Relationship Status (Ethan & Wyatt) Read online

  “Thank you, Ms. Bivens.”

  “Delores is fine. We’re pretty informal here. So you want to be a lawyer?”

  The truth was, I had no fucking idea what I wanted. When I’d been fifteen, I knew everything, had everything planned. Now at nineteen, I felt senile. You should be a lawyer was something Wyatt had said to me one time when I was trying to convince him of something.

  I summoned a smile, but I knew it wouldn’t be as nice as hers. “I want to help people.”

  “And what civil rights issue inspires you the most?”

  Was this my orientation? Because I had forms. I had the essay I’d written on the application. It was all a lie. I was in Pittsburgh because my boyfriend was. I’d latched onto lawyer from one random sentence from him, then applied here because it didn’t require experience or law classes and my mom knew the deputy director from her work. Telling my parents “I have a summer internship in Pittsburgh” had been a much smarter thing to say than “I’m going to live in Pittsburgh for the summer because I need Wyatt to believe I really love him.”

  I scanned the room for inspiration, then glanced down. “This.” I pulled one of the brochures from the box and held it up. A silhouette figure slumped at a desk in one image and behind bars in the next. Orange print read: Stopping the School to Prison Pipeline.

  Her brows arched. “Interesting.”

  Nerves had me spitting out something like the truth. “See, my boyfriend was born with a disability—” partially deaf counted, right? “—and it led to him having problems in school and then he ended up in a detention facility for teens.”

  Delores’s smile vanished and so did the tiredness around her eyes. They were sharp and interested. And uncomfortably focused on me. “Where is he now?”

  “Well, he was there for two years, then his uncle helped him get into school. College. Coborn College. That’s where I met him. My boyfriend, I mean.” I had no idea how Wyatt would take me using the painful facts of his life to justify my internship. Scratch that. I knew exactly how. He’d be furious. Nobody could do icy, angry bitterness like Wyatt. Thank God, his internship was at some huge international engineering place downtown, and he’d never have to know. Picturing me telling him about this interview made me shiver a little, though it had to be eighty-five degrees in here already.

  Her brows drew down. To cover I said quickly, “He could have ended up in prison. Or worse. He was lucky his uncle found him.”

  She leaned back. “Many young men aren’t so lucky.”

  I nodded. “And I thought that if there had been someone to advocate for him, someone who bothered to look into his history instead of trying to push a plea bargain on him, things wouldn’t have gone that far.”

  “Plea bargain?”

  Oops. I’d left out the whole felony part. His records had been sealed after he turned nineteen with no further problems. “They wanted him to testify against his friends.”

  “If you dig deeper into the justice system, I think you’ll discover that the history of suspensions and the labels affixed to students as early as preschool carry a bias that leaves them vulnerable. Particularly black and Latino students.”

  “Oh, he’s—” I bit my tongue and substituted “from West Virginia” at the last minute.

  Though from the way her lip twitched, I was pretty sure she knew how boneheaded my answer had been about to be.

  “If you haven’t had a chance yet, I suggest you watch the documentary—”

  A voice rang out from the lobby in singsong fashion. “De-lovely Delores, I bring de doughnuts.”

  Delores laughed and shook her head as she rose from her desk. “That will be Allan. This is his second summer interning with us. I’ll introduce you.”

  Allan already had his head in the door. The first thing I saw was the front part of his thick, wavy hair was dyed bright blue. Then I saw his face, jaw stubbled dark, sharp black eyes, and the skinny jeans hugging his legs and crotch. My mouth went dry. Shit, he was hot.

  “Allan, this is your new intern.”

  His new intern? I thought I was working for Delores?

  “Ethan?” Allan shoved a bakery box at Delores and his hand at me. “Fresh meat, thank the Gods. The estrogen overload around here was starting to get to me. You excepted, of course, my love.” He blew a kiss at Delores.

  He was still using that singsong voice, like some TV stereotype of a gay man. I didn’t think he was so hot anymore.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, D.” He was as tall as I was and easily wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Our new boy’s in good hands.” He steered me out of the office.

  As soon he shut the door behind us, I ducked away from under his arm and the woody scent of Sauvage cologne. He gave me side-eye but didn’t say anything.

  “Quick tour.” Allan tossed his head, sending the blue part of his hair bouncing. “That is Nisa’s lair. Enter it as you would one belonging to a hungry mama bear with two cranky bear cubs.” His chin indicated the closed door opposite Delores’s office.

  From behind it I heard the slam of a file drawer, then the staccato of heels on wood.

  “She’s the administrative operations manager. Don’t make the mistake of calling her a secretary, got it?”

  “I’ll file that away.”

  Allan gave me an eye roll, and I realized what I had said. “I mean, I got it.”

  There were four desks crowded in the open space between the front door and the hall that led to Delores’s and Nisa’s offices. A few extra chairs and more flyers and brochures than I had seen in even Delores’s office made up the rest of the lobby.

  “This one is mine.” Allan pointed at the desks as he labeled them. “This is Cassidy’s. She’s sweet but a little flaky when she gets stressed. Gabriella, so smart she scares me. Winter.” He was pointing at the only neatly organized desk in the room and I realized Winter was a name. “Talk about intense.” He nudged me. “So do not start with any ‘Winter is coming’ jokes unless you want your balls handed to you.”

  He led the way deeper into the office, down the hall. There was a small kitchen behind Delores’s office and a room full of shelves with half-opened boxes of office supplies, paper products and still more brochures and a bathroom. He grabbed the carafe from the coffee machine and started filling it.

  I noticed there was part of the tour I’d definitely missed. “Um, where’s my desk?”

  “Yeah.” He swung back around and waved at me with the carafe sloshing water. “So, we were kind of full when your application got approved. You’re undergrad, right?”

  I was. Really, really undergrad, like couldn’t be more under unless they were taking high school students. I nodded.

  “You’ll be a floater, fill in, help out. You’ll still get your class credit and the experience for your résumé.”

  Make the coffee, I added to myself as I watched him locate a filter and the prepackaged grounds. That was cool. It’s not like I wouldn’t have been freaked out if I had been put on a desk with no idea about what to do. I doubted it was what my parents had in mind for my internships, but making coffees and cleaning up the mess in here seemed about my speed.

  After starting the coffeemaker, Allan perched his ass on the edge of a table and swung one skinny-jean-clad leg. He smiled at me and I remembered why I’d thought he was hot. “So, before the estrogen super squad gets here, is there anything you want to ask, gay boy to gay boy?”

  Why did people always assume I was gay? I hadn’t been staring at his dick, and I had on boring khakis and a button-down shirt, tie stuffed in my messenger bag in case I needed it. Nothing like Allan’s tight jeans and shirt that clung to his shoulders and pecs. And my hair was the color I’d been born with. But I was, and this was the ACLU, so, fine. I folded my arms over my chest and did my best imitation of Wyatt. “I have a boyf
riend.”

  Allan threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, and if I’d asked if you wanted to blow me, that might have mattered. Where are you from, Ethan?”

  “King of Prussia.”

  “Uh-huh.” He said it like it explained everything.

  I mean, I knew that I grew up in an upper middle class suburb. I got it. I had privilege. But that didn’t mean I acted like a jerk. “Where are you from?”

  “Right here now. Pittsburgh. I live on Wilkins. Start at Pitt Law in the fall.”

  Jealousy hit me hard and cold. No, not jealousy. I didn’t want to fuck him. Envy. I wanted to be him. Not his clothes or his stupid hair. But his plans. Knowing what he was doing.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  He didn’t laugh at me that time, but he looked like he wanted to. His lips smushed together and twisted. “Nope. Too much ass, too little time.”

  So I had him there. Back at Coborn the single guys I knew, straight or gay, were always saying they liked the freedom to fuck around, but I didn’t notice them getting laid all that often.

  The front door swung open, and two girls—uh—women came in, talking in rapid Spanish, then switching to English, then back to Spanish. I’d managed a B plus in Spanish spring semester and I could barely track one or two phrases.

  “Did you get the doughnuts, Allan?” Whoever that was had no trace of an accent; she sounded more like my cousins who lived farther up the Delaware.

  “Yup. They’re in Delores’s office,” he yelled back. To me he said, “C’mon. There’s a bunch of forms for you to fill out, then you can work my phone for a while, maybe shadow Gabriella if we get any walk-ins.”

  I’d rather get started on cleaning the kitchen. That at least I knew how to do. I reminded myself I hadn’t known anyone but my asshole ex, Blake, when I went to Coborn and I had a whole bunch of friends now. I didn’t mind meeting new people. A phone rang and someone picked it up, her voice polished and smooth as she identified herself and the office. I wished I had some idea of what I was doing.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. At least I’d remembered to silence it. “I’ll be right there.”

  Allan shrugged, but he poured himself a mug of coffee and left me alone.

  It was a text from Wyatt. Hey, how’s it going?

  Another phone rang.

  I think I made a big mistake. Like following my high school boyfriend to a college I picked just because he went there. I don’t think I want to be a lawyer and I really don’t want to have to ride two buses to get to a job I’m probably going to hate. I backspaced everything.

  Great, I sent.

  Chapter Two

  Wyatt

  Something was bugging Ethan. Any time he answered in less than twenty words something was wrong. I shoved my phone back in my pocket and fed three dollars into the vending machine. Funyuns were a vegetable, and a granola bar counted as a meal. I didn’t know they were going to give us a whole hour for lunch. I’d pack a sandwich for tomorrow.

  But that left me an hour to pick over what was up with my boyfriend. I found a seat in a mostly empty break room and tore open the Funyuns.

  The lady next to me was on her phone. It sounded like she was yelling at her kid. I shifted my seat around so my deaf ear was in her direction.

  I couldn’t wait for the break to be over. This morning had been one long orientation session and I think I signed away the right to say anything but my own name once I left the building, but the shit they did here was cool. I was going to be on a team that was trying to find a way to deliver big pieces of bridges to interiors without roads. I kind of wanted to get started.

  I took my phone out and scrolled my email. Personal and confidential stuff from Travers International on all the non-disclosure stuff I’d just signed, spam from the college about a special theater fund drive, a notification about my uncle’s girlfriend posting something on Facebook. Ethan’s text notification popped up. Relief loosened my chest. Here would be his real answer.

  Busy here. Guy in charge is a total douchecanoe. TM Makayla.

  Ethan’s friend Makayla usually reserved douchecanoe for Ethan’s ex, and I doubted she had been the first to come up with the description and earn a trademark.

  But I thought his boss had a woman’s name. Dorothy or something like that.

  Before I could answer he said, Mostly it’s like working at ResLife at school. I listen to people complain and do filing.

  So you can handle it.

  Yeah. I could practically hear Ethan sigh from here.

  I munched on a few more Funyuns.

  How is it going there? Ethan sent.

  Great. I got put on a really cool project.

  Ethan sent a thumbs-up emoji and a question mark.

  My shoulders slumped with the realization. And I can’t tell you about it.

  Another question mark.

  I’ll explain later.

  No you won’t you’ll be asleep when I get back from the other job gotta go b4 douchecanoe comes into the bathroom looking for me

  Ethan typed fast when he was pissed. At least now I knew what the stick up his ass was, but I had no idea how to remove it.

  I didn’t hear from Ethan again until around six when I got a picture of a big room with rows of tables holding computers and phones. Made it out to Edgewood. Later.

  Ethan should be back by ten. If I napped now, then was able to fall asleep after I’d be okay. That would be plenty of sleep. I failed to factor in our two roommates. I supposed they were making some dinner but it sounded like they were killing a dinosaur in the kitchen. For about an hour.

  I was only dozing when I heard Ethan in the kitchen say, “Jesus fucking Christ.” He wasn’t being loud, I was hyperalert. I climbed out of bed and switched on the kitchen light.

  He spun around from his hunch at the open fridge. “Sorry I woke you.”

  “I was awake. I—uh—left you some soup.”

  “I saw the note.” Ethan shut the fridge. “I think I’m too hot to eat.” He moved to the sink piled half-full with pans and dishes. “I think I’ll do these, then crash. There were snacks at the call center.”

  I leaned against a counter. “Tell me about douchecanoe.” One thing I’d learned about Ethan was he needed to talk about shit. I didn’t get it, but it actually seemed to make him feel better.

  Ethan shrugged and started scraping stuff into the garbage. I didn’t know about the guy we had sublet the back bedroom from, but the other two guys living here were pigs, and I say that as someone who spent eleven and a half months rooming with Blake St. Pierre and his piles of filthy gym clothes and PowerBar wrappers.

  “Nothing really. Just one of those guys who acts like he shits gold bricks. You know.”

  Again, see Blake St. Pierre, Ethan’s ex-boyfriend and my ex-roommate.

  “What happened to Dorothy?”

  “Delores. She was there. She’s really nice.” With a glare through the living room at the other two bedrooms, Ethan started washing dishes with as much banging as went on in the kitchen after a special ticket meal in the dining hall at school.

  I came up behind him. He turned and flicked soap at me.

  “You can go back to bed. I got it. You do enough of this shit at school.”

  I did. I scrubbed dishes in that dining hall kitchen for thirty hours a week. Sometimes I swore I’d never get the smell of steamy disinfectant and rotting food out of my nose.

  I took a couple of mugs out of the dish rack and put them in the cabinet with the missing bottom frame piece. “At least I get paid for it. You know they’ll only leave the same mess tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. But when I try to sleep I see roaches marching out of the kitchen and into our bedroom.” Ethan shuddered.

  He finished up and wiped
off the counters with the bleach wipes he kept in a bin at the foot of our bed, where we also hid the cans and boxes of food my uncle had given us when we moved in. When we’d taken the sublet for the guy who was doing a semester in Germany, he’d mentioned his roommates tended to grab anything in the cabinets when they were hungry, no matter who’d bought it. He’d neglected to mention that after stealing food, his other two roommates waited until the mold had developed advanced civilizations on the dishes before they threw them out and bought new stuff.

  I took one of the wipes and cleaned off the stove.

  “Thanks.” He tossed his wipe in the overflowing trash. It bounced back out. He sighed and picked it up. “I’ll take that out tomorrow on my way out.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  When we got into bed, Ethan turned on his side with his back to me. I kissed his neck, scraped my teeth over the edge of his ear. That was usually guaranteed to make his shoulders soft and his dick hard.

  Instead his back was the only thing rigid. “Aren’t you hot?”

  I crawled forward and turned the fan up to three. I wasn’t sure if it blew any more wind but the motor whined and the blades rattled.

  He rolled onto his back, but his eyes were closed.

  Okay. This was serious. Ethan accused me of seeing disaster in everything—mainly because it was what I was used to having happen—but him pulling away from me like this was not normal. And I was not imagining it.

  The aching and tightness in my diaphragm was all too familiar. I’d known. I didn’t get to be happy. Didn’t get to have an awesome internship and a family member who actually seemed to give a shit about me and a hot, funny, nice boyfriend all at the same time.

  “What?” Ethan said, though he didn’t open his eyes.

  “You tell me.”

  “It’s late.”

  If we were at Coborn, we’d be in his room probably. I could just leave him and his weird mood and when I saw him at lunch tomorrow he’d be all sunshine and big brown eyes again.