“So, how did you do with your project?” she said, switching gears so fast I got whiplash. Shit. I’d taken my backpack, along with the socks, into Dusty’s apartment and forgotten to grab it when I ran out.
“Shoot, I forgot my backpack,” I said.
“Well, I can take you to Hannah’s tomorrow morning and you can grab it. Hey, maybe this will get so bad that they cancel classes.” She sounded kind of bummed that they would cancel classes. I remembered feeling that way.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll just...get it from her when I can.” I couldn’t let Renee drive me to Hannah’s because my backpack definitely wasn’t there. Oh, what a twisted web I’d gotten myself stuck in.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” I walked into the living room just so I wouldn’t have to look at her and lie to her face anymore.
Everyone else was watching the weather.
“It’s not looking good for tomorrow, kids,” Taylor said. The weather guy was gesturing wildly and using words like nor’easter and school closings and power outages and whiteout conditions. The crawler on the bottom of the screen was already flashing with school closings and bingo games being canceled and offices being closed.
“They’re not going to close. Remember that time last year when we had nearly a foot and they had all those accidents because they refused to cancel?” Hunter said.
“I vote we take bets,” Taylor said. “Who thinks they will close tomorrow?” She raised her hand, and Darah, Paul and I also raised our hands. “So the rest of you think they won’t?” They all nodded.
“Okay, loser has to take the winner out for dinner and drinks and foot the bill. Deal?”
“Deal,” we all said.
“We got this,” Taylor said, holding her hand up for a high five. I gave her one and sat down on the end of the couch to watch the weatherman ramble on and on and hope that class would get canceled. Then I would have more time to figure out what to do with the backpack situation.
It would also give me some time to hang out downstairs, away from everyone else, and think about what the hell I was going to do to Dusty to get him to stop pursuing me without actually telling him why he should stop pursuing me. This was beginning to feel more and more like the plot of a really bad teen movie, except mine wouldn’t end with an epic slow-motion kiss and a killer song playing in the background.
* * *
For only the second time that winter, classes were canceled as Maine was hammered with one of the worst storms it had seen in years. It was even worse than they predicted, and the state pretty much ground to a halt as everyone hunkered down and stayed close to home. Mase was the only one who went out, offering to plow some of the driveways of the neighbors who hadn’t had their plow guys show up yet.
The rest of the house slept in, except for me. I was up bright and early as a result of barely getting any sleep the night before. That nap with Dusty had also screwed with my sleep schedule.
He’d texted me a few times asking if I’d gotten home safe. I’d messaged back that I had, and he’d tried to start a conversation and even called me, but I’d ignored him. Why did he have to make this so hard on me? It would be a hell of a lot easier to let him go if he’d actually done something awful, like cheat on me.
If he wasn’t so...him, things would be so much easier. When I’d decided to break up with Matt, things had been so clear, so simple. We had a rational conversation, few tears and only a little regret. Dusty was something else altogether.
The other thing I did was search back in my memory to pull forward any mention Nathan had made of his brother. I knew he had a half brother who lived in Maine that he’d talked about more than once, but I’d never seen a picture of the guy, and Nathan had always called him Buzz. I felt almost stupid for not making the connection, but they didn’t have the same last names, even though they had the same Dad. Dusty must have been named for his mother.
Nathan had always talked fondly of his little brother, wishing they lived closer so he could see him all the time. He also said his brother was wild, and thinking back, I remembered some of the stories he’d told me about him.
At the time, I hadn’t known how important they were, so I didn’t file them away as that important. If I hadn’t been such an idiot, maybe I would have seen it sooner and stopped this whole thing in its tracks. But no. I had to wait until after I’d decided that I liked Dusty and wanted to see him naked and “bump our bits together” as Hannah so inelegantly put it. Life had to screw me, but I deserved it.
That was the thing that made the most sense in all of this. That I deserved to have this thing that I wanted, so much, dangled in front of my face. This thing I could never have. It was karma at her best. What I should do is accept my punishment in stoic silence and move on. To what, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t stay where I was. Something had to change, for me and for Dusty. He couldn’t stay attached to a girl who he could never have, either. That wasn’t fair to him.
I stuffed my face into my pillow and screamed a few times, but that did little to help, so I went upstairs to get another cup of tea. I was chugging the stuff like it was a drug and I was a junkie. I was on my way to the kitchen when someone called my name from the living room.
“Jos?” Of course he was here. Dusty Sharp was like the postal service. Neither rain nor snow nor me ignoring him would stop him from coming to this house.
Be cool, be cool, be cool.
“Oh, hey, Dusty. Crazy weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
That was the opposite of cool, Jos.
He gave me a weird look for a second and then got up from the couch and picked up my backpack where it had been sitting on the floor.
“I had a friend take me back to campus to get my car, and I stopped in to see Hannah and she gave me your bag. I thought you might need it, so I brought it over.” I was torn between thinking that was really nice to being livid that he’d been out driving in this weather just for my stupid backpack.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said, very aware that everyone was watching me and I had to keep it on the down low.
“I know, but I was already out, so I figured why not? The roads really aren’t that bad now.” The snow was still coming down, but not nearly as heavy as before, and the plow and sand trucks were probably out in force, so it was less dangerous than it was last night, but still. I was torn between wanting to pull him aside so I could yell at him, and not wanting him to know how much I cared. Because if he did, there would be no getting rid of him.