I head to the bathroom, splash water on my face, then grab a cold water from the vending machine and a seat at one of the round tables scattered around the lobby. After taking a few sips, I hold the water against my neck and just breathe. I can’t keep going off on Theo. It’s not fair to use him as my emotional punching bag—I know what it feels like, everything you say pushing some invisible button in a person you’re just trying to get along with.

He isn’t even getting paid for this shit. And even if he is pushing my buttons, even if his presence does make things awkward sometimes, it’s nice to have some company. It’s particularly nice that said company can ask questions about my past but doesn’t actually know anything about it. I can breathe a little more freely with him, even though he probably thinks I’m an uptight heifer, mostly because even while feeling freer I’m acting like one.

The door from the outside opens and Theo strolls over to the woman at the desk. I watch as he makes goofy small talk, the way she slowly looks away from the computer screen and turns her attention to him. Smiles. Gets drawn into conversation.

It’s not flirtatious, exactly, it’s just Theo. There’s something about his openness that makes you want to let him in.

After a few minutes he strides over and sits down next to me, but I keep my eyes averted since I still feel foolish for storming off.

“Eastern Parkway,” he says.

When I glance at him his gaze backflips away from where condensation is running from the water bottle down into the valley between my breasts. I pull the bottle from against my neck, take a sip, and try not to look smug. Drea was right—this shirt does make them look great.

“They built Eastern Parkway through the Weeksville cemetery,” he says, then moves his hand in a horizontal motion. “Just kind of razed right through it, apparently. Some people left after that. Others left after they started putting the streets onto a grid system, which again meant more razing and change.” He sighs and starts fidgeting with the camera. “And then white—well, white now—immigrants started moving in. So maybe I wasn’t so wrong about it being like our neighborhood. But you were right, too. People don’t just leave en masse for no reason.”

He suddenly turns and snaps a picture of me.

I lower the water bottle from my lips. “What the eff, Theo?”

“Sorry,” he says, looking at the camera’s display screen. He’s not sorry. “Couldn’t resist.”

He turns and shows me the photo of myself with the bottle held near my mouth, lips moist and slightly parted. My braids are pulled up from my face, showing the smooth stretch of my deep summer-brown skin over my cheekbones and the darker circles under my eyes.

I look . . . attractive, I guess.

But tired.

I look like my mom.

“So what’s the plan, boss?” he asks as he pulls the camera back and glances at the screen one more time before turning it off. “How does all this fit into the tour?”

“Well, I don’t think we’ll walk all the way over here during the block party, but I want to mention this neighborhood, since it overlapped Gifford Place at its peak. But I’m probably gonna start way before that with the Native Americans who lived in the area—”

“That’s a pretty broad lens.”

“—and then talk about the enslaved Africans who helped the Dutch build their initial farm holdings on the land they stole from the Algonquin.”

“The Dutch? Not the British?”

“Weren’t you supposed to look up the Dutch West India Company?” I ask, shooting him an annoyed look.

Theo’s eyes are warm. “I didn’t get around to it. But I’m kind of glad I didn’t, because I like when you pull out your ruler, especially now that I know you only do it for me.”

He stands up and walks away, like he’s just pulled some smooth move and I’m supposed to sit here all flustered. I scoff. If this is his idea of flirtation, he better hope I never actually decide to give in to my curiosity, because he’s not ready for this jelly. The only reason I feel this buzzy sensation is because I need a nap. And the fluttering in my stomach is because I need food.

I get up and follow him, and as we head out the woman at the entrance calls us over. “You know where you can go if you’re looking into the history of the neighborhood? The AME around the corner. Our archivist is always tapping their historian on the shoulder for something or another. Kendra Hill is her name. She’s basically a walking encyclopedia of this area.”

“I know Ms. Hill,” I say through a pasted-on smile. “She’s a friend of my mother’s. I can call her and set things up.” I turn to Theo. “Wanna head there tomorrow if she’s free? And if you’re free.”

I wince internally; just like that and I’m already assuming he’ll be there to help. I haven’t learned my lesson at all.

“I’m free,” he says. “I said I’d help. So I’m going to help.”

I scramble for a snarky response, but the only thing I come up with is a quiet “Thanks.”

I’m tired.

I need help.

I’ll take it.

Gifford Place OurHood post by LaTasha Clifton:

OMG, check out this Secret New York article! It’s about how there used to be secret tunnels under the Medical Center!

Amber Griffin: Wut?! The mole people are real??

Candace Tompkins: No mole people. The hospital was a factory for a little while after the sanitarium closed down, and there were underground passageways. They were used to transport shipments back in the day.

LaTasha Clifton: What kind of shipment needs to be carried underground??

Candace Tompkins: They didn’t want to bother the rich people who lived in the neighborhood.

Amber Griffin: I don’t buy it. MOLE. PEOPLE. PERIODT.

Chapter 9

Theo

WHEN I WAKE UP FROM A BOREDOM-INDUCED NAP, THE LATE-EVENING light is throwing shadows that highlight the raging boner tenting my boxers.

It feels wrong having this thrum of excitement in my veins for the first time in months, and not for Kim, but not as wrong as it should.

I shouldn’t be popping wood over Sydney. She’s just my neighbor. The end.

My dick jumps and I heave a frustrated sigh, then roll groggily out of bed and head to my bathroom on autopilot. When I turn on the tap in my shower it makes a sound like a smoker’s hacking cough followed by a clang somewhere—still no water, of course.

I crack my front door and drop my head as I poke it out, half from defeat and half listening for any of the usual sounds that bounce up from downstairs when Kim is home.

Nothing.

My body unclenches at what the silence signals: No tiptoeing around. No waiting for the anvil I’d thought I could evade to finally drop out of the sky like in the old cartoons Mom would put on, volume high, to keep me busy when her latest boyfriend came over. Sometimes in the cartoons, the heavy objects falling out of the sky were unavoidable acts of malice. More often, the character about to get walloped had set his own anvil-smashing in motion through some combination of greed, hubris, and stupidity.

Yeah. I guess I hadn’t paid enough attention to that part.

I wrap a towel around myself and head downstairs to shower off my sleep sweat—it’s still hot as fuck in my room and I feel sticky and sluggish.

I’m relieved at the thought that Kim is gone, again, even if she is with someone else. Maybe I should be raging and trying to win her back, but all I can think of is how nice it will be to cook dinner on the stove tonight, like a grown-up, instead of eating Cup Noodles rehydrated with water heated on the hot plate in my studio. Maybe I can turn on her AC, relax, and finally look up this Dutch West India Company stuff I told Sydney I would research.

When I step into the living room, I realize I was wrong.

Kim is there, wearing cute little khaki shorts and a silky white shirt that shows she’s still an adherent of “freeing the nipple” and hers are basking in said freedom. Her hair is down around her shoulders in loose waves.

She looks great, all beachy summer fun, but when her gaze passes over mine, it’s coldest winter. The room is freezing, too—she’s gotten an additional air conditioner after giving me shit for wanting one.

I would laugh, if my balls hadn’t drawn up into my body from the look she gives me when her head swivels in my direction.

It’s blank; no happiness, or even disdain. If I’d been a mouse that scampered in, she would have shown more feeling about my presence.

“Hey,” I say awkwardly, tightening the towel around my waist. I glance at the rolling suitcase she’s carefully zipping up. “Going somewhere?”

“My parents said I should come out to their place in the Hamptons,” she says. She has to clarify because they also have a place in Martha’s Vineyard and one on the Carolina coast. “They said it would be smart to get there early before all the Labor Day traffic. It’s super hot there, too, but at least there’s an ocean breeze.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” I hadn’t thought we’d spend the holiday together, but I’d assumed we’d both be miserable separately but in each other’s general vicinity, like we’d spent the last holiday. Miserable is the last thing she’ll be, up in a big fancy house with catered food, a sea breeze, a pool, and—

I really am an asshole. My girlfriend is leaving suddenly, probably cheating on me, and I’m jealous of the lobster rolls and amenities she’s going to enjoy.