Want Me

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s two doors down.”

“I know.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, wondering if crashing here was the right decision. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel. Which was probably more convenient. The real problem was Shannon. He hadn’t expected her, not this version. “Is this going to be too weird?”

“What?” she asked, widening her eyes, but she didn’t fool him for a minute. Her pupils were dilated and the pulse at the side of her neck beat as fast as his own.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

“Don’t be silly.” She laid a hand on his arm, then proved his point by withdrawing a moment too quickly. “We’ll practically have the whole floor to ourselves. Brady’s room is down the hall but he spends most nights at his girlfriend’s place.”

He had no business being so pleased about that last fact. No business at all.

FOR EVERYONE’S SAKE SHE HAD to snap out of this case of nerves and act naturally. So he wanted to see her bedroom. Not only was she making too much of it, but it also wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen it before. Usually with her screaming at him and Danny to get out and stay out, or yelling for her mom, or throwing something that was handy. But it wasn’t a little girl’s room anymore, and he wasn’t that Nate.

He paused as they reached her door. “It occurs to me I should have asked about this first. As in giving you warning, and not just, hey, I want to see your room.”

She smiled. “I’m not like the savages. My room is neat enough for surprise visits.” She saw the uncertainty flicker in his eyes, and she shrugged. “I think it’s going to take us all some time to adjust.”

He turned. “You think we’ll still like each other?”

“Still? I don’t think we ever liked each other,” Shannon said. “But then we were kids, and being my brother’s best friend, it was your duty to torment me.”

“And now?”

She looked into his warm, direct gaze and her body tightened. “Annoy me and I’ll short-sheet your bed.”

“Ah, so the room comes with maid service.” Nate grinned, making him seem more like the boy she remembered and she relaxed a bit.

“Dream on.” She moved to her closed door, her hand on the knob. “Go ask Mom about maid service. See what she says.”

Nate winced and acted as if he’d been wounded. “You are trying to get rid of me. I don’t know why your parents put up with me to begin with.”

“Because they’re big old softies. They don’t even ask for me or Brady to pay rent, and when I started paying them anyway, I discovered they were putting my checks into a savings account for me.”

“That’s nice.”

“My point exactly. With the benefit of hindsight, I believe they thought you needed the security of a big family.”

He smiled, but it was more out of pathos than anything else. “My folks tried. They did. They loved us. They didn’t have a gift for child rearing.”

“Then isn’t it good you had a backup plan?”

“Brilliant, even in third grade.”

“Now I’m seeing the old Nate.” She felt more like herself, as if they’d turned a corner. Not a huge one, but enough to start with. “So, ready for the reveal? God, it’s hard to admit I still live here, even though it’s becoming common again for people my age, no thanks to the recession.”

“I like that you do. You’ve always been connected to your clan. I envy that.”

“Depends on why I do it.” She opened her door and stepped back to let him in.

He didn’t go far, only a few steps, but she noticed he looked at everything. Her queen bed with the pastel sheets, the hint of lilac on the walls and in the reading chair. She wondered if he remembered the posters of all those boy bands, and Doogie Howser and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Everything had been pink back then and had ruffles. There’d been a canopy, naturally, and stuffed animals. An entire display case of her tiaras and trophies from being Little Miss Gramercy Park and Little Miss Manhattan, and more than a dozen others. Some were still on display in the living room alongside the boys’ sports awards.

“I was right,” Nate said.

“About?”

“Your good taste. Although the room’s not quite the same without that framed picture of Leonardo Di-Caprio.”

“Who was all of fourteen at the time.”

He went to one of the pictures on the wall. It wasn’t anything fancy. She’d found it at a local art festival, and she’d spent more on the frame than the picture. It was an ordinary bedroom, small and neat, and filled with light. There was an open book on the bedside table, a shawl left draped on a big chair. It was cozy and quiet, not something she’d felt often growing up.

“I don’t spend a lot of time in houses anymore,” he said. “Or beds. I’m lucky to get a cot sometimes. I’ve even gotten used to hammocks.”

“What drew you away, Nate? Danny said you’d wanted to help after the tsunami, but he never said why.”

Nate turned, and he looked so good, so content. He was wearing jeans, a Henley shirt, boots. She could picture him doing errands, getting his hands dirty. But once he’d grown out of his terrible years, before he’d gone away, she remembered him as a reader. He’d liked architecture and didn’t seem unhappy that he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. She’d been surprised at his humanitarian streak.

That sounded kind of awful when she thought about it so bluntly, but she’d never seen him go out of his way much. Admittedly, her perspective had been limited.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think I was running to as much as I was running from.”

“Was it so bad?”

“No. It’s not as if I was abused or mistreated or anything like that. I don’t know. I guess I had read too many books about adventures. I wanted some of my own before I settled down.”

“From the looks of it you’re not done yet.”

“Nope. Not yet.”

“How will you know?” she asked. “When, you mean?” Shannon nodded.

“No idea. I don’t think too far into the future, to tell you the truth. Everything is so immediate and real in a way I have a hard time describing. It’s interesting to be back here, to shift my perspective.” He touched the edge of her bed. “I like your room. It’s calm, and it’s pretty, but there’s still you all over it.”

She would have liked to have asked him more about his other life, but she went with the program. “What do you mean, me all over it?”

He walked over to her dresser. “Playbills, perfume, ticket stubs, lectures. I’m surprised you didn’t end up on the stage. You loved it so much as a kid.”

“Some people would say I’ve made my life a stage.”

“What would you say?”

She waved the comment away with her free hand. “Sales, marketing. It’s all just acting, isn’t it? Anyway, I imagine Mom is getting antsy. We should go down.”

He nodded, but turned to take another sweeping look at her small room. “It’s home but it isn’t,” Nate said softly.

Shannon wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or himself. “What?”

“I’m glad I’m here. I’d forgotten I had memories I wanted to keep.”