Linger

“No man can handle this,” Rachel assured me, gesturing to herself with her chin. She spun and came face-to-face with Sam, standing in the doorway from the hall. The thumping bass must’ve drowned out the sound of the front door. At the sight of him, my stomach slid down to my feet, a weird combination of relief, nerves, and anticipation all in one, a feeling that never seemed to go away.

Still facing Sam, Rachel did a strange dance move with her index fingers extended; it looked like it had possibly been invented in the fifties, when people weren’t allowed to touch each other. “Hi, The Boy!” she shouted over the music. “We’re making Italian food!”

Still holding a piece of chicken, I turned and made a loud noise in protest. Rachel said, “My colleague informs me that I spoke too strongly. I am watching Grace make Italian food!”

Sam smiled at me, his always sad-looking smile maybe a little tighter than usual, and said, “…”

I struggled to turn down the radio with my hand that wasn’t covered with breading. “What?”

“I said, ‘What are you making?’” Sam repeated. “And then, ‘Hi, Rachel.’ And ‘May I come into the kitchen, Rachel?’”

Rachel swept grandly out of his way, and Sam came to lean on the counter next to me. His yellow wolf’s eyes were narrowed, and he seemed to have forgotten that he was still wearing his coat.

“Chicken parmesan,” I said.

He blinked. “What?”

“It’s what I’m making. What were you up to?”

Sam said, stumbling, “I—was—at the store. Reading.” With a quick glance toward Rachel, he sucked in his lips and said, “Can’t talk. My lips are still cold from being outside. When will it be spring?”

“Forget spring,” said Rachel, “when will it be dinner?”

I waved unbreaded chicken at her, and Sam looked around at the counter behind him. “Can I help?” he asked.

“Mostly I need to finish breading these eight million chicken breasts,” I said. My head was starting to pound, and I really was beginning to hate the mere sight of uncooked chicken. “I never realized what happened to two pounds of chicken when you pounded it flat.”

Sam gently shouldered past me to the sink to wash his hands, his cheek leaning against mine as he reached behind me for the dish towel to dry his hands. “I’ll bread the rest while you fry them. Does that work?”

“I’ll cook the water for the pasta,” Rachel volunteered. “I’m excellent at boiling things.”

“The big pot’s in the pantry,” I said.

As Rachel disappeared into the small pantry and began crashing through the pots and lids, Sam leaned over to me so that his lips pressed against my ear. He whispered, “I saw one of Beck’s new wolves today. Shifted.”

It took a moment for my brain to shuffle through the meaning of his words: new wolves. Was Olivia human? Did Sam have to try to find the other wolves? What happened now?

I turned sharply toward him. He was still close enough to me that it put us nose to nose; his was still cold from being outside. I saw the worry in his eyes.

“Hey, none of that while I’m here,” Rachel said. “I like The Boy, but I don’t want to watch you kiss him. Kissing in front of the loveless is an act of cruelty. Aren’t you supposed to be frying something?”

So we finished making dinner. It seemed to take an agonizingly long time, knowing that Sam had something to say and knowing that he couldn’t say it in front of Rachel. And there was guilt mixed in as well, making the time drag. Olivia was Rachel’s friend, too. If she had known that Olivia might be coming back soon, she’d be over the moon and full of questions. I tried to avoid glancing at the clock; Rachel’s mom was picking her up at eight.

“Oh, hi, Rachel. Mmm, food.” My mother flowed through the kitchen, dropping her coat on one of the chairs by the wall as she did.

“Mom!” I said, not bothering to hide the surprise in my voice. “What are you doing home so early?”

“Is there enough for me? I ate at the studio, but it wasn’t very filling,” Mom said. I had no doubt. Mom was an excellent food burner; ceaseless movement did a lot in the calorie-destruction department. She turned, saw Sam. Her voice changed to something knowing and not entirely pleasant. “Oh. Hi, Sam. Here again?”

Sam’s cheeks reddened.

“You practically live here,” Mom went on. She turned and looked at me. Clearly it was supposed to convey some meaning, but it was lost on me. Sam, however, turned his face away from both of us as if it was clear enough to him.

Once upon a time, Mom had really liked Sam. She’d even flirted with him in her mom way and asked him to sing and pose for a portrait. But that was back when he was just a boy that I was seeing. Now that it was clear that Sam was here to stay, Mom’s friendliness had evaporated and she and I communicated in the language of silence. The length of the pauses between sentences conveyed more information than the words within them.

My jaw tightened. “Have some pasta, Mom. Are you working more tonight?”

“Do you want me to get out of your way?” she asked. “I can go upstairs.” She tapped my head with her fork. “No need to shoot me dagger eyes, Grace. I get it. See you later, Rachel.”

“I didn’t have dagger eyes,” I said after she left, going over to hang up her coat. Something about the entire exchange had left a sour taste in my mouth.

“You didn’t,” Sam agreed, his voice a bit mournful. “She has a guilty conscience.” His face was pensive, shoulders sagged, like he was carrying a weight he hadn’t been carrying that morning. All of a sudden I wondered if he ever doubted that he’d made the right decision—if it had been worth the risk. I wanted him to know that I thought it was. I wanted him to know I’d shout it from the rooftops. That was when I decided to confide in Rachel.

“You better go move your car,” I told Sam. He cast an anxious look toward the ceiling, as if Mom could read his thoughts through the floor of her home studio. Then toward Rachel. And then toward me, his unasked question clear in his expression: Are you really telling her? I shrugged.

Rachel looked at me quizzically. I made a gesture like, Wait and I’ll explain, and Sam went to call up the stairs, “See you later, Mrs. Brisbane!”

There was a long pause. Then Mom said, not in a nice way, “Bye”.

Sam came back into the kitchen. He didn’t say that he felt guilty, but he didn’t have to. It was written all over his face. He said, a little hesitant, “If I’m not back by the time you go, Rach, see you later.”

“Back!” Rachel said in surprise as Sam went out the front door, car keys jingling. “What does he mean ‘back’? What’s he doing with his car? Wait—has The Boy been sleeping here?”

“Shhh!” I said hurriedly, with a glance toward the hallway. Taking Rachel by the elbow, I propelled her over toward the corner of the kitchen and released her quickly, looking at my fingers. “Whoa, Rachel, your skin is cold.”

“No, you’re hot,” she corrected. “So what’s going on here? Are you guys like—sleeping together?”

I felt my cheeks flush despite myself. “Not like that. Just like…”

Rachel didn’t wait for me to figure out how to finish my thought. “Holy freakin’ holy freakin’ holy…I can’t even think of what to say to that, Grace! Just like what? What do you guys do? No, wait, don’t tell me!”

“Shhh,” I said again, even though she wasn’t being that loud. “Just sleep. That’s it. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but, I just…” I struggled for words to explain it. It wasn’t all about almost losing Sam and wanting to keep him near. It wasn’t all about lust. It was about falling asleep with Sam’s chest pressed against my back so I could feel his heart slow to match mine. It was about growing up and realizing that the feeling of his arms around me, the smell of him when he was sleeping, the sound of his breathing—that was home and everything I wanted at the end of the day. It wasn’t the same as being with him when we were awake. But I didn’t know how to say that to Rachel. I wondered why I’d wanted to tell her. “I don’t know if I can explain it. Sleeping feels different when he’s there.”

“I’ll sure bet it does,” Rachel said, her eyes wide.

“Rachel,” I said.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m trying to be reasonable here, but my best friend just told me that she’s been spending every night with her boyfriend without her parents knowing it. So he’s sneaking back in here? You’ve corrupted The Boy!”

“Do you think I’m doing the wrong thing?” I asked, wincing a little, because I thought maybe I had corrupted Sam.

Rachel considered. “I think it’s awfully romantic.”

I laughed, a little shakily, with something like giddiness and relief. “Rachel, I’m so in love with him.” But it didn’t sound real when I said it. It sounded corny, like a commercial, because I couldn’t quite invest my voice with the truth and depth of how I felt. “Swear not to tell?”

“Your secret is safe with me. Far be it from me to break up the young lovers. God! I can’t believe you really are young lovers.”

My heart was thumping with the confession, but it felt good, too—one less secret I was keeping from Rachel. By the time her mom arrived a few minutes later, we were both fairly giddy. Maybe it was time to tell her some of the other secrets, too.

• SAM •

It was eighteen degrees outside. In the bright light of the moon, a flat, pale disc behind a tangle of leafless branches, I folded my bare arms tightly across my chest and stared at my socks, waiting for Grace’s mother to vacate the kitchen. I softly cursed icy Minnesota springtimes, but the words swirled away in puffs of white in the darkness. It was strange to be standing in this cold, shaking with it, unable to feel my fingers or toes, my eyes burning with it, and to be no closer to being a wolf than I had been before.

Through the cracked sliding-glass door on the deck, Grace’s voice was just audible; she was talking with her mother about me. Her mother wondered gently if I would be coming over tomorrow night as well. Grace mused vaguely back that I probably would be, as that’s what boyfriends did. Her mother commented to no one in particular that some people might think that we were moving too fast. Grace asked her mother if she wanted any more chicken parmesan before she put it away in the fridge. I could hear the impatience in her voice, but her mother seemed oblivious, effectively holding me prisoner outside by her presence in the kitchen. Standing on the frigid wood of the deck in my jeans and thin Beatles T-shirt, I contemplated the possible wisdom of marrying Grace and living a young hippie life in the backseat of my Volkswagen, without parental constraints. It had never seemed like such a good idea as now, my teeth starting to chatter and my toes and ears going numb.

I heard Grace say, “Will you show me what you were working on upstairs?”