The Unexpected Everything (5 page)

Palmer headed directly to the liquor bottles, and Toby and Bri headed outside to the keg as I scanned the room. I hadn't texted him that I was coming, but I had a feeling he might be here. From what I'd heard, he and his last girlfriend had ended things around when I'd dumped Zach, meaning we would both
be unattached at the same time, which hadn't happened in a while. I was about to give up looking inside and see if he was by the keg when a girl I recognized from my AP Chem class stepped aside. And there he was, leaning against the kitchen counter, looking bored. Topher Fitzpatrick.

My pulse kicked up, the way it always did when I saw him. I took him in for a moment longer, since I was sure he hadn't spotted me yet. There was a petite girl talking to him. I didn't recognize her, and she was laughing, smiling up at him while he gave her a smile she probably thought was genuine, and an invitation to keep talking. I knew better. But then, by this point, I probably knew him better than most people.

He looked away for a second, scanning the room, and his eyes met mine. I held his gaze for just a second, but it was enough to know my evening had just taken a turn for the better.

“Here,” Palmer said as she appeared at my elbow with the Diet Coke bottle, the top firmly on. “It's rum. I mixed it up.”

“Thank you,” I said, giving her a smile as I took the bottle. It was the only way I let myself drink at parties. If any pictures from the night got posted, the only thing I would be drinking, or even holding in my hand, was a Diet Coke. I knew only too well that all it would take was someone's cell phone picture on their profile, with a picture of me in the background, holding a beer or even a glass with liquid in it that couldn't be identified, and suddenly it would be a story. I unscrewed the cap and took a long drink, feeling the kick of the rum.

“Oh, look who's here,” Palmer said flatly, her eyes straying to the kitchen. She sighed and looked at me. “Andie.”

“I know.” Topher was still talking to the petite girl as he
drank from a Sprite bottle that I would bet money didn't just contain Sprite—after all, he was the one who'd taught me well.

“What?” Toby asked as she joined us, sipping a beer that appeared to be mostly foam. Toby had never been great at tapping kegs. She followed Palmer's glance and then looked at me. “The Gopher surfaces?”

“Stop it,” I said.

“You know we don't approve,” Palmer said in her best serious voice.

I nodded. “Noted.” I'd given up defending Topher to them years ago. He could be charming when he wanted to be; he just never seemed to want to be around my friends.

“Speak for yourself,” Toby said, taking another long drink. “I think it's romantic. Like Harry and Sally, circling around each other until they can admit how they feel.”

Palmer shook her head. “I really don't think that's what's happening here.”

“Well, what do you know?” Toby retorted.

“I know you have foam on your nose,” Palmer replied.

“Goddamn it,” Toby muttered as she wiped it off.

“What's going on?” Bri asked, joining us, holding a cup of her own. She followed Toby's nod and then turned to me, shaking her head. “Andie.”

“I heard it all from them already,” I said, swirling the contents of my Diet Coke bottle for a second before taking a quick sip.

“Hey,” Toby said, flicking me on the arm. “Wingwoman. You're falling down on the job.”

“Okay,” I said, looking around the party, trying to find someone I hadn't dated, Toby hadn't already rejected, and wasn't
someone we'd known since elementary school. “Just give me a second.”

“Alden!” I looked over as the party's host, Kevin Castillo himself, headed over to us from the dining room, holding up his hand for a high five, which Palmer returned with gusto. “Glad you could make it.”

Palmer nodded toward the table, where the game seemed to have broken up, at least for the moment. “How's it going?”

“Getting killed in there,” he said with a groan. “You guys want to help me out? Bri?” he asked Toby. “Or Toby?” he asked, turning to Bri.

“Reverse those,” I said as I took another sip of my drink.

Kevin frowned. “Are you sure?” He pointed at Bri again. “It's not Toby?”

“
I'm
Toby,” Toby said, starting to look annoyed. This was not all that infrequent, despite the fact that Bri was tall and willowy where Toby was short and curvy, and Bri had long, straight black hair and Toby was a redhead who was always trying to flatten out her natural curls, with occasionally disastrous results. When you spend that much time together, you get mixed up, even if you
don't
look alike—or act anything alike, for that matter.

“We could combine our names,” Bri said, turning to Toby and arching an eyebrow. “Tobri. Then we could both answer to it.”

“This has
possibilities
,” Toby agreed. “Then you could take history for me and get a great grade and I could take calculus for you, and you wouldn't have to keep getting thirty-eights on tests.”

“Swap PE for calculus and you've got a deal,” Bri said.

“And then all the guys at parties would hit on me, too,” Toby said, looking at Kevin Castillo, who turned red. Bri got embarrassed when you pointed it out, but she was undeniably gorgeous, and we'd gotten used to guys hitting on her. “I like it.”

“It's a plan.”

“Done and done.”

Kevin was looking back and forth between the two, like he was trying to catch up. After a second, he cleared his throat and tried again. “So . . . ,” he said, still looking at Bri. “Want to play . . . Bri?”

“
Tobri
,” Toby said, shaking her head as Bri started to laugh. “Weren't you paying attention?”

“Alden,” Kevin said, clearly baffled and giving up as he turned to Palmer, “I need your skills.”

Palmer grinned as she looked at all the cups lined up. Growing up with four older siblings—two of them boys—meant Palmer was great at this kind of stuff. She'd been the one who taught us how to tap a keg, pack a bowl, and play quarters, beirut, and beer pong. She could change a tire and throw a punch and had learned how to drive when she was something like fourteen. “Sure,” she said with a shrug. “Why not?” She headed toward the dining room with Toby and Bri following, turning back to glance at me when it was clear I wasn't joining them. “Andie?”

“Not right now,” I said with what I hoped was a casual shrug. “Maybe later.”

Palmer raised an eyebrow at me, and I knew she knew exactly why I wasn't joining her. “Sure,” she said, giving me a look that said she still didn't approve but wasn't going to say
anything else. I had a feeling that if I hadn't just had the day that I had, Palmer would be giving me a much harder time right about now. “Well, have fun.”

“Make good choices,” Toby called, in a louder voice than necessary, as I took a step toward the kitchen, pretending I didn't know them. I had expected Topher would still be there, but the kitchen was empty. I thought for a second about going to look for him, but then decided against it and pushed myself up to sit on the counter. I grabbed a handful of Doritos from an open family-size bag and pulled out my phone. I'd find Topher eventually, or he'd find me—and it seemed like the easiest way to let him do that was to stay in one place. I hadn't expected to see a new text on my phone, since most of the people I regularly texted were all here, but there were three, all from Peter.

PETER WRIGHT

In case any reporters get in touch, you need to say

“no comment.”

About ANYTHING. Don't go on record.

How's your dad holding up?

I blinked at the last one. This was the kind of information that Peter knew, not me. Why would he expect me to know that?

ME

Not sure—I'm not home.

I knew from experience what his response to this would be, so I started typing fast.

ME

Just out getting a snack with my girlfriends.

If you want to know how he's doing, ask him.

I looked down at the phone for a moment longer, waiting to see if he was going to respond. It made sense that Peter was concerned about my dad—it was his job to be concerned. But if he wanted to know anything about my dad's mental or emotional state, I was the last person he should be talking to.

“Hey there.” I looked up and saw that Topher was across from me, leaning against the kitchen island. I wondered how long he'd been there—Toby had once helpfully informed me that I had a “super-weird reading face.”

“Hey,” I said, locking my screen and setting my phone down, matching the blasé-ness of his tone. We'd established our boundaries three years ago, when this had started, and we'd never had a problem sticking to them. We kept it casual, which let us be in each other's lives without things getting tense or strained. Which I appreciated, since he was the only person who truly understood what my life was like. His mom was in the Senate, and over the last three years she and my dad had given the media one of their favorite narratives—the senator and the congressman, on opposite sides of the aisle but living in neighboring towns, against all odds and Washington politics, forging a friendship. They often rode together on the train back and forth to D.C., and despite the media's tendency to spin, I knew my dad genuinely liked Claire Fitzpatrick. When both she and my dad were home at the same time—which wasn't often—she and her husband would come to dinner or we'd go to their house,
and Topher and I almost always found a moment to escape, usually around the time when the subsidies talk started.

“What's up?” I asked as I took a sip of my drink, not letting myself break eye contact with him. Topher—short for Christopher—was handsome in a way I had never gotten used to, not even after three years. It was the kind of handsome—tall, tan, blond, gray-eyed—that you saw in ads for expensive watches and luxury sweaters. There was a kind of polish and control to him that I had recognized immediately.

“Not much,” he said, taking a drink from his Sprite bottle, then setting it down and looking at me, his voice getting a little softer. “How are you holding up?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “I'm fine,” I said. His expression didn't change much, but I could tell he didn't believe me. “Really,” I said firmly. “I'm leaving town for the summer at the end of the week anyway, so it's not like I'll be here dealing with it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Topher said, nodding. “That pre-med thing, right?”

I nodded, knowing better than to attach any meaning to the fact that Topher had remembered this. After all, it was what we'd both been taught to do. Hang on to dates and details, remember that colleague's daughter's name and where she's going to college. Make sure you know that important donor loves orchids, and if you bring them up, she'll be beyond pleased, and talk to you about them all night. Collect these facts about these people you don't really know, and let them think you do. “You got it.”

“So this will probably be the last time we see each other for a while,” he said, his voice dropping slightly lower.

“Maybe so,” I said, not letting myself look away, starting to smile.

Topher arched an eyebrow at me, and I saw a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He pushed himself off the island and crossed to me. He leaned over, casually, every move just so, like he was in no hurry. His lips were right near my ear, but he didn't speak at first, just let out a breath against my skin that made me shiver. “In that case,” he finally said, speaking low, even though we were the only ones in the kitchen. He took a lock of my hair and curled it around his finger before he let it drop. “Want to get out of here?”

Topher went first; he seemed to have a sixth sense for when empty rooms were available at parties, and I had an amazing ability to walk into just the wrong room at just the wrong time. He'd told me to meet him in the basement, and now I needed to wait long enough that nobody would see us disappearing together. Topher had established his ground rules early on—we couldn't tell anyone (I'd decided my friends were an exception to this, since I trusted them completely)—and we'd do whatever we could to make sure nobody would find out. I'd established some of my own—nothing but kissing, and everything we did or talked about stayed between us. I also found that I could be honest with him in a way I never was with my other boyfriends. I knew that whatever I told him, he would keep to himself. Our situation was what I'd once heard Peter describe as “mutually assured destruction.” We knew too much about each other, and we both had too much to lose for either one of us to say anything.

When we both started dating people, these ground rules
grew to include that we never did anything when either of us was with someone. Which meant we could go months without seeing each other. But it had become something that I'd gotten pretty reliant on.

I looked down at my phone again and realized that it was now safe for me to join him. I crossed through the living room and headed toward the basement, making sure to lock the door behind me.

Sometimes, making out with Topher was like quenching a thirst, and sometimes it just made me thirstier. Thankfully, tonight it was the first one. After we'd been kissing for a while, the intensity faded and our kisses grew slower and more lingering. I broke away and rested my head on his chest, and he smoothed my hair down absently with one hand.

I looked up from the couch where we were lying. This seemed to be more like a converted garage than a basement, with the couch and TV jockeying for space with workbenches and tools. Someone in Kevin Castillo's family was clearly really into cars—there were three in the basement/garage and two more covered with tarps, tools stacked neatly next to them. I looked at the one nearest to us—a red vintage Mustang, and felt a sharp pang, the way I always did when I saw one. My mother's had been yellow, a '65 convertible that had been her pride and joy. But I hadn't seen it in years—I assumed that it had gone wherever all her things had gone, either sold or to storage somewhere. All I did know was that when I moved into the new house, there was no trace of my mother in it.