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I wish this were the first tireenhouse in a huff, but it’s not Sos that don’t feel right Things I didn’t expect I want to glue down the flap of loose Formica at the corner of the kitchen counter, yellowed tape fluttering at its edges announcing three or four half-assed attempts to fix it, but it’s Bo’s kitchen, and when I search through the junk drawer for glue and find an envelope full of cash--one of Bo’s many stashes--I feel like a thief

I want to tell Frankie not to read this book she’s got, this paperback that I reh school, so I know it’s got incest and blow jobs and other shit that’s too old for her But she’s Mo here feels like it’s mine

I tell myself it’s because I’ve never lived in this house Back before I went to Putnam, when Mom decided to move in here with Bo, I stayed behind in the trailer I’ve slept on Bo’s couch before, but I’ve never called Bo’s housein it

"What’s up with you and Bo?"

She waves her hand in dis on the table, flips it over a few tihtly on the tabletop "He’s fine Probably not sleeping enough He hates when he has to work nights Makes hiht?"

"Right" She drops into the chair Bo vacated, slides off the clogs she wears to work, and tosses them into the pile of shoes by the back door Her socks have tiny little Totos on theave her the socks for Christmas

"Nice," I say

"I love theain, flicks it until she ot an agenda for this conversation "So this is the first ti about school"

"Not irrrrlfriend," Frankie trills frohten "I knew you had a girl No wonder you never call me back"

"I always call you back"

She rolls her eyes and flicks the lighter again "Yeah, when you’re not working" She infuses the ith doubt, as though I’ her

Half theher I probably paid for the azines on the coffee table, just like I paid for her socks

"Let irlfriend"

"He does!" Frankie’s at the threshold of the kitchen now, her shted "She sent him a bikini picture"

God damn it

"She sent you a bikini picture," I say, because this is the honest truth I walked into the living roo Caroline, who’d just shared a vacation snapshot of her with her arirl, her sister Janelle Both of the

I need to stop texting her Stop looking at that picture

I need to draw better lines inabout The proble C’s in school and doesn’t seerowing and she’s wearing a bra and shirts that advertise that fact for the world to see My head should be on whatever’s going on between Mo to do with it

On hohen I asked Mom if she’d seen him, she said no, but she wouldn’t meet ets when she’s lying towhether Caroline’s having any fun in the Caribbean, thinking about when I’ to be able to steal twenty et her alone behind a locked door when the house is empty so I can talk dirty to her, unzip my jeans, take myself in my hand

"Letup behindinto h to stop her I grab her, tickle her, reach for the phone while I pinch her ribs just hard enough to

"Catch, Molimpse of the screen with my text app open before the case hits the floor and skates across it Then I’ with , because they’re both laughing, but when Mom puts her hand out and pushes ets the phone and vaults to her feet--runs across the kitchen, saying, "Keep hiarab my mom’s wrist, wrench the phone out of her hand My chest is heaving I’e, thwarted fury

"Christ, West, lighten up," Mo, offended and prideful, and when I look at Frankie she flinches

I want to storhway and along the road in the gathering dark I want to fu to be pissed off about except h, dark enough to keep this kind of shit fro

I take a deep breath and let it out

This is my family My place

These are

If it doesn’t feel that way, I’ myself off And I can’t do that, because if I lose this, who ah a couple of screens on the phone and hand it back to"The one on the right, or … ?"

"The pretty one," I hear ?

She texts back right away Nothing

What kind of nothing?

Laying on couch watching a movie

What wald movies today

Why?

They were my mom’s I watch them sometimes

A pause My dad’s at work I’ you

I’one, and Franks is back in school Bo’s on days again He and Mo, and the house is quiet for the first tiot here

I’m hard before she even picks up

"Hey," she says

"Hey"

Then silence, and she laughs this breathy sort of laugh "This is weird"

"Which part?"

I can iine her throat turning red and blotchy The way her breasts are rising with each quick intake of breath

"You know the part of the wald locks herself in there with hiuy with the long hair and the flannel shirt"