Where We Left Off
By Roan Parrish
Middle of Somewhere: Book Three
Leo Ware may be young, but he knows what he wants. And what he wants is Will Highland. Snarky, sophisticated, fiercely opinionated Will Highland, who burst into Leo’s unremarkable life like a supernova… and then was gone just as quickly.
For the past miserable year, Leo hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the powerful connection he and Will shared. So, when Leo moves to New York for college, he sweeps back into Will’s life, hopeful that they can pick up where they left off. What begins as a unique friendship soon burns with chemistry they can’t deny… though Will certainly tries.
But Leo longs for more than friendship and hot sex. A romantic to his core, Leo wants passion, love, commitment—everything Will isn’t interested in giving. Will thinks romance is a cheesy fairy tale and love is overrated. He likes his space and he’s happy with things just the way they are, thank you very much. Or is he? Because as he and Leo get more and more tangled up in each other’s lives, Will begins to act like maybe love is something he could feel after all.
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
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Copyright Page
For the new friends who came into my life just when I was starting it over.
Acknowledgments
MY DEEPEST thanks to Anni and Jenny, for being the keenest of readers who always reminded me when I was missing the mark, and for the wicked smart conversations about monogamy, romance, and genre that got me closer to it.
To Liz, whose insight, generosity, and excitement about this book made it a joy to write. (Giving me the soundtrack didn’t hurt either.)
To M.M., for solving a problem I didn’t even know I had, and for enthusiasm about this story just when it helped the most.
To the other amazing readers who took the time to give me their thoughts on this book at all stages in the process.
To Joe and Alexis, for many thoughts about physics, among other things. (Any inaccuracies are mine alone and were either done on purpose because I wanted them that way or by accident because oops.)
To Layne and Ali, for hours of conspiracy theory realness.
To CMC, for being the best of all possible agents and readers, and for the title.
To my rad yoga teacher, whose approach to connecting the body, the mind, and the world has been an inspiration to me as well as to Leo.
To AngstyG, whose gorgeous covers for this series make me wish my books would be judged by them. Will would absolutely approve.
And to all the readers who told me how much you wanted Will and Leo’s story. I hope you enjoy.
Chapter 1
September
IT ONLY took one day in New York City for me to break every single resolution I’d made.
Even after a year of dreaming what it would be like—a year of slogging back and forth between Grayling Community College and my parents’ house—I hadn’t even come close to anticipating how it would feel to actually leave Holiday, Michigan, much less to arrive in New York.
Nothing in any of the movies I’d seen prepared me for the feeling of watching the city rise like the distant sun of an alien planet miles and miles before the bus would reach it. It was just there, out the windows on both sides, its size an announcement: you still have time to turn back. Or: once you enter you’ll never get out again. Or: anything you could ever need is waiting for you.
LATER, AFTER I’d found my way to the dorms, I helped people move in, since I only had two suitcases, a backpack, and my skateboard. They were bringing whole lives with them into their rooms when all I wanted was to leave mine behind.
I exchanged some variation on the themes of What are you studying, Where are you from, and Have you met your roommate yet about a dozen times in the process.
The first girl I told I was from Holiday wore black jeans, boots, and a short black jacket even though it was in the eighties outside, and she was so amused by the name of the town that afterward I just said Michigan. In fact, all my responses seemed to vaguely amuse people, and I could feel my smile become forced, the muscles in my jaw starting to ache and the skin around my eyes tight.
That was Resolution 1—Make a good first impression—scuttled.
I hadn’t slept much on the bus, and what with all the changing buses and layovers on the way to New York, it already felt like the world’s longest day even though it was still early. The mix of sleep deprivation and overstimulation had made me feel all fluttery and tweaked-out. I finally escaped back to my room, desperate to throw my clothes in drawers and veg with an episode of something on Netflix.
I wanted to rest up before Joseph, my roommate, arrived. Joseph and I had e-mailed all summer, planning to go to the new student orientation together, to scope out campus and the surrounding neighborhood and to locate all our classes before school started so we weren’t wandering around like idiots. He’d been nice and funny; safe. And it’d been a relief not to be facing a new school all on my own, to say nothing of a whole new city.
When I opened my computer to find something comforting to watch, though, I found an e-mail from Residential Life instead. Joseph had declined to come to NYU at the last minute and they would be assigning me a different roommate in a few days. My heart started to pound and I closed my eyes. It was a small thing, I told myself. Not a big deal at all. But I guess I didn’t believe myself because suddenly I was close to tears, and before I knew it, I’d done what I always did when I felt freaked out or overwhelmed, which had happened a lot this past year: I called Daniel. As friends went, he was pretty much it for me, though I constantly doubted whether he thought of me the same way.
I’d met Daniel two years ago when he’d moved to Holiday from Philadelphia to teach English at Sleeping Bear College in town. Everyone had been talking about him—at least, everyone who was part of the circuit of small business owners around Mr. Zoo’s, the jumble-shop-cum-music-store where I worked.
At first, I was just curious. The mythology that had bloomed around him was intriguing, and the fact that one of the rumors was that he was gay made him irresistible. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I had begun developing a plan for how I’d choreograph our meeting. It would be casual, of course, subtle. I’d come off as cool and mature, and he wouldn’t be able to help wanting to hang out with me. In the end, though, it hadn’t gone anything like I’d planned.
Before I could even start phase one of Operation: Nab Daniel, he’d found me, swooping in to rescue me from getting my ass kicked by some jackasses I’d gone to high school with, like the hero of my own personal movie, vanquishing the bad guys with a few well-chosen words and gestures.
He was all messy hair and flashing green eyes and tattoos, his shirtsleeves rolled up after a day of teaching. So, okay, I kind of threw myself at him, but it wasn’t just because he was hot. He was like a tornado I wanted to get caught up in—lifted and spun around and deposited in a world more colorful and magical than the black-and-w
hite of Holiday.
Daniel was confirmation that there were other options out there. That there was a world outside of Holiday that didn’t just exist in the books I read and the TV and movies I mainlined. I kind of made a fool out of myself making sure that he couldn’t ignore me, but somehow I just knew. I knew that being friends with him would change my life. I’d been right, too. Because here I was, starting college in a brand-new city because he’d helped me with my applications and my essays, and encouraged me when I wanted to give up on the whole thing.
When Daniel answered the phone, I could tell he was in the middle of something because he was swearing and spluttering when he said hello.
“You okay?”
“What? Shit. Yeah, yeah, just tripped over the damn… thingie. Anyway, hey. You there? You all moved in? Everything okay?”
Just hearing his familiar voice and having someone ask if I’m okay nearly made me lose it. I blinked hard and stared out my window at the endless stream of people cutting through the courtyard.
“Yeah, I’m cool.” I tried to sound casual, but it came out shaky, and Daniel knew me too well to be fooled.
“What’s up?”
It came out in a sluice, but I knew Daniel would understand because it seemed like he felt kind of the same way when he first moved to Holiday.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here, man. I don’t even know where to start. My roommate’s not coming and I don’t know anyone and there’s two days before classes but I’m already out of cash. I don’t even know how ’cause all I bought was like a coffee and a sandwich. And there’s this orientation thing, but I don’t want to go do freaking icebreakers with people and talk about my major—I don’t have a major. I just got here! Three people have asked me about my major. How do they have majors? I don’t understand.”
Daniel hummed sympathetically. “Oh Jesus, icebreakers. No. That’s no good. Well, you could come here for the weekend if you want. BoltBus is cheap.” He paused as his partner Rex said something in the background. “Ha, yeah. We’ll totally put you to work, though. I’m useless because they swapped my class at the last minute and now I have to do all this damn course prep in five minutes.”
Just the thought of being around someone familiar calmed me down. The year before, Daniel and Rex had moved into an old industrial space that the owner was happy to rent out cheaply in exchange for Rex’s promise that he could build in the interior. Rex had built his house in Michigan and was more than up to the task, in theory, but it had turned out to be a nightmare of zoning permits, arcane city mandates, and the kind of red tape that Rex abhorred, so they were still in the thick of it. Still, I’d gladly clear garbage or sand wood or scrub whatever they wanted if it meant I wasn’t by myself here.
“Really? Yeah, man, I could totally help.”
“Um,” Daniel said, not really into the phone. All I could make out was orientation and then Rex’s voice in response, pitched too low to hear. “Okaaay,” Daniel drawled. “So, good point. Rex says shouldn’t you go to orientation so you can meet all the people in your dorm and stuff?” Daniel sounded like it horrified him even more than it did me.
“I don’t know.” I just wanted someone to tell me what I should do. I could hear Daniel fumbling with the phone and then Rex’s voice filled my ear.
When Rex talked I was generally incapable of doing anything but agreeing. Something about his voice just made me melt. Daniel too. I’d seen it happen. He’d start out listening to whatever Rex was saying and then slowly he’d lose the thread because he’d started focusing on the sound of Rex’s voice instead of his words. You could tell the exact moment it happened because his eyes would go kind of sleepy and his hands would start to twitch like he was keeping himself from reaching out to touch Rex.
“It seems like a good way to meet people,” Rex said. “Nice to know a few before classes start, huh? Might not be the most pleasant experience, but it’s better than trying to do it on your own.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You’re always welcome, Leo. But why don’t you give yourself a chance to make some friends first? Get to know the city a little.” He kind of trailed off, and I got the feeling he was talking to himself as much as to me. It was no secret that Rex hadn’t been overjoyed to leave Holiday and move to Philly. He didn’t like cities and he was shy around new people. Still, he’d wanted to be with Daniel, so he went.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Okay, cool. Well, I guess I’ll see you guys. Sometime.”
The second I hung up I slumped onto the bed I’d claimed. It was the one next to the window because it seemed nice to be able to glance outside while I sat there and did work, but now I wondered if it’d be too distracting, so I flopped onto the other bed to try it out. From this vantage point, the room seemed completely different. Choosing a bed was choosing between two totally different experiences of the room. Of what the world would look like all year. It was too big a decision for the moment.
In fact, any decision felt too big at the moment, so I just grabbed my skateboard and took off. At the street, I closed my eyes for a moment. A blanket of noise lay over everything: traffic, horns, heels hitting pavement, dogs yipping, people talking in every language, music, and, underneath it all, a hum that seemed to rise from the ground itself. It was almost more vibration than sound, as if I were standing on something alive. A great slumbering beast guarding a treasure.
As soon as my feet hit the deck of my board a car nearly sideswiped me in a flurry of honking horns and yelled profanities, and I hit the ground hard, my board skidding against the curb. Within moments fear transmuted into humiliation, and I just hoped no one saw. But, of course, there were people everywhere. The chill of fear gone, it was oppressively hot, the air hanging humid and still, the smells of pizza and smoke, perfume and exhaust suspended.
Shaking off the near miss, I walked around Washington Square Park, and I could hardly believe I was really here. The white stone seemed to glow as it absorbed the sunlight. The soaring arch at the entrance to the park stood out starkly against the blue sky like it could reach the clouds, dwarfing the trees. People passed through like threading a needle, and you could tell the locals from the tourists by who walked by without even sparing it a glance.
I was most assuredly not one of the locals, since I was blatantly staring at everything around me, head whipping from sight to sight like I was at a carnival.
That was Resolution 2—Do not gawk at everything like a total noob—down the drain, then.
I passed leathery-skinned men and women with their belongings tied up in plastic bags sitting on benches, talking without listening to each other. Some asked for change, some ignored me, and one blew me a kiss. They sat next to men in the nicest suits I’d ever seen, subtle grays, browns, and blues that I could tell, even without knowing anything about fashion, were top quality.
These men sat, resting slices of pizza on paper plates, falafel in foil, and plastic cups of chunked fruit on their elegantly crooked knees, holding newspapers, books, and phones in one hand and eating with the other. The business-y women mostly wore black, and they walked quickly, heels clicking the stones, sipping iced coffees through straws, sunglasses covering half their faces.
There was a set of tables inlaid with chessboards where a surprising collection of people played, some in silence, others bantering with familiarity like they’d been playing together for years.
My favorite pairing was an immaculately dressed African-American man who must’ve been in his eighties, skin burnished and perfectly manicured fingers clawed inward with arthritis, playing with a white girl who couldn’t have been more than ten. She had light brown hair scraped into a raggedy ponytail, and pink wire-framed glasses, behind which she squinted at the board, her small hand with its dirty nails hovering above a piece.
As I walked by, she looked up at her opponent, clearly trying not to smile, and said, “Checkmate.” He interlaced his fingers over his stomach and leaned back, assessing the board befo
re nodding once, one side of his mouth lifting. He took off the tidy bowler hat he was wearing and perched it on the girl’s messy head, tapping its brim so it slid her glasses down her nose.
Children chased pigeons up and down the park’s corridors and parents chased children. Bikers twined around pedestrians lost in their phones and groups of slow-walking tourists taking pictures with selfie sticks or iPads held aloft. Around the perimeter of the fountain, couples sat, hands entwined, or leaning against each other. The sun was directly overhead, sparkling in the droplets of water the fountain kicked up.
I settled in the shade, finally, taking a cue from the less well-dressed, of which I was definitely one. A group of twentysomethings in shredded band T-shirts and cut-off denim sprawled under a tree, heads on each other’s stomachs and fingers in each other’s hair. Under another tree a family was having a picnic, one of the kids complaining about the heat, the bugs, the food.
I tried to cheer myself up by texting my sister Janie, In NYC, sucker! with a picture of the soaring stone arch, and watched for the screen to light up in my hand, but she must’ve been busy because she didn’t write back.
I dozed off for a few minutes, unable to look away from the arch until my eyes closed, curtains coming down on the movie going on around me. A wet nose in the neck woke me, followed by a paw in the stomach. The puppy’s owner came running over and apologized, but the golden retriever puppy was adorable, rooting around next to me and throwing itself on the ground. We chatted for a few minutes. The puppy belonged to his boss at the internship he’d just started the week before, and he was terrified of anything happening to it because he was convinced he’d somehow managed to incur his boss’ wrath on his first day and didn’t want to give the guy any more reasons to hate him.
I found myself telling him about my roommate situation, and he gave me a sweet smile and said, “Well, maybe the new roommate will be even better.” I grasped at it desperately—this benediction from a stranger—in an attempt to renew my excitement. He was right! I was here, in New York City, starting over. Starting from scratch. And maybe that included a new roommate I hadn’t planned for.