Page 59 of Light Up The Night
"She's okay," Riley says. "We just gotta give her a minute to come out of it."
"Did I say something wrong? I didn't mean to upset her, I just—"
"No, no. You're good, Ember. She…" he pauses. "Honestly, Em, it's not for me to explain. She's okay, though, I promise."
The panic slowly subsides, and I am able to bring myself out of the freeze. Ember is sitting nearby, looking worried.
She sees me stirring and comes to sit beside me. "Hey. I…I don't know what I said, but…"
I touch her knee. "It is alright, Ember. I am well."
She shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."
"Of course not," I assure her, and then look around—Riley is in the kitchen assisting Felix with food preparation of some sort. “I am a complicated human being, Ember. This situation I have found myself in with Riley…you have made me aware that I have failed to take his needs into consideration. I…assuming this fund-raising endeavor succeeds, I will depart for Africa and will not return until the holiday season, at best. And he…I…we…" I groan in frustration as my brain spirals furiously, and my ability to speak cogently dissolves.
She touches my hand. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay. breathe."
"I do not know what I am doing, Ember," I whisper. "I have been so caught up in how he makes me feel that I have not paused to consider howhefeels."
"Maybe just try and talk to him about whatever it is?" She suggests. "Just be honest. Riley is a good guy. He'll understand."
"He does not agree with your assessment of his character."
"Yeah, I honestly don't know him well enough to say. We haven't really had a chance to sit down and have any deep talks, y'know? I know he's dealt with some difficult stuff, but I don’t know many of the details. I hesitate to say too much of what Idoknow, though, because his story is his to tell, not mine."
"I believe he would appreciate your tact," I tell her.
She shrugs, hesitates, and then looks at me, her expression serious. "What I will say is this—he's got this persona of a guy who doesn't give a shit, right? Like, he's super happy-go-lucky, he laughs all the time, he's always got a joke, usually an inappropriate one. He comes off as this…player, I guess. But he'sgot depth, Cadence. I just…I don't think he lets many people see the deep, serious side of him."
"I do not think he allows himself to see it," I answer. "But I do."
She smiles, rubbing my shoulder. "I'm learning that a lot of times in life, the thing we've been wanting and needing often comes when we least expect it, from a direction we could never have predicted. And in my experience, letting yourself accept that thing requires a lot of courage. But it's worth it."
"You are speaking of love," I whisper.
"Yeah." Her gaze goes to Felix. "He came along when I least expected it and turned my whole life upside down. I wouldn't trade it for the world, but letting myself love him was hard. And I know he'd tell you the same thing about me."
I sigh. "I cannot even think of such things, Ember. I barely know him. I have my path in life…and he has his. How can they merge? Does he want them to? Do I? It seems rather absurd to even be considering any of this when I met him less than forty-eight hours ago. I just…I have formed an attachment to him, which is in itself rather unusual for me, let alone one as intense as this, and so swiftly developed."
"Feelings can happen faster than you'd think, and they're not any less valid or real for having developed quickly. So you may have feelings, and he may have feelings, but the question to be answered is what, if anything, are you guys gonna do about it?"
What, indeed?
Felix announces that the food is done, then, and we eat outside on their deck. The conversation is light and easy. Felix is funny and warm, perhaps a bit more reserved than Riley. Ember is a delight.
Riley watches me carefully throughout the evening, especially when we drive together in Ember's van to a drinking establishment known as The Cellar, where we meet the restof Riley's social circle: Bear and Noelle, Sheriff Mannix, their friend Cody Nyx—whom everyone calls Nyxie—and the Cartwright sisters from The Alt. We all gather around a long table near the back of the bar. Several pitchers of beer litter the table, and several more of margarita mix.
I sip a glass of beer as much for the sake of appearances and remain mostly aloof from the various conversations, watching Riley interact with his friends.
He is endlessly entertaining, and high-energy. That dazzling smile and easy laugh grace every interaction. When someone is speaking, he listens closely. He teases everyone alike, but the humor and banter between himself, his brother, the sheriff, and Cody Nyx is particularly brutal in the constant parade of insults. The names they call each other become increasingly creative in their vulgarity, yet no one is ever upset. The more creative, off-putting, and vulgar the insult, the more hysterical the laughter.
I nudge Riley at one point later in the evening. "You and your brother and your friends. Why do you insult each other? You clearly do not take offense, yet you say such offensive things. I do not understand."
He chuckles, sighing, and leans back in his chair, stretching his arm around the back of mine. "Just how we are. How we've always been. Fee, Cole, Nyxie, and me've been best buds since, like pre-K. We've been through literally every stage of our lives together. When I got out of prison, Nyxie sold me a car so I could get to work. It was an eighty-eight Oldsmobile, shit-brown, no AC, no radio, and no shocks. It was like driving a fucking aircraft carrier, but he pulled that bitch out of the scrapyard, fixed it up so it'd run, and gave it to me for ten bucks and a six-pack of Coors Banquet. When that thing died, Cole drove me to work and took me home every day for two months while I saved for a new ride, and he was a deputy working midnights at the time.Fee gave me a job when no one else, even folks I'd known since birth, would even interview me."
Conversations have quieted as people tune into what Riley is saying. "We're family, the four of us. We love each other. But we're dudes, y'know? We don't go around sayin' that shit to each other. Guys ain't like that, for the most part. Instead of sayin’ ‘I love you, man,’ I'll call Nyxie an inbred, slack-jawed, mouth-breathing yokel. It's not true, and he knows I’m fuckin' with him. Cole's a straight-laced, Dudley Do-Right, uptight fuck-tard, and I tell him that all the damn time. Cuz' it's funny. Truth is, Cole is hands-down the most trulygoodhuman being I've ever fuckin' met. But I can'ttellhim that. I gotta call him a brown-nosing bitch-cake."
I blink. "Bitch cake?" I hear snorts of laughter at my question. "What, pray tell, is a bitch-cake?"
