up with the unpredictability of a whack-a-mole game.

“Morning. Whoa. Not what I was expecting.” To Chet’s credit, the falter in his smile would’ve been undetectable if I hadn’t gotten so well acquainted with his lips.

“Chet Pynchon. Wow. I had no idea you worked here.” Mom seemed a little rattled, too.

“No reason for you to,” he said pleasantly.

“You look very well.” She cut a quick sideways look at me, then emptied her silverware from the napkin it was rolled in.

“Thank you.” The way he’d spoken suggested he wasn’t done, and the second I caught a dangerous twinkle in his eye, I stiffened in the booth. If he used that sharp-ass tongue on my mom when she was low, I’d hop the fucking table to choke him before he could finish blinking. But after a quick glance in my direction, he pulled a pen from his back pocket. “So. We’ve got Bloody Marys—”

“Yes, please. Two,” I interrupted.

“I wasn’t—” He started to snap at me the way he would at the office, then bit the rest off with another congenial smile. “Our Bloodies are really good. I’ll go get those started and let you look at the menu.”

Mom stared in the direction that Chet had gone long after he’d vanished around a corner, and then she turned her attention on me. She was a shrewd woman, even wrapped in a cloud of depression. Even on her worst days, I’d had to be on my guard when I wanted to keep something from her because she had that mom ESP that could detect secrets I didn’t even know I had. But she only looked me over for a moment before asking, “How’s Nate. Have you seen him lately?” My mom had adored him since the moment she met him on Bid Day freshman year.

“Still so damn in love it’s annoying.” I grinned.

She smacked me lightly on the arm as I filled her in on Nate and Eric shenanigans. There were fewer now, obviously, since I no longer shared a house with them. Then we moved on to my other roommates.

Chet delivered our Bloody Marys and took our order, and I shoved him to the back of my mind—except for the points I caught myself staring at him, which, okay, was fairly frequently since Fuego’s brunch was popular and kept him bustling around the dining room.