Page 32 of Problematic Summer Romance

“Yeah?”

He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, as if preparing to sleep. It’s hard to look away from him. There is something about the prominence and position of his cheekbones, the sculpted line of his neck, the way it curves into broad shoulders, that makes me want to measure. Analyze.Understand. “I’ll make sure to look disheveled, then.”

An incredulous sound bubbles out of me. I take a seat on the edge of my mattress, burying my fingers in the coverlets. “You couldn’t be bothered to come to my high school graduation, and now you’rehere.”

He opens one eye. “You didn’t need me at your graduation.”

“That’s not what I meant, I…Whydidyou come, Conor?”

The second eye opens, too. After a too-long pause, he says, “Because I’ve been there.”

I frown. “Where?”

“Staying friends with an ex. Watching them move on too quickly. My ex was classy about it, the transition was smooth, but it still sucked. Yours isn’t bothering with any of that, so I figured you might want external support.”

He’s talking about Minami, I think. And in hindsight, lookingat him with fresh eyes…Yeah. He probablycouldhave pulled her. Just a little bit. I wish I knew more about that whole thing. For the first time in my life, I wish I’d paid better attention to my brother’s friends’ drama digest.

“You know,” I say, dumbfounded, lying down on the bed still fully dressed. “This might be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

I meant to convey gratitude. His snort, though, is dismissive. “It’s not.”

I scowl. “Maybe it is. You don’t know that.”

“Maya, your brother changed the trajectory of his life to take care of you.”

“Good point.” Being reminded of it makes my insides twist. “Still, sometimes I wonder if he hates me.”

A long, measuring stare. “Every choice Eli has made in the last decade was with your well-being in mind.”

“That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t hate me.”

“He had to rebuild his life for you, and I’m certain that comes with a healthy dose of resentment. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you more than anything in the world.”

He’s so matter-of-fact, I wish I felt a tenth as calm as he does about my relationship with my brother. “I should call him more often. When I was home for the summer, I actually had fun hanging out with him. I just…Sometimes I’m embarrassed by how badly I used to act out.”

He angles his head toward me, amused. “You were a genius-level-IQ girl who lost her parents suddenly and traumatically. Believe me, he doesn’t blame you for any of it.”

“How do you even know about my IQ?”

“You’re finishing a physics degree with honors at twenty andhave been accepted to half a million graduate programs with full funding. I inferred.”

“Okay, well, you also knew about the Isle of Harris vacation. Did youinferthat?”

“Sadly, thatdoesenter creepy territory.”

“You stalked my Instagram, didn’t you?”

He glares. “I am an adult man.”

I let out a breathy giggle, but he taps at his phone and hands it over, showing me a thread of texts between Eli, Sul, Minami, and Conor. The four founding members of Harkness.

“I didn’t know people your age had group chats.”

“Do fuck off, Maya.”

I smile at his mild tone. It’s clear that he searched the chat for the wordMayaand found dozens of texts from Eli about me. Not personal stuff that I’d be embarrassed to realize he shared, but big-picture news about my life. Mostly, what I tell him when he messages me every few months, asking whether everything’s going okay at school. The paper I worked on as a research assistant and how it got published with me in the author lineup. My internship. Vacation photos I sent as proof of life.

She’s fantastic, he wrote in one text.I really think she’ll be one of the best physicists of her generation. Headed for great things.

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