Page 9 of Problematic Summer Romance

“How old is she, by the way?” It’s my turn to fold my arms. Shift into his space. This is a dangerous line of conversation. On my quest to make him hurt as much as I’m hurting, I may have misplaced my self-preservation. “I’m only asking because we both know that you consider a nonexistent age gap the core requirement of a successful relationship.”

“Maya.”

“What?” I tilt my head. “We’re friends. I think it’s only normal for me to be curious. I’d love to know what myfriendlikes about this girl who—”

“That’s precisely it—she’s not agirl.” Conor’s jaw shifts. Whenhe continues, I can feel the frequency of his anger in his tone. “None of this is relevant. Avery and I are colleagues, and friends. The reason I’m here is to celebrate Eli’s wedding. I have no more interest in resuming my relationship with her, than I have withyou.”

It’s a punch in the stomach. I order every muscle on my face to play statue, but that last word hits me so forcefully, I stagger backward a little.

Conor notices. He turns away, the tendons in his neck in sudden relief. “For fuck’s sake, Maya.” He runs a hand down his face. For a heartbeat, he looks as torn apart as I feel. “We last spoke almost a year ago. You were abroad for months. You are…You have everything going on for you.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” I hate how small my voice sounds.

“I expected you to have moved on.”

“Moved on from what?”

“From caring about—”

“Aboutyou, Conor?” I shake my head, laughing. Genuinely amused. “Out of curiosity, do you think that my brain is not yet able to form long-term memories? Or just that I don’t have the capacity for sustained emotions—”

“Enough,” he interrupts, sharply. Locks eyes with mine and says, “I’m going to walk out of this room with the assumption that youarehigh.”

“I’m not—”

“And”—he cuts me off—“by the next time we cross paths, I expect you to have come down from whatever this is and to stop acting like the childish brat you so love to remind me you aren’t.”

He spins on his heels and marches to the door.

“Conor,” I call after him. When he doesn’t halt, I continue, “You were my best friend. And I was yours. I’m always going to care. There’s no stopping.”

A shard of hesitation, a hiccup in his movements—I think I pick up on it, but it could be my imagination. Because Conor never looks back. He leaves me alone to stare after him, my fist closed tight, teeth clenched tighter, muttering a muted, “Fuck.”

I often feelas if Eli and Conor have been best friends since before I even met my brother.

It’s not true, of course. Eli’s about fourteen years older than me, but he left home to play hockey at a college in Minnesota when he was seventeen or so and I had yet to turn four, which means that at some point in the early 2000s we lived under the same roof. For several years. Unfortunately, I don’t recall much of them. In fact, I have two childhood memories of Eli: being calledpumpkin, and that time he argued with Dad and slammed a door so hard, a picture of SpongeBob and Squidward holding hands fell off the wall of my room.

Maybe it’s good that my parents died early, because I’m not sure they could have withstood seeing me become as charming and easygoing a teenager as Eli had been—that is, not at all. One can go through that shit once, but twice in the span of two decades? I like to think that if there is an afterlife, they are currently toasting with piña coladas, relieved.

If the stories are to be believed, young Eli’s favorite pastimes were arguing with our dad, pissing off our dad, and giving our dad angina. Sounds like typical adolescent stuff to me, but after Eli moved out, Dad would talk about him like he was Rosemary’s baby infiltratingour holy defenseless household, and…well. Dad could be a difficult man. Not to his precious little girl—hisgoblin princess, he used to call me, coming to tickle me whenever I’d pretend to be annoyed by how loud his sneezes were, or by the constant snarky commentary on my favorite TV shows, which healwaysstopped to watch with me in the living room. To Eli, however…I won’t blame my brother, if in his late teens and early twenties he came back to visit fewer times than he has toes. After all, I planned to do the same when I moved to Scotland for university.

I don’t know if Eli ever seriously dreamed of becoming a professional hockey player. What Idoknow is that during college he realized that he loved biomedical research, and after graduating he made a sharp turn, going from jock to…still a jock, but a pipette-wielding one. He moved back to Austin, but never increased the frequency of his visits. Instead he began a PhD in chemical engineering at UT, and that’s where he met Conor, who was one year ahead in the same program, and Minami, a postdoc. The three of them were instant best friends.

After my parents passed, when Eli became an overnight single dad, Minami and Conor helped him immensely. I’m not certain that I would be here if it weren’t for Minami telling my brother that maybe a temperature of 105 degreesdidwarrant a visit to the ER, or for Conor taking over Eli’s duties as Eli drove me to said ER—and, most likely, for covering the ER bill.

After that, a bunch of stuff happened. There is a story here, one with more perspectives than a prism. It has shifted over the years, and somehow involved Rue long before she and Eli met on a dating app. Unfortunately, no one will give it to me straight, and I’ve quit asking. The bullet points include, in no particular order: Eli, Conor, and Minami being kicked out of UT in disgrace; Conorand Minami falling in love—although Minami later fell out of love and married someone else. (Is that why Conor is a jackass? No. I refuse to blame women for a dude’s worst behaviors—although Iwillblame myself for still being attracted to him, even when I should know better.); Eli, Conor, and Minami starting Harkness, a biotech equity firm; profit.

There was a lot of financial whiplash, as the firm expanded and grew. I went from being aWe might be able to swing a Disney trip if we save for a couple of yearschild, to aThe bank is repossessing the house, I can’t afford to give you lunch money today, but here, have this sandwich I madetween, to aYup, I can afford your college tuition, yes, wherever you choose to goteenager.

Harkness is doing well. For the first decade or so, the managing partners were Eli, Conor, Minami, and her husband, Sul. Then, about two years ago, Eli met Rue and decided to cut his work hours in favor of…staring at her, I believe? Then Minami and Sul had Kaede, the most adorable baby girl in the universe. That’s when Avery’s name started popping up.

She has the perfect background. Longtime friend of Minami. Former MBB consultant—we’ve worked with her for years, and like her style. Recently ended a long-term relationship, would love a change of scenery. Tired of the East Coast, thinking of relocating to California.

Or Austin.

Avery took over Minami and Sul’s workload while they were on parental leave. A few months later, though, when it was time for them to return, they announced that after producing the “cutest fucking kid in the whole universe” (I wholeheartedly agree), they wanted to hang out with her “a lot. Like,a lota lot.” And since they now knew with certainty that their combined genes were“cutestfucking kid in the whole universe”material, they were thinking of having another baby soon. They were both equally involved in parenting, and weren’t sure whether they’d return to Harkness full-time.

That’s when Avery’s position became permanent.

---