Page 42 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

“Does it matter now?”

“Yeah.” He leans into my space, his tongue licking his lower lip, capturing all my attention.

I barely resist curling my index finger into the bottom hem of his T-shirt. “Why?”

“You don’t know how protective your brother was of you, do you?” he asks, almost like he can’t believe it himself, then huffs. “He told all of us he’d murder us if anything ever happened.”

“Happened? Like…”

“Like if any of his friends, any of us on the team, thought about you as anything other than his little sister, he said he’d kill us, and…” He lets out a breath, licking his lips again like he’s nervous. “He was my best friend. I wasn’t about to ruin anything.”

I think back to those little moments between Vince and me. Mere seconds I assumed meant nothing to him but were everything to me. Like when Ray let me tag along with them to a late-night Wendy’s run, and Vince and I shared the same Frosty. When Vince let me butt in front of him in the cafeteria lunch line anytime we had lunch during the same period. When he saw me in the stands during their play-off game senior year, grinned, and pointed his bat at me with a wink. It was silly and sent my heart straight into the sky.

Maybe those moments meant something to him too.

And the mere idea sends my heart straight up into the sky all over again.

Playing it cool, I knock my shoulder into his arm. “Ray would never have actually done anything. Especially to you.”

“That’s what you think.” He shakes his head. “You were his favorite person. He definitely woulda killed somebody if they ever hurt you.”

I inhale sharply. “You saying you would’ve hurt me?”

“Back then?” He rakes his hand through his hair. “All teenage boys are assholes. Inadvertently hurting people comes with the territory.”

I’m feeling bold. Bolder than I have in a very long time. “And now?”

“Now? I hope I’d never inadvertently or advertently hurt anyone, especially you.”

I snicker. “Advertently? That’s not a word.”

He heaves a sigh, though his eyes sparkle in amusement. “You know what I mean.” And to drive the idea home, he brushes my hair behind my shoulder, grazing my bare skin in the process. “And I like your long hair now.”

I do know what he means. He remembers me from high school, remembers me enough to know how I’m different now. To know how, in some ways, I’m not that different at all. He’s telling me he knows me better than Ryan does, better possibly than anyone else, so much so that he’s not going to push me on this topic when I don’t say anything else about it. About this thing between us.

He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “I saw your post yesterday with the pile of clothes. Getting rid of a lot of stuff?”

I wrote another post yesterday in light of my mom wanting to suddenly clear out the house. She’s been almost manic lately. Every time I come home, she’s got more bags at the front door for me to put in my car and take out. “It’s like she’s trying to erase something. Or him. I don’t know which.”

“It’s better than her staying in bed all day,” he says.

“I guess. But soon, we’ll have nothing left. She’s even gotten rid of her prized Christmas china.” I scuff my shoe on the concrete, defeat curling my spine over. “She’s taken down every picture of Ray in the house and moved anything of his to boxes in the closet.” It stings not to have evidence of my brother’s life around me. I want to remember him any way I can, but she doesn’t want to, and I hate it. I press my hand against my throat, tears clogging my windpipe. “I just…I don’t get it.”

He curves his hand around my neck and squeezes gently. “Breathe.”

I inhale deeply through my nose, closing my eyes for a moment as my lungs fill. One side of Vince’s mouth is tipped up when I open my eyes to him. It’s my favorite of his smiles, the one that feels only for me.

“You’re okay, Cass,” he says, the sentence I’ve come to hear over and over in my head when I need reassurance. Hearing it in person, though, is the most potent way to receive it. With his hand on me, I have trouble not melting into him, but I pull myself together.

I force myself to step back from him, his hand dropping from me, and I straighten my spine. The slight movement shifts my uniform, my shirt lifting to show more skin at my stomach than I’d like.

Vince’s attention dips there then lower to my legs, quite a bit of them on display because of the short kilt and thin white knee-highs. “You look good.”

I bat him away. “Get out of here.”

He laughs and walks back inside to exit via the front door. I watch his retreating figure until he’s gone, the sensation of his hand on my neck lasting much longer than it should.

MAY 8

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