Page 11 of This

“I’m Marco. Room’s on the left.” He goes back to reading, neither impressed nor un. “We share wine here.”

“Thank God,” I say, heading down the hall. “I find myself unbearable after drinking an entire bottle alone.”

“I like you,” he calls after me.

We all want validation, even if it only sounds half-sincere.

I glance around the spacious bedroom. On the nightstand sits a family picture between a lamp and a pair of headphones.

Without the road and music for stimulation, my brain quickly turns to mush. Since my sheets are buried in a box somewhere, I grab a decorative pillow off the mushroom chair and stretch out on the fluffy white rug. My phone vibrates as I settle in. I texted Keaton to tell her I made it and expect it to be her, but an unknown number sends my belly into a familiar flip.

Sources say you’re officially adrift in Oregon.

It vibrates again.

Twenty hours straight through? Such a badass!

And again.

So am I. Hence, a third message.

I smile, too exhausted to laugh, and reply,Rulebreaker! Too bad I have to block you now.

Go for it, baby. I already have your number, and burner phones are cheap. I’m not going anywhere this time.

It surprises me that I’m okay with that. Maybe even more than okay.

The door almost hits me in the head when Marco walks in. “Declan is driving me crazy. I need a mental health break.” He tosses down the matching pillow from the chair and spreads out next to me. “Why are we on the floor?”

“I haven’t slept in thirty hours and need to crash.”

“Perfect,” he says. “I could use an angry nap.”

We wake up six hours later, order Chinese, and watch trashy reality shows. One day in Portland, and I’ve found my spirit animal.

Marco walks like he’s ona runway. Chin up, shoulders back. He glides down the street, through a store, across the living room. It gives beauty to the most mundane of situations.

“You’re my favorite person,” he tells me after my first week here. “It used to be the owner of the thrift store who layers three perfumes, only wears ruby-red lipstick, and has a different wig for each day of the week.”

A few days later, the lady adopts a blind potbellied pig named Gilda, which she dresses in feather boas, and reclaims the title. Understandable.

The small gallery I managed to weasel a job out of stays closed on Sundays, so we go on excursions. The Japanese Garden, Holocaust Museum, Washington Park. One day, we spend just riding the streetcar and watching people. Most weeknights, I abuse his employee discount at the restaurant where he bartends. Alongside me usually sits whatever guy he’s given his heart to. They rotate out on almost a weekly basis, sometimes more often, but for that short time, their worlds revolve around one another.

I’ve been in Oregon a month when Keaton’s name lights up my phone at four in the morning. She proves unable to stop crying and shrieking, leaving me panicked and disoriented from being ripped out of REM sleep. Liam eventually takes over the conversation. He woke her up with an air horn, and on the ceiling in glow-in-the-dark paint wasMarriage Time. It’s the perfect Liam proposal.

“Sorry you’ll have to grow old alone, Bennett.”

I yawn, not fully functional until five a.m. on a Sunday. “I’m not worried. This is only her first marriage. She has Pinterest boards for three different weddings, and she hates to let things go to waste.”

They spend twenty minutes discussing possible dates and venues before I fall back asleep.

I tell Marco about the proposal later while we wander around a used bookstore we stumbled upon. He claims we aren’t hiding from his as-of-last-night ex. Although the oversize shades and newsboy hat tell a different story.

He pulls the sunglasses down his nose. “So, after leaving Phoenix and never wanting to return, you’ll be making frequent trips back for the next year and a half at least.”

“Best-friend duty trumps all,” I say, pulling a book off the shelf.

Marco leans over to inhale the air kicked up as I fan through the pages. Old books soothe the soul. The way the pages feel, the scent of the binding and dust and oils from people’s skin. They hold a warmth new books can’t provide, a sense of a life lived between the covers.

---