The Space Between Us Read online

  “Oh, sure. Fine. Of course.” I held out my hand for his empty mug. “You finished? I’ll take it up for you.”

  He looked amused. “Nah. Gonna have another, if that’s okay with you.”

  I laughed, embarrassed that I was so out of sorts by something so simple as a hug that had lasted less than a couple of seconds. “Of course. Drink away. If you don’t, someone else will.”

  “Isn’t that always how it goes?” He lifted the mug at me.

  Then he turned to fill it with another round of coffee, Darek meeped out a cry for help up at the counter, and I got back to work.

  Chapter 4

  When I got home from work, the house was unusually silent, with no sign of anyone else. Normally I’d have sent out a not-so-quiet little hoot of bliss—I loved the people I lived with, but also craved having, and hardly ever got, the house to myself. Tonight, though, I was totally bummed to come home with not even the porch light left on to welcome me. No dinner, either, and that was worse. I made myself a tuna sandwich with a side of mac-n-cheese, because there really is nothing better than that. Unless it’s hot dogs with mac-

  n-cheese, and sadly, we were out of hot dogs.

  I couldn’t help wondering what they’d gotten up to, those Murphy boys. The memory of them was a small, sore spot in my brain I worried once in a while the way I’d have done with a slice in my gum from flossing too hard. But my thoughts of Chase and Chance hadn’t been close to the surface in a long time. Time has that funny way of smoothing out the rough edges of things, even ones that hurt a little bit. Or a lot.

  “You’re a user, Tesla,” Chance had said to me the last time we’d been together. “Nothing but a user.”

  It wasn’t true—I was more than a user. I was a lot of things we were too young and dumb to understand. And when he’d said it to me, I’d turned my back and walked away, burning with the self-righteous fury of being maligned. Now, with time and distance and experience between us, I understood why Chance had felt that way.

  I hadn’t heard anything about them in years, though it would’ve been easy enough to find out what they’d been up to. My brother, Cap, three years younger, would probably know. I’d had friends; Cap had been popular. Football player, stage crew, homecoming king, voted Funniest in the yearbook. He’d had a good enough time in high school that he kept in touch with buddies from back then. Not that he’d been friends with the Murphys, but he could find out.

  Calling my brother to get intel on a pair of guys I’d had sex with was right up there with walking in on your parents fucking. I mean, that had happened to me, but it wasn’t something I either wanted to think about or dwell on. Cap was probably the only other person who knew about me and the Murphys, but just because he’d known about it back in the day didn’t mean he’d be down for discussing it now.

  So, because even monkeys have been known to use tools, I turned to what I had on hand. The internet. My laptop had crapped out on me a few months ago, and I hadn’t seen the way to buying a new one. Not until I’d saved up enough to get the biggest, fastest, sweetest Mac I could afford, which was going to take me a long time unless I could get over my addiction to cute retro clothes and glittery eyeliner. That didn’t seem likely. Until then, I checked email and stuff from my phone and used the ancient desktop upstairs.

  I’d set up my own user account on the desktop not so much because I wanted to look at things little kids shouldn’t see, but to prevent them from messing up anything I’d saved. At four, Simone could expertly wend her way through the labyrinth of online kiddie games, but she also had a quick-draw delete finger. I’d lost documents and important emails more than once. Her brother, Max, at two and a half, was more likely to simply pound a bunch of keys, making the computer perform any number of wacky functions we had no idea it could do, and that it probably wasn’t meant to.

  Since nobody had come home yet, I didn’t have to worry a lot about being pestered to look at videos of cute pets or play an educational game with colors so bright they made my eyes bleed. I didn’t have to be careful about little eyes watching over my shoulder as I glanced through the pictures posted to my Connex friend feed. Meredith had been wrong when she said I didn’t have to answer to anyone. I lived with four other people, one of whom would hand my ass to me on a plate if I exposed his kids to junk they shouldn’t see.

  Stalking people on Connex is supereasy if they’re not concerned enough to make sure they tick off all the appropriate privacy controls. I don’t have my account on lockdown because I never upload any pictures or anything too private that I don’t want the world to see. Besides, I want people to be able to find me. That’s what it’s for, right?

  I found the brothers Murphy with only a few keystrokes. They both belonged to a fan group for our graduating class. I hadn’t joined. In their profile pictures they looked less alike than they ever had. Still tall and lanky, but time had put weight on them both, and it suited them.

  Chance was married. Two small kids. I surfed his photos, feeling only vaguely creepy about it. He was living in Ohio, working for some accounting firm. He had a beautiful family and appeared happy. My cursor hovered over the Add Friend button, but I didn’t click it. I was happy to see Chance looked like he had a good life, but I didn’t feel any need to be even a peripheral part of it.

  Chase wasn’t married.

  And he looked damned fucking fine, I won’t even lie. He had lots of pictures uploaded. Albums of him hiking, biking, boating. Lots of shots with his shirt off, belly all ridged, arms buff. Lip-smacking good. He also had a lot of pictures of him with the same guy. Over and over, arms slung casually over shoulders. Laughing. I scanned Chase’s profile information, which just said single, but it was clear to me there was a reason for this other man being in all his photo albums. Maybe Chase hadn’t chosen to announce it to the whole world on Connex, but there was no hiding it.

  I didn’t friend him, either. I wanted to. I wanted to send him a message, ask him if he was happy. If the reason he hadn’t wanted to be with me was because he was into guys, not because he didn’t love me the way I’d loved him. I wanted to ask him a lot of things, but in the end I didn’t. There’d be no point in picking at that old scar.

  I distracted myself surfing the Apple website, yearning for what I wanted and couldn’t have. It seemed to be the theme of the day. I imagined I smelled Meredith’s perfume clinging to me, felt the softness of her sweater against me. With a low, muttered groan I twirled around in the desk chair with my head tipped back and only my feet moving. Round and around, the ceiling twirling above me until I dug a toe into the carpet.

  I stopped. The room kept moving. If I stood, I’d stumble, probably fall. It was not quite enough to make my stomach sick, though in retrospect the tuna hadn’t been the best idea. As I turned back to the computer, my eyes still trying hard to focus on one unspinning thing, I heard the front door open and the sound of little shoes on the tile entryway. Then voices. Simone, shrieking at her brother, who was giggling like a lunatic. Their mom, Elaine, admonishing them without much force. Then the diversion of the noise from the den, up the stairs and presumably toward the bathroom, where the kids would be bathed, toothbrushed and pottied before being put into their beds.

  I closed down my windows and cleared my history before logging out, and was just turning in the desk chair to face the doorway when he came in. “Hey, Vic,” I said.

  “Hey.” He looked tired. Kids could do that to you. Vic pressed the heel of his hand against his eye, then focused briefly on the computer. “Didn’t think you’d be home.”

  “Not everyone has a blooming social calendar like you,” I teased.

  His smile quirked faintly on one side. Just the one. “We took the kids over to Elaine’s mom’s house for Nancy’s birthday. If I’d known you were going to be home I’d’ve told you.”

  “It’s okay. I had stuff to do.” Elaine’s mom and sister had never been mean to me, but they’d never gone out of their way to be nice, either. We h