“I’m strategizing,” I say, my hands on my hips.
“Sure,” he says, grinning. “Looks exhausting.”
“Well, every time I try to move a box someone else comes along and does it for me,” I point out.
“Poor thing,” he teases.
“I’ve accepted that my fate is to direct the lot of you,” I say. “Someone’s gotta be the project manager.”
“And someone’s gotta be the workhorse?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.
I just shrug, laughing, and he heads back outside to get some more boxes.
Twenty minutes later, it’s done. Or, at least, everything that was once in the moving truck is now in our apartment, so Silas, Levi, Javier, and Bastien are done.
Our unpacking adventure, on the other hand, is just beginning. Or it will be, soon. Not today.
Today, the six of us flop on the floor, couch, and kitchen chairs, drinking cold lemonade that I had the foresight to bring. I’m on the couch between Bastien and Caleb, Levi is on a kitchen chair flipping through my paperback of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Silas and Javier are on the floor while Silas digs through a box of my old textbooks.
“That’s also the golden ratio,” Javier is saying, lifting lemonade to his lips. “Everything is the golden ratio. It’s golden. Humans just like it.”
“What about the Mona Lisa?” Silas asks.
Javier leans back on his hands, sighing and looking thoughtful. He’s still wearing long sleeves, despite the heat, but his skin is back to being the right color. There’s life in his eyes again. He’s been out of rehab for a little over three months, and so far, I think it’s working.
“Probably,” he says. “Da Vinci was all about using math in art.”
Caleb leans back, puts one arm around me.
One second later, he takes it back.
“Sorry,” he says. “Too hot.”
“Also, you’re sticky,” I say, laughing.
On the floor, Silas pulls out my Abnormal Psychology textbook.
“Well, you’re also sticky,” Caleb says, resting his hands on top of his head. “We should unpack the shower first.”
“Pretty sure the shower’s already there,” I say, and Caleb just laughs.
“I’m not the one who has a specific conditioner for each day of the week,” he teases. “Just hand me some dish soap and I’m good.”
“I didn’t just hear that,” I tell him. “Are you trying to decimate your moisture barrier?”
“Yes?” he asks, quizzically. “No? Which one’s the right answer?”
“No,” offers Levi, still reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. “You need your moisture barrier.”
I point at Caleb’s oldest brother.
“He knows,” I say.
“Fine,” Caleb concedes. “We’ll unpack the shower accoutrement before bathing.”
We go quiet again. Silas and Javier are still talking, leaning against boxes, as Silas asks Javier why my textbook is so ugly and Javier explains all the design problems with the cover.
He’s been taking graphic design courses at night and working in a hardware store during the day, still living with my parents, and I admit, that last part worries me. I wish I could get him out of Norfolk, away from the same people who were there last time he slipped, but I haven’t been able to yet.
On my other side, Bastien leans in toward me.
“You know,” he confesses, quietly, “I thought there would be fewer shirts.”
I look around the room, and then at him.
“Is that why you helped?” I ask, giving him a look.
“No, I helped because you’re my favorite sister and you asked very nicely,” he says. “But…”
“You know they’re all straight,” I point out. “And also one is your brother.”
“I wasn’t excited for him taking his shirt off,” he says. “And I know they’re straight. Doesn’t mean I can’t look.”
Caleb leans toward me again.
“What are you two talking about?” he murmurs. “Are you talking about Silas and your brother?”
“Sort of,” I say.
“It’s not important,” Bastien says.
“Wait, what about them?” I ask.
They’re still talking, animatedly, sitting on the floor. Now Silas is just pulling random books from boxes, and they’re flipping through them, talking, laughing.
“I think this is why Silas came,” Caleb says.
“To meet Javier?” I say, quietly, as my brother and my boyfriend both lean in toward me.
“Wait, what?” Bastien asks. “Hold on.”
“Silas heard that you had a brother in rehab who’d come out of the Marines with some pretty bad problems,” Caleb says, shrugging. “He asked me a ton of questions last time we were both at my mom’s for dinner, probably because he’s also a former Marine.”
Bastien and I just stare at Silas and Javier, on the floor, chatting away.
“Huh,” we say, exactly in unison, then look at each other.
“Jinx, you owe me a coke,” Bastien says.
“Put it on my tab,” I tell him, then lean back, into the couch.
“Okay,” I say, raising my voice enough that the whole room can hear me. “What kind of pizza do you guys want?”* * *After we eat, Silas and Levi both leave for Sprucevale again, though Silas gives Javier his card before heading out. I unearth a trash bag, throw away pizza boxes and paper plates, and then take a good, long look around at the apartment.